In Dune: Part Two, Zendaya's Chani is very different than in the novel. Chani’s love for Paul is less straightforward, and she’s far less complicit in his acension to the throne. Even though her role in the plot is generally the same as the book, the tone is decidedly different. And, for director Denis Villeneuve there’s a specific reason why.

In adapting the rest of the 1965 Dune into Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve wanted to make Frank Herbert’s motivations and message clear: that Paul is not the hero. And that meant Chani had to change. “When I did the adaptation, I tried to be faithful to Frank Herbert,” Villeneuve tells Inverse. And [to do that] I changed the nature of Chani's character to create a perspective that I hope Frank Herbert would agree with in order to achieve his goal.”

Rolling up to the Carl’s Jr. a few blocks from my house, I was greeted with a line for the drive-thru. There’s a certain culture that forms only when a drive-thru is taking particularly long. Fast food veterans, people who are high, and your quarterly french fry enjoyers direct their confusion and anger at the same person holding everyone else up. It forms a fleeting, but nonetheless enjoyable camaraderie.

Seeing a line during this was an extra ominous portent because I hadn’t just come to satisfy my hunger for Famous Stars. I wanted to order with Carl’s Jr.’s new AI, and the person waiting at the intercom was seemingly sitting in silence, waiting for a robot to respond with their total.