As a result of Alia’s nonetheless busy within the womb all through the film, it is Paul, having realized about his true lineage, who has to ship the killing blow. Through the assault on Arrakeen, Paul storms into the room the place the Emperor and the Harkonnens are assembly, and he fatally stabs the Baron. “Grandfather,” he says, “You die like an animal.” It is a chilly second, partially as a result of it does not even look like the Baron is aware of he was Paul’s grandfather within the first place. He is given this groundbreaking bit of data, after which he has about 5 seconds to make peace with it earlier than the life leaves his eyes. It is nonetheless extra time than Alia gave him, as a result of within the books, her Gom Jabbar kills him virtually immediately.
Including extra indignity to the Harkonnen’s film demise is the best way the Emperor turned on him earlier than Paul stormed in. The Emperor signaled to certainly one of his Sardaukar guards to interrupt the Baron’s flotation gadget, in addition to the respiratory tank he was hooked as much as. Even when his grandson hadn’t killed him, it does not look like issues have been on the up and up for the Baron anyway. In some methods, this makes his demise a bit extra merciful than the guide’s model: when guide Alia all of a sudden killed him, the Baron’s political prospects weren’t fairly as bleak.
It isn’t too stunning that the film modified up the Baron’s demise, as his demise scene was nowhere close to as memorable because the deaths of Leto or Feyd-Rautha of Jamis. As cool and sudden as Alia’s killing of the Baron was, it was nonetheless considerably anti-climactic for such a built-up character. E-book followers have no enormous attachment to the best way this scene went down, so it is not an enormous deal for Denis Villeneuve to tinker round with it.
