2021’s Dune changes some of the powers and abilities of its main character Paul Atreides. Based on Frank Herbert’s highly influential 1965 sci-fi novel of the same name, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune reboot is an intense combination of political espionage, religious mysticism, transhumanism, and wild action. And at the center of this space opera is Dune’s main character Paul Atreides.
In the movie as well as the book, Paul is an aberrant product of a centuries-long Bene Gesserit breeding program, which aims to use genetics in order to create the Kwisatz Haderach, a super-being that could allow the sisterhood to rule the universe. Paul was also trained by Jessica in the Bene Gesserit Way, a system of mind-body disciplines that gives members of the sisterhood their prescience, command of the Voice, and martial abilities. However, while the above traits are shared by Paul’s book and movie versions, there’s one key detail that doesn’t make it into the movie. In Frank Herbert’s first book, Paul Atreides was being trained as a Mentat, a term which the movie never mentions.
Mentats are individuals that are trained to become masters of logic, cognitive thinking, and mathematical computation. In the Dune books, Mentats have replaced computers and other thinking machines to serve as advisors to noble houses, like Duke Leto’s Thufir Hawat and Baron Harkonnen’s Piter de Vries. Before House Atreides leaves Caladan, Duke Leto tells Paul that he’s being trained as a Mentat, as it gives the Duke’s son an advantage in Dune’s cutthroat political world. However, this part of the book is never explored in the movie. This is likely because the movie’s running time of 2 hours and 30 minutes is not nearly enough to fully tackle even just the first half of Herbert’s extremely dense masterpiece, which includes long conversations about Mentats and how they were developed because of the Butlerian Jihad. This is why, instead of Mentat training, Paul’s advanced mental capabilities are attributed to how Jessica trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way, which is a sensible explanation.
Moreover, Paul’s Mentat training doesn’t really affect his prescient dreams and visions in Dune, which are a product of his genealogy as an anomaly in the Bene Gesserit’s breeding program. In fact, although the film doesn’t even mention the word Mentat, Paul Atreides, Thufir Hawat, and Piter de Vries, who are all Mentats, function much in the same way in the movie as they do in the books. In short, while Paul isn’t a Mentat in the movie, it’s a change that hardly affects the larger narrative that the reboot adapted from the book.
On the other hand, Paul’s genealogy, Mentat potential, and Bene Gesserit training are all crucial to his ascension as the Kwisatz Haderach. Dune: Part Two could potentially reveal more about how Mentats factor into the Dune universe. For now, it would seem that Mentats don’t exist in the reboot at all. In any case, despite how Dune 2021 changes the origins of Paul Atreides’ powers and abilities, he still seems to be on the same path as he was in Frank Herbert’s first book.