I'm really excited for the movie and the casting looks incredible so far. I wonder how the 2 movie split is going to work narratively. The book itself has kind of a perfect 3 act setup but I'm not sure breaking the story at the end of the book's part 1 (or halfway through part 2) is going to feel very satisfying.
> The book itself has kind of a perfect 3 act setup
Standard 3-act structure has a natural breakpoint at the midpoint twist of Act 2, not that my recollection of Dune is detailed enough to confirm that it maps naturally to 3-act structure in detail.
I think you could stop as a cliffhanger when Paul and Jessica escape from the worm, and are confronted by Stilgar. Then you start with a knife battle for the second movie, and who doesn't like a knife battle?
No, that would be like moving Luke vs Darth Vader fight to the beginning of episode VI.
This actually reminded me of a colossal mistake made by Hobbit pt.2 movie, when they ended the part with a dragon flying away to burn the city after the cringiest of chase scenes.
They could have easily end the part with slaying a dragon, and then show it again in part 3. All they needed was to find a different POV character!! One dragon kill, shown twice.
