That’s a great example, but Dune as a story was meant to subvert your ideas of heroism. It’s not a story about a common-man who gets swept away in delusions of grandeur and propaganda, the story is about someone who already know for a fact that they were a chosen savior, and how that destiny has a flip-side and how power corrupts and destroys.

I don’t really expect people to “get” that story, it’s subtle and nuanced. If you want to drive the point home about fascism and social manipulation you need nuance without the subtly.

I saw a lot of conservatives praising Dune like a real movie about real heroes and all that BS, while part of me hopes the next movie(s) really drive home Paul as a villain and I want to see the dim fans cry and scream. But I also know it won’t have an impact beyond that. Nobody is going to learn anything from Dune because it’s college-level philosophy about humanity and causality. Where most people are running at a grade-school recess level.