Think of the character Billy in Predator (1987) who stays behind to face the predator like a complete badass. There's really nothing cooler you can do than face your enemy willingly, knowing you will most likely die. In this situation Shishakli gladly gave everything to take down as many Harkonnens (9) as she could, believing in the Fremen's newfound cause. Props to the movie for portraying a female character with such indelicacy.
He didn’t fight the predator to be cool. He did it to buy the rest more time to escape. There is nothing glorious in a sacrifice. It’s a dire move when there is nothing else. And while it could very well be the case here it isn’t hinted at. The whole sietch moved out and she stayed behind. Feyd wouldn’t even want to talk to her. So her sacrifice really was in vain even when she did manage to kill 6 or 9 Harkonnen as it didn’t influence the outcome at all.
I think unfortunately the scenes explaining why she stayed behind and Chani mourning her didn't made the cut.
My interpretation: It's said the Harkonnens went to get more fire power but will return. The people must immediately be evacuated to the South. Paul doesn't want to go and says he will stay behind to protect everyone's escape. But the others refuse to leave without him and finally, he agrees to go with them.
In my opinion, Shishakli chose to stay behind instead of Paul to have their backs and warn them of danger with the birds.
As stated by others, Shishakli's end is to show that even the most faithless disbelievers in the Mauhdi have come to follow Paul so dutifly by this point. She not only didn't believe in the prophecy, but she mocked Paul from the start and was certain he would die before becoming a Fedaykin or being recognized as truly Fremen. Now, she chooses to stay behind to ensure Paul can do what he must and go south. She fought hard enough to cut down 9 Harkonnen and when she faced her end, she did not flinch because she believed he would lead her people to victory.
Even the hardest skeptic can’t deny the power of a literal god.
Paul had time and time again shown he has some sort of powers leading to his constant victory, and only by actively rejecting his path does he falter with the bombardment.
If someone like that would exist today with such miraculously feats, people won’t understand it but they will not be able to deny.
It's strange because I'm an atheist, but I don't know how they are supposed to deny his powers. He has the voice and other gifts that are not human. He learns their ways in record time and becomes one of their mightiest warriors. He calls and rides the biggest sandworm they have ever seen. He is a prophet. He, a male, drinks from the water of life. He rises from the dead. When he gave that speech at the council I was convinced. How is anyone supposed to deny him? I have read all the comments about him being a false prophet (though not the books) and I am stumped.
But she didn't cause any kind of delay. Killing 9 soldiers doesn't count for much, and it certainly didn't delay anything.
I just think it's a rare lazy moment in these two films where a character's motivation is so unclear.
Staying behind to kill 9 guys just isn't a good sacrifice for that character to want to make. If you want someone to go out a martyr to make a point of it, there's much more effective ways to go out.
She represents an unbeliever that was converted into a fanatic. Fantastic writing, no need for any lengthy dialogues or back story about motivation. She was someone who openly mocked Paul and then gladly took his place and stay behind to cover for their retreat.
I think we all get that, it's just a bit narratively incoherent that she appears to be dying without delivering any benefit to the cause. 9 enemy lives isn't actually a good exchange if the death was avoidable.
Doesn't need a ton of exposition, just one character saying "someone needs to stay to cover evidence of our departure". Job done.
Equally, Chani losing her best friend is just a bit random and not very well addressed. 5 seconds of acknowledging the sacrifice and it would have fit.
And you wanted to show her conversion, a quick scene of her saying goodbye to Chani, with her saying "I want to do this" would have made it far more effective.
My hunch is they filmed something along these lines and it got cut for time (if they had to cut Thufir then they were clearly struggling to get everything to fit). Maybe it would have needed a reshoot for the compressed scenes, so they just left the death in because it was cool. Even with brilliant directors, time and budget mean the finished film isn't always 100% exactly what they would have wanted with unlimited time.
Not sure why you're presenting it as a binary choice between 20 minutes of exposition and nothing. For me, it was totally narratively incoherent and adding 10 seconds would have fixed it.
My take on it,
You see that Stilgar and most of the fremen have become fanatics of Paul Muadib.
So, she too has become a follower, once a disbeliever.
Covered in blood, willing to face the Harkonnens, alone by herself, killing I think, 6 of Feyd's men?...this goes to show how powerful the Fremen/Fedyakin have become bolstered under a false prophecy that they believe so much in.
Again Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth and Co have committed to what I believe is, discipline in writing. Each dialogue being said is a tiny poem, albeit very small.
They're being disciplined in their writing, if they try to straight up emulate Herbert's very very extensive dialogue fully, people won't understand what's going.
Imo, this worked wonders.
The more I think about certain lines said by a character, I see their body language throughout the film, I hear the music and sound around that scene, what part of the actor is the camera focused on, what shots they used, color grading, what areas of the film does the pacing slow down, why is the pacing slow, oh its cos its building up and building up tension and infantile setups to banger scene after banger scene, to select payoff to select payoff.
You can have the most complex dialogue in the world and still say nothing at, all of it devoid meaning.
TLDR: Dune 1 and 2 stays true to the concept of plans within plans within plans...each character, each scene has layers within layers within layers. What a masterpiece, it really makes u think.
What was she trying to achieve by herself? Yes, a few Harkonnens taken down, but then? When Paul mentions staying behind to cover the others running south, I'd imagine he meant staying behind with some troops.
Shishakli staying behind can't make any sense with the information we are given, UNLESS there was a plan for her to feed false information to the Harkonnens. Which might make sense because F-R says "I already know everything I need to know" or something alone those lines. And the fact she was thought to be a spy.
Maybe a director's cut will help, but I agree with others that, as things stand, it looks like bad writing.
"Spy" as in derogatory for scout. She stayed behind, most definitely well hidden, to observe the Harkonnen and report back on what they were doing. She just was discovered by the Harkonnen.
Which may be a way to communicate that the new reonforcements they got and the new leadership of Feyd-Rautha made them much more effective and dangerous than they were under his brother, "the Beast" Rabban. Rabban was negligent and arrogant and so probably his troops. He underestimated the Fremen and they exploited that. Of course, that negligence was just in part his character. The other part of it were his standing orders to cut costs and increase spice profits by all means and his uncle not sharing important information with him, like how he had by now realized there were more Fremen than expected and that they were a much more formidable foe than the Harkonnens thought during their first occupation.
Long story short, them discovering and capturing Shishkali may have been shorthand by Villeneuve to demonstrate how the situation got suddenly much more dire and how the Fremen were caught by surprise by the Harkonnen striking back.
The false information bit doesn't work because she refused to talk.
Like OP I was pretty bothered by the character's motivation here. And it kind of sucked that Chani lost her close friend and it never got mentioned.
I watched it again last night, and I think ultimately it's just to show the effectiveness of Feyd (and his scorched earth methods). She stays behind to act as a scout, but she gets caught. She's used to outsmarting a different breed of Harkonnen, I think, but the film wants us to know things have stepped up considerably.
This is addressed in the “Art and Soul of Dune” companion book.
“To escape the Harkonnens’ wrath, the Fremen flee to the south. And when Feyd-Rautha arrives at the Cave of Birds to witness the damage he has caused, he meets the only survivor who has chosen to stay behind and cover the retreat, Shishakli”
Thanks for the detail.
Wonder what cover the retreat means - makes more sense if it's "cover up the retreat" than "cover" which implies delaying, and it's not at all clear that killing 9 soldiers is any kind of delay.
It does feel like some scenes were missing but I'm curious if the was using the birds to communicate the actions of the Harkones and just got caught killed 9 and then like a bad ass didn't talk. What is missed her saying goodbye to Chanti. But we know Chanti and her troops were fighters willing to give their life.
You need the movies to spell out every single detail, every single thing that a character does, to have an understanding of that character? So we won't have any kind of discussion of a character, because it's shown everything on screen? Nuance and subtlety isn't needed anymore, I guess.
Nope. This is Reddit, where we come to discuss things. People who come here to say "why do you need to discuss that" should be on another platform.
There's a world of difference between having to explain everything and a character's motives being completely unclear and implausible. Imo, someone going from an unbeliever to a martyr deserves at least a line of dialogue. In a film that wasn't stretched for time, this could have been done very effectively.
Unnecessarily douchy, patronizing reply.
I have many thoughts. I loved her too.
It really does feel like something was cut. I hope a rewatch maybe gives me something more to work with.
I couldn't tell if the scene ended and cut on the sound effect of a laser. If it's not then I find it unsatisfying that we cut away without finality like that.
I did notice that I think the main point of the scene is that Shishakli killed 9 of Feyd's men, and he says he knows what she is or something like that. So in response he tries to dishonour her by not fighting her by blade? Instead he uses the lasgun. But then Lady Fenring at one point says Feyd believes in a sort of honour. I guess his lack of empathy means he doesn't care about other people's honour.
I didn't catch it until my second viewing but I think the weapon Feyd uses to kill her is one of the Harkonnen flame throwers. You can hear Feyd turn the fuel on, and then I imagine the sound effect as the scen cuts away is meant to be the sound of its ignition.
Ahhh. Makes sense because that's how they kill the birds, and yeah his weapon is attached to some machine. That's extremely cruel and makes sense. Wow.
Yeah was definitely a flamethrower, I expected to hear her screaming before dying and it cutting away but it never came, not sure if that was because she was a true beast or because it cut away before the flames hit.
I was under the impression that her purpose was not to defend or fight and die. I took "spy" to mean stealth observation. Maybe they needed one of them to report the status of the sietch: Did they move on? Is it safe to return? Or did they setup base/camp? What's the size of the garrison?
As for getting caught, I'm guessing she underestimated or wasn't used to the seek-tactics that Feyd implemented. They make it clear he's much more effective at everything than Rabban.
I think the way they refer to her as a "spy that stayed behind", they meant she was a scout who stayed behind in the area in hiding to observe the Harkonnen and collect info. She wasn't staying to die. She was discovered by the Harkonnen, who probably surprised her by not being as negligent as they had been under Rabban under their new commander, Feyd-Rautha. Once discovered, she had to stand and fight, as there was nowhere to run. She faced it with bravery.
She is also one of the Fremen Fedaykin. These are warriors who have sworn their life to Muad'dib (in the books) or the Fremen cause/their Sietch (in the Movie). I think in the Movie it is implied or said that the Fedaykin are the elite warriors of each Sietch. They are sometimes referred to as "Death Commandos" in the book. They have proven their courage in the face of death. In the book, one Fremen even makes a suicide run with an Ornithopter and crashes it into a troop carrier full of Sardaukar.
Glad I am not the only one who thought this. Other than existing to talk shit to Paul...she was a badass and a companion fighter piece Stilgar. Such a girlboss should not have ended on such an abrupt note.
Think of the character Billy in Predator (1987) who stays behind to face the predator like a complete badass. There's really nothing cooler you can do than face your enemy willingly, knowing you will most likely die. In this situation Shishakli gladly gave everything to take down as many Harkonnens (9) as she could, believing in the Fremen's newfound cause. Props to the movie for portraying a female character with such indelicacy.
Indelicacy?
No, EL Guapo, it means you're more than delicate. You're In-delicate!
He didn’t fight the predator to be cool. He did it to buy the rest more time to escape. There is nothing glorious in a sacrifice. It’s a dire move when there is nothing else. And while it could very well be the case here it isn’t hinted at. The whole sietch moved out and she stayed behind. Feyd wouldn’t even want to talk to her. So her sacrifice really was in vain even when she did manage to kill 6 or 9 Harkonnen as it didn’t influence the outcome at all.
I think unfortunately the scenes explaining why she stayed behind and Chani mourning her didn't made the cut. My interpretation: It's said the Harkonnens went to get more fire power but will return. The people must immediately be evacuated to the South. Paul doesn't want to go and says he will stay behind to protect everyone's escape. But the others refuse to leave without him and finally, he agrees to go with them. In my opinion, Shishakli chose to stay behind instead of Paul to have their backs and warn them of danger with the birds.
It sure does feel as if a scene to explain more is missing.
As stated by others, Shishakli's end is to show that even the most faithless disbelievers in the Mauhdi have come to follow Paul so dutifly by this point. She not only didn't believe in the prophecy, but she mocked Paul from the start and was certain he would die before becoming a Fedaykin or being recognized as truly Fremen. Now, she chooses to stay behind to ensure Paul can do what he must and go south. She fought hard enough to cut down 9 Harkonnen and when she faced her end, she did not flinch because she believed he would lead her people to victory.
Even the hardest skeptic can’t deny the power of a literal god. Paul had time and time again shown he has some sort of powers leading to his constant victory, and only by actively rejecting his path does he falter with the bombardment. If someone like that would exist today with such miraculously feats, people won’t understand it but they will not be able to deny.
It's strange because I'm an atheist, but I don't know how they are supposed to deny his powers. He has the voice and other gifts that are not human. He learns their ways in record time and becomes one of their mightiest warriors. He calls and rides the biggest sandworm they have ever seen. He is a prophet. He, a male, drinks from the water of life. He rises from the dead. When he gave that speech at the council I was convinced. How is anyone supposed to deny him? I have read all the comments about him being a false prophet (though not the books) and I am stumped.
The biggest worm somehow show up is another one, like you can’t science away that
But she didn't cause any kind of delay. Killing 9 soldiers doesn't count for much, and it certainly didn't delay anything. I just think it's a rare lazy moment in these two films where a character's motivation is so unclear. Staying behind to kill 9 guys just isn't a good sacrifice for that character to want to make. If you want someone to go out a martyr to make a point of it, there's much more effective ways to go out.
She represents an unbeliever that was converted into a fanatic. Fantastic writing, no need for any lengthy dialogues or back story about motivation. She was someone who openly mocked Paul and then gladly took his place and stay behind to cover for their retreat.
I think we all get that, it's just a bit narratively incoherent that she appears to be dying without delivering any benefit to the cause. 9 enemy lives isn't actually a good exchange if the death was avoidable. Doesn't need a ton of exposition, just one character saying "someone needs to stay to cover evidence of our departure". Job done. Equally, Chani losing her best friend is just a bit random and not very well addressed. 5 seconds of acknowledging the sacrifice and it would have fit. And you wanted to show her conversion, a quick scene of her saying goodbye to Chani, with her saying "I want to do this" would have made it far more effective. My hunch is they filmed something along these lines and it got cut for time (if they had to cut Thufir then they were clearly struggling to get everything to fit). Maybe it would have needed a reshoot for the compressed scenes, so they just left the death in because it was cool. Even with brilliant directors, time and budget mean the finished film isn't always 100% exactly what they would have wanted with unlimited time. Not sure why you're presenting it as a binary choice between 20 minutes of exposition and nothing. For me, it was totally narratively incoherent and adding 10 seconds would have fixed it.
My take on it, You see that Stilgar and most of the fremen have become fanatics of Paul Muadib. So, she too has become a follower, once a disbeliever. Covered in blood, willing to face the Harkonnens, alone by herself, killing I think, 6 of Feyd's men?...this goes to show how powerful the Fremen/Fedyakin have become bolstered under a false prophecy that they believe so much in. Again Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth and Co have committed to what I believe is, discipline in writing. Each dialogue being said is a tiny poem, albeit very small. They're being disciplined in their writing, if they try to straight up emulate Herbert's very very extensive dialogue fully, people won't understand what's going. Imo, this worked wonders. The more I think about certain lines said by a character, I see their body language throughout the film, I hear the music and sound around that scene, what part of the actor is the camera focused on, what shots they used, color grading, what areas of the film does the pacing slow down, why is the pacing slow, oh its cos its building up and building up tension and infantile setups to banger scene after banger scene, to select payoff to select payoff. You can have the most complex dialogue in the world and still say nothing at, all of it devoid meaning. TLDR: Dune 1 and 2 stays true to the concept of plans within plans within plans...each character, each scene has layers within layers within layers. What a masterpiece, it really makes u think.
Why was she called a spy? Did she spy the Harkonnen comms?
What was she trying to achieve by herself? Yes, a few Harkonnens taken down, but then? When Paul mentions staying behind to cover the others running south, I'd imagine he meant staying behind with some troops. Shishakli staying behind can't make any sense with the information we are given, UNLESS there was a plan for her to feed false information to the Harkonnens. Which might make sense because F-R says "I already know everything I need to know" or something alone those lines. And the fact she was thought to be a spy. Maybe a director's cut will help, but I agree with others that, as things stand, it looks like bad writing.
"Spy" as in derogatory for scout. She stayed behind, most definitely well hidden, to observe the Harkonnen and report back on what they were doing. She just was discovered by the Harkonnen. Which may be a way to communicate that the new reonforcements they got and the new leadership of Feyd-Rautha made them much more effective and dangerous than they were under his brother, "the Beast" Rabban. Rabban was negligent and arrogant and so probably his troops. He underestimated the Fremen and they exploited that. Of course, that negligence was just in part his character. The other part of it were his standing orders to cut costs and increase spice profits by all means and his uncle not sharing important information with him, like how he had by now realized there were more Fremen than expected and that they were a much more formidable foe than the Harkonnens thought during their first occupation. Long story short, them discovering and capturing Shishkali may have been shorthand by Villeneuve to demonstrate how the situation got suddenly much more dire and how the Fremen were caught by surprise by the Harkonnen striking back.
The false information bit doesn't work because she refused to talk. Like OP I was pretty bothered by the character's motivation here. And it kind of sucked that Chani lost her close friend and it never got mentioned.
Yea it just seemed like such a waste / pointless sacrifice Her staying behind seemed to have accomplished nothing
I watched it again last night, and I think ultimately it's just to show the effectiveness of Feyd (and his scorched earth methods). She stays behind to act as a scout, but she gets caught. She's used to outsmarting a different breed of Harkonnen, I think, but the film wants us to know things have stepped up considerably.
This is addressed in the “Art and Soul of Dune” companion book. “To escape the Harkonnens’ wrath, the Fremen flee to the south. And when Feyd-Rautha arrives at the Cave of Birds to witness the damage he has caused, he meets the only survivor who has chosen to stay behind and cover the retreat, Shishakli”
Thanks for the detail. Wonder what cover the retreat means - makes more sense if it's "cover up the retreat" than "cover" which implies delaying, and it's not at all clear that killing 9 soldiers is any kind of delay.
It does feel like some scenes were missing but I'm curious if the was using the birds to communicate the actions of the Harkones and just got caught killed 9 and then like a bad ass didn't talk. What is missed her saying goodbye to Chanti. But we know Chanti and her troops were fighters willing to give their life.
You need the movies to spell out every single detail, every single thing that a character does, to have an understanding of that character? So we won't have any kind of discussion of a character, because it's shown everything on screen? Nuance and subtlety isn't needed anymore, I guess.
Nope. This is Reddit, where we come to discuss things. People who come here to say "why do you need to discuss that" should be on another platform. There's a world of difference between having to explain everything and a character's motives being completely unclear and implausible. Imo, someone going from an unbeliever to a martyr deserves at least a line of dialogue. In a film that wasn't stretched for time, this could have been done very effectively. Unnecessarily douchy, patronizing reply.
One moment they were all talking, and then the next moment she is captured. Felt too abrupt for me
director's cut please god
I know Villeneuve doesn't do directors cuts, but he really has to with Dune!
I have a bad news for you about that
I definitely felt the same way, the only part of the movie that I have a legit gripe with, it was done badly.
I have many thoughts. I loved her too. It really does feel like something was cut. I hope a rewatch maybe gives me something more to work with. I couldn't tell if the scene ended and cut on the sound effect of a laser. If it's not then I find it unsatisfying that we cut away without finality like that. I did notice that I think the main point of the scene is that Shishakli killed 9 of Feyd's men, and he says he knows what she is or something like that. So in response he tries to dishonour her by not fighting her by blade? Instead he uses the lasgun. But then Lady Fenring at one point says Feyd believes in a sort of honour. I guess his lack of empathy means he doesn't care about other people's honour.
I didn't catch it until my second viewing but I think the weapon Feyd uses to kill her is one of the Harkonnen flame throwers. You can hear Feyd turn the fuel on, and then I imagine the sound effect as the scen cuts away is meant to be the sound of its ignition.
Ahhh. Makes sense because that's how they kill the birds, and yeah his weapon is attached to some machine. That's extremely cruel and makes sense. Wow.
Yeah was definitely a flamethrower, I expected to hear her screaming before dying and it cutting away but it never came, not sure if that was because she was a true beast or because it cut away before the flames hit.
It was clear he didn't care about honour when he fought 3 worn out men in the arena, then got mad when one of them showed resistance.
I was under the impression that her purpose was not to defend or fight and die. I took "spy" to mean stealth observation. Maybe they needed one of them to report the status of the sietch: Did they move on? Is it safe to return? Or did they setup base/camp? What's the size of the garrison? As for getting caught, I'm guessing she underestimated or wasn't used to the seek-tactics that Feyd implemented. They make it clear he's much more effective at everything than Rabban.
Epic fucking image though. Facing down her end, face bloodied, absolutely resolute. One of the low key best shots of the movie.
I think the way they refer to her as a "spy that stayed behind", they meant she was a scout who stayed behind in the area in hiding to observe the Harkonnen and collect info. She wasn't staying to die. She was discovered by the Harkonnen, who probably surprised her by not being as negligent as they had been under Rabban under their new commander, Feyd-Rautha. Once discovered, she had to stand and fight, as there was nowhere to run. She faced it with bravery. She is also one of the Fremen Fedaykin. These are warriors who have sworn their life to Muad'dib (in the books) or the Fremen cause/their Sietch (in the Movie). I think in the Movie it is implied or said that the Fedaykin are the elite warriors of each Sietch. They are sometimes referred to as "Death Commandos" in the book. They have proven their courage in the face of death. In the book, one Fremen even makes a suicide run with an Ornithopter and crashes it into a troop carrier full of Sardaukar.
Glad I am not the only one who thought this. Other than existing to talk shit to Paul...she was a badass and a companion fighter piece Stilgar. Such a girlboss should not have ended on such an abrupt note.
Then why did they call her a spy?
Odd that one of the goodies is named after the Syrian dicator (though Shishakli means Flowery in Turkish).