Considering there aren't many powerful female characters in the Dune novel (aside from the Bene Gesserit), some were going to have to be incorporated into the adaptation to create more of a balance. The decision to make Liet's character a woman is significant in that it adds to female influence in the world of Dune.
So why did Villeneuve change the gender? Well, the director and Duncan-Brewster agreed that it just isn't really integral to the character. “As far as Denis was concerned, it was all about concentrating on the essence of this person, not the fact that this person was a man, so that's what we went with first,” she adds.
It's been pointed out to you in other comments but here we go again - Liet Kynes did not “go native.” He was born, raised and lived his entire life on Arrakis. He was born a Fremen. He was raised Fremen.
DUNE 2021: The Problem With Gender Swapping Dr. Liet Kynes
Is Chani related to Kynes?
Known mainly as the Fremen wife and legal concubine of protagonist Paul Atreides, Chani is the daughter of Imperial Planetologist Liet-Kynes and his Fremen wife Faroula, and later the mother of the twins Ghanima and Leto II Atreides.
Jessica is also revealed to be the secret daughter of the Baron Harkonnen himself. Paul soon molds the Fremen into a massive army with which he hopes to retake the planet from Imperial rule.
Strictly speaking Paul Atreides is a flawed or failed hero. He isn't exactly a villain (bad guy) but he also isn't truly a hero. He is in fact an example of the danger of heroes.
The answer is in the book. He had deposed the Emperor of the Known Universe. In order to solidify his rule, he needed to marry the Emperor's eldest daughter Irulan.
He was abandoned in the desert without water or a stillsuit, and ultimately killed when heat exhaustion, dehydration and delirium prevented him from escaping a massive spice blow.
Liet's death differs from the book and prior adaptations, in which he is abandoned in the desert without a still suit, and nearly succumbs to a combination of dehydration, heat exhaustion, and delirium before being killed by a spice blow.
Jessica's character undergoes many changes. At the beginning of the novel, she is Duke Leto's concubine. The two are in love, but Leto will not marry her for political reasons. Leto knows that as long as he is unmarried, he has something to offer the other Great Houses.
Jessica's power exists before the first novel begins, and extends well beyond the third book, Children of Dune. She outlives Duke Leto, her son Paul, Chani, and even her daughter Alia. Jessica is the survivor of the first Dune book trilogy and the fulcrum of all the major events in the first novel.
Kynes, the Arrakis ecologist. Kynes has been ordered to betray the Atreides, but he finds himself impressed by them despite his low expectations of their character.
In Dune Messiah, Paul is blinded by atomic weapons. He then retreats into the desert to die but survives. It's also a Fremen custom to murder blind members of the tribe by leaving them to die in the desert.
His fatal flaw was the same as his parents before him. Love. He loved Chani, his new people, and the land they would remake together. The Atreides would never be pried from their home again. Paul was desperate to avoid the Jihad, the Golden Path, and the need to become God Emperor himself.
The Bene Gesserit are known for their ability to manipulate individuals and institutions to achieve their own goals, and they may have seen the Harkonnen's assault as an opportunity to weaken House Atreides, who were potential rivals to their own plans for power.
However, Jessica falls into the background of Dune after becoming a Reverend Mother. Her most important action in the second half of Dune is giving birth to Alia, who has the mind of an adult due to Jessica becoming a Reverend Mother while pregnant with her.
I had some memory of Paul realizing he's Harkonnen through some hand gesture his mother did that was similar to Vladimir Harkonnen. He's saying that it occurred after the spice agony Paul took, because he then received the past memories of his fathers.
Also bear in mind that Jessica herself was the product of this breeding program. Neither Leto, Harkonnen, nor Jessica herself knew that she was the daughter of Baron Harkonnen. Why did House Atreides have to give up Caladan in Dune? House Atreides had no real choice in giving up their imperial fiefdom on Caladan.
In Dune , however, blue is not a skin tone, it is an eye color – not for aliens, but for humans. Specifically, it is meant to visualize and symbolize the Fremen, and anyone who is either addicted to spice or has been around it long enough for their eyes to change.
Dune offers a useful allegorical narrative of the “scramble for Africa”, which saw European empires carve up the continent into colonised powers based purely in the pursuit of trade advantages.
Without melange, the Spacing Guild's heighliners could not move ... Without melange and its amplification of the human immunogenic system, life expectancy for the very rich degenerated by a factor of at least four.
