Does it work as stand alone?

I ask- because I know several people who plan to see it who don't know the whole story. I'm wondering if they'll know they're missing anything.

I would not say so. It ends with the duel between Paul and one of the Freman who resents his presence in the sietch. What I found odd, or maybe I missed it was the explanation that every time you take a crysknife out of it's sheath you must draw blood ... that was never explained. Either those mf-ing Freman did not get a lot of knife practice or they must have had scars all over their bodies!

No.

It has no resolution so no, no matter how well everything else is done it fails as a movie because it doesn't tell a story. You can have a film that is a lead in to a series, or you can have a Part 1 when the rest is already filmed and released in a year or less, but you can't just stop a story midway through and say "oh well, we'll see if we get around to the next part." It's arrogant and insulting to the audience.

it doesn't stand on it own, but if part 2 never gets made, at least you could watch dune '84 to see how the story ends (villeneuve's dune part 1 = the first 90 minutes of lynch's dune). or you could read the book of course.

Can only echo the other sentiments here by saying as a stand alone film it fails because it ends abruptly without completing the storyline of the first book and/or film(s) that came before it.

Otherwise this was alright, it held my interest in the 2 hours plus it takes to watch this. I’m not sorry I watched it, the leads were good, even though you only see Zendaya (CHANI) at the very end of the film so there’s that & Ferguson so far is my favorite version of Lady Jessica. No weird hairdo is always a plus. Again a ok version of Dune, but what can you really say? Dune is DUNE no matter how many versions were released, the story plays out the same.

The one thing I found odd is that it’s Duncan Idaho that says “Thank you for the gift of your body’s water” rather than Paul which it was in the past few movies. Call me a heretic if you want to but I really liked the Sy Fy channels take on Dune many years back. Say what you want but to date it’s the only version that actually EXPANDED on the storyline as they also had “Children of Dune” in addition to just the remake of the original story, which I thought was very good so they get loads of credit for that in my book. I’m sure many of you will feel differently but that’s my take on it.

Here’s hoping “Part 2” does indeed come, if it doesn’t then what’s the point? Especially if you cant secure all of the cast for a potential 2nd movie then how much of a waste was it to even make this? Zendaya got cheated by only being in flashbacks & the end of this. I’d complain but hey work is work, right?

No. At least not for me. I'm unfamiliar with the source material. And this film mostly felt like a setup for part 2. This film had a lot of exposition. It was the 'world-building movie'. And I'm glad it didn't rush things. Cause there's a lot going on.

So I hope it does well & it's well received. Cause I would love to see a continuation & an actual conclusion to the story

Nope, not at all