10 biggest book-to-screen changes in Dune: Part Two

2. Alia

When Lady Jessica drinks the Water of Life and becomes a Reverend Mother, she gains access to the ancestral memories of all the Reverend Mothers before her. That's weird enough, but the same thing happens to her daughter Alia, who at this point is just tiny fetus in Jessica's womb. Before she's born, Alia already has a fully formed personality and intelligence. In the movie, we see this expressed when Jessica has conversations with a fully aware Alia, who is still in utero at the end of the movie. In one of his precient visions, Paul sees a fully grown Alia played by Anya Taylor-Joy. She'll likely be a bigger part of things should Villeneuve get to adapt the sequel book to Dune, Dune Messiah.

Things go quite different for Alia in the book. She is born well before the end. She's just a toddler, but she's walking around, talking, and creeping everybody out by conversing at an adult level. “I know I’m a freak.” the very young Alia says at one point. She's taken care of by the Fremen woman Harah, who feels bad that Alia is mistrusted by everyone on account of her having an adult brain in a baby's body.

Things get even crazier at the end of the book, when little Alia is brought before the Emperor. Alia projects herself into the mind of Gaius Helen Mohiam (played by Charlotte Rampling in Dune: Part Two), freaking her out but good. The Bene Gesserit usually consider "pre-born" children like Alia to be abominations and kill them as soon as possible. Alia then kills Baron Harkonnen by pricking him with a poisoned gom jabbar needle before leaving to stalk the battlefield, killing wounded Sardaukar and Harkonnen soldiers with a crysknife, which earns her the title 'St. Alia of the Knife.'

Dune: Part Two omits all of this, allowing Paul to kill the Baron himself. Maybe they thought it would make things too weird to have a little kid talking like an adult and murdering people left and right, although director David Lynch included this version of Alia in his 1984 adaptation of Dune, where she was played by Alicia Witt:

Creepy, no? The talking fetus from Dune: Part Two is creepy as well, but not "little stabby girl" creepy. Expect a lot more of Alia whenever they get around to adapting Dune Messiah, but if you want to see her in weird little girl form, you'll have to check one of the other adaptations.