Dune: Prophecy - Max Series

I think it might actually be thousands of years before the Dune films. The Dune universe is on a very long time line and yes, the Bene Gesserit have a very, very long time line for their plans and they have a very specific goal that I will not spoil.

Lady Jessica was still a Bene Gesserit Sister, but they were not happy with her because she was supposed to give birth to a female Atreides child that would be married to a Harkonen male, likely Fade, to move forward the Bene Gesserit plan to eventually produce the Kwisatz Haderach. Instead Jessica gave birth to a son, Paul, because Leto wanted a son and Jessica fell in love with Leto. The major issue the Bene Gesserit had was Paul was not under control of the Bene Gesserit and not who they expected to be the Kwisatz Haderach (and maybe he really isn't, but that's a whole other story).

By the way, Jessica was not married to Leto, she was his sworn concubine which was a deal arranged by the Bene Gesserit. It's just that she was supposed to have Leto's daughter, not his son.

By the way, this complexity in back story and relations is why it is so difficult to make the Dune movies. There is so much background untold and, while I loved the new movies, they left out quite a bit or at least didn't bring it to the forefront. Specifically things like the nature of religion, the nature of power, environmentalism, the dangers of A.I., etc. Though the religious stuff comes more into play in Dune: Messiah.
They sorted of hinted or made vague, opaque references to how dangerous and destructive the nature and trappings of power, how messianic religious zeal in a cult of personality at several points in the first two films, but yeah, I do agree that these themes will be focused on more extensively and in more detail in future films. Their were a few scattered mentions by some of Zendaya's people about how centuries of spice exploration, farming, and exploitation had hurt and damaged their planet's eco-system, but they were more passing comments that werent touched on or elaborated further.

Widge, great, informative, highly detailed response to my earlier questions above. Truly a cut above, I really appreciate it. Thank you for the link to the Dune prequel TV series, it appears that it might be very interesting and fill in some huge character arc, plot developments fans of the films may not be aware of because their unfamiliar with Herbert's Dune novels.