Yes, but my point is that he's not a saviour of the Freemen at all. It's clear in the books that they are better armed, better adapted and their numbers is severely underestimated by the Harkonnen. At no point in the first book are the Freemen truly at risk of being decimated.

This is a fine line to thread and I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment as to how the handled it, but while the Freemen don't have interplanetary domination in mind and Paul does lead them to Jihad, it's not like Avatar where the native are being exterminated and some random guy leads them to military success.

I dont think it matters whether they are oppressed or need a savior.

The ridiculous thing about that narrative is that an alien with their own agenda (most likely not for the benefits of the native) is somehow given leadership

In the book, at least, he earns/steals that position (it's not given to him) by virtue of his mother's knowledge of their religious beliefs and his training from birth to be a leader. Which was only barely hinted at in this movie.

I've always read Dune as a strong condemnation of the white saviour. Paul dooms the Fremen to a horrible purpose; forever to deliver a religious genocide in his name. Paul knows what he's doing is wrong, we the reader are told its wrong, and yet Paul does it anyway because his power of prescience shows him the alternative is worst for the universe. The sequels completely adhere to the idea that Paul is right, and turn the whole Dune universe into shlock, but the original novel posits the idea that Paul can't be sure it's the right thing to do.

The thing is all of that is explained in much more detail in the second part of the book. You know, the part that's not a film yet.

> condemnation of the white saviour

it seems more like condemnation of the concept of leading, or controlling, as opposed to educating and liberating. The white savior element is not neccessary to convey that message.