-
I've merged three Dune threads - ignore the vid linkrot. Ignore Uno; he's that wrong. Scroll on otherwise and enjoy.
Frank Herbert's Dune (part 1 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueYYVRTWmjY#ws)
-
Frank Herbert's Dune (part 2 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph3WlNFBIQY#ws)
These two are the entire TV miniseries, and surprisingly, have been up for over a year. Not without its flaws, but mostly superior to the movie - at the very least, scriptwise.
-
Call me crazy. I liked the movie.
-
You are crazy, and everyone knows it.
I have a fantasy about being able to run the movie and the miniseries together - each has its strengths. The movie did a better job of setting up the milieu and giving the sense of a far future where epic events are in play. Both had lovely set designs and costuming - both had the guts to put funny hats on people. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to pick and choose which? I would slightly tend to favor the cast from the movie, save the lead. Both mishandled the Baron, the miniseries less so.
If the Blade Runner technology ever gets good enough, a clever amalgamation of the two versions of the story ought to be breathtaking. It's fun to dream.
-
I've never watched the miniseries, just bits and pieces.
Just watched the hand in the box scene...Movie beats it hands down IMO.
I seem to remember the tv series having the natives bringing knives to a gun fight as well. I don't care what space ninjitsu it is, that's just silly. Give me the sound weapons.
-
Read the book, man.
-
Tried once upon a time. Not interested.
(I struggle with a lot of scifi, though, so, yeah.)
Space ninjitsu just doesn't grab me.
At least the Jedi had MAGIC swords to go with their space kung fu. MAGIC sound-guns make more sense to me.
-
Uh huh.
Read the book, man.
-
Why?
-
Because it's THAT good. Starts a little slow, but pays off.
-
Yeah, yeah, LOTR is supposed to be "THAT GOOD", too. It sucks. So do the movies.
LOTR: Meh. Give me a good Arthurian legend.
Dune: Meh. Give me Stargate. More adventure, less religious environmentalism. Something the movie version manages to minimize in favor of epic sound gun battles.
And the space witches were largely wasted potential.
-
Siiiigh.
-
More skulls, Stargate is clearly superior.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-M2maZIujee4/UUyAMcR_gXI/AAAAAAAARm0/M7zwPwQzRv8/s800/Stargate013111-thumb-330x219-56482.jpg)
-
Movie or series?
-
Pretty sure that pic is from a series considering the pine trees in the background.
Honestly didn't watch much of the series though. MacGyver did ok but some of the others annoyed me.
-
There was nothing wrong with the series, as such; just, in the final analysis, it wasn't all that good.
I never got why the movie was such a flop. I thought it was ok.
-
It was one of those I'd stop if looking through the channels and saw it, but never really made a point of making sure to catch it. Good as a monster of the week show (or god of the week as the case may be here), not so good when trying to form larger plotlines.
The spinoff sucked royally. Space vampires. Seriously?
-
yeah; never got into Stargate Lite at all.
-
You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, unless you have a shield belt which negates the guns. 8)
Stargate didn't have religious environmentalism, just religious we stole technology which makes us vastly more powerful than you puny humans, so worship us ism.
:adore:
-
I will say the whole shield thing was very poorly done in the movie. Why bother even foreshadowing it and never utilize it later?
But the shields didn't do much at the first of the movie thanks to the drill gun thingamabobs. Was that nonexistant in the book?
Stargate was on over the weekend on cable. :D
One thing that bugs me with scifi in general:
Why do humans always know how to use alien tech? (props to District 9 there)
And why are Aliens typically stagnate when it comes to researching even better stuff?
-
Dunno as to the latter. Bad writing, mostly, I think.
There were indeed no drill gun thingamabobs in the book, or sonic weapons, either. Shields were the whole reason for all the knives -they stopped bullets and exploded like nukes when hit with lasers- and no sonic weapons. Neither movie nor miniseries bothered to explain that; a pretty serious oversight.
-
I suppose the shield protects from the nuke explosiveness?
-
Nope, it 'splodes, and it 'splodes the laser, too - that's why there should be no guns. None of it makes any sense, otherwise.
-
IIRC, shields even stop a fast knife thrust. You have to be slow enough to get through the shield, yet fast enough to hit your opponent.
Stargate was on over the weekend on cable. :D
One thing that bugs me with scifi in general:
Why do humans always know how to use alien tech? (props to District 9 there)
And why are Aliens typically stagnate when it comes to researching even better stuff?
Uh, humans have Top Minds working on alien tech?
My impression is that the Goa'uld took over hosts that knew how to use technology, but not how to research. And any that became powerful enough to be a System Lord were too busy fighting other System Lords to do research. Or if one tried, other System Lords would gang up and stop it. It was only after Anubis was overthrown and thought dead, that he did anything. First he attempted to gain power through ascension, and when that wasn't permitted, he went into research.
If you have enough technology to enslave masses and be thought a god, maybe you're not too curious about creating more, just curious enough to try and find more powerful Ancient relics. And you'd squash any curious underlings who might create something that could overthrow you.
More generally, being immortal or very long-lived may lead to stagnation. One government, too. Humans, by comparison, breed like rabbits, are short-lived, and the various nations fighting creates an environment for rapid invention.
-
Okay, that was a re-introduction to Dune. :D
-
Yeah, yeah, LOTR is supposed to be "THAT GOOD", too. It sucks. So do the movies.
You ARE crazy! :wall:
-
The movies COULD have been good with someone who knows the meaning of the word "edit".
-
I saw again the movie recently and i'm watching the miniseries in these evenings. In the miniseries is all explained much more in depth, and the special effects are a bit more made better than the movie (even if the spice harvester model is more cool in the movie). Also in miniserie you lose those mentally ill characters of the film as the cardiovascular valve and other about the figure of the Baron as BUncle said. A bit more slow but i can say frank herberts is more well done compared to movie (and this is also seen when riding the worm).
Stargate i remember is a cool movie, but i could watch it again, it's long time since I even watch because unfortunally I don't have it, the miniseries i never follow when tv broadcasted it ... maybe i did wrong
-
Love it, hate it, nobody can deny that Dune is an all-time classic of SF.
Dune's not a member of this forum - let's talk about 'im... :D
Other books in the series, the movie, the miniseries, the prequels/sequels - nothing's off limits except hateful talk about the authors of the nuDune. (Criticism of the work and the understanding displayed therein of Frank Herbert's opus is not hateful. Questioning whether the notes really exist might be okay if you don't get carried away.)
-
The WorShip Trilogy ain't bad either. And it's placed on a waterworld, so definitely a ;b;!
-
I liked those all right; but boy, I didn't care much for Destination Void, from which they sprang.
..................
Funny thing - while discussing the Children of Dune miniseries with Valka, I realized another pretty dumb continuity error in the book.
Alia is explicitly 15 in Dune Messiah. At the end of the book, Ghanima and Leto are born. In Children of Dune, when Jessica returns to Arrakis after many years' absence, she instantly sees the subtle signs that Alia has been committing the unpardonable Bene Gesserit sin of manipulating her metabolism and internal chemistry to not age. ...
...
... The twins are explicitly nine. That makes Alia 24. I call bullcrap on that right there; at 24, she wouldn't bother, and I don't care how good Jessica's Reverend Mother observational powers are, it wouldn't show.
Worse, towards the end of the book, Alia is starting to get fat from the Baron's eating. Really, if she can prevent her own aging, she could much more easily lay in bed eating lard 20 hours a day and never gain an ounce.
-
I liked those all right; but boy, I didn't care much for Destination Void, from which they sprang.
It was never available to me, so can't tell.
Funny thing - while discussing the Children of Dune miniseries with Valka, I realized another pretty dumb continuity error in the book.
Alia is explicitly 15 in Dune Messiah. At the end of the book, Ghanima and Leto are born. In Children of Dune, when Jessica returns to Arrakis after many years' absence, she instantly sees the subtle signs that Alia has been committing the unpardonable Bene Gesserit sin of manipulating her metabolism and internal chemistry to not age. ...
...
... The twins are explicitly nine. That makes Alia 24. I call bullcrap on that right there; at 24, she wouldn't bother, and I don't care how good Jessica's Reverend Mother observational powers are, it wouldn't show.
Worse, towards the end of the book, Alia is starting to get fat from the Baron's eating. Really, if she can prevent her own aging, she could much more easily lay in bed eating lard 20 hours a day and never gain an ounce.
People living in arid circumstances are known to look older, sooner.
And are you a Reverend Brother to disdain a Bene's capabilities? :P
Chances are Alia/Baron's didn't bother with their appearance anymore at that point in the novel?
-
Destination Void is often referenced as a major work, so it was surprising to me that it was so hard to find - and more surprising that it sucked.
All you say about the issue I raise could be true, but really? Noticing a healthy 24 year-old isn't aging? Really? Not unless she still looks 15, which everyone would have noticed, her being the Regent ruler of the known universe and all.
I don't think she'd so much been going outside and observing freman traditions for a long time at that point, the whole thing being supposed to have gone all wrong years before Paul wandered off, and all. Everybody was already getting decadent and water-fat at the beginning of Messiah, and the bad trends had gotten badder in the Alia regime.
I don't buy any of it.
In fact, I have a little trouble buying the possessing Baron being so sloppy, but we are talking about a much younger Baron than we knew in Dune, from as far back as however old Jessica was then, and his control was poor over Alia, who was strong and not inherently bad - lots of crazy in the mix, there.
-
You're running up against the main problem of Children of Dune, which is that it is the worst of Herbert's Dune books. It's too long and lacks the core focus that the first two novels have, plus it's chock full of dumb stuff like Baron Harkonnen being all up in Alia's head and Leto II and Ghanima's quasi-incestuous relationship.
-
Really? I thought it had a lot more spirit than Messiah. Most people hate God Emperor more. Children was sloppy compared to the first and 4-6th book, but I admire the book's moxie.
-
deleted
-
You should see some of the stories in the Dune section of fanfiction.net... ::)
Speaking as an almost OG Trekker, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that we shouldn't...
-
The twins in the miniseries were far too old, but I'm guessing the producers figured the audience would never accept 9-year-old kids being that mature, and would find the implied incest scenes unacceptable.
The same thing happened with both Dune movies though, where the main character is older than in the books, presumably because the perception was that audiences wouldn't believe a 15 year old as the protagonist.
What I would really dream of is HBO giving Dune the Game of Thrones treatment, since it's pretty clear that it doesn't work as a movie, and SyFy is incapable of producing decent programming anymore. The only thing that the miniseries (both of them) did right was how they interpreted weirding.
-
Deleted
-
Leto took good care of his people, and they loved him for it and it gained him a powerfully positive reputation - you know my views about all that. Loyalty must flow in all directions. When it does, it is unshakably powerful.
-
. . . . . . . .
I still see the sound weapons as more interesting than space magic and daggers.
/haven't read the books.
/haven't heard a convincing argument TO read the books.
/not a huge scifi book person.
-
[argument]The books are really good. The books are much better than the adaptions.[/argument] It is that simple.
Valka, Dune was a major, MAJOR influence on Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, so there are a lot of fans here...
-
Yeah, yeah, Dune is the LOTR (which I don't like, btw, but did manage to get through) of space.
If anything it's more unapproachable than LOTR, simply because it practically has it's own language from the outset. (didn't say I haven't TRIED to read the thing)
-
deleted
-
:o
-
deleted
-
Interesting. I've always thought the two series are extremely similar in their strengths and weaknesses. Rich, rich, multilayered immersive milieus, and plots stretched out longer than needed for purely PLOT purposes by a factor of five or more. But the worlds of them are just wonderful, wonderful places to visit as long as you're safe from the goblins or Harkonnens.
I can see where one might find Dune too stabby and poisony, or Lord of the Rings infested with fairies and just as well bring on the flying pink unicorns covered with hearts, but y'know Valka? I would have expected the kitteh lady to go for the unicorns and not the stabby. I bet this is a "favorite Doctor Who is when you were 12"-type deal...
(Baker for me, too.)
-
[argument]The books are really good. The books are much better than the adaptions.[/argument] It is that simple.
I won't deny that the books are a classic. That's something objective.
However they are not good for everybody since I didn't like them. I didn't like the story and what is inside.
That's perhaps why I like the movie: because it is not like the book.
Dune was a major, MAJOR influence on Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, so there are a lot of fans here...
In SMAC's manual, they give also Frank Herbert's The Jesus Incident" as a major influence. I went to the nearest library to get him and, hey, that's sure some kind of SMAC: drones, punishment spheres, agressive native lifeforms... 8)
-
Yeah, all that, just not nearly as good.
-
Deleted
-
I do have a passing familiarity with Dragonlance, and I've read a couple of Darkover books, which weren't bad at all. (Landing and Heirs of Hammerfall.)
I was actually about 15 for my first Who.
So, do I ask you which Romanna here, or do you want to start a thread?
-
Well, I didn't get into fantasy literature (other than the usual fairy tales kids read) until I was in my 20s. In 1985 a friend loaned me her copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and I was hooked by about the second page. My favorite character in that series (Dragonlance) is Raistlin, a foul-tempered, cynical mage. My least-favorite characters are about equally the "goody two-boots" Goldmoon and Sturm. They're so Lawful Good, they make my grandmother's overly-sweet icing recipe seem bland.
Geek time: First or second Halloween married, we decided to do the "grown up" thing and have a costume party. The boss dressed as Crysania, and I as Raistlin. My friend come as Caramon and Tika. The other people failed to dress at all. Tried the costume party one other year before giving up, then a few more normal parties, including one where I put the entire living room set on the front lawn, lit the grill, had my friends over, and proceeded to have a horror movie marathon open to all trick or treaters. Most thought hot dogs were the neatest trick or treat ever.
Sorry, pre-digital ages, no pics.
-
Hot dogs DO sound like the neatest trick or treat ever...
-
Times change. Tried that our first couple carving parties...
Pizza's easier.
Besides there was something to that 70's era orange and green paisley living room set with ancient TV all out on the front lawn that was just awesome, and worth it for all the WTF looks we got.
-
You don't have a scanner? I KNOW there's photos.
-
There MIGHT be of the costumes. There's not of the living room set on the front lawn. Wasn't so picture happy back then.
-
deleted
-
Would anyone care to praise and/or bash the Lynch movie?
I hated it, but that's a very complicated issue, because there was much brilliance therein, too, so long post I sorta need something to bounce off and get motivated to get into.
-
Would anyone care to praise and/or bash the Lynch movie?
I hated it, but that's a very complicated issue, because there was much brilliance therein, too, so long post I sorta need something to bounce off and get motivated to get into.
I have very mixed feelings about the Dune movies. It does so much right (the costumes, Baron Harkonnen, casting Sting as Feyd-Rautha) but at the same time there are so many details that are either utterly baffling (such as the weirding-modules, Thufir's cat) or rub me the wrong way (Kyle Mclaughlin, the whispery inner monologs) that I can't really say that it is good. What I can say is that it has vision, which is not something you can say about the SyFy miniseries, which is content to translate the letter of the book while lacking any and all soul. I kind of love it in spite of itself, but I really feel like David Lynch is absolutely the wrong person to direct a film like Dune.
-
deleted
-
There was a dog? I gotta rewatch now.
-
I praise the music. It was incredible - wide, sweeping, majestic... and the Prophecy theme was so relaxing! I remember sitting in the theatre, and during those scenes, you could have heard a pin drop.
I praise Irulan's dresses. They were grandiose and gaudy... and absolutely perfect for the Byzantine effect Lynch was going for with the Corrinos. Irulan never had to do any physical labor in her whole life, and so she didn't need any kind of practical clothing. And when she was present in court, part of her function was to be on display.
I do NOT praise that damn annoying little pug dog! Sure, it was cute to bring the family pet to Arrakis... it was sorta nice that Gurney saved it from the Harkonnens. But to keep it alive after that? The Fremen would have taken its water long before the end of the movie, yet there it was, at the end.
However... if not for that damn annoying little pug dog, I wouldn't have been inspired to do a lol series called (tentatively) Sandpugs of Dune. :D
God, all of the costuming in Dune is freaking amazing, especially if you learn the backstory behind some of it, like how the Harkonnen uniforms were made out of old body bags. The stillsuits alone deserved an academy award for art design.
-
deleted
-
Explicitly described in the book as dun-colored to blend in with the sand. One gathers the Fremen preferred lurking even before the offworlders came.
I mean, black? Black desert wear? Looked good, but geeYAH, so stupid.
-
Yeah, black.
It's actually cooler than white, provided there's a slight breeze. There's a reason the nomadic tribes like the Bedouin and Tuaregs regularly wear black robes in the desert.
Granted, that's loose fitting breathable fabric, not skin tight rubber...
You HAVE to change it from camo/blend in to the background because it's a MOVIE. It HAS to look good. Black beats most other options there as a result.
-
Yeah, looked good had to win in a movie - and the stillsuits were beautiful, even when it wasn't Fransesca Annis wearing them. Homina hom.
-
deleted
-
Don't need stealth, we have sound weapons. :D
-
Not the way they thought, though. They were the baddest mothers of all and knew it, but they fought smart instead of hard when they could, and always made with the sneaky at every opportunity.
The desert and Shai Hulud are hard masters, and the sirocco teaches wisdom. The coriolis storm harvests the fools who do not learn.
-
deleted
-
But it's the movie. It's a separate entity.
The movie needs VISUAL. Camoflauging everyone into the background is much less dramatic and would make for a tricky directing job at the very least, most likely come off crappy as all get out. So, they took the stealthy silent space ninjas and turned them into screaming crazed space vikings. May as well give them a weapon to go with the screaming. Sound weapons arent vibrating the ground, so the graboids won't notice anyway.
-
deleted
-
Desert-colored stillsuits were used in the miniseries and worked quite well. They were also more accurate from a technical point of view. The idea is not to waste the moisture in your breath, and in the Lynch movie, they wasted that moisture practically every damn time they opened their mouths (which should have been masked).
"Accurate from a technical point of view" defines both the miniseries' strengths and weaknesses. It better grasps some of the technical aspects that make the book compelling, but completely fumbles at being interesting to watch. Like Uno said, films need to be visual to work, and if the visuals aren't 100% accurate to the source material but make for a more interesting product then the choice is obvious. Artistry should always [Sleezebag] pedantry.
-
deleted
-
Did they work just fine? Sure.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z6rwHNEPj_g/UhziV9o7pSI/AAAAAAAAS4g/1hRtInGkNzI/s800/maxresdefault.jpg)
But, they just can't compete on a purely visual level to give iconic scenes.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-FO8ardV3gJE/UhziV5OQNqI/AAAAAAAAS4k/A4nHp397sCE/s800/ku-bigpic.jpg)
Same goes for the masks. Yeah, of COURSE they should have had masks. But you lose the actors' faces, even the TV series had everyone with the masks off for most the time. Lack of any kind of headcovering, now, I found odd, but whatever, artistic vision and all.
-
Unless you're trying to make the audience buy into the idea that the planet is so dry that a single tear is significant and you dare not waste the moisture of your breaths. Seeing Fremen huffing and puffing in the desert, open mouths gaping... just didn't work for me.
I'm not saying that Lynch's movie was flawless, just that the decisions that he made regarding costume design were in general correct from a filmmaking perspective. As a testament to my fondness for Dune I should say that every weird or bad part of the book stems from David Lynch taking too many liberties with the material, not with him trying to accurately interpret what Herbert wrote. The good parts come from Lynch's masterful understanding of filmmaking, the bad parts come from his either not understanding or not particularly caring about the source material.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-FO8ardV3gJE/UhziV5OQNqI/AAAAAAAAS4k/A4nHp397sCE/s800/ku-bigpic.jpg)
Same goes for the masks. Yeah, of COURSE they should have had masks. But you lose the actors' faces, even the TV series had everyone with the masks off for most the time. Lack of any kind of headcovering, now, I found odd, but whatever, artistic vision and all.
Not even Lynch was ballsy enough to try and suppress Kyle McLaughlin's hairdo in that film.
-
Unless you're trying to make the audience buy into the idea that the planet is so dry that a single tear is significant and you dare not waste the moisture of your breaths. Seeing Fremen huffing and puffing in the desert, open mouths gaping... just didn't work for me.
(keeping in mind I didn't read the book here)
I don't think the movie was really pushing that, though. We start running through the desert after it's revealed the Fremen are sitting on HUGE stores of water. "Enough to change the landscape." Water we're about to USE. Enough to unleash thunderstorms later in the movie. The Fremen have water to spare, others, not so much. They can AFFORD to go screaming and running.
This may not line up with the book, but there you have what I was seeing way back when.
-
deleted
-
The thing is, the stores they had of water were not intended to be used immediately, or even soon. A few generations in the future, at best...
And the rain at the end of the movie was utterly the WORST thing Lynch did. Frank Herbert himself was not pleased. Sure, it looked cool. But it also killed the sandworms. Every last one. It killed the spice cycle. WATER KILLS ADULT SANDWORMS. That's something firmly established in the Frank Herbert novels.
I don't recall that being said in Dune though. I think that was a later addition.
Besides the Fremen don't really care about the spice as much as they care about transforming Arrakis into a place that isn't horrible for all living things.
-
It was not a later addition. In Dune it is explicitly mentioned that the spice essence was created by drowning a stunted worm they kept for just that purpose. It was shown in the movie - blue worm vomit, remember?
-
The thing is, the stores they had of water were not intended to be used immediately, or even soon. A few generations in the future, at best...
And the rain at the end of the movie was utterly the WORST thing Lynch did. Frank Herbert himself was not pleased. Sure, it looked cool. But it also killed the sandworms. Every last one. It killed the spice cycle. WATER KILLS ADULT SANDWORMS. That's something firmly established in the Frank Herbert novels.
Again, this is the movie, not the book. You have to separate them.
These things are NOT established in the movie.
Though I did wonder what the heck was going to happen now that it's raining, at age 8 when watching this, so that's a glaring enough oversight, I'll admit. I recognized at 8 that the genie was out of the bottle and there's no putting it back in, and some serious ecological reprocussions were about to ensue. Water in sand doesn't exactly puddle up real well and all. I always assumed a sea or two would form and maybe the rockie areas become able to be terraformed. (again, the thoughts of an 8 year old at the time)
-
It was not a later addition. In Dune it is explicitly mentioned that the spice essence was created by drowning a stunted worm they kept for just that purpose. It was shown in the movie - blue worm vomit, remember?
The god-baby-water bottle stuff? Didn't come off as killing that worm to me. And that thing was in a big puddle. I don't know that a little rain is going to do that to a bunch of worms in the sand.
-
There being no evidence in the movie that the stunted Maker survived the experience, I, familiar with the source material, am comfortable asserting that it was DEATH god-baby-water bottle stuff.
They really react badly to water. The stunted worm was stunted by raising it in the same cave as the reservoir. The humidity barely let it live.
There all sorts of stuff embedded in the story in the book about how the ecology works - it even makes a little sense. You'd like that part. You're exactly who Herbert wrote all the ecology stuff for.
-
It was not a later addition. In Dune it is explicitly mentioned that the spice essence was created by drowning a stunted worm they kept for just that purpose. It was shown in the movie - blue worm vomit, remember?
Doesn't mean that water in and of itself kills worms, just that drowning kills worms, kind of like it does for most oxygen breathing creatures.
-
Sorry; it does mean that water in and of itself kills worms. That fact's explicit in the book and not contradicted in the movie. All cannon not contradicted is still cannon by default, surely.
-
Gotta be a pretty crappy job to go find a baby worm to put in the cave...
-
deleted
-
SPIICE OORRGY! :danc:
-
And you cannot separate the book from the movie. It doesn't matter what was "established" in the movie. The movie was based on a book published over 20 years before. The movie was meant to be as faithful an adaptation of the book as possible, within the limits of available funding, then-current filmmaking technology, and David Lynch's direction. If you want to totally separate the two, the movie would not have been Dune, but a ripoff just basically stealing the name to suck people in.
That's not really true though. Film makers, when adapting a book into a movie, are at liberty to change whatever they want if it means the film will play better. Saying that an adaptation's success is based upon its accuracy to the source material is ignoring the reality that taking the story, facts, characters and mood from the source material and translating it into a new medium allows, and at times demands, that elements be changed in order to make a better product. That doesn't make it a rip-off. A ripoff would be Lynch claiming that his Dune movie is wholy original and his own, unrelated to Frank Herbert's books.
Case in point: Blade Runner. That movie bears barely the faintest resemblance to the book that inspired it, but it's a triumph of both filmmaking and science fiction, so much so that Phillip K. Dick, who saw it only a few months before he died, declared it far superior to his own book. If Ridley Scott had adapted Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as a word for word transliteration, the end product wouldn't nearly have been as good.
On the other end of the spectrum is No Country for Old Men, where the action in the book is translated with near perfect fidelity to the screen. But both works stand totally on their own because the people who created them are masters of their craft and know how best to manipulate the strengths of their medium to get the intended effect. Reading No Country for Old Men and watching the film are two completely different experiences, even though they cover the exact same events.
-
Much as I love a good argument, and this is merely a personal opinion, not the Man speaking, I wanna talk about the movie, and I wanna talk about the book, but I don't think talking about which is better is a very fruitful line of discussion, even though everything the movie got so very very wrong was very important to me at the time.
I'm still trying to get around to my own overview of the movie. (Multitasking a lot these days.) 1986 me would be put out at how it isn't the trashing I used to think the movie deserved.
-
Gotta be a pretty crappy job to go find a baby worm to put in the cave...
IIRC, they form from the sand trout, which the Fremen can easily enough handle?
-
Ohboy... I wish people would actually read the books before they tell those of us who have read them that we're wrong... ::)
Look, the spice cycle is critical to the entire Imperium. Spice has many benefits - limited prescience to the Guild Navigators, the ability to use Other Memory for the Bene Gesserit, basic longevity and vitality for the average (albeit wealthy) citizen of the Empire who can afford to use it, and it can be used as currency for Very Large transactions of a semi-legal nature.
The Guild Navigators need the spice to safely guide the spaceships, and if they couldn't guide spaceships, the Empire's economy and government would grind to a standstill. Planets would be isolated. To keep the spice cycle going, you need to keep the sandworms alive and healthy. That means not having ridiculous rainstorms like at the end of the movie.
And you cannot separate the book from the movie. It doesn't matter what was "established" in the movie. The movie was based on a book published over 20 years before. The movie was meant to be as faithful an adaptation of the book as possible, within the limits of available funding, then-current filmmaking technology, and David Lynch's direction. If you want to totally separate the two, the movie would not have been Dune, but a ripoff just basically stealing the name to suck people in.
And I could go into minutia about how badly the movie Excalibur murdered Le Morte d'Arthur as well, but I recognize that they are two separate beasts, though one is a film adaptation of the other. You can say the book is better, and I'll believe you.
Remember the scene where Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother? A captive worm (a really small one) is drowned in a tub of water. Its death throes result in it vomiting up a chemical substance called the Water of Life, which is poisonous in its raw form. A Reverend Mother uses her internal bodily control over chemistry (they're extremely skilled at that) to change the poisonous form of the Water into a non-lethal form. Mix the changed Water with regular water, give it to people to drink, and it's party time!
Ya know...it's been a LONG time since I've seen the movie, but I remember thinking (at 8, again, mind you) that we were watching a worm being BORN and they were drinking the...resultant mess. Might say something about how healthy my mind was, eh?
Though I don't know that understanding it was reverend mother urine instead is a better mental image....
-
Spit. Not urine; she processes a mouthful of the essence, a powerful poison, and spits back into the bag, into the rest, which serves as a catalyst that transforms the lot into something that at least the spice-soaked Fremen can tolerate. Then Spice Orgy, and a good time is had by all.
The spitting was in the movie, and though they could have explained it better, explain they did.
-
I just remember lots of screaming and insta-sister-god that somehow didn't rip holes in the belly through rapid expansion. Paul drinks the raw stuff, right, or his mom's spit, or both?
-
Gotta be a pretty crappy job to go find a baby worm to put in the cave...
IIRC, they form from the sand trout, which the Fremen can easily enough handle?
They spawn some sort of microbial-scale thingy that grows into the sandtrout, which is what seals off water away from the surface and excretes spice - or something like that. It takes place well underground, and carbon dioxide builds up - whether that's all sandtrout exhalation, or more likely, part of a chemical reaction, I'm not sure. When the gas pressure builds up high enough, there's a spice blow, which spreads spice on the surface, and is somehow an essential part of the life cycle - probably, at least one of the trout just transitioned to a tiny worm. A big worm always comes within a few hours, so you hustle when you see a spice patch, or you do without, or you die.
Fremen children lure and trap sandtrouts using a little spit. Sandtrouts always seek out water. (Thius is also a useful survival gamble - waste a luggy while you still can make spit, and if a sandtrout comes and you catch it, you can suck out more moisture from its body than you sacrificed as bait.) If you pick one up it will stretch out over your hand, seeking the water it smells in your body. Leto II (III) was so soaked with spice that he was able to permanently bond with a full-body sandtrout glove.
Valka, I'm working from memory and haven't reread any of the books for three years or so - correct me if I got any of that wrong, or left anything important out.
-
I just remember lots of screaming and insta-sister-god that somehow didn't rip holes in the belly through rapid expansion. Paul drinks the raw stuff, right, or his mom's spit, or both?
Paul took a tiny drop of pure unconverted spice essence. It nearly killed him - Kwitatz Haderach and all, but not really trained to do the reverend mother trick, and using techniques developed by women for women - and this is all chemistry, with women's body chemistry different. He was, after a coma lasting over a week, able to convert it into the Water of Life, and live, and expand his powers.
Alia was born premature in the movie with Other Memories, but not force-grown. I don't think the movie intended to imply otherwise.
-
wierdo womb scene something about rapid developement in the voice over...don't know, foggy beyond that. Again, long time.
-
Premature birth. Very premature in the movie, IIRC, and I don't recall premature at all in the book. Been longer since the last time I saw the movie, but I remember that part. I thought it was confusingly done, too.
-
deleted
-
Uno, it just hit me why you have to read Dune. You will grok this instantly.
Years ago, a very twisted, messed-up and wrong concept popped into my head for no particular rasin. It's called The Littlest Harkonnen, it's obviously a children's book, and you are the guy to write it. You have to read Dune first, though.
Harkonnens are not funny. They are evil and they are often disgusting, but never funny. The movie turned the most dangerous man alive into comedy relief, and you may not write up my idea until you understand the family. Read the book, write the book, and you will win all the internets forever. You must do this, sir.
-
Mylochka and I just started part one of Frank Herbert's Dune -the miniseries.
Be back in about an hour 1/2.
-
Again??!! ;popcorn
-
Yeah. I watched it online last year - I forget where I found it - did I post about that? But it's that good.
-
Ah. I see it was only 5 months ago, it's on YouTube, and I posted the entire first miniseries here: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=3172.0 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=3172.0)
You get a decent look at Chani's right bossom in this version - they didn't show that on basic cable...
-
I found the original Dune series to be one of the defining works of Science fiction. I've described it to friends as "the LOTR of Science Fiction." However, none of my friends were able to even finish the original Dune, ha!
I find the 'sequel/prequel' series to be drastically different in style. I'm not sure what to think of them; they explain things and tie off loose ends, but the differences are jarring.
-
I think you're far too kind to the prequel/sequels.
-
I think you're far too kind to the prequel/sequels.
My instincts tell me to be a flaming dickwad. I like this forum, so I refrain from doing so :D
-
Don't take it that far - I asked for no hateful talk about the authors in the OT, for example, because there is some heinous over-the-line stuff out there - but by all means discuss the work, and you need not be diplomatic, just not so much with the flaming gentialwad...
-
M and I re-watched the Children of Dune miniseries ;b; last night, and I noticed something new:
The end of the Messiah half is the end of Godfather II, with Paul as Michael Corleone, right down to the hug/kiss of a sibling and a new baby (and I guess that makes Edric the Guild Navigator Moe Green).
-And as we already all noticed in the second half, dealing with the events of Children:
Pre-born abominations are full of charisma.
The costumes lacked so much as one-tenth the fabulousity found in the first mini, though.
-
I have read summaries of the prequels as well as the two sequels on Wikipedia, and they just seem loathesome to me and totally missing the point of the earlier novels.
I'd argue that even Herbert's later novels miss the point of of the original Dune, but at least they are mostly consistent tonally and thematically. Still, Heretics and Chapterhouse feel like they are in a different genre from the original.
In other news I finished my reread of Dune via Audiobook, and it's even better than the first time I read it. I remember feeling originally that the final showdown with Feyd-Rautha kind of came out of nowhere, but in actuality it is foreshadowed throughout the entire book, and there's frankly no other way it could end. Paul does everything in his power to stop the jihad that he has forseen, and at the end he finally realizes that whether he lives or dies, it's going to happen, which allows himself to stand against Feyd without hesitation. It's fantastic.
-
Anderson and B. Herbert alike, in their remarks about the end of Chapterhouse Dune, made me wonder if they'd even read the same book I did. The protagonists utterly defeated? No. And from fundamental misunderstanding of the source material, which is definitely the case, the flaws of the prequels/sequels naturally follow.
Orson Scott Card once commented in grading a story I submitted for a writing class he taught that a somewhat fourth-wall breaking joke I put into a story jolted the reader out of immersion. "But it's a good fan move", he concluded. (He gave the story an A and told me to try to sell it, BTW.)
And that's nuDune all over; the writing is actually good, but the plot/charcter ideas are just terrible. Gaius Hellen Moniham was Jessica's mother from a rape by the Baron, whom she gave a wasting disease? Fanfic ideas; BAD ones.
Yeah Feyd was set up as the anti-Paul; none of his virtues -to the point of being an unworthy heir to the canny Baron- except being a deadly fighter. A real punk.
-
Honestly the biggest problem with the Dune novels is that all of them are a slow decline from the first novel, the ending of which is so final that the only way to continue on from it would be to jump so far ahead that none of the characters from the first book matter, or embroil yourself in a plot that demythologizes the mythic characters of the original book. That's the direction that Messiah and Children go. At the end of Dune, Paul concludes that the horrors of his jihad are worth it if it means revitalizing the human race, but the follow-up books don't really work off that concept, and instead focus on the efforts of other characters to derail his prescient vision, and ultimately of Leto II sort of subverting it. I like the idea that Paul saw the path ahead and took it despite knowing that it would be bloody and difficulty. I'm less fond of the notion that comes from God Emperor that the real path was too horrible even for Paul to traverse, and it was left for his son to take the final plunge.
-
The costumes lacked so much as one-tenth the fabulousity found in the first mini, though.
Bah. Costumes are merely fluff. :P
At the very least I found the Fremen costumes much closer to what they should be.
I mean, black rubber outfits in a desert ??
-
It goes to show much of an impact the visuals in the Lynch movie had on me that as I was listen to Dune I always pictured the stillsuits as being black. Always.
-
They were explicitly mentioned as tan in the book.
I have often found the theme from the movie playing in my head as I've reread the books in the decades since (almost 30 years now!)
;notes; Bam BAAM bamBAAAM ;notes;
-
OTOH, I probably like the most recent Dune Miniseries better because it doesn't look as dated. ;)
I did like it when I viewed it as a youngster.
-
The Filming of Alejandro Jodorowsky's DUNE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuvd5e6e2EY#)
-
deleted
-
Dr. Sparky Sweets lays down some mad analysis of the novel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq2ztkE0eE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq2ztkE0eE)
-
I love Dune, both the books (but they do get weaker as the series goes on) and the Lynch movie (except the rain).
But I did NOT love one of the prequel books by Brian Herbert, it was called House Harkonnen and after something like 300 pages their were no less then NINE completely independent plot threads on at least 5 different planets that were being rapidly bounced between. It felt like I was reading nine separate books because not a single thread interacted with another and the mental gymnastics of it all was far more taxing then the story pay off so I just put the book down half way through.
-
deleted
-
I agree about the TV adaptation -- after you've seen Jurgen Prochnow as Duke Leto, it's really hard to accept anyone else in the role. It's not like William Hurt did a bad job. He just didn't quite convey the detached, effortless nobility of the duke the way Prochnow did. Likewise, I thought Frances Annis had an otherworldly, somehow tragic beauty that was so appropriate for the role of Jessica that the other actress (although a very competent performer) simply did not possess.
I thought the Lynch movie was a fabulous adaptation of around the first 60 pages of the book, but then seemed rushed to the point of being incomprehensible as the plot tried to progress. The TV version did a better job, but still didn't capture what I liked best about the book. Concentrating on the plot -- as you must do when you adapt for film or television -- loses the feel that Herbert was able to capture so deftly that you are reading (with all the impotent wisdom of hindsight) the history of a profoundly significant series of events that had different meanings for a whole ranged of beings living in a fully realized universe.
-
I was surprised that they got Susan Sarandon for the miniseries and didn't have her as Jessica...
-
deleted
-
I watched only fragments of the mini-series and found it too low in production value, admittedly due to being spoiled by Lych.
Also I generally watched the extended directors cut when it appears on TV which I don't find to be rushed, I can imagine that it would in any shorter format, even in 4 hours their are several sub-plots that get left out such as Paul's first son being born and dieing (and admittedly this event even feels rushed and disconnected in the book too so I understand why it didn't make it into the movie).
-
deleted
-
Darn, know you've let me watch half of episode 1 again. ;)
-
Again -I say this every time discussion of the movie v. the miniseries comes up- I'd love to be able to run the two together, keeping the best of each. You still wouldn't get a very good Baron that way, and neither Paul thrills anyone, but there are definitely many superior elements in each over the other, and at least the Paul in the miniseries was not Kyle MacLachlan.
The movie had -generally- better costumes and sets, the miniseries a better script. I'd venture, for example Shaddam's lines from the miniseries would work better performed by José Ferrer - what he had to say in the movie was just embarrassing to watch.
Both projects had to courage to put exotic future people in silly hats - and the movie surely did better at portraying exotic (to a fault, even, this being a Lynch movie). I think somewhere in the middle, a combination of the best parts of each would be a joy to see...
-
deleted
-
But it's Patrick Stewart carrying a Pug into battle while giving a war cry. How can we not love that mental image? The fact that were even hear talking about it now 20+ years later shows how damn good that one brief scene is, we all remember it.
If it (or other bits of the Lynch movie) breaks logic that's one thing, but I don't think the pug betrays or compromises the character of Gurney which should really be our over arching concern when a story is adapted to the screen. Busters point about Shaddam's poor dialogue is more to the point, dose it betray the character? I honest can't remember having much of an image of the Emperor from the Books.
-
I just want to mention this about the movie: Francesca Annis
(http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu5bw43zdA1qb8ugro1_500.jpg)
:luv: :luv: :luv: :luv: :luv: :luv: :luv:
-
deleted
-
What a shame the Lynch movie made the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers bald. That's ridiculous.
It is.
It really is.
-
deleted
-
I know I am.
The Dune universe is font from which one can drink forever and never run dry.
And I still think God Emperor is horrifically underrated by most...
-
deleted
-
It took me years to even begin to understand that book. Some of the people I've referred to in earlier posts seem to think that God Emperor is the best of the series, and they love Leto II.
Well, it's helpful that they explained a bunch of things about the book I hadn't understood before, but I don't agree with their assessment of how good it is.
Underrated? I guess so, given that some of the things I hate about it are things other fans like. But so much of it just consists of puny little humans cowering before Leto, daring to voice their puny little opinions, and praying that he won't have them killed... or else it's basically Leto talking to himself.
So it would seem that I really don't understand it at all, since the reader is supposed to at least understand a little of where Leto is coming from.
I'll have to see if any of my old posts from Dunenovels.com are still around. I remember having some stuff to say on this issue way back a few years ago...
Well, you can't claim Leto was heroic, exactly - in many senses, he was the bad guy. He really was, for all the reasons you cite, notwithstanding his heroic sacrifice for a heroic purpose (and you'll recall that as events built when he was nine, he saw exactly what he was going to miss in possible futures.)
God Emperor is the story of the end of the loneliest person who ever lived --- if you look at it on that level, that to a certain extent, like Steven Crane's story The Open Boat, it was boring on purpose -which is about the faintest of praise possible, I admit- you have to grant that Herbert had something there. I've enjoyed it far more on rereadings since I realized that.
It was certainly a far more carefully-crafted work with greater dramatic unity than Messiah or Children, which, for all their virtues were sloppy messes in which he frequently contradicted the far superior original. (On that level, the two reverend mother novels that followed were better works, too - they suffered from a lack of iconic, dominating characters, and nothing nearly so important being at stake, but they had consistency and dramatic unity, and were good yarns. They couldn't compete with the previous four, with BIG characters and THE FATE OF HUMANITY in the balance, yes, but taken on their own merits, were quite good.)
-
And hey! You'll like this; I just thought of yet another way the prequels are impossible and just plain wrong.
So, the version of the Baron who possessed Alia was the ancestral memory of the Baron as of the moment of the conception of Jessica, and no later, of course. At that age, already a dangerous, calculating, man with a "basso rumble" of a voice, a man of overwhelming appetites who compelled her into sleeping with (politically inexpedient) men he found attractive, and into eating until she was getting fat, despite a reverend mother's metabolic control.
This is supposed to be the same man as the crude bungler of the 'prequels' who only got fat later because Mohiam gave him a wasting disease while he raped her?
-
deleted
-
Yeah, they really dumbed-down the Bene Gesserit. Mohiam had two girls, but killed the first one because of some vague feeling, and the second was Jessica. I suppose they were going for irony there...
FH made it very clear that the Baron deliberately chose to be the way he was because he knew others would find it offensive, and he enjoyed offending people.
That was Moneo's interpretation 3,000 years later, yes, and it's probably valid as far as it goes - a self-justification the Baron used on finding himself so hugely fat he needed suspensors to walk. I don't buy that he chose to be handicapped-fat just to troll IRL, no.
-
deleted
-
The Baron was, at the very least, unapologetically self-indulgent, and he did not become as we first see him because the Bene Gesserit caused it.
Notwithstanding the thrill-seeking as a disembodied ghost possessing his killer -and he had access to Alia's recent memories, or they couldn't have interacted in real time, so he did know that, and the bad acts he coerced were no doubt partly for revenge- the Baron was more than a perverted sensualist with a mad-dog killer streak. He was more dangerous than that, and smarter, playing a long game by the age he was during Dune. Remember the meeting with Count Fafnir? His internal reaction to a threat was excitement, to hope Shaddam was dumb enough to do it, so he could beat his breast before the Lansraad, placing HIMSELF upon the throne in his own lifetime, crying all the time how he was wronged.
...He was doing it all just to make freakin' spoiled FEYD emperor someday...
-
deleted
-
Dang.
Fenring. On Gedi Prime. His wife was laying Feyd because Bene Gesseret stuff, and he was passing on some imperial pressure about the handling of the Dune/destroy Leto caper.
-
deleted
-
Yes.
Anyway, the Baron was playing a long game, and the single worst thing about movie and miniseries alike is that they seriously underestimated him. And what's an adventure fiction with a crappy villain?
(If Wonder Woman had better villains, she'd be a movie star long before this - Linda Carter made it three years on TV with no good villains but Nazis in the first season.)
-
deleted
-
Hmm. Of course the Ixians would have exterminated the entire human race if not for Leto II...
-
Dune, 50 years on: how a science fiction novel changed the world
The Guardian
Hari Kunzru Friday 3 July 2015 06.31 EDT
It has sold millions of copies, is perhaps the greatest novel in the science-fiction canon and Star Wars wouldn’t have existed without it. Frank Herbert’s Dune should endure as a politically relevant fantasy from the Age of Aquarius
(http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ea1cd013c6eb29a3356a015be5eeeedde3c4ad74/320_324_3045_1830/master/3045.jpg?w=1300&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=04227a4ec07e80d450acd4abcdc45c10)
On the desert planet... Illustration: Robert Ball/Review
In 1959, if you were walking the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, you might have encountered a burly, bearded extrovert, striding about in Ray-Ban Aviators and practical army surplus clothing. Frank Herbert, a freelance writer with a feeling for ecology, was researching a magazine story about a US Department of Agriculture programme to stabilise the shifting sands by introducing European beach grass. Pushed by strong winds off the Pacific, the dunes moved eastwards, burying everything in their path. Herbert hired a Cessna light aircraft to survey the scene from the air. “These waves [of sand] can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave … they’ve even caused deaths,” he wrote in a pitch to his agent. Above all he was intrigued by the idea that it might be possible to engineer an ecosystem, to green a hostile desert landscape.
About to turn 40, Herbert had been a working writer since the age of 19, and his fortunes had always been patchy. After a hard childhood in a small coastal community near Tacoma, Washington, where his pleasures had been fishing and messing about in boats, he’d worked for various regional newspapers in the Pacific northwest and sold short stories to magazines. He’d had a relatively easy war, serving eight months as a naval photographer before receiving a medical discharge. More recently he’d spent a weird interlude in Washington as a speechwriter for a Republican senator. There (his only significant time living on the east coast) he attended the daily Army-McCarthy hearings, watching his distant relative senator Joseph McCarthy root out communism. Herbert was a quintessential product of the libertarian culture of the Pacific coast, self-reliant and distrustful of centralised authority, yet with a mile-wide streak of utopian futurism and a concomitant willingness to experiment. He was also chronically broke. During the period he wrote Dune, his wife Beverly Ann was the main bread-winner, her own writing career sidelined by a job producing advertising copy for department stores.
Soon, Herbert’s research into dunes became research into deserts and desert cultures. It overpowered his article about the heroism of the men of the USDA (proposed title “They Stopped the Moving Sands”) and became two short SF novels, serialised in Analog Science Fact & Fiction, one of the more prestigious genre magazines. Unsatisfied, Herbert industriously reworked his two stories into a single, giant epic. The prevailing publishing wisdom of the time had it that SF readers liked their stories short. Dune (400 pages in its first hardcover edition, almost 900 in the paperback on my desk) was rejected by more than 20 houses before being accepted by Chilton, a Philadelphia operation known for trade and hobby magazines such as Motor Age, Jewelers’ Circular and the no-doubt-diverting Dry Goods Economist.
(http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-1920/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/7/3/1435918053827/35bc3fcb-cf8c-40b9-960c-3932dd6e2cf5-2060x1236.jpeg)
Kyle MacLachlan in director David Lynch’s film adaptation of Dune. Photograph: Allstar/UNIVERSAL
Though Dune won the Nebula and Hugo awards, the two most prestigious science fiction prizes, it was not an overnight commercial success. Its fanbase built through the 60s and 70s, circulating in squats, communes, labs and studios, anywhere where the idea of global transformation seemed attractive. Fifty years later it is considered by many to be the greatest novel in the SF canon, and has sold in millions around the world.
***
Dune is set in a far future, where warring noble houses are kept in line by a ruthless galactic emperor. As part of a Byzantine political intrigue, the noble duke Leto, head of the Homerically named House Atreides, is forced to move his household from their paradisiacal home planet of Caladan to the desert planet Arrakis, colloquially known as Dune. The climate on Dune is frighteningly hostile. Water is so scarce that whenever its inhabitants go outside, they must wear stillsuits, close-fitting garments that capture body moisture and recycle it for drinking.
The great enemy of House Atreides is House Harkonnen, a bunch of sybaritic no-goods who torture people for fun, and whose head, Baron Vladimir, is so obese that he has to use little anti-gravity “suspensors” as he moves around. The Harkonnens used to control Dune, which despite its awful climate and grubby desert nomad people, has incalculable strategic significance: its great southern desert is the only place in the galaxy where a fantastically valuable commodity called “melange” or “spice” is mined. Spice is a drug whose many useful properties include the induction of a kind of enhanced space-time perception in pilots of interstellar spacecraft. Without it, the entire communication and transport system of the Imperium will collapse. It is highly addictive, and has the side effect of turning the eye of the user a deep blue. Spice mining is dangerous, not just because of sandstorms and nomad attacks, but because the noise attracts giant sandworms, behemoths many hundreds of metres in length that travel through the dunes like whales through the ocean.
Have the Harkonnens really given up Dune, this source of fabulous riches? Of course not. Treachery and tragedy duly ensue, and young Paul survives a general bloodbath to go on the run in the hostile open desert, accompanied, unusually for an adventure story, by his mum. Paul is already showing signs of a kind of cosmic precociousness, and people suspect that he may even be the messiah figure foretold in ancient prophecies. His mother, Jessica, is an initiate of the great female powerbase in an otherwise patriarchal galactic order, a religious sisterhood called the Bene Gesserit. Witchy and psychically powerful, the sisters have engaged in millennia of eugenic programming, of which Paul may be the culmination.
(http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-1920/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/7/2/1435853528390/b4488937-b1c5-42ab-95a8-2414c4323615-1334x2040.jpeg)
Frank Herbert. Photograph: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images
This setup owes something to the Mars stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books, as well as the tales written by Idaho-born food chemist Elmer Edward “Doc” Smith, creator of the popular Lensman space operas of the 1940s and 50s, in which eugenically bred heroes are initiated into a “galactic patrol” of psychically enhanced supercops. For Smith, altered states of consciousness were mainly tools for the whiteous and righteous to vaporise whole solar systems of subversives, aliens and others with undesirable traits. Herbert, by contrast, was no friend of big government. He had also taken peyote and read Jung. In 1960, a sailing buddy introduced him to the Zen thinker Alan Watts, who was living on a houseboat in Sausalito. Long conversations with Watts, the main conduit by which Zen was permeating the west-coast counterculture, helped turn Herbert’s pacy adventure story into an exploration of temporality, the limits of personal identity and the mind’s relationship to the body.
Every fantasy reflects the place and time that produced it. If The Lord of the Rings is about the rise of fascism and the trauma of the second world war, and Game of Thrones, with its cynical realpolitik and cast of precarious, entrepreneurial characters is a fairytale of neoliberalism, then Dune is the paradigmatic fantasy of the Age of Aquarius. Its concerns – environmental stress, human potential, altered states of consciousness and the developing countries’ revolution against imperialism – are blended together into an era-defining vision of personal and cosmic transformation.
Books read differently as the world reforms itself around them, and the Dune of 2015 has geopolitical echoes that it didn’t in 1965, before the oil crisis and 9/11. Remember that European beach grass binding together those shifting dunes? Paul Atreides is a young white man who fulfils a persistent colonial fantasy, that of becoming a God-king to a tribal people. Herbert’s portrayal of the “Fremen” (the clue’s in the name) owes much to TE Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger’s enthusiastic portrayals of the Bedouin of Arabia’s Empty Quarter. Fremen culture is described in words liberally cribbed from Arabic. They go on “razzia” raids, wear “aba” and “bourka” robes, fear a devil called “Shaitan” and so on. They are tough, proud and relatively egalitarian. The harshness of their environment has given them an ethic of fellowship and mutual aid. They are what Kipling would have termed “one of the martial races”: absolutely to be admired, possessing none of the negative “oriental” traits – deviousness, laziness and the like. They are, however, not carbon-copy Bedouin: Herbert freely mixes elements of Zen into their belief system, and also, intriguingly, suggests that their messianic eschatology – the sense in which they were “waiting” for Paul – may have been seeded in previous millennia by the Bene Gesserit order as part of its murky eugenic plans. Herbert, whose female characters are consistently strong and active, has also ditched the strict sexual divisions of actually existing Bedouin culture. Thus Fremen women do their share of fighting and fearlessly contradict their menfolk, though there is still a fair amount of child-bearing and housework to be done while the men are off riding worms.
Dune official trailer (1984) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwPTIEWTYEI&feature=player_embedded#)
What makes Dune more palatable than, say, the gruesome spectacle of a blonde-wigged Emilia Clarke carried aloft by ethnically indeterminate brown slaves in Game of Thrones, is the sincerity of Herbert’s identification with the Fremen. They are the moral centre of the book, not an ignorant mass to be civilised. Paul does not transform them in his image, but participates in their culture and is himself transformed into the prophet Muad’Dib. If Paul is one-part Lawrence of Arabia, leading his men on to Aqaba, he is also the Mahdi. Dune glosses this word as “in the Fremen messianic legend, The One Who Will Lead Us into Paradise”. In Islamic eschatology, the honorific Mahdi has a long and complex history. Various leaders have claimed or been given it. Most Shia identify the Mahdi with the 12th or Hidden Imam, who will imminently reveal himself and redeem the world. To the British, it will always be the name of the warrior prophet who swept through the Sudan in the 1880s, killing General Gordon on the steps of the palace in Khartoum and inspiring a thousand patriotic newspaper etchings. As Paul’s destiny becomes clear to him, he begins to have visions “of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib”. If Paul accepts this future, he will be responsible for “the jihad’s bloody swords”, unleashing a nomad war machine that will up-end the corrupt and oppressive rule of the emperor Shaddam IV (good) but will kill untold billions (not so good) in the process. In 2015, the story of a white prophet leading a blue-eyed brown-skinned horde of jihadis against a ruler called Shaddam produces a weird funhouse mirror effect, as if someone has jumbled up recent history and stuck the pieces back together in a different order.
***
After Dune was published, Herbert, the consummate freelancer, kept a lot of irons in the fire. He wrote about education for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and lectured at the University of Washington. In 1972, during the American push to extricate itself from the south-east Asian quagmire, he worked in Vietnam, part of a project called “Land to the Tiller”, aimed at cutting Viet Cong recruitment by enacting land reform. He built a family home on the Olympic peninsula which he thought of as an “ecological demonstration project”. He built his own solar collector, wind plant and methane fuel generator. In a 1981 interview he described himself a “technopeasant”. As the cult of Dune took off during the 1970s, he wrote a series of increasingly convoluted sequels, following Paul’s descendants as they fulfilled the cosmic destiny of the Atreides line. Since his death in 1986, his son and another writer have produced a further 13 books.
(http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-1920/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/7/3/1435918462506/8a052f80-d3a6-45a0-abb0-c713861e7a7b-2060x1236.jpeg)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Photograph: Allstar/Lucasfilm
By rights, Dune ought to have become a big movie. An attempt by the visionary Chilean film maker Alejandro Jodorowsky to bring it to the screen became one of the great “what if” stories of SF cinema. Jodorowsky had extraordinary collaborators: visuals by Moebius and HR Giger, spaceships designed by the English illustrator Chris Foss. Orson Welles was to play Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dali the Emperor. Pink Floyd and Magma were on board to do the soundtrack. But Jodorowsky’s prog-tastic project was strangled in the crib by risk-averse Hollywood producers. After a period of film industry bloodletting, David Lynch shot a version in 1984, only for Universal to release a cut that he hated so much he had his name removed from the credits. Lynch’s film is actually much better than its terrible reputation, but Sting in a codpiece and a Toto soundtrack will never match the potential greatness of Jodorowsky’s unmade epic.
Actually, the great Dune film did get made. Its name is Star Wars. In early drafts, this story of a desert planet, an evil emperor, and a boy with a galactic destiny also included warring noble houses and a princess guarding a shipment of something called “aura spice”. All manner of borrowings from Dune litter the Star Wars universe, from the Bene Gesserit-like mental powers of the Jedi to the mining and “moisture farming” on Tattooine. Herbert knew he’d been ripped off, and thought he saw the ideas of other SF writers in Lucas’s money-spinning franchise. He and a number of colleagues formed a joke organisation called the We’re Too Big to Sue George Lucas Society.
Though in his later years he enjoyed huge success, Herbert, the man who dreamed of greening the desert, had mixed feelings about the future. In Dune, he has Kynes, the “First Planetologist of Arrakis” (and hero of the novel’s first draft) muse that “beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” Gloomy Malthusianism was much in vogue in the 1960s and 70s. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb became a runaway bestseller, predicting mass starvation unless population growth was restricted. The flip side of the green movement’s valorisation of small scale and self-reliance is an uneasy relationship with the masses, and with the idea of economic growth more generally. Herbert’s libertarian politics reinforced this worry. In Dune, Paul knows that if the desert planet is made to bloom, it will support a larger population, and the ethic of individualism will be eroded. He himself, as he is transformed from aristocrat to messiah, loses his individuality and begins to dissolve into myth, becoming part of a Jungian collective unconscious. But perhaps Herbert would take heart from the thought that history does not appear to be teleological and some long-term plans do not take on the character of destiny. Fifty years after Dune’s publication, the US Department of Agriculture is still at work on the Oregon Dunes, rooting out European beach grass, an “invasive non‑native species”. They want to return the dune processes to their natural state.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/03/dune-50-years-on-science-fiction-novel-world?CMP=share_btn_fb (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/03/dune-50-years-on-science-fiction-novel-world?CMP=share_btn_fb)
---
The video is part of the article - but vids inside quotes don't embed. All the pics enlarge upon clicking, BTW.
-
For us SMACers, there is the Brian reynolds bibliography at the end of the booklet where he gives his influences for the game.
The Martian Trilogy, of course, but also Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident". I went to the library to pick it up, it's really...fun? Strange? It's like a book about SMAC but not really: worms, drones, punishment sphere... A lot of ideas came from this.
-
It'll never entirely make sense unless you've read Destination: Void. Ship really is a God of sorts.
(I didn't think Destination: Void was very good, mind you.)
-
Surely you've seen my posts about the Saberhagen story, Vish...
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16425.0;attach=15247;image)
...But for anyone who hasn't...
Valka! Talk Dune with me! :)
-
deleted
-
I've read Bored of the Rings, but I don't think I've ever seen that one. Funny? Worthwhile?
-
For us SMACers, there is the Brian reynolds bibliography at the end of the booklet where he gives his influences for the game.
The Martian Trilogy, of course, but also Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident". I went to the library to pick it up, it's really...fun? Strange? It's like a book about SMAC but not really: worms, drones, punishment sphere... A lot of ideas came from this.
I agree after reading it last fall that many ideas do originate from that particular novel. Also, as I have mentioned before, some concepts in the game are very similiar to objects or themes in Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive. Essentially, the similiarities involve human's living in a insect type of enviroment, genetically engineered workers, and a society living almost completely underground with "security fences."
-
Herbert doesn't superficially look that way, but he's often very soft science fiction in much more of an Ursula K. LeGuin the-storys-are-about-the-people-not-the-SF sort of way, if not as obviously. Of course, how exotic conditions inform culture is a very science fictional thing to write about, and if I don't actually believe in the science handwaved or the Planet Arrakis -or Pandora- or the associated superpowers, I do believe in the Imperium and its people...
-
Since his death in 1986, his son and another writer have produced a further 13 books.
Holy crap! They're up to 13?!?! /shudder
-
I'm never going to waste another cent after the first three, so I read all the Wikipedia plot summaries. Shudder, indeed.
;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod ;nod
-
deleted
-
Then I will read the heck outta that thing should I stumble over a copy. ;b; Thanks for the recommend.
Since his death in 1986, his son and another writer have produced a further 13 books.
Holy crap! They're up to 13?!?! /shudder
They called Brian and Kevin J. writers?!?! /shudder
-
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11935073_1065591506805965_7165125211737482344_n.jpg?oh=a5ed836ee229ef9f34f216bf0ad6ed01&oe=566A6B3A)
-
deleted
-
They are water-fat off-worlders, hardly better than Harkonnens; God will not miss them.
-
I liked the miniseries better than the movie. I'm curious if anyone realizes the movie
is about religion. Specifically the three middle eastern religions.
House Harkonnen are the jews. House Atredies is Christianity and the the Fremen
are the Muslims and Paul is Mohammed.
http://baheyeldin.com/literature/arabic-and-islamic-themes-in-frank-herberts-dune.html
Theres a lexicon in the link. :)
-
deleted
-
The others are obvious, but the Harkonnens as depraved homosexual Jews is an interesting take, (with some resonance, leaving aside a bunch of issues with that- some of them that Herbert definitely intended, back in the day).
-
deleted
-
No, I'm thinking -other than the Fremen being overtly derived from Islam- on a purely symbolic level. It's not like the Atredies were given to religious expression before.
-
deleted
-
I would ask vonbach to quote the relevant parts of the novel that point to the Harkonnens either being Jewish or portraying the same role that our real-world Jews did.
What isn't it obvious? You have the Harkonnens a depraved money hungry people oppressing the freemen in their land and the Harkonnens offshoot, the Atraides. The whole thing ends in a revolution.
He's talking about Israel and the three middle eastern religions in general.
-
deleted
-
I'm seriously asking this: Point out which parts of Dune portray the Harkonnens as the Jews.
The book is about the rise of Islam and the religions in general. So the eldest house is the eldest religion
so house Harkonnen are the jews. At one point its revealed that the Atraides at an offshoot of House Harkonnen
hence Christianity. That leaves Islam with Paul as Mohammed. Never mind the whole book takes place in a sandy wasteland where a precious resource everyone needs is located. Just like the middle east and the oil there.
What did the RL Jews do that's analogous to what the Harkonnens did?
The Israelis haven't exactly been friendly to the local Arabs who's land they're on.
-
deleted
-
I ran out of "The Orville" episodes to watch this evening, so I started looking through the On Demand sci-fi catalog. Going alphabetically, I came to the 1984 version of "Dune", which I saw in the original in the theater. Has at least one "great" line by Sting: "I will kill him!" Sure you will. Love that line, have said it so often over the years and nobody knows what I'm talking about.
The Mindworms in SMAC are a sort-of Dune ripoff. As is Psi combat. That may seem dumb but... how dumb is the original material? I was reminded of this in the intro to the film. The Spice only comes from one planet? And couldn't reverse engineer any effect of this compound? Which we eventually learn is merely dead worms. Pretty crappy tech tree, wouldn't you say?
Well the film can't be completely stupid, because it has a pre-STTNG Patrick Stewart trying to cut up Paul Atreides in force shield practice. The visuals are also definitely holding up. World building is cool, "Great House" military dudes marching around and stuff. It'll be interesting to see what deficiencies this film has in the end, as I remember a lot of people over the years thinking it was kind of stupid. However I only read the first 2 Dune books a few years ago, so I never had a "hard baked" idea of how this was "supposed to" be done.
-
It was a terrible movie.
Did you see the worse David Lynch version with Virginia Madsen/Irulan at the beginning, or the less-terrible "Alan Smithee" version that begins with a little background on the Butlerian Jihad narrated over still pics?
Have you seen the two Sci Fi channel miniseries? I'd love to be able to piece together the best parts from those and the movie...
-
Did you see the worse David Lynch version with Virginia Madsen/Irulan at the beginning,
This hair chick announces how stupid the Dune tech tree is, leading me to this post.
"Yeah the universe runs on worm feces." Worthy of an Orville episode!
Have you seen the two Sci Fi channel miniseries?
I know I've seen at least 1. Thought it was decent. This movie I'm now watching, in the background because it's too much of a yawner to give undivided attention, is often "David Lynch weird" about stuff. I wouldn't call that artistically invalid per se, but it can easily make a plot harder to follow. Like thematic stuff, one starts wondering, "Why are they being weird?"
The visual design of this movie is really strong though. Great stuff for contemplating world building. Totally the opposite of the Star Wars franchise.
-
Yeah; it's mostly costumes and sets I'd use from the movie - virtually none of the actors and absolutely none of the script. The score has grown on me, too - there's nothing in either miniseries that sticks with you. I hated the electric guitars at the climax in the theater, but even that's grown on me.
Both the movie and the first miniseries had the artistic courage to portray far-future people living in a very alien culture, by our standards, in silly hats. The Battlestar Galactica remake, went in exactly the opposite direction, which I'd assert undermined the whole affair, throwing out what little was somewhat clever about the original and turning it into just a soap opera about Americans In Space, which got old in a hurry.
-
To be fair to BG, the orignial had plenty of "70s schlock" in it that wasn't worth a damn. And good bits too. This is my childhood, I say it with love. Gotta love Daggit barking around and stuff. The more recent "dark" series, I understand why they were interested in dumping tonalities of the older series. The main failing of the new one, according to a friend of mine who was following it for awhile, was that they went "character driven" somewhere in the course of it. Which was boring. I didn't watch the whole thing, only a chunk of the final season IIRC, and it didn't leave enough of an impression on me to remember one way or the other. I suppose I could play "catch up" on that. I watched a little bit of "Caprica" but then my life moved onwards and I didn't have access to a TV. "Home for the holidays" is how I end up seeing a lot of this stuff.
One of the things that bugs me about the SMAC conception of humanity's possible futures, is the degree to which they made something a "new technological breakthrough", that is already old hat even in the present day. It's good to contemplate a lot of different possible directions for the future... but I think this Dune movie, is demonstrating what an opposite authorial approach looks like. When "the future" is something other than us, and it looks rather different from now.
Meanwhile, this Baron character is a little over the top. Just sayin'.
-
The Baron in the miniseries was almost as bad --- but not quite.
-
Well the atrocity is over. I'm not sure if I feel nerve stapled or nerve gassed.
I did at least get to hear Sting's great line again... and it doesn't come off as well as I've remembered it all these years. He did have some good finger biting action in the final knife fight, didn't remember that part. The fight itself was mostly cringeworthy. In the intervening years I learned a fair amount of Russian style fighting, a lot of it standup grappling and anti-knife work, so the "shaky freeze poses" are particularly regrettable to watch. Paul's finishing move where he "bends like a reed in the wind" isn't bad though, and could actually work. As long as the other opponent is clumsy and not "live" with his knife as he's going down. It does take training to remain "live" when being thrown, so considering that Sting is a pretty big jerk, the finish is plausible. Feel like it could be the subject a MythBusters episode.
-
IIRC the plot of SMAC was consciously modeled after a different Frank Herbert book, called The Lazarus Effect or some such; Brian Reynolds said as much on a podcast c. 2011. Though the vicious factionalism of Dune itself was supposedly an inspiration.
-
Factionalism I don't have problem with... it's not as if they went all "Renaissance Great Houses" in making the SMAC fiction. The game that actually is a 100% Dune ripoff, is Emperor of the Fading Suns. I've played that a fair amount over the years but have never actually finished a game.
-
IIRC the plot of SMAC was consciously modeled after a different Frank Herbert book, called The Lazarus Effect or some such; Brian Reynolds said as much on a podcast c. 2011. Though the vicious factionalism of Dune itself was supposedly an inspiration.
The Jesus Incident
It has mind-worms and other aggressive native life, drones and punishment spheres.
I read it after finding its title at the end of the SMAC manual (in a time when games still had manuals)
-
That (The Lazarus Effect effect was next in the same series and also relevant, if water-logged, then The Jesus Incident) and there was still a little Dune, and specific inspiration for Yang came from a Saberhagen(? IIRC) story I've stumbled over - and doubtless other influences...
-
RE: thread title.
Yes.
-
Troll. ;nod
Victory, a story By Fred Saberhagen -the Berserkers and Book of Swords author- about an emissary (with a familiar name) from an interstellar government visiting a world that's had a one-sided nuclear war going for 40 years - and meets a leader with a very familiar outlook and modus operendi. This is a scan of two pages from the story, anthologized in Saberhagen: My Best.
---
I found this six years ago, but my post about it is on an old dead forum where few of you will have seen it - so I figured I'd re-post here. -But read the two pages I attach below, and tell me this didn't have everything to do with the creation of the Hive. The story's worth turning up and reading for any dedicated SMACer.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16425.0;attach=15247;image)
This pic embiggens...
-
Dune - Thug Notes Summary and Analysis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq2ztkE0eE#)
-
Started Dune The Butlerian Jihad some time ago...I am enjoying it...but I am slow reader...videogames and Star Trek take all disposable time :)
I did not make it past the first three books of the new Dune stuff - they weren't wretched on their own merits, but I do wonder what series Brian and Kevin think they were writing sequels/prequels to. It definitely wasn't the real Dune books I read, and not being nearly as good, that's impossible to overlook.
-
Brian did have access to all of his father loose texts about forgotten/less developed lore. I believe his and Kevin's work are legit and in no way hurts the original.
You can think of these new books as an expanded universe authorised fan fiction...that is easier to read then Frank's magnum opus.
I read all 6 originals and let me tell you, maybe I did a poor choice of wanting to read the english original maybe I didn't but there are pages when Paul or Leto are delving into their prescience or Franks puts some religious essay stuff that are hard to get, had to reread those paragraphs a couple of times :)
But, btw, which books did you read? The butlerian jihad books, the house of books?
There are many more indeed...The Navigators of Dune or the Mentats of Dune have enticing titles that I might be interested in whilst titles like The Winds of Dune or the whoe Caladan trilogy don't call to me so much, specially after reading the House of series...feels like a prequel inside of a prequel. But the whole butlerian jihad concept that Franks leaves without serious development in his originals always captivated me. ;nod
-
I do NOT tend to believe in those notes existing, not to question anyone's honesty - but the assumptions they proceed from are NOT the assumptions explicit on the page in Chapterhouse Dune. Those were ascended Face Dancers, not AI's impersonating, and Mirabella had WON for the Bene Gessert.
I read the House prequel books that came out first. They used some interesting ideas, and weren't terribly written, but it just wasn't compatible with actual canon. Never-happened bad fanfic someone got paid for.
The real Dune books aren't an easy read for a fluent native speaker, actually. Very densely-written stuff, even when it didn't look it.
-
"Those were ascended Face Dancers, not AI's impersonating, and Mirabella had WON for the Bene Gessert."
Please give me some more context
"They used some interesting ideas, and weren't terribly written, but it just wasn't compatible with actual canon."
Why do you think the House prequel books aren't compatible? And they need be only compatible with one book...Dune! Which is dense but it's not Heretics or Chapterhouse dense.
and btw
"The real Dune books aren't an easy read for a fluent native speaker, actually."
Thank you for that remark, really...if sometimes I come across wrongly it might be my english...so sorry in advance for that.
-
Actual site policy is that we have to be cool to y'all dirty foreigners and your terrible English. -And yours isn't that bad anyway.
Well, for example, that just wasn't the real Baron -cute idea that he used to be muscular and pretty, but that's not the problem- he was the most dangerous man alive, planning on a long generational scale to make freakin' spoiled FEYD emperor, but their Harkonnen was too inept, too often. (Their Rabban, also, was just plain stupid and obvious, which isn't quite right.)
Remember that this IS supposed to be the young Baron who was in Alia's head in Children of Dune -those memories are from when he sired Jessica- and the real Baron in her head was already fully-formed as we knew him later in life, motivated to destroy Alia, his killer. Not. compatible.
-
This is good stuff. You make some really good points about your compatibility issues:
"Well, for example, that just wasn't the real Baron -cute idea that he used to be muscular and pretty,"
Okay...but I really think the whole story on the baron was really good and made him much more vicious in my eyes than what we had from "just" Dune...the sci-fi channel Dune miniseries image of Vladimir has stuck with me so I enjoyed the rawness of the character in these prequels...I can't argue against your point, I just think the whole Mohiam "poisons" plot him and his degeneracy is too good to forgo and I'd love for Dennis to pick on the prequels
"he was the most dangerous man alive"
He's got nothing on what the Tleilaxus did...again bonus points for the books for fleshing out just how horrendous these guys are. Dune Messiah only give us a small glimpse...sure God Emperor gives some more but these books...man the fall of Ix is good stuff
"but heir Harkonnen was too inept, too often. (Their Rabban, also, was just plain stupid and obvious"
Yeah...I'll give you that...though his exchanges with is father and how these culminate in Feyd's abduction are also very good!
"Remember that this IS supposed to be the young Baron who was in Alia's head in Children of Dune -those memories are from when he sired Jessica- and the real Baron in her head was already fully-formed as we knew him later in life, motivated to destroy Alia, his killer. Not. compatible."
Well yes...you are right again...but we can speculate and believe the prequel if we want. I want:)
Always bothered me the way Alia was handed..."pray for Alia" is a thought I came to in respect for the character at the time I read Children.
-
You realize there's a terrible continuity issue at the beginning of Children of Dune? Alia was 15 in Dune Messiah. Jessica immediately sees that Alia has been engaging in forbidden manipulation of her metabolism to not age. The twins, born at the end of the previous book, are nine.
So Alia is 24.
Shall I move some posts into the Dune thread?
-
bump
-
"You realize there's a terrible continuity issue at the beginning of Children of Dune?"
I didn't notice that!
"Jessica immediately sees that Alia has been engaging in forbidden manipulation of her metabolism to not age."
That was forbidden!?
"Shall I move some posts into the Dune thread?"
Do it.
-
Done.
Yeah; think about the Bene Gesseret; they get away with lots the whole series, but pointedly do not directly grasp at power for themselves. The power behind the throne is not such a target as the butt in it. The Order didn't like Alia to begin with, a Reverend Mother outside the order, not under their influence, and they couldn't afford to have anyone advertising their powers by running around 500 years old.
Alia was maybe 16 years, at most, from having the most competent hit squads in the universe after her...
-
If not for falling to the Baron's memory...I don't think the Bene Gesserit would ever send a hit squad against Alia, which they never did.
I remember she kills herself under the protection and love of both Jessica and Paul (besides the rest of her family), as they wouldn't move against her.
And the Baron's possession never made much sense to me, I don't recall a Reverend Mother, even in Brian's expanded universe to commune with male Other Memory...they were always the souls of fallen Reverend Mothers.
The notable exception is the finished Kwisatz Haderach in Leto II that can summon Paul, but this made sense for me since he's a kind of supreme being travelling all planes of reality with is omniprescience!
-
...
"The pre-born observably tend to become adults of nasty habits." -That's close to a quote from somewhere in the real Dune corpus, and it's something of an understatement.
No, the Order would exhaust all possibilities -endless possibilities- for dealing with Alia before they sent a group of their own members as a straight-up hit squad, but if it came to that extremity, Alia was dead. Period.
-
She was an "abomination" you see, because being born with all those memories of all those lives, how could she ever Be Herself? It's Pieces of Eight on Voyager again, only decades before and from birth, and born with superpowers at that.
The tragedy was, and Alia WAS a tragedy, that she was doing really well at 15, still honing her powers, but well into developing a good individual self with decent desires and aspirations - when the Baron persona showed up.
-
"No, the Order would exhaust all possibilities -endless possibilities- for dealing with Alia before they sent a group of their own members as a straight-up hit squad, but if it came to that extremity, Alia was dead. Period."
This is within the realm of the reader's imagination but I disagree :)
The order against The Fremen plus Jessica, proto Kwisatz Haderach Paul, an about to be finished Kwisatz Haderach Leto II and a Mentat Ghola of Duncan freaking Idaho who is Ginaz swordmaster btw...
maybe if the Bene Gesserit have Miles Teg on their side for that assault maybe they would stand a chance :)
-
Well, she had powers they didn't -see the knife/poison/whatever coming- and she had the formidable Baron, who MIGHT choose to try to help her survive so he can continue to have sex and eat, or he likely would have made her walk right into traps.
(That's more or less what actually happened, not that she could see Leto coming, but the Baron knew SOMEthing deadly enough was going to show up eventually while he had a good time undermining Alia while he waited.)
It's anyone's game, really, and don't underestimate Alia, the Baron personna, or the Bene Gesserit. Leto and what was left of Paul were hardly on her side.
-
"Leto and what was left of Paul were hardly on her side."
Well I did read Children of Dune 7 or 8 years ago. Paul was indeed confronting her on religious matters...I don't remember how strongly Leto felt about the whole situation.
I must, eventually, give all the original books another read.
...
And I never gave TLotR a chance yet, started with The Hobbit (also though as nails to read and comprehend, not as dense as Dune but the english is more archaic) but haven't moved on to the main dishes yet...Dune beckons and I bought the full Butlerian trilogy in one go:)
...
On the matter of Alia Lynch was good to her, Dennis, except for the prescient image Paul got of her, not so much...I also expected post credits scene (à la MCU) of someone or something retrieving the remains of Idaho...not that books gives us that, we go into Messiah and bam! here's Duncan!...but I expected Dennis to give us that!
-
Oh, she did have Hayt on her side - a hypothetical hit squad would have had to kill the Idaho ghola.
As I said of the miniseries quite a few years ago, Pre-born abominations are full of charm and win.
Loved the Alia actress, loved James MacAvoy in the first thing I ever saw him in, loved the Ghanima actress and the excellent chemistry between the twins onscreen.
-
I watched the series fairly recently in the 4 years in between TOS and TNG and Space 1999 but I remember so little besides the fact I liked it. I can still remember the ball scene the Atreides gave on their new Arrakis homestead and the somewhat silly malicious Baron produced by the show. I was thinking of rewatching DS9 after finishing Disco Trek but my wife became a fan of Dune thanks to the Dennis movie...I should take the chance and further that new trait of her.
Has anyone watched the new Sister's show?
-
I have not, not really aware it was a thing - I think I saw one post on Facebook maybe a year ago? Doesn't seem to have drawn attention, so probably not good? -Or terrible?
That was still terrible Baron in the miniseries, just not as terrible as the 86 movie. Think of Vincent D'Onofrio's TV Kingpin -or better, the actual late 70s Frank Miller Daredevil comics- and THERE'S the Baron done right. I do not know of the latest movies, though Buster's Daddy says they're great.
(I've worked with Vincent D'Onofrio's dad, Gene, who's a friend...)
-
"(I've worked with Vincent D'Onofrio's dad, Gene, who's a friend...)"
Must have been good stuff!
Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin was a thing of majesty...soo good they had to bring him back for Daredevil's season 3, if I remember correctly.
All his interactions with both the hero, his girlfriend his bff...that was some good acting and some great writing.
And my first memory of Vincent is from Men In Black, picked that movie from the last VHS renter I've ever known many times.
The fact that the small quiosque that housed this business was a short way from home is just a coincidence. ;lol
This new Baron is kindda too much different from all previous incarnations that were ever on screen...well him and all of the Harkonen actually...even Giedi Prime looks off. But after digesting Denis Villeneuve's magnum opus I get what he was aiming at. An aesthetic cohesion that I am unsure the books ever properly hinted.
I remember, wrongly perhaps, that both Lynch's work and the miniseries seem to have a somewhat similar look but I don't know if that was pulled from the book or if both director's Jonh Harrison and Greg Yaitanes were just following the footsteps of the 1984 (went to Dune wiki for this and it mentions 1984 release not 1986) visually exotic adaptation.
You will, probably, like me make everyone around you uncomfortable while watching Denis Villeneuve's Dune because you won't shut up about perceived inaccuracies ;lol
But I think you will find the 2021 movie well worth of your time. I can feel Villeneuve's likes the source material but he knew he had to make something feel fresh to draw audiences in and he successfully gave it an epic aura that I think we both believe Dune deserves. He did really well by Dune fans taking the risk of dividing the adaptation into two parts.
And let me tell you the kid really plays a convincing Paul...Chani was hard for me at first, but then I remember the Fremen were not that welcoming to Paul and Jessica at first, Stilgar is also good...and the off putting Baron is played by a very sinister Stellan Skarsgård.
My biggest gripe is with Liet Kynes, they DEId him into a black woman and it's not like she doesn't play the part well, but going from Max Von Sidow to her seem like a huge downgrade and worst of it is that it completely fudges his background story in the prequels...which the new series are already exploring, though not the House of books but the Navigators, Mentats trilogy...from what I've read.
Again, it's aesthetic is vastly different from Lynch, a bit toned down on the exotic but still very off putting (as people from a many millenniums farther into the future in a imperium should be off putting to us living in this reality) and pleasing. Oh and the technology looks awesome, the most striking are the Ornithopters!
This is being said I still regard Lynch's adaptation really good, I am used to tell people it mimicks somewhat accuratly about 75% of the book...Those last 20 minutes or so drop the ball. But man that Navigator entrance into the Golden throne hall, Sting's Feyd-Rautha, Mohiam performing the box test, they still strike has awesome scenes without parallell!
-
I wouldn't wish having to follow Max von Sydow in a part on anyone...
-
My sister has always said the 86 movie did the first third of the book well enough, but dropped the heck outta the ball on the rest - I agree.
All the Lynch inventions showed no understanding of the source. Always watch the edited for TV version, "Directed by Alan Smitee", never the theatrical release - Smithee has a fraction of the reptations of the 'SLEEPER MUST AWAKEN' sequence, and other missteps and Lynch weidrness-to-be-wierd.
-
I agree with your sister, 75% of the book was probably being too generous on my part. You can't pack that dense book into one feature film and call it done. I am now rewatching the Dune Miniseries with the missus (she's enjoying :)) and I really get that Dune can't be compressed without losing too much. Only the miniseries tries to do Paul's visions justice!
-
Hmmm. What about, instead of space Islam, Dune w/ the Fremen are space Mormons?
-
My perception of Mormons is that they are orderly peaceful folks. I just finished rewatching the end of part1 Dune miniseries last night to be reminded again just how fanatical and unruly the Fremen are...beyond even radical extremes of Islam, they were attempting/challenging on Paul's life even as they express their fervour for their mah'di. They remind me of the Terran empire from ST mirror universe.
-
I felt like the first part of Villaneuve Dune was perfectly serviceable, downright good in parts. About as good as a Dune adaptation could be in today's movie industry, with certain parts deliberately sanded off (not that I miss the Baron being a pederast, but the Fremen are somewhat generic now). The second part ... eugghhh. Kinda butchers the plot. The religion angle loses all subtlety, and only some of the Fremen actually believe in Paul, specifically the dumb fanatics. Chani is a skeptic because Hollywood cannot fathom a sympathetic but devoutly religious character. Can't even be mistaken in your beliefs but still likeable. Bardem's compelling performance from the first part gets flattened into a sweaty illogical moron.
Also, Chalomet is not particularly good as Paul; as my wife notes, the kid has a very obvious cell-phone slouch, and he's playing someone with perfect kinesthetic control training. Hard to buy him as a physical fighter, either. Zendaya is ... Zendaya. I don't get the appeal, but she doesn't bug me either. She's just a kind of boring actress.
On the plus side, the black-and-white Giedi Prime is cool.
Templates: 1:
Printpage (default).
Sub templates: 4:
init,
print_above,
main,
print_below.
Language files: 4:
index+Modifications.english (default),
TopicRating/.english (default),
PortaMx/PortaMx.english (default),
OharaYTEmbed.english (default).
Style sheets: 0:
.
Files included: 31 - 841KB. (
show/mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./index.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Settings.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/QueryString.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Errors.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Load.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Security.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-Db-mysql.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMxLoader.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMx.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMxIntegrate.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/SubsCache.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/LoadData.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/SubsCompat.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-UsersOnlineToday.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/shop2/ShopHooks.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-BBCodeWithStyle.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-FancyPosts.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-TeamPage.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Subs-TopicRating.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/OharaYTEmbed.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/languages/index.english.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/languages/Modifications.english.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/languages/TopicRating/.english.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/languages/PortaMx/PortaMx.english.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/PortaMx/Class/System/PortaMx_BlocksClass.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./SSI.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Printpage.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/Printpage.template.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Sources/Aeva-Embed.php, /mnt/volume_nyc1_01/ac2./Themes/default/languages/OharaYTEmbed.english.php)
Queries used: 14.
[Show Queries]