Bump.
So who has seen it now? Thoughts? I thought the FMA being the fighting style of the Atreides was interesting.
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I was not that happy with it. Much more faithful than the Lynch one, but I think it goes overboard on the somber, ponderous, slowness… It makes Lynch look like Michael Bay. Even Caladan is dreary and dark and desolate just cold instead of hot like Arrakis. These are different planets with different cultures even if under the dominant Corrino empire, so I think the banning of color and similar stark brutalist design sense in all of them is pretty monotonous and uninteresting.
Also, I think Ferguson as Jessica is the worst take I have seen as the character, lacking much of the strength and bearing of the Lynch version or even worse, of the book version. She seemed weak and small and about to cry all throughout the movie even when she was supposed to be badass. I think she did not want to appear too much like the MissionImpossible character but Jessica IS BADASS. (One of my favorites in the book, now badly served). She does not even look as pretty as I have seen Ferguson elsewhere.
It basically bored me despite some impressive aspects.
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One of the things this version did explicitly that the previous versions avoided, was to directly mention that the BeeGees had deliberately seeded prophecies about the Quiznoz Hatterack, which narratively, undermines the overdone “chosen one” trope.
I rather enjoyed that. It thumbs its nose at every film that followed in the book’s wake which relied on that narrative, including The Matrix, and the original Dune ripi-off, Star Wars.
Dune is to Star Wars what filet and Scotch are to chicken nuggets and chocolate milk; I’m glad culture has grown up to the point where we’re demanding more grown-up Science Fiction.
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Star Wars is not science fiction.
It’s a Space Western Fantasy.
And only the original Star Wars movie was worth watching.
The rest were absolute crap.
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Herbert pretty much copy & pasted the life story of Ibn Saud too.
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Star Wars is literally a pulp-quality rip-off of Dune, which was barely SciFi itself, per the author’s intent.
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That Chosen One nonsense whose deconstruction was one of the more obvious themes of the book was what irritated me the most in the Lynch version, with its “rain on the desert” nonsense, which also would have actually killed the worms the Freemen rode in to the attack of Arrakeen.
It was a failure to conveny the core of the book of an even worse degree that the whole sonic-weapon technology, as I did understand that the whole advance BG physical training edge was harder to get across a limited time movie, even if it was part of the whole core slant of advanced human state that the book explored thru training, eugenics and all that. I think one of the more interesting things the book did was to use the whole no-advanced-AI/computers cultural elements to both create an universe that justified that whole advanced-humanity thrust AND a pulp adventure ostensible plot that justified the use of actual hand-to-hand martial arts thru the effects of personal force-fields with low kinetic thresholds and the like.
But the deconstruction of the mesiah archetype, particularly in the later books, was perhaps the most important aspect of Herbert’s themes, and the new movie does indeed retain it to its credit, even if still gives it lip service. But then, Herbert did play as well the whole have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too angle in his original narrative.
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Dune was one the new crop of serious SF that shifted its concerns to the effects of social sciences and/or social effects of the new technological age, as opposed to being mere trinket-based pulp, but its strength was in melding a strong pulp-ish adventure plot of dynastic succession/rebellion/revenge to slip its deconstruction underneath to suggest that maybe that whole superhero leader archetype may not be for the best of humanity’s interests.
I thought the first Dune book was interesting.
Been decades since I read the books, and I am not sure I read through all of the them.
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I really enjoy reading your analysis of Dune. I never read the book. I tried several times (my Mom was huge fan of it), and I’ve read a LOT of SciFi fantasy stuff over the decades.
I find your analysis to be deep and meaningful. Unlike the meme/pop culture based “analysis” of some other folks who post here about Dune.
But at least those folks are consistent! Gotta be consistent!
Memes it is!
Brilliant!
But, dude, you gotta add some memes and obscure pop-culture references you copied and pasted from Twitter!
God Emperor is good. Read up to there and stop.
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Well, it has taken over half a century for larger culture to finally feature the SF that spread in books of the 60s as opposed to the simpler raygun/alien shennanigans of the early 20th century. I don’t know how encouraging that is about us.
I have no idea how seriously the Foundation series will take up Asimov’s themes about history, sociology and human nature. That one has less of an adventure/revenge/sex-trained-ninja-nuns edge like DUNE.
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Yet another keen analysis. The Foundation Trilogy I’ve read, more than once, but it’s been a while.
With names like Elijah and Ben, well, how racy can it get?
Although some of the stuff about one or two humans living on an entire planet and their whole social life thing is interesting.
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I had always read up to Children of Dune, considering it the core of the larger story, but with the coming of the movies I decided to give a chance to the other Herbert books. I did read God Emperor, which was pretty interesting, too, even if much of it was in some sense an elaboration of what was suggested in the previous one. Currently on Heretics.
I did make the mistake of reading one of the prequel books by Herbert’s son, and, oh, boy, was that a mistake.
Glad you liked the commentary! I have no one with whom to talk SF around here, so I worry about going overboard a bit when I do.
WEll, you don’t really have anyone here of you caliber, either.
Please continue, though. .
I always thought DUNE in particular may be a book of interest to martial arts fans, not just because it found a way to rationalize in a futuristic setting a way to make hand to hand martial arts important, but also because it makes the ahead of its time argument that even hand to hand combat tactics would be affected by the changes in “rule-set” created by personal force fields, and then, by a shift to a planet where shields could not be used, resulting in necessary adjustments because “you fight as you trained”. That assertion that the set conditions of the fight determined the style of fighting was something pretty surprising coming from someone who was not someone with experience in that field, I felt. Herbert even had the bad guys take advantage of disposable slaves to allow for to-death training because that gave them an edge against those with compliant training. And this was in the 60s!
I compare it with the nonsense in other SF books of the time, which seemed caught up in the same mystical warrior nonsense as Hollywood, even in the Dorsai books of Gordon Dickson. In his THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, you had a scene where some guy attacks the highly-trained lead character, who throws his assailant around, but has trouble with him getting up and attacking again, because he was too much with DA DEADLYZ to stop his foe without seriously damaging him (groan), YET pages later, the lead himself is put in a rear choke by someone else and quickly put to sleep, so the author could not even keep it consistent.
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