Dune
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From the other “what are you watching thread”.
In short, I don’t know how anyone can watch that movie without subtitles, so many original terms and hard to hear.
———-In addition, I feel like I’ve scratched the surface of a much much larger story. Similar feeling when I watched LOTR.
This is the third (completed) attempt to put Dune on the screen. David Lynch's was the first version and it is universally hated - or loved.
What didn't come thru in the first half of the movie is that this is all politics, with the Emperor pulling the strings behind all the machinations. Hopefully that'll become apparent in the 2nd half (Christopher Walken!).
And yeah, it's all part of a huge story that goes back at least a thousand years before "Dune." The rivalry of House Atreides and House Harkonnen, the origin of the Spacing Guild, the Bene Geserit Sisterhood, the Mentats....all that stuff predates the movies.
After Frank Herbert died (having completed Dune and five (6?) sequels, his son, Brian, undertook an effort to flesh out the story with a dozen or more prequel stories. They're much easier reads than Dune, but they explain how everything got to be the way it was.
I've enjoyed the "before Dune" books.
tl;dr version: Intelligent Machines are evil, and humanity cannot allow them to control ANYTHING. The various factions of humanity evolved to fill the needs of intelligent machines (The Mentats and the Spacing Guild).
After Frank Herbert died (having completed Dune and five (6?) sequels, his son, Brian, undertook an effort to flesh out the story with a dozen or more prequel stories. They're much easier reads than Dune, but they explain how everything got to be the way it was.
He also wrote a couple of graphic novels for Dune, broken up into two books.
What's cool about those is that he knows what Dune is supposed to look like, so in a way, they're about the most authentic visual representations of the story you can find. (Although the most recent movie gets it just as close in my opinion.)
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What I enjoyed about the "prequels" written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson is the "origin" stories. As I mentioned, why do the Harkonnens hate the Atreides so much? They explain how Erasmus, the most powerful "thinking" machine took a human under his "wing" and helped him develop superior thinking skills, becoming the first Mentat. How spice is SO addictive, and imparts the ability to forsee the future, enabling FTL navigation. Until then, FTL was possible, but by might end up in the middle of a star. Spice changed that.
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What I enjoyed about the "prequels" written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson is the "origin" stories. As I mentioned, why do the Harkonnens hate the Atreides so much? They explain how Erasmus, the most powerful "thinking" machine took a human under his "wing" and helped him develop superior thinking skills, becoming the first Mentat. How spice is SO addictive, and imparts the ability to forsee the future, enabling FTL navigation. Until then, FTL was possible, but by might end up in the middle of a star. Spice changed that.
What I enjoyed about the "prequels" written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson is the "origin" stories. As I mentioned, why do the Harkonnens hate the Atreides so much? They explain how Erasmus, the most powerful "thinking" machine took a human under his "wing" and helped him develop superior thinking skills, becoming the first Mentat. How spice is SO addictive, and imparts the ability to forsee the future, enabling FTL navigation. Until then, FTL was possible, but by might end up in the middle of a star. Spice changed that.
As well as the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, the Fremen, and more. It was especially interesting to see how some of the larger elements to Dune had much more mundane beginnings but through the centuries would wind up being twisted, changed, and almost unrecognizable in the days of Paul Atreides.
The one thing that really made the whole thing work, though? They didn’t try to write in Herbert’s unique voice. They wrote in their own. You could read the Butlerian Jihad storyline as it’s own unique Sci-Fi series and without having a few familiar names, you wouldn’t realize it was connected until the end.
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Yup. The prequel books get a lot of hate on the FB Dune-fan groups, but I found them entertaining and informative. They stand alone, and should not be compared to Herbert's work, other than living in the same "universe."
I really enjoyed BUtlerian Jihad, btw.
And yeah, "The Free Men of Arrakis."
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I think the fan groups dislike the prequels because of the sequels and the ending. Most seem to doubt that Frank really envisioned that.
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Critical Drinker reviews part 2
Link to video -
I hate to say it, but I’ve not watched either yet…
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I hate to say it, but I’ve not watched either yet…
@LuFins-Dad said in Dune:
I hate to say it, but I’ve not watched either yet…
Bro WTF.
Use your PTO do whatever you have to do!
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Seen on FB:
Best moment of the movie for me:
When the movie ends and the guy sitting next to me in the theater yells "Wait. he's the bad guy?" -
Seen on FB:
Best moment of the movie for me:
When the movie ends and the guy sitting next to me in the theater yells "Wait. he's the bad guy?" -
Denis Villeneuve on his decision to make Chani more adversarial towards Paul. I think it makes sense because so many people miss the point and interpret Paul’s character as being a hero and he definitely isn’t. I like the changes that show conflict within Paul’s own inner circle, starting with his lover, to highlight that point. It creates an aura of healthy skepticism about this messiah.
Here’s DV’s take:
“When Frank Herbert wrote Dune , when the book came out, I think he was disappointed. There was something about the fact that Paul was seen as a hero that he didn’t like. For [Herbert], the book was a warning about charismatic leaders and he wanted Paul to be more perceived as a dark figure.”
“Frank Herbert didn’t want to do a white savior story. He wanted to do the opposite. In order to achieve that, I made sure that in Paul’s dramatic arc and the story, that all the elements were there, I just played with them a bit differently. At the end of the movie, you see that Paul made choices that in order to protect some people, he will become what he was trying to fight against.”
“It’s very tragic [that he will] lose everything and betray the people he loved. The movie is structured on the love story between Paul and Chani. The idea was to make sure that we will unfold Paul’s story through this relationship, and that the very specific [turning point of] Paul will be seen roughly more from the perspective of Chani. And that is a very important shift. I changed the nature of Chani’s character to create a perspective that I hope Frank Herbert will agree with in order to achieve his goal.”
Lol he literally recolonized an already colonized planet but just colonized harder then recolonized the rest of space and the fruits of those labors produced a man-worm god-tyrant who one ups his Messiah daddy in the colonizer category. White dude moves to planet. Falls for occupied native populations princess equivalent. Uses her and her family to overthrow the current oppressors to poise himself to step into that role.i mean... He IS kinda bad news bears...
I haven't read any of the sequels to Dune since...1981, I believe.
Gonna have to queue them up.
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Oh, FFS. That whole thing just made me not want to see either of the damn movies. Yeah, Paul wasn’t a hero. Yeah he made frigging dark choices, but couldn’t make the darkest choice since he wasn’t the real kwisatz haderach, but neither was he a villain, nor was Leto.
But the colonization shit? FFS.
I want my hand to colonize the back of his head.
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From the other “what are you watching thread”.
Never read the books, but it seems to be a common number one all-time sci-fi listing.
In short, I don’t know how anyone can watch that movie without subtitles, so many original terms and hard to hear. Otherwise I enjoyed the production quality and emersion into that world. Good music, visuals… I feel like I got dropped into an epic sci fi tale without knowing the previous context or the eventual future, but I heard Dune 2 is beyond impressive.
———-
In addition, I feel like I’ve scratched the surface of a much much larger story. Similar feeling when I watched LOTR.
From the other “what are you watching thread”.
Never read the books, but it seems to be a common number one all-time sci-fi listing.
In short, I don’t know how anyone can watch that movie without subtitles, so many original terms and hard to hear. Otherwise I enjoyed the production quality and emersion into that world. Good music, visuals… I feel like I got dropped into an epic sci fi tale without knowing the previous context or the eventual future, but I heard Dune 2 is beyond impressive.
———-
In addition, I feel like I’ve scratched the surface of a much much larger story. Similar feeling when I watched LOTR.
Watched Dune 2 last night. I'd say better than the first one, but similar... really enjoyed the immersive experience, I still feel like I'm scratching the surface of a much larger story, good sci-fi feel (visuals, music).
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From the other “what are you watching thread”.
Never read the books, but it seems to be a common number one all-time sci-fi listing.
In short, I don’t know how anyone can watch that movie without subtitles, so many original terms and hard to hear. Otherwise I enjoyed the production quality and emersion into that world. Good music, visuals… I feel like I got dropped into an epic sci fi tale without knowing the previous context or the eventual future, but I heard Dune 2 is beyond impressive.
———-
In addition, I feel like I’ve scratched the surface of a much much larger story. Similar feeling when I watched LOTR.
Watched Dune 2 last night. I'd say better than the first one, but similar... really enjoyed the immersive experience, I still feel like I'm scratching the surface of a much larger story, good sci-fi feel (visuals, music).
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I was a little surprised the ending of the movie didn't really wrap things up... I guess a 3rd movie is in the works.
I was a little surprised the ending of the movie didn't really wrap things up... I guess a 3rd movie is in the works.
Yes, there's a lot more to come - I wonder how they'll wrap it up. In another thread I bitched about a series of books I'm reading in which each book doesn't have an ending.
Dune is sort of like that, but more satisfying. Paul marries Princess Irulan. Chani becomes his concubine, with whom he has children. He goes on to become a messianic figure, encouraged by the Fremen ("Free men of Arrakis") with interesting consequences.
Like I said, I've not read all of Herbert's sequels. From what I've heard, they tend to get...weird. REALLY weird.
Though the prequels co-written by his son Brian and Kevin Anderson get a lot of shade thrown on them, I've enjoyed them for some hard SF. I enjoyed the Harkonnen story, and how the house fell from honor to disgrace - the origin of the Harkonnen/Atreides feud. They explain why humans have such an aversion to "thinking machines."
The upcoming series, "Dune: Prophecy" coming in November should be interesting. It should give a lot of backstory. It's set 10,000 years before Dune.
Looking at the cast, you'll see names like Harkonnen, Corrino, Atreides....
