Dune
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It's a magical first book but Herbert is apparently one of those people who had one good book in him. That's one more than the vast majority of us, of course.
I'm finishing off the last of the "Legends of Dune" trilogy: The Battle of Corrin.
It's set thousands of years before the events in "Dune" and explains a lot of the backstory of the Atreides and Harkonnen houses. The development of Mentats and Guild Navigators are major themes, as well as the quasi-religious aspects of the Orange Catholic Bible, the Bene Gesserit, etc.
If you have the inclination, take a look at this trilogy. It's not as "ethereal" as "Dune," and it's really hard, hard science fiction. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
I enjoyed them quite a bit, too.
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First trailer for part 2:
Link to video"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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From the other āwhat are you watching threadā.
Never read the books, but it seems to be a common number one all-time sci-fi listing.
In short, I donāt 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, visualsā¦ 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.
āāā-
In addition, I feel like Iāve scratched the surface of a much much larger story. Similar feeling when I watched LOTR.
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From the other āwhat are you watching threadā.
In short, I donāt know how anyone can watch that movie without subtitles, so many original terms and hard to hear.
āāā-In addition, I feel like Iāve 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).
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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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.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
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 didnāt try to write in Herbertās unique voice. They wrote in their own. You could read the Butlerian Jihad storyline as itās own unique Sci-Fi series and without having a few familiar names, you wouldnāt 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 Iāve not watched either yetā¦
Me/rry/Christmas
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@LuFins-Dad said in Dune:
I hate to say it, but Iāve not watched either yetā¦
Bro WTF.
Use your PTO do whatever you have to do!
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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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 Paulās character as being a hero and he definitely isnāt. I like the changes that show conflict within Paulās own inner circle, starting with his lover, to highlight that point. It creates an aura of healthy skepticism about this messiah.
Hereās DVās take:
āWhen 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 didnāt like. For [Herbert], the book was a warning about charismatic leaders and he wanted Paul to be more perceived as a dark figure.ā
āFrank Herbert didnāt want to do a white savior story. He wanted to do the opposite. In order to achieve that, I made sure that in Paulās 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.ā
āItās 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 Paulās 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 Chaniās character to create a perspective that I hope Frank Herbert will agree with in order to achieve his goal.āļæ¼
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.
