"Dune?" Topic

I just saw the trailer for the new Dune. It looks amazing, but, there is a scene of a big battle showing the Fremen in full armor. I don't recall that being the case.

It's Paul's visions of his jihad, wearing his golden armour.

Trying hard not to get hopes up, but that was a damn fine trailer.

Looked like they all had armor on.

I thought the 1984 movie was fantastic. It prompted me to read the books.

I also thought the 1984 movie was fantastic, and I had read the first book a few years before.

Top notch production design, but the weirding modules were a strange plot device. Guess "space arab death ninjas" didn't float the producers boat!

I always thought the 1984 movie was just plain silly.
My favorite scene had the cast of the Prisoner of Zenda recreating the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the Empire State Building.
I never had much use for the book either.

I want to like this. I hope I am not disappointed, but Paul looks like he'd lose a fist fight with a paper bag and Chani looks like she just stopped by after hanging at the mall.

I really want to like it, though.

Leto looks great, as does the Harkonnen played by Dave Bautista.

I too have a soft spot for the 1984 film- silliness and all. The casting in that movie was amazing- even Sting, though the Sardukar were pretty silly.

I thought the 1984 movie was good and the SciFi production was OK. The book might be the most read book in my collection. Herbert's warning on being energy dependent, dealing with tribal cultures, and avoiding religious/political fanaticism is still relevant 70 years later. I'm hoping the IP gets a bit of a facelift with this new version and endures another generation or two.

I went to the movie back in 1984. I thought it was great, the guy I went with who had read the book thought it was garbage…

Read the first few books, loved them. The later ones I didn't enjoy so much. The 1984 film was a bit camp but, I thought, very enjoyable.

I preferred the miniseries version, though the 1984 movie was enjoyable (if a bit silly at times).
Like Tgerritsen, I want to like it, but I'm not holding my breath.

I also liked the 1984 version. It had a sort of steam punk style look to it. I thought the Baron character was well played also.
I am looking forward to this latest version.

I just want to see the ornithopters.

I liked the look of the ‘84 sets and Imperial costumes… and that's about it. Otherwise, I thought it was an over-the-top, grotesque mess. And sorry, but Sting was horrible— the man can sing, but he sure as hell can't act.

I'm hoping this one will be good; the look at least seems right.

IIRC David Lynch on the set of his Dune laughed that he hadn't read the novel. He read a plot summary and then did his own thing. Remember, he wrote and directed it.

This is the second trailer to drop. I'm hopeful, but man it looks like a teen date night movie with some action.

On an upside, I got the Dune Imperium board game. It's fantastic.

I liked the TV show Dune.

I have low hopes for this one. What I've seen and read about this movie should be a great but Warner Brothers have killed any chance of success. With Warner Brothers as the distributer, releasing in theaters and HBO Max same day no-way will they make enough money for Legendary Entertainment to film part 2 of the book.

Legendary's plan was for 4 movies(2 for Dune and 1 each for Children & God Emperor)

Oh on a weird side note just to say how poorly run Warner Brothers is… They decided the next Game of Thrones on HBO Max will be a Dune Prequel "Dune-Sisterhood".

Well, Frank Herbert based "Dune" on "Sabres of Paradise", Lesley Blanch's history of Russia's mid-19th century conquest of the Caucasus. They were both good books; I read "Dune" first and didn't read "Sabres of Paradise" until several years later and finally realized how a hack writer like Herbert could write something so far beyond his talents as "Dune".

The 1984 movie wasn't entirely crap but "Dune" provided little but the title and the characters' names.

I have no hope for the next movie but if it is better than the two last books in the series I'll be satisfied.

Edit: I watched the trailer and it looks way better than the 1984 movie.

LT

LT, thanks for the timely reminder that Herbert "borrowed" the plot of "Dune" from Ms. Blanch. For those not familiar with this footnote to literature, here's the Secret History of "Dune":

link

And here I thought that all he ripped off was Anna Comnena.

finally realized how a hack writer like Herbert could write something so far beyond his talents as "Dune"

What a load of garbage. He wrote Dune, one of the most acclaimed science fiction novels of the 20th century. I can't see how anyone can justify calling him a "hack." And since he wrote it, it by definition wasn't "beyond his talents."
That he borrowed from other sources is hardly surprising— that's exactly what great writers do. Twain did. Tolkien did. Defoe did. Shakespeare did. To take material from a source and craft it into something else— and sometimes you catch the lightning and produce something incredible.

But even the article acknowledges that the story and setting of Dune go far beyond the source work. A handful of terms and altered lines is *not* the entirety of a novel, by any means. Inspiration sometimes is exactly that— inspiration— that which sparks a thing, not the thing itself.

So I do not understand the impulse to kick the man or degrade his ability or his talent. If it's a great work, then the author is a great writer.

I remember reading a movie review of Dune in the local newspaper back in 1984. The critic praised the book and bashed the movie; saying one scene was so stupid that had a character with a fake tooth that allowed him to exhale poison gas. She thought the scene silly; and yet when I later read the book it seemed to me that the scene in the movie matched the book. It was in vogue among movie critics at the time to bash the movie while praising the book. (I think many actually never read the book)

The biggest difference between movie and book is that the movie ends in such a way that there can be no sequel whereas the book has a sequel. The movie ends with Paul becoming a god like being who makes it rain on Arakis. Movie or book, one of the most imaginative pieces of science fiction ever written.

Parzival, I agree. Herbert wrote some very subtle and clever stories in his time with no more "hack" output than, say, Dickson, Asimov or Zelazny in most people's estimation. "Santaroga Barrier", "Hellstrom's Hive" and the short stories "Murder Will In" and "Try To Remember" are still influential.

If I don't like a writer, I can call him whatever I want.
Heck, I don't like St Asimov either.

As for the movie…
As soon as I paid for my ticket, I was given a mimeographed sheet of paper explaining who the various dramatis personnae were.
"Hi. I'm the Shadout Mapes. Stick your hand in here. OK. Goodbye."
Sorry. It was silly through and through.

Never said you couldn't call anyone whatever you want. Just said that the weight of evidence would be against you being correct. But it's all a matter of taste. I think REH's work is overblown and over-the-top, and Lovecraft's work is, upon examination, largely absurd. And I can back that opinion up with evidence. But others appreciate their work, and certainly their characters and settings are iconic, and there are times when a writer's imagination is greater than his word skill— Clancy and most popular series authors fit this bill.

Dune, the novel, isn't to everyone's taste. I like it, and consider it a classic, but it's not my favorite science fiction work by any means, nor is Herbert my favorite writer— and I don't much care for the rest of the series which he wrote (and never read anything beyond Dune Messiah, which I thought stretched the bounds of credulity to an absurd degree). But is he a great writer? Yes, even if Dune were the only thing he had produced, and even if, in the end, it wasn't to my taste. Hey, I don't like Faulkner or James Joyce, but I'm never gonna say they were "hacks—" because the evidence would prove me wrong.

I didn't like Dune Messiah either. I read it just after reading Dune and was expecting more of the same. It wasn't until a decade later that I came across God Emperor of Dune in a library and decided to read it. I thought it was great and completely different then it's predecessors. It takes place far into the future from the first three novels in the series. I also like Heretics of Dune.

What a load of garbage. He wrote Dune, one of the most acclaimed science fiction novels of the 20th century.

An exceptional science fiction novel of the 20th century and living on into the 21st as well. Also one of my favorite books, although I can't say that for the later books in the series.

My argument is that Frank Herbert gets credit for writing the book but he used work of another author, some of it word for word, and did not acknowledge it. I don't think he could have written "Dune" by himself without using "Sabres of Paradise".

As for his being a hack-writer that may be harsh. My opinion is that "White Plague" was good but did think the other Herbert books I read weren't worth all the trees that died to make them. That's my opinion and I'm stickin' to it.

Of course his son's are worse but that's another argument complete.

LT

Yea, I actually read "Sabres of Paradise"; and from what I remember it was about Chechnya's long struggle against Tsarist Russia. Completely non-fiction. I don't recall any similarities to to Dune.

Read it again. They're there by the dozen, starting with the plot.

LT

While I'm sure Herbert used a lot of sources, the basic plot is far closer to "Seven Pillars of Wisdom". (A "westerner" and outsider leads local tribal Muslim-like guerillas against an oppressive empire.) Some of the word similarities mentioned in the links farther above are also general throughout the Middle East. For example, padishah or padeshah, sardar/sirdar/siridar (a British official position in Egypt was even called sirdar), kindjal came from a Persian root word, etc.

Gentlemen, I regret* to say that the heat index in Orleans Parish, which dropped to 109F today (yes, I said "dropped")is forecast to drop into the 90s tomorrow and my alligators will probably be out and about in the Barataria Preserve of Jean Lafitte National Park. This means that I have to leave this fascinating conversation to do something I actually enjoy. Please don't feel insulted; the American alligator (alligator mississippiensis) just interests me more than homo sapiens.

LT

* like hell I do.