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The Lounge => Media and Inspiration => Topic started by: Trond on October 24, 2021, 12:20:44 AM

Title: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 24, 2021, 12:20:44 AM
Well….. that was pretty darn good actually. Very respectful to the novel. Reports that it had been made politically correct or “Hollywoodized” are highly exaggerated. Cinematography, how do I put this; fantastic. the cinematography was some of the best I’ve ever seen.

My only concern is that it was much easier to follow for me, who read the book years ago, but my wife and her friend often looked bewildered, though they enjoyed the special effects and all.  So maybe it’s mostly good for the fans? 🤔

What do you think?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on October 24, 2021, 06:10:26 AM
https://www.therpgsite.com/media-inspiration/duneneuve-novel-spoilers!/

I've had a day to process.
I think it looked great, the acting, aside from a few standouts, was weak. Especially Paul and Jessica, who had to carry the second half of the movie, and IMO didn't manage it.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on October 24, 2021, 12:21:48 PM
Reports that it had been made politically correct or “Hollywoodized” are highly exaggerated.

Considering the book is already a leftist fairy tale, it doesn't take too much additional political correctness to push it over the top. Like adding hot sauce to hot wings.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Starglyte on October 24, 2021, 12:23:30 PM
The movie was long but did not feel long to me. I thought it was faithful to the book (though I have not read Dune in years). Looking forward to part 2 and see where they go.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 24, 2021, 02:57:50 PM

Considering the book is already a leftist fairy tale, it doesn't take too much additional political correctness to push it over the top. Like adding hot sauce to hot wings.

I can't say I remember any leftist propaganda in the book or the film. It's been many years since I read the book though.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: soundchaser on October 24, 2021, 11:11:59 PM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: ChrisFox on October 24, 2021, 11:14:24 PM
Well….. that was pretty darn good actually. Very respectful to the novel. Reports that it had been made politically correct or “Hollywoodized” are highly exaggerated. Cinematography, how do I put this; fantastic. the cinematography was some of the best I’ve ever seen.

My only concern is that it was much easier to follow for me, who read the book years ago, but my wife and her friend often looked bewildered, though they enjoyed the special effects and all.  So maybe it’s mostly good for the fans? 🤔

What do you think?

I really, really enjoyed Dune, but saw the same reaction with people not familiar with the book. Of course, I saw exactly the same reaction when those same people watched Fellowship of the Ring. Once the extended edition and the rest of the movies were available the early criticism died down, and now it's considered a classic.

Hopefully it's the same with Dune. 7th grade Chris was very, very excited to see it all come to life exactly as I imagined.

Title: Re: Dune
Post by: soundchaser on October 24, 2021, 11:21:57 PM
https://www.therpgsite.com/media-inspiration/duneneuve-novel-spoilers!/

I've had a day to process.
I think it looked great, the acting, aside from a few standouts, was weak. Especially Paul and Jessica, who had to carry the second half of the movie, and IMO didn't manage it.

I am ambivalent about the acting. That section of the movie and the novel both have a sort of muted feel, something minimalist and grim, with a tone of spiritual "balance." I think, among the other movie attempts, this one did a better job skating in a difficult tension. Jessica comes off as a BG adept and pretty fierce balanced with calm. I loved Rebecca Ferguson's restrained effort. I don't have a verdict on Chalamet. It's very tough thing to do in a new way, this reluctant hero, coming of age, stuff. It's been done so poorly in the past though, and in this film, one gets the idea that past mistakes are known and they're trying to avoid them.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 25, 2021, 12:04:49 AM
I sometimes get the feeling that some people read a different Dune than me, which is of course down to personal interpretations and such. But I felt the actors, and specifically the main actor, gave a “feel” very similar to how I read the book. Some people read him as more decidedly heroic and then feel left down by the following volumes in the series. I was never one of those people (I actually always really enjoyed Dune Messiah for instance)
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on October 25, 2021, 12:28:18 AM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.

“Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it’s that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson.   —”

― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on October 25, 2021, 10:46:23 AM
Some people read him as more decidedly heroic and then feel left down by the following volumes in the series. I was never one of those people (I actually always really enjoyed Dune Messiah for instance)

I thought Dune Messiah was ok but the books took a serious downturn in quality after that one. I read all the Dune sequels one after another and the change in writing style was very noticeable. It was almost as the last few books were written by someone else. I read many interviews with Frank Herbert (I did my high school term paper on Dune) and it was clear that he didn't want to make sequels and was a bit upset that his non-Dune books didn't sell as well. Some of the stuff he added into those later book feel like he's just trolling the Dune fans; such as Leto Jr making a worm suit or him cloning one of the characters from the first book and riding him around like he's Master Blaster.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 25, 2021, 01:57:12 PM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.
Judging by how controlling big tech is right now, Frank's prohibition on thinking machines is pretty prophetic. It wasn't that machines were evil and would rebel (which is idiotic considering that machines can only ever do what we design them to, they're not living things capable of evolving on their own), the danger was that they made people lazy and easy to control by big tech tycoons.

I thought Dune Messiah was ok but the books took a serious downturn in quality after that one. I read all the Dune sequels one after another and the change in writing style was very noticeable. It was almost as the last few books were written by someone else. I read many interviews with Frank Herbert (I did my high school term paper on Dune) and it was clear that he didn't want to make sequels and was a bit upset that his non-Dune books didn't sell as well. Some of the stuff he added into those later book feel like he's just trolling the Dune fans; such as Leto Jr making a worm suit or him cloning one of the characters from the first book and riding him around like he's Master Blaster.
The sequels also take places thousands of years after the first trilogy, so things have changed a lot.

At least they're better than those awful Anderson fanfics that completely miss the messages of the originals.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ghostmaker on October 25, 2021, 02:00:02 PM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.
Judging by how controlling big tech is right now, Frank's prohibition on thinking machines is pretty prophetic. It wasn't that machines were evil and would rebel (which is idiotic considering that machines can only ever do what we design them to, they're not living things capable of evolving on their own), the danger was that they made people lazy and easy to control by big tech tycoons.

I thought Dune Messiah was ok but the books took a serious downturn in quality after that one. I read all the Dune sequels one after another and the change in writing style was very noticeable. It was almost as the last few books were written by someone else. I read many interviews with Frank Herbert (I did my high school term paper on Dune) and it was clear that he didn't want to make sequels and was a bit upset that his non-Dune books didn't sell as well. Some of the stuff he added into those later book feel like he's just trolling the Dune fans; such as Leto Jr making a worm suit or him cloning one of the characters from the first book and riding him around like he's Master Blaster.
The sequels also take places thousands of years after the first trilogy, so things have changed a lot.

At least they're better than those awful Anderson fanfics that completely miss the messages of the originals.
This comic seems oddly appropriate for that conclusion. :)

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/10/15
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: caldrail on October 25, 2021, 02:29:21 PM
I notice that many people seem baffled by Dune. Personally I never had a problem. I loved the novel, loved the David Lynch film, especially for its consistent style. I remember going to the cinema to watch that film with some friends - none of them had a problem with it. There was a epic performance from my mother once as the film came on television, constantly asking me what was that, what was going on, but she was a technophobe, almost medieval in mindset, and well outside her comfort zone though I suspect she was deliberately trying my patience.

The story seems to sit well with people who think about things naturally. Those with superficial or narcissistic behaviour just see imagery and fail to understand anything about it, expecting obvious clues and sentiments rather than almost spiritual concepts and innermost thoughts.

I haven't seen the new Dune film yet but I will do.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 25, 2021, 02:46:45 PM
This comic seems oddly appropriate for that conclusion. :)

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/10/15
Seen it. There are countless reviews of the Andershit books criticizing them for missing the message of the originals, being ridiculously gory (https://www.davidlouisedelman.com/2004/01/01/dune-prequels/), getting basic details about the setting wrong multiple times, declaring the original books non-canon by claiming they're in-universe propaganda (which makes no sense), etc.

Dune was basically cyberpunk before there was cyberpunk. I suspect that it may have influence the future cyberpunk genre, or at least influenced the Schismatrix anthology which deals with the philosophical conflict between cyberpunks and biopunks.

I hope the Andershit books don't get adapted. Or at least if they are adapted, they get the hatred they deserve and Warner Bros goes 180 on continuing them. What Andershit did was worse than what Sony did to Starship Troopers. At least Sony hired people who outright admitted to hating the source material (despite admitting to never reading it). Andershit thinks his shitty fanfics are better than the source material to the point he declared the originals non-canon. How fucking arrogant can you get?

The Herbert Estate are also stupid assholes who denied GOG.com rights to sell the old Dune video games because they think "if it's old it should stay old," despite profiting off a book written by their dead ancestors decades ago.

This is why I am opposed to current ridiculous copyright lengths. It's very clear that these holding companies have no fucking clue how to maintain the IPs they inherited from their betters, or how to improve initially substandard but potentially promising IPs (they do exist) into something that can stand the test of time.

The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR, the Herbert Estate is sabotaging Dune, Sony is sabotaging SST, Games Workshop is sabotaging Warhammer, Blizzard is sabotaging its ripoffs of Warhammer, Disney is sabotaging Star Wars, Paramount is sabotaging Star Trek, BBC is sabotaging Doctor Who, etc.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Wrath of God on October 25, 2021, 06:46:23 PM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Neoplatonist1 on October 25, 2021, 08:33:18 PM
Reports that it had been made politically correct or “Hollywoodized” are highly exaggerated.

Considering the book is already a leftist fairy tale, it doesn't take too much additional political correctness to push it over the top. Like adding hot sauce to hot wings.

In your eyes, what makes it a leftist fairy tale?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Pat on October 25, 2021, 10:38:03 PM
Some people read him as more decidedly heroic and then feel left down by the following volumes in the series. I was never one of those people (I actually always really enjoyed Dune Messiah for instance)

I thought Dune Messiah was ok but the books took a serious downturn in quality after that one. I read all the Dune sequels one after another and the change in writing style was very noticeable. It was almost as the last few books were written by someone else. I read many interviews with Frank Herbert (I did my high school term paper on Dune) and it was clear that he didn't want to make sequels and was a bit upset that his non-Dune books didn't sell as well. Some of the stuff he added into those later book feel like he's just trolling the Dune fans; such as Leto Jr making a worm suit or him cloning one of the characters from the first book and riding him around like he's Master Blaster.
I think God-Emperor is the second best book in the series, after Dune itself. It worked because it was the logical extrapolation of the first book, while taking the universe in a radically different direction. Messiah and Children were just the same old same old.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 25, 2021, 10:38:46 PM
Some people read him as more decidedly heroic and then feel left down by the following volumes in the series. I was never one of those people (I actually always really enjoyed Dune Messiah for instance)

I thought Dune Messiah was ok but the books took a serious downturn in quality after that one. I read all the Dune sequels one after another and the change in writing style was very noticeable. It was almost as the last few books were written by someone else. I read many interviews with Frank Herbert (I did my high school term paper on Dune) and it was clear that he didn't want to make sequels and was a bit upset that his non-Dune books didn't sell as well. Some of the stuff he added into those later book feel like he's just trolling the Dune fans; such as Leto Jr making a worm suit or him cloning one of the characters from the first book and riding him around like he's Master Blaster.

I actually thought that God Emperor of Dune was one of the best. I guess we just don't agree on this :D
Although I also remember being unable to finish anything past that one. So I guess I have read four books in the series.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 26, 2021, 08:46:10 AM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Look at the recent video games and upcoming TV show where the contractors clearly don't care to adhere to the lore. They're just using the brand name for clout, and the Estate doesn't care to maintain the lore.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: HappyDaze on October 26, 2021, 09:07:42 AM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Look at the recent video games and upcoming TV show where the contractors clearly don't care to adhere to the lore. They're just using the brand name for clout, and the Estate doesn't care to maintain the lore.
So the whole Star Wars sequel trilogy tragedy replayed?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 26, 2021, 10:18:37 AM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Look at the recent video games and upcoming TV show where the contractors clearly don't care to adhere to the lore. They're just using the brand name for clout, and the Estate doesn't care to maintain the lore.

Hard to tell how much the estate is to blame.

As far as I understand it: Part of the issue is that the Tolkien Estate does not have full control of everything in his name. Tolkien himself sold the movie rights to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit (to pay for his house I believe). But the estate has kept tight control on everything Silmarillion-related. So Hollywood and Amazon ( wanting to milk that money cow) have to come up with stuff while avoiding Silmarillion.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: soundchaser on October 26, 2021, 11:11:35 AM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Look at the recent video games and upcoming TV show where the contractors clearly don't care to adhere to the lore. They're just using the brand name for clout, and the Estate doesn't care to maintain the lore.

Hard to tell how much the estate is to blame.

As far as I understand it: Part of the issue is that the Tolkien Estate does not have full control of everything in his name. Tolkien himself sold the movie rights to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit (to pay for his house I believe). But the estate has kept tight control on everything Silmarillion-related. So Hollywood and Amazon ( wanting to milk that money cow) have to come up with stuff while avoiding Silmarillion.

Amazon has set at least the first series (8 episode, but I think all of the work they are doing is...) in the 2nd Age. T-Enterprises has rights to 3rd age and the estate holds, for now, 1st Age, granting to Amazon the 2nd Age for $250m. There is some evidence that links to New Line exist in order to allow for some material to be borrowed from the LOTR movies (Hobbit? hoping little is seen as useful, actually!! but that is a rabbit hole of its own, tragic but understandable as a botch). There are over 3,400 years of 2nd Age available... I've seen some buzz that "young Aragorn" is a feasible character in one of the series plot lines.

Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Banjo Destructo on October 27, 2021, 02:51:35 PM
Saw the movie over the weekend. I enjoyed it. I listened to the audio book version of the books, listend up to but not including chapterhouse dune.  Weird series.  Would be funny to keep seeing Jason mamoa come back over and over as a tortured clone duncan idaho if they got up to like.. what? 6 movies in the series.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: jhkim on October 27, 2021, 03:51:21 PM
I saw Dune Monday night with some friends. It was pretty and competently done, and stayed reasonably true to the book -- but I didn't think it worked well as a movie, and there was a lot of stuff that didn't work well - especially the constant whispering and wacky vision montages to represent Paul's precognition.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Banjo Destructo on October 27, 2021, 04:11:36 PM
I saw Dune Monday night with some friends. It was pretty and competently done, and stayed reasonably true to the book -- but I didn't think it worked well as a movie, and there was a lot of stuff that didn't work well - especially the constant whispering and wacky vision montages to represent Paul's precognition.
I will admit, the vision stuff kinda matches more with the feel of the second book, where he's basically paralyzed with not knowing what to do because of all the visions he keeps having.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on October 27, 2021, 07:04:47 PM
I saw Dune Monday night with some friends. It was pretty and competently done, and stayed reasonably true to the book -- but I didn't think it worked well as a movie, and there was a lot of stuff that didn't work well - especially the constant whispering and wacky vision montages to represent Paul's precognition.
I will admit, the vision stuff kinda matches more with the feel of the second book, where he's basically paralyzed with not knowing what to do because of all the visions he keeps having.

Yeah. The first book, Paul is willing to weaponize the Fremen to his cause, and kick everyone's ass. The 2nd and 3rd books go into how the Jihad and his empire building weigh heavily on him.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on October 28, 2021, 11:05:40 AM
On the acting and personality (or lack thereof): this may sound weird but it think even this was close to the source material. What struck me when I read the books was not the personalities, but the weird and interesting setting, some of the philosophical musings etc.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ghostmaker on November 01, 2021, 07:59:16 AM
Quote
The Tolkien Estate is sabotaging LotR,

Is it?
Look at the recent video games and upcoming TV show where the contractors clearly don't care to adhere to the lore. They're just using the brand name for clout, and the Estate doesn't care to maintain the lore.

Hard to tell how much the estate is to blame.

As far as I understand it: Part of the issue is that the Tolkien Estate does not have full control of everything in his name. Tolkien himself sold the movie rights to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit (to pay for his house I believe). But the estate has kept tight control on everything Silmarillion-related. So Hollywood and Amazon ( wanting to milk that money cow) have to come up with stuff while avoiding Silmarillion.
Part of the problem is that Christopher Tolkien passed away. He was J.R.R.'s son and had, up till then, kept things on an even keel.

However, since his passing, there's less interest in sticking to canon. The Shadow of War games are explicitly a 'what if', scenario, but at least cleave to important things (and are interesting even outside of the theme -- the nemesis system fascinated me). But I am deeply concerned with Amazon dropping a Cleveland steamer all over the franchise with their upcoming projects.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Aglondir on November 10, 2021, 10:09:45 PM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.



Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on November 11, 2021, 12:09:51 AM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.

Imagery. Same as the bizzare "pet" the Baron had. I can't fault Villenue for going that route. Dune is a pretty funky setting*, and having a healing oil bath, or throat singing Saurdaurkar is way better than inventing "Wierding modules" and having people shoot words that blow stuff up. (Lynch Dune ref, for anyone who hasn't seen the 80's film)

*And gets funkier as the series goes on. I can't wait to see Axlotl tanks (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Axlotl_Tanks) on the big screen.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Aglondir on November 11, 2021, 11:19:36 PM
Did the Sardukar throat singing have any tactical value, like the Atredies sign language? That would be rather intimidating to see hundreds of Sadukar going into battle chanting that stuff.

Weirding modules, heart plugs... LOL. Weird excess. But I did like the purple juice Piter drank, and the littany.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ghostmaker on November 12, 2021, 08:20:33 AM
Did the Sardukar throat singing have any tactical value, like the Atredies sign language? That would be rather intimidating to see hundreds of Sadukar going into battle chanting that stuff.

Weirding modules, heart plugs... LOL. Weird excess. But I did like the purple juice Piter drank, and the littany.
The litany is made up whole cloth, but Piter's tipple is sapho juice, a common Mentat pick-me-up. Habitual users develop stains on their lips.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Svenhelgrim on November 12, 2021, 10:41:03 AM
I saw Dune Monday night with some friends. It was pretty and competently done, and stayed reasonably true to the book -- but I didn't think it worked well as a movie, and there was a lot of stuff that didn't work well - especially the constant whispering and wacky vision montages to represent Paul's precognition.
Oh shit! They did the whispering?  Didn’t they learn anything from the 80’s version of Dune?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Wrath of God on November 13, 2021, 05:14:15 PM
Quote
Did the Sardukar throat singing have any tactical value, like the Atredies sign language? That would be rather intimidating to see hundreds of Sadukar going into battle chanting that stuff.

I think those were religious/ritual chants used in disciplinary excercise or some sort of prayer. I think it was meant to be Chakobsa but they invented it from cloth it seems.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Wrath of God on November 13, 2021, 05:15:02 PM
Of course as a Polish I'm terribly dissapointed that characters in Dune does not speak Ponglish (Galach - Common Tongue of Known Universe is descrived in-verse as Inglo-Slavic)
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Aglondir on November 13, 2021, 06:48:58 PM
Did the Sardukar throat singing have any tactical value, like the Atredies sign language? That would be rather intimidating to see hundreds of Sadukar going into battle chanting that stuff.

Weirding modules, heart plugs... LOL. Weird excess. But I did like the purple juice Piter drank, and the littany.
The litany is made up whole cloth, but Piter's tipple is sapho juice, a common Mentat pick-me-up. Habitual users develop stains on their lips.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed,
the lips acquire stains.
The stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on November 21, 2021, 10:04:29 AM
Finally watched Dune as today is the last day it will be on HBO Max for awhile. I was surprised that I thought the Paul actor did a decent job although I'm not sure about Jessica. The actress played her as a nervous wreck which I'm not sure was how she was portrayed in the books. She bounced back and forth from inept to hyper-competent a bit to much. The wokification of the Fremen was annoying but I knew that was the case going in.

I now see why so many people say the movie was boring. It was a case of too much foreshadowing. First, they have Paul with a vision where everyone dies, then they have a (pointless) scene where Drax talks to Baron von Kingpin and it's revealed that it's a trap, then they're a scene where the Bene Gesserat betray Atreides and make a point that Jessica and Paul will survive, then there's another pointless scene where they recruit the Sardukar, and finally the Duke says, "I wish I had more time". He's dead the very next scene. His death holds no impact because we all knew it was coming for hours by the time it actually happens.

I've seen movies where the trailer spoils the ending but, in this case, the movie is just spoiling itself over and over again. Anyone paying attention knows that everyone will die and only Paul and Jessica survive which takes up the first two hours of the movie. Leaving only the last 30 minutes for new surprises.

The ending wasn't bad IMO. Although Chani saying "this is only the beginning" came out of nowhere and made no sense given the way her character had been presented up to that point.

Was the term "Desert Power" in the book? it seemed so cheesy.

Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ghostmaker on November 21, 2021, 10:23:50 AM
Finally watched Dune as today is the last day it will be on HBO Max for awhile. I was surprised that I thought the Paul actor did a decent job although I'm not sure about Jessica. The actress played her as a nervous wreck which I'm not sure was how she was portrayed in the books. She bounced back and forth from inept to hyper-competent a bit to much. The wokification of the Fremen was annoying but I knew that was the case going in.

I now see why so many people say the movie was boring. It was a case of too much foreshadowing. First, they have Paul with a vision where everyone dies, then they have a (pointless) scene where Drax talks to Baron von Kingpin and it's revealed that it's a trap, then they're a scene where the Bene Gesserat betray Atreides and make a point that Jessica and Paul will survive, then there's another pointless scene where they recruit the Sardukar, and finally the Duke says, "I wish I had more time". He's dead the very next scene. His death holds no impact because we all knew it was coming for hours by the time it actually happens.

I've seen movies where the trailer spoils the ending but, in this case, the movie is just spoiling itself over and over again. Anyone paying attention knows that everyone will die and only Paul and Jessica survive which takes up the first two hours of the movie. Leaving only the last 30 minutes for new surprises.

The ending wasn't bad IMO. Although Chani saying "this is only the beginning" came out of nowhere and made no sense given the way her character had been presented up to that point.

Was the term "Desert Power" in the book? it seemed so cheesy.
Wait, did they write out Dr. Yueh? Jesus Christ.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Premier on November 21, 2021, 10:50:59 AM

Was the term "Desert Power" in the book? it seemed so cheesy.

Yes it was.

Wait, did they write out Dr. Yueh? Jesus Christ.

No they didn't, he's in the movie, it's just that hedgehobbit's rant is not very good as an actual review.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on November 21, 2021, 11:11:37 AM
Wait, did they write out Dr. Yueh?

I didn't mention him because his betrayal is one of the few legitimate surprises in the whole movie. And is an example of what could have worked if used earlier in the movie; showing the betrayal and then explaining why the betrayal happened afterwards. But it's immediately followed by another instance of the original problem in that the Duke's second death is just as telegraphed as his first.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Wrath of God on November 21, 2021, 05:00:24 PM
Quote
I now see why so many people say the movie was boring. It was a case of too much foreshadowing. First, they have Paul with a vision where everyone dies, then they have a (pointless) scene where Drax talks to Baron von Kingpin and it's revealed that it's a trap, then they're a scene where the Bene Gesserat betray Atreides and make a point that Jessica and Paul will survive, then there's another pointless scene where they recruit the Sardukar, and finally the Duke says, "I wish I had more time". He's dead the very next scene. His death holds no impact because we all knew it was coming for hours by the time it actually happens.

In Book - you've got meeting between Vladimir Harkonnen, Piter de Vries and Feyd-Rautha in SECOND CHAPTER - where they explain whole plot against Atreides, plot that is fullfilled later in novel like perfectly aside of Paul and Jessica escape. So... you know - this is novel thing. Everyone knows it's coming. No sudden surprises but inevitability of fate is important, and if modern audience demands thrills over depression, then to hell with modern audience.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Kiero on February 14, 2022, 07:10:04 AM
I thought some of the editing choices were weird - they basically cut out all the scenes with Dr Yueh in them, which meant his betrayal was shallow and seemingly out of left field. Thufir Hawat was barely in it either. And the banquet scene would have added a lot.

In contrast, the last half hour should really have been the beginning of Part 2. It could have ended with Paul and Jessica crash-landing and escaping the worm.

Overall I liked it, but for those editing decisions. Looking forward to Part 2.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Reckall on February 14, 2022, 05:23:04 PM
Finally watched Dune as today is the last day it will be on HBO Max for awhile. I was surprised that I thought the Paul actor did a decent job although I'm not sure about Jessica. The actress played her as a nervous wreck which I'm not sure was how she was portrayed in the books.

Lynch’s Jessica was more faithful to the book - something that Rebecca Ferguson could have pulled off too. It was not a good change.

Quote
and finally the Duke says, "I wish I had more time".

Something, BTW, that left my friends flat footed. “Wasn’t she his wife? Who was she, then?” Lynch had half the time and managed to pack much, much more than V.

Quote
The ending wasn't bad IMO. Although Chani saying "this is only the beginning" came out of nowhere and made no sense given the way her character had been presented up to that point.

V. knew that Timothée + Zendaya was his best shot at attracting the youngsters. He also knew the tragic truth: that the two only meet at the end. I guess this is why we see over and over Zendaya in a parfum commercial (“Oscar for the best actress that turns” was my comment outside the theatre).

Lynch managed to give us the Emperor, the Princess, the Navigators, the Navigators folding space (I mean… only what the whole ruckus is about…), more Doctor Yueh, more Tufir, a truly scary Baron (what a waste of Stellan Skasgard here) and even a better soundtrack (I totally hated what Zimmer did and even if he produced some meh scores I never hated his work before). True, Lynch’s final effort was deeply flawed, but I don’t see V’s one as the superior one. If anything it made me to appreciate Lynch even more.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Battlemaster on April 26, 2022, 04:44:59 AM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.

Well,  you have to remember that over the last 20 years the American right has gone completely insane and is now full bore fascist, with torchlight marches and people chanting ''JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US! '', Trump supporters calling for 'liberal genocide' and saying 'the only good Democrat is a dead democrat',  wearing ''I'd rather be Russian than Democrat! '' shirts, storming the capitol,  etc.

Basically what was the right  in the 60's-80's would be driven out of the Republican party today as ''liberal socialists! '' if is didn't leave the modern party in djsgust. Dwight D. Eisenhower would be called a communist abd a socialist for his condemnation of the military industrial complex.

So yeah,  anything that would be center right when dune was written would be called radical socialist pedophile liberal Democrat today by the current right which has gone all the way to fascist.

Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Battlemaster on April 26, 2022, 04:52:09 AM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.

Imagery. Same as the bizzare "pet" the Baron had. I can't fault Villenue for going that route. Dune is a pretty funky setting*, and having a healing oil bath, or throat singing Saurdaurkar is way better than inventing "Wierding modules" and having people shoot words that blow stuff up. (Lynch Dune ref, for anyone who hasn't seen the 80's film)

*And gets funkier as the series goes on. I can't wait to see Axlotl tanks (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Axlotl_Tanks) on the big screen.

Yeah, the weirding modules were a way to avoid explaining the novel's weirding way, which was a combination of martial arts and 'mind over matter'. Kinda complex concepts for some movie audiences.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: HappyDaze on April 26, 2022, 09:07:45 AM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.

Imagery. Same as the bizzare "pet" the Baron had. I can't fault Villenue for going that route. Dune is a pretty funky setting*, and having a healing oil bath, or throat singing Saurdaurkar is way better than inventing "Wierding modules" and having people shoot words that blow stuff up. (Lynch Dune ref, for anyone who hasn't seen the 80's film)

*And gets funkier as the series goes on. I can't wait to see Axlotl tanks (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Axlotl_Tanks) on the big screen.

Yeah, the weirding modules were a way to avoid explaining the novel's weirding way, which was a combination of martial arts and 'mind over matter'. Kinda complex concepts for some movie audiences.
Star Wars did OK with the Force (until the prequels tried to science-up the mysticism).
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Battlemaster on April 26, 2022, 09:48:28 AM
The force was just magic.

Weirding was a little more complex.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on April 26, 2022, 12:43:50 PM
Yeah, the weirding modules were a way to avoid explaining the novel's weirding way, which was a combination of martial arts and 'mind over matter'. Kinda complex concepts for some movie audiences.

When I first saw the movie, I was very disappointed in the use of the weirding modules, but I've since grown to tolerate them. The Voice in that movie was shown to be a sort of sci-fi sonic attack, rather than the strictly telepathic mind control of the Jedi Mind Trick. So having a device that amplifies them is nice and easy to explain. I don't think this was done to avoid confusing the audience as much as it was done to trim out description of an entirely different power in an already cut down movie.

Of course, they end up with a situation that's common in science fiction where the new super-tech weapon is less effective than modern weapons we have now.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: HappyDaze on April 26, 2022, 05:17:27 PM
The force was just magic.

Weirding was a little more complex.
It was only more complex if you gave a shit. They could have used magic for thr film with less dumb than sonic pew-pews.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Battlemaster on April 26, 2022, 06:21:46 PM
Yeah, the weirding modules were a way to avoid explaining the novel's weirding way, which was a combination of martial arts and 'mind over matter'. Kinda complex concepts for some movie audiences.

When I first saw the movie, I was very disappointed in the use of the weirding modules, but I've since grown to tolerate them. The Voice in that movie was shown to be a sort of sci-fi sonic attack, rather than the strictly telepathic mind control of the Jedi Mind Trick. So having a device that amplifies them is nice and easy to explain. I don't think this was done to avoid confusing the audience as much as it was done to trim out description of an entirely different power in an already cut down movie.

Of course, they end up with a situation that's common in science fiction where the new super-tech weapon is less effective than modern weapons we have now.

From what I remember of DDLs dune the modules seemed pretty damn effective to me. I mean they were small, light,  easily carried and blew holes in thick stone walls easily, produced explosive shockwaves that seemed to drop several enemy troops in one shot and could be combined to bring down a large vessel in midair. I'd day for weapons a man could carry and fire on the go they were quite effective.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on April 26, 2022, 08:28:19 PM
Yeah, the weirding modules were a way to avoid explaining the novel's weirding way, which was a combination of martial arts and 'mind over matter'. Kinda complex concepts for some movie audiences.

When I first saw the movie, I was very disappointed in the use of the weirding modules, but I've since grown to tolerate them. The Voice in that movie was shown to be a sort of sci-fi sonic attack, rather than the strictly telepathic mind control of the Jedi Mind Trick. So having a device that amplifies them is nice and easy to explain. I don't think this was done to avoid confusing the audience as much as it was done to trim out description of an entirely different power in an already cut down movie.

Of course, they end up with a situation that's common in science fiction where the new super-tech weapon is less effective than modern weapons we have now.

But they also had the wierding way from the book. Stilgar mentions this when they encounter Paul and Jessica for the first time. The voice was the voice from the book, when Jessica used it on the Harkonnen guards. (A much better depiction of Voice than the Villenue version, IMO) Then they added the wierding modules on top of that... so it's not like they didn't include the concepts in the movie already.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Battlemaster on April 27, 2022, 01:07:29 AM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.

Harkonnen was in that oil bath because of the assassination attempt. It was some sort of medical treatment. Think bacta tank.

Harkonnen is one character the movies are forbidden to do right by the novels.  He was pure evil and sadism, and the only  homosexual, as the term was used at the time, character. So he's ano no today.

Also he was a supergenius. So much so that the bene gesseritt wanted his dna in their breeding program. They sent a member to blackmail him into impregnating her, basically extorting sex. So this would make harkonnen the victim of a sex crime and a womans group the perps of one. This is of course utterly forbidden by the wokust collective, only men can commit sex crimes and only
Women can be victims.

When the first impregnation failed to produce what the gesseritt wanted they sent their witch back to extort Vladimir again. This time he drugged her to make her powerless and raped her brutally, telling her he would never be coerced by her order again.

This implies possibly that harkonnen was not just a victim of a female sex crime but in some way his rape of the gesseritt was justified. Of course in wokemerica this suggestion is absolutely intolerable.

Also, rather than just "take their lumps" the gesseritt had to have revenge on harkonnen, after he retaliated against them for essentially forcing him to have sex with them sgsinst his will. They infected him with a disease that made him get fatter and fatter all the time.

Do yeah,  harkonnen can't be done and he is in the books today. It is forbidden!
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: oggsmash on April 27, 2022, 01:29:58 PM
Odd lefty notion? Dune's author supported centrist GOP off and on in his life, and I think he was very critical of JFK. His space-feudalism is predominantly aristocratic and militaristic. Sure, he's got elements of the anti-colonialism present in the Fremen (though I'd say there's some mixing of weird stuff, like the condemnation of AI, along with that line of thinking that of a Marxist hermeneutic of suspicion mainly in the themes related to the manipulations of the BG "seed planting" to prepare for their messiah). That hermeneutic is what bothers me most, but it's liberal enlightenment thought mixed with materialism and the cyclical Hegelianism, tracing the rise and fall of civilizations while regarding religion as a construct of the elite. That's something that trends across modern political lines, generally.

Well,  you have to remember that over the last 20 years the American right has gone completely insane and is now full bore fascist, with torchlight marches and people chanting ''JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US! '', Trump supporters calling for 'liberal genocide' and saying 'the only good Democrat is a dead democrat',  wearing ''I'd rather be Russian than Democrat! '' shirts, storming the capitol,  etc.

Basically what was the right  in the 60's-80's would be driven out of the Republican party today as ''liberal socialists! '' if is didn't leave the modern party in djsgust. Dwight D. Eisenhower would be called a communist abd a socialist for his condemnation of the military industrial complex.

So yeah,  anything that would be center right when dune was written would be called radical socialist pedophile liberal Democrat today by the current right which has gone all the way to fascist.


   You need to read some history and pull your head out of your ass.   
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on April 27, 2022, 01:50:50 PM
Dune was good. I would have liked V's production values with the Lynch movie's dialog. Sadly, the most memorable line was Duncan Idabro quipping about Paul's lack of muscles. But there were a few things I didn't understand:

Why was the Baron taking a bath in crude oil?

Did Piter even have any speaking lines?

What was up with the Sardukar guy chanting, and the prisoners (?) hanging upside down?

If only Herbert had created a musical instrument in the books, and one of the main characters was an expert playing it. That would have been cool to see. I guess an NPC playing the bagpipes will work.

Harkonnen was in that oil bath because of the assassination attempt. It was some sort of medical treatment. Think bacta tank.

Harkonnen is one character the movies are forbidden to do right by the novels.  He was pure evil and sadism, and the only  homosexual, as the term was used at the time, character. So he's ano no today.

Also he was a supergenius. So much so that the bene gesseritt wanted his dna in their breeding program. They sent a member to blackmail him into impregnating her, basically extorting sex. So this would make harkonnen the victim of a sex crime and a womans group the perps of one. This is of course utterly forbidden by the wokust collective, only men can commit sex crimes and only
Women can be victims.

When the first impregnation failed to produce what the gesseritt wanted they sent their witch back to extort Vladimir again. This time he drugged her to make her powerless and raped her brutally, telling her he would never be coerced by her order again.

This implies possibly that harkonnen was not just a victim of a female sex crime but in some way his rape of the gesseritt was justified. Of course in wokemerica this suggestion is absolutely intolerable.

Also, rather than just "take their lumps" the gesseritt had to have revenge on harkonnen, after he retaliated against them for essentially forcing him to have sex with them sgsinst his will. They infected him with a disease that made him get fatter and fatter all the time.

Do yeah,  harkonnen can't be done and he is in the books today. It is forbidden!
That's from the non-canon Brian Herbert prequel novels. They're bad fanfiction.

In the canon novels, all we learn is that a BG named Tanidia Nerus had sex with the Baron under unknown circumstances and birthed Jessica.

According to (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Tanidia_Nerus/DE) the questionably non-canon Dune Encyclopedia, she was sold to him as a concubine and later fled after becoming pregnant. In a recorded debriefing, she claims the Baron's sexual proclivities are due to narcissism (he sees the boys as an idealized version of his own childhood) and misogyny. She speculates that he also fucked his own mother before murdering her.

Frank Herbert later recanted his supposed homophobia by inserting a scene into GEOD where the characters say that homophobia is bad. Really. He was trying to apologize to his gay son he previously disowned. Said son later died of AIDS.

If Frank Herbert was alive now, he'd probably agree with sanitizing the Baron.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on April 28, 2022, 12:46:25 AM
Having finally seen it myself tonight on our local on-demand channel, I was impressed as heck with the style, cinematography and music, but had serious criticisms of the script as an adaptation. As far as I'm concerned the moment anybody says "Okay," or "Right, yeah, yeah," or banters in any of the 21st-century snarky style so infuriatingly popularized by Joss Whedon (cf. most of Momoa's Duncan Idaho performance), I am drastically kicked out of the mindset of an otherworldly future. Whatever mistakes Lynch's Dune made, at least they didn't do that. The pacing also felt off -- the scenes which weren't in the book just didn't feel like they needed to be there, and felt like they were padding out the first half of the film.

And whatever flaws Kenneth MacMillan had in his 1984 performance as Vladimir Harkonnen, MacMillan's Baron at least felt like a person -- a crazy, addiction-ridden, polymorphously perverted person, but still human in the sense of his ambitions and his pleasures making sense on some kind of level. Stellan Skarsgard's Baron just seemed like he was So Tired of Everybody's Shit, and the rest of the Harkonnens felt so alien and unrecognizable there was no emotional punch to seeing the Atreides fall at their hands; the entire point of the feud between the Atreides and the Harkonnens is that it should feel familiar -- it's exactly the kind of irrational, personal vendetta that has bedeviled human civilization for as long as we've had it. (I freely admit that I've been spoiled by the Starks and the Lannisters for this kind of thing now, but again, Lynch's Dune at least got across that same sense of the Houses being families, of people with long histories with each other bound by strong ties of feeling -- hardly positive, on the Harkonnens' side, but still there.)

It would also have been nice to have some corresponding scene to Lynch's opening conference between the Emperor and the Guild navigator, less for the exposition than for some sense of the culture of the Imperium outside Caladan and Arrakis. The visible decadence of the Emperor's court and Giedi Prime -- even of Caladan, if to a considerably more tasteful degree -- is needed to help make Dune's sheer stark aridity really hit you by contrast, and to give some sense of why the Fremen cosmic jihad is necessary to shake up the stagnating Imperium. It feels like Villeneuve and his crew were so focused on getting the details of Dune itself right that they lost sight of the larger picture of the story.

None of which is to say I won't watch the second half when it comes out. But if disappointment is the primary prerequisite for the Curmudgeon's Club I'm saddened to realize I'm in no danger of getting kicked out yet.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2022, 01:24:29 AM
None of which is not to say I won't watch the second half when it comes out.

I'm on the fence. Villenue's Dune really hasn't stuck with me. I have no desire to watch it again, and the few bits that are memorable aren't the story or performances. More like the little details he got right. But that's not enough to make the story compelling to me.



Title: Re: Dune
Post by: David Johansen on April 29, 2022, 12:31:21 AM
I keep thinking there's no way they'd have thrown lasgun fire around so indiscriminately in the books.  Not a chance, shields are ubiquitous and you're gonna hit one and every house in the landsrad is going to shriek "NUKE" and hit the button.  Oh well, it was pretty.  I suspect the second part will take more liberties as we see Duncan Idaho alive and with the Fremen after he dies.  My guess is that they'll introduce him as the ghola Hayt to set that up for Dune Messiah without having to explain the Teliexu and let's face it, how on earth can a movie explain the Teliexu?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Omega on April 30, 2022, 05:50:22 AM
Apparently the same director of this new new Dune is going to do Rendezvous with Rama?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Pat on April 30, 2022, 04:33:23 PM
Just watched it. Quick impressions before I reread the thread, with more attention to potential spoilers: Surprised it ended in the middle. I thought it was a very good adaptation. Acting and casting were good. Paul felt like Paul, unlike the 80s version. Surprised that Jessica was so needy, but it does fit the character. Visuals are great. Feels very different from the other cinematic sf universes. Got a sense of scope and solemnity. I'm don't think people who are unfamiliar with the books will get much from it. For instance, Dr. Yueh's betrayal.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Zalman on May 01, 2022, 11:06:44 AM
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

Maybe that tidbit would have been less distracting with a more engaging script.

But overall the imagery was great.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Pat on May 01, 2022, 03:01:41 PM
They don't seem very armored. One poke, and Liet was spurting water. They just seem to be somewhat complex rubber suits.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on May 01, 2022, 08:19:56 PM
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

Maybe that tidbit would have been less distracting with a more engaging script.

But overall the imagery was great.

(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dgISITUsZEJ9sDWQEyMxbxLQmhE=/0x0:4096x1716/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4096x1716):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22985791/rev_1_DUN_T2_0040r_High_Res_JPEG__1_.jpeg)

They don't look particularly armored to me. Maybe you're thinking of the battle gear the houses were wearing?

(https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0784/0133/products/FB_IMG_1604234441744_grande.jpg?v=1604841564)
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Zalman on May 02, 2022, 11:44:30 AM
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dgISITUsZEJ9sDWQEyMxbxLQmhE=/0x0:4096x1716/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4096x1716):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22985791/rev_1_DUN_T2_0040r_High_Res_JPEG__1_.jpeg)

They don't look particularly armored to me. Maybe you're thinking of the battle gear the houses were wearing?

Huh? This stillsuit has leather armor across the chest, at the shoulder, knuckles, even a cod piece ... it's literally covered in leather armor. Pretty obviously (and distractingly) patterned from motorcycle gear.

And before you go defending some notion that the leather parts like the cod piece are housing important water-retrieval mechanisms ... please explain what the shoulder pads are for. Or the rubber sliders on the arms. Or the armored knuckles.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on May 02, 2022, 01:11:37 PM
It didn’t really look like armor to me either, more like what a sci-fi movie team could think a stillsuit might look like, whether that’s “realistic” or not. It’s supposed to have tubes and pumps and such built in. It is meant for a brutal environment though so it might have some protective function in that regard as well. The codpiece is probably at least partially for collecting urine.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on May 02, 2022, 01:50:59 PM
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

The real question is Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on May 02, 2022, 03:57:25 PM
Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.

I'm trying to remember if in the novel Dune either Paul or Jamis made a point of taking off their stillsuit before their duel. On the one hand it's certainly true that if repairing damaged stillsuits is difficult, you'd avoid it if possible given their necessity; on the other hand, the entire point of stillsuits is to recover moisture expended via sweat, and you sweat more when fighting than anything else.

From a physics point of view, armour would almost necessarily be a major heat trap simply by virtue of being a second layer. It might be that wearing separate armour over a stillsuit would be medically dangerous on Arrakis. You could try to work rigid plates into the stillsuit itself, but that would probably increase weight and make the movement that supplies the suit's pumping action less efficient.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: ThatChrisGuy on May 02, 2022, 04:03:40 PM
I'm trying to remember if in the novel Dune either Paul or Jamis made a point of taking off their stillsuit before their duel. On the one hand it's certainly true that if repairing damaged stillsuits is difficult, you'd avoid it if possible given their necessity; on the other hand, the entire point of stillsuits is to recover moisture expended via sweat, and you sweat more when fighting than anything else.

They do take them off, that's why Paul gains possession of Jamis' water.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: David Johansen on May 02, 2022, 07:19:17 PM
You'd probably want reinforcement on knees and elbows at any rate.  You don't want to spring a leak.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Omega on May 02, 2022, 08:19:11 PM
They look lightly armored. Some sorts of plates and whatnod. But it looks intigrated into the suits.

The real problem is, like everything now. They look overwrought.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on May 02, 2022, 09:50:50 PM
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

The real question is Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.

Yeah. the stillsuits from the image seem to have bits exposed between straps and pads. You'd get some protection, but a well placed knife looks like it would puncture something important. (Besides the wearer)

Maybe it's a bit of reinforcement, a bit of protection, and a concession to the function of the suit to reclaim mosture all in the same deal.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on May 03, 2022, 08:12:37 AM
From a physics point of view, armour would almost necessarily be a major heat trap simply by virtue of being a second layer. It might be that wearing separate armour over a stillsuit would be medically dangerous on Arrakis.

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on May 03, 2022, 09:09:06 AM
The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.

True, but if the stillsuit worked by providing a cooling system for the body, then the wearer wouldn't be producing sweat moisture for it to collect in the first place.

Perhaps the first inner layer of the suit is some kind of nano-structured thermoconducting aerogel that reproduces the heat-dissipation effect of evaporation without actually losing the H2O to the atmosphere. Or similar handwavery -- according to TVTropes.org the stillsuit's actual physics and engineering aren't ever more clearly explained.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 03, 2022, 11:31:14 AM
The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.

True, but if the stillsuit worked by providing a cooling system for the body, then the wearer wouldn't be producing sweat moisture for it to collect in the first place.

Perhaps the first inner layer of the suit is some kind of nano-structured thermoconducting aerogel that reproduces the heat-dissipation effect of evaporation without actually losing the H2O to the atmosphere. Or similar handwavery -- according to TVTropes.org the stillsuit's actual physics and engineering aren't ever more clearly explained.
The fremen make plastics out of spice and have an industrial capacity that lets them harvest sufficient spice to maintain a conspiracy with the Spacing Guild, so it stands to reason that the stillsuit is similarly advanced.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on May 03, 2022, 12:33:03 PM

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening.

I think it is happening. It’s collecting water vapor from your breath as well as from your skin. Of course if you wonder how that actually works then you’re into territory where the author probably did not go. Similar to  “how on earth does the sand worm extract energy from sand”. But the still suit at least seems more plausible than many other things in the books.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 03, 2022, 12:47:00 PM

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening.

I think it is happening. It’s collecting water vapor from your breath as well as from your skin. Of course if you wonder how that actually works then you’re into territory where the author probably did not go. Similar to  “how on earth does the sand worm extract energy from sand”. But the still suit at least seems more plausible than many other things in the books.
Yeah, Frank dropped the ball on sandworm ecology despite its importance to the plot. It's never explained where the energy in the sandworm ecology comes from. You can speculate that the sand plankton are photosynthetic organisms on which the sandworms feed for nourishment and energy, but this is never spelled out. However, an invasive ecology where all trophic levels are composed of different life stages of the same species is extremely unlikely to evolve and it's entirely possible that the sandworms were engineered since it's later revealed they aren't native to Arrakis.

The Command & Conquer series got some mileage out of that idea: how would a civilization react to xenoforming unobtainium showing up? how did it end up there in the first place? Unsurprising it was made by the same company that did the Dune II RTS.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Premier on May 03, 2022, 01:08:05 PM
I keep thinking there's no way they'd have thrown lasgun fire around so indiscriminately in the books.  Not a chance, shields are ubiquitous and you're gonna hit one and every house in the landsrad is going to shriek "NUKE" and hit the button.

I'm not sure the second sentence there is correct. I mean, yes, the Great Convention prohibits the use of atomics, and everyone will gang up on you if you break it... but my understanding is that the proscription only extends to proper, actual nukes, and shield-lasgun reactions don't fall under the convention. In no small part because they can happen too easily by accident, and there's also the very ambiguous question of which side should be held responsible.

Or did Frank Herbert explicitly state that reaction explosions are also forbidden?
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on May 03, 2022, 04:44:33 PM

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening.

I think it is happening. It’s collecting water vapor from your breath as well as from your skin. Of course if you wonder how that actually works then you’re into territory where the author probably did not go. Similar to  “how on earth does the sand worm extract energy from sand”. But the still suit at least seems more plausible than many other things in the books.

As I understand it, the worms are suposed to be eating sand plankton and sandtrout.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on May 03, 2022, 04:55:39 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales
You can speculate that the sand plankton are photosynthetic organisms on which the sandworms feed for nourishment and energy, but this is never spelled out. However, an invasive ecology where all trophic levels are composed of different life stages of the same species is extremely unlikely to evolve....

Quote from: Ratman_tf
As I understand it, the worms are supposed to be eating sand plankton and sandtrout.

The sandtrout at least I know are specifically named as the larval form of the sandworm, so it seems unlikely you could run a sustainable ecology on that kind of cannibalism.

As for the sand plankton, it's superficially plausible to point to blue whales as massive creatures which can sustain themselves on plankton, but the two problems there are (1) blue whales, at around 30m long, are a fraction the size of sandworms which have been reported up to 150m long ("specimens up to four hundred and fifty feet in the deep desert"), and (2) it takes vastly more energy to move through sand than it does through water, barring some exotic kind of mass-disruption ability that Herbert never talked about.

If I were designing sandworms today I'd give them some kind of natural inbuilt organic nuclear reactor and have them feed off deposits of pitchblende in the planet's crust. (I always imagined Godzilla to run on the same kind of power.)  EDIT:  Alternately, you could postulate that maybe sandworms are far lighter and lower-mass for their size than one would expect -- maybe, like sharks, their skeletal structure is all cartilage with nanocomposite strength, and much of their internal size is nothing but air and gas bladders.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on May 03, 2022, 05:59:11 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales
You can speculate that the sand plankton are photosynthetic organisms on which the sandworms feed for nourishment and energy, but this is never spelled out. However, an invasive ecology where all trophic levels are composed of different life stages of the same species is extremely unlikely to evolve....

Quote from: Ratman_tf
As I understand it, the worms are supposed to be eating sand plankton and sandtrout.

The sandtrout at least I know are specifically named as the larval form of the sandworm, so it seems unlikely you could run a sustainable ecology on that kind of cannibalism.

I'd think it would mostly be sandplankton with the occasional sandtrout getting gulped down. Most of them spend their time living in those communal bubbles around water, which the sandworms avoid.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on May 03, 2022, 06:00:48 PM
Yes, sand trout are supposed to be larval worms. The closest thing in nature to the way they congregate to form a worm would actually be cellular slime molds.

I may be wrong, but can't remember any mention sand plankton in the books. I actually think it was mentioned somewhere in the books that it extracts energy from the sand itself (1st book? It was a scene with a close encounter with a worm).
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ratman_tf on May 03, 2022, 06:22:33 PM
Yes, sand trout are supposed to be larval worms. The closest thing in nature to the way they congregate to form a worm would actually be cellular slime molds.

I may be wrong, but can't remember any mention sand plankton in the books. I actually think it was mentioned somewhere in the books that it extracts energy from the sand itself (1st book? It was a scene with a close encounter with a worm).

I need to get a replacement copy of the book. :( It looks like the sand plankton is mentioned in Appendix I, Ecology of Dune.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/fsxg73/sand_plankton_origin/
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 04, 2022, 02:07:25 PM
Attached is an overview of the canonical lifecycle.

If I were designing sandworms today I'd give them some kind of natural inbuilt organic nuclear reactor and have them feed off deposits of pitchblende in the planet's crust. (I always imagined Godzilla to run on the same kind of power.)  EDIT:  Alternately, you could postulate that maybe sandworms are far lighter and lower-mass for their size than one would expect -- maybe, like sharks, their skeletal structure is all cartilage with nanocomposite strength, and much of their internal size is nothing but air and gas bladders.
In the books the worms are described as having an "internal furnace" that produces measurable amounts of light and heat (as well as large amounts of oxygen, which makes no sense because oxygen is consumed to power animal metabolisms), so an organic nuclear reactor sounds about as plausible as everything else about their biology.

Quote
EDIT:  Alternately, you could postulate that maybe sandworms are far lighter and lower-mass for their size than one would expect -- maybe, like sharks, their skeletal structure is all cartilage with nanocomposite strength, and much of their internal size is nothing but air and gas bladders.
Their skin is harder than sand so maybe something like that is the case. The adult form is allergic to water for some reason (the wiki says it speeds up their metabolism to fatal degrees but I don't remember the books mention this) so their physiology is probably very alien.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: David Johansen on May 04, 2022, 02:33:02 PM
I always thought the "internal furnace" was basically a hydrogen fuel cell.  Yes that eats up carbon dioxide and produces water.  But some other process like digestion produces the oxygen.  Dune has oxygen because of the sandworm cycle.  Possibly, alternately, it's the sand plankton which produce the oxygen.  It's clearly stated in the books that Arrakis was a water world before the coming of the sand worm ecology which "encapsulates" all the water, particularly in the sand trout phase.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Trond on May 04, 2022, 06:13:39 PM

In the books the worms are described as having an "internal furnace" that produces measurable amounts of light and heat (as well as large amounts of oxygen, which makes no sense because oxygen is consumed to power animal metabolisms), so an organic nuclear reactor sounds about as plausible as everything else about their biology.

Yes, that I do remember! My thoughts also went to nuclear power for a second when I first read that maybe 30 years ago. Add this to the "sand plankton" being basically in a cycle* with the sand worms themselves, and people being sold on the "sophisticated ecology" of the series, the whole thing of course makes no sense from a biological point of view. So my comment “how on earth does the sand worm extract energy from sand” is still basically answered by "magic". Although Herbert managed to make it complicated enough that a lot of people sort of bought that there was an "ecology" behind it all**. I guess that shows his talent.

* there could be a cycle of nutrients, but what kind of energy drives it?
**to beat my own drum a little I actually never bought into that part, but then I was always more interested in biology than most people, even as a kid.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 19, 2022, 08:24:09 AM
I keep thinking there's no way they'd have thrown lasgun fire around so indiscriminately in the books.  Not a chance, shields are ubiquitous and you're gonna hit one and every house in the landsrad is going to shriek "NUKE" and hit the button.

I'm not sure the second sentence there is correct. I mean, yes, the Great Convention prohibits the use of atomics, and everyone will gang up on you if you break it... but my understanding is that the proscription only extends to proper, actual nukes, and shield-lasgun reactions don't fall under the convention. In no small part because they can happen too easily by accident, and there's also the very ambiguous question of which side should be held responsible.

Or did Frank Herbert explicitly state that reaction explosions are also forbidden?
They're not. As far as I can recall, it's only actual nuclear devices, and ONLY used against humans (Paul makes a point of this late in the original novel, when he nukes part of the Shield Wall ridge so his forces can reach Arrakeen).

I admit I'm surprised that weapons which utilize the lasgun-shield reaction didn't exist. I'd have wired up those fuckers in a heartbeat and started lobbing them at people who annoyed me.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on July 19, 2022, 11:58:38 AM
Frank's books suffer from what TVtropes calls "misapplied phlebotinum" a lot because he wrote it to be a philosophical tract first rather than a technology exploration like other scifi authors of the time did. Other scifi authors were physicists and scientists who wrote what they knew, often neglecting things like character. Frank was a journalist who could write characters, politics, religion, etc but didn't do so well when it came to the actual science. He thankfully leaves most of the science unexplained, but what little he does explain any significant detail is about as nonsensical as typical technobabble is.
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: hedgehobbit on July 19, 2022, 04:11:47 PM
Frank was a journalist who could write characters, politics, religion, etc but didn't do so well when it came to the actual science.

That explains so much. The lack of scientific accuracy doesn't bother me nearly as much as Dune's lack of business accuracy. While some might read the book and think "OMG, the ecology makes no sense", I'm reading and thinking "OMG why isn't the Duke leveraging his future earnings to pay his startup costs?!?!"
Title: Re: Dune
Post by: Manic Modron on July 20, 2022, 06:24:38 PM
I wonder if Sandworms can digest non-organic things.  If so, ever since the Imperium started in on Arrakis one thing that might supplement their diet would be harvesters.