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Tbf, the book was just as bad with the Fremen. There is a fetishization of the Savage as being a great warrior for living in tough conditions, which is a trope that has never been real over centuries of colonialism (with the popular counter examples coming from cases where the stronger side had the decision that massacring civilians wouldn't be worth the optics and just quit). And even if they'd be the strongest warrior on Arakkis, they'd obviously get fucked up when they'll go to any other non desert planet.Honestly its a problem almost all media has, theyll have some very bad power faction but portray them as bumbling idiots that cant tie their shoes so if youre not a braindead window licker youre left asking how can these retards become so powerful?
It also doesnt help they went out of their way to portray the Harkonen as supposedly dangerous/threatening "THEYRE BRUUUUUUUUUUTAL!". Oh but the Sardaukar are so metal they are baptized in the blood of the unworthy who die in training while some tibetan chad blasts some throat music. Oh but Atriedes are the *finest* fighters in the universe trained by the very best! Oh but the Fremen are actually the unparreleled fighters of the universe, harden but eons of life on Dune!
There was no scale, logical sense of where the factions fit. At the end of the day it comes off as MCUesque nonsense of random who cares bad guys dying while practically none of the *good guys* are harmed.
In a world with space travel, nukes, power shields and armor, laser weapons, plasma weapons, drones, and voice powers. People still fight with knives. Made from animal teeth and not even some magic substance or a cutting laser like a lightsaber. This is explained in the novels that the desert conditions prevent certain weapons from being effective so knives are more reliable. But on other worlds the Fremen should be utterly useless as fighters but they end up conquering the universe because of the plot.Tbf, the book was just as bad with the Fremen. There is a fetishization of the Savage as being a great warrior for living in tough conditions, which is a trope that has never been real over centuries of colonialism.
Lucas also leaned away from the 'war' part of Star Wars as well for the same reason. Hard to realistically scale out these massive conflicts and weapons on paper even. Let alone the budget and time for a giant space war on screen.At least the author knew this and never wrote any big army scenes and stuck to yhe Fremen being plot points.
That is handwaved by intergalactic law not technobabble. The two laws the imperium care the most about are not fucking with anything like a robot and not using atomics on humans (shield+las interactions are indistinguishable from atomics) and if you fuck with either everyone agrees to atomic you from orbit. Reminder that the (((Spacing Guild))) has a complete monopoly on all satellites and useful intergalactic travel tech and nearly all planets are economically specialized and not capable of self-sustaining because of cheap intergalactic trade."Realistic" battles based on equpment available in the Dune universe would be swarms of expendable remotely controlled las-armed drones lasering everything that is not shielded and taking everything that is shielded with them in mutual explosions. Or if that is prevented from work by another layer of technobabble, they would consist of two densely packed masses of people pushing against each other, in an even more boring fashion than in RL melee combat between forces disciplined enough to actually fight in melee, until the weaker side breaks.
That doesn't require intense scrutiny at all:Only his army is mobile and everyone else is stationary. And his Fremen begin recruiting other armies and fanatics. And slowly they crush all other armies and worlds.
It probably would fall apart as a plot under intense scrutiny. But Herbert gave enough explanation in the books that you can push past them and get back to things like the political plotting, terraforming and ecology, and long term planning for the Golden Path which were the real focus.
This is why books are naturally better mediums for more out there content like Dune. Your brain naturally fills in the blanks and connects these type of details in the way that makes most sense to you. Where as in a movie/show theres only one way its shown, so when you see Villenuve's vision of the Fremen using lasers to instantly obliterate the harvesters youre left asking a million questions due to the implication.It probably would fall apart as a plot under intense scrutiny. But Herbert gave enough explanation in the books that you can push past them and get back to things like the political plotting, terraforming and ecology, and long term planning for the Golden Path which were the real focus.
IMO the best way to do that is what Terminator did with the conflict between humans and skynet. Give the audience a brief glimpse, show a small skirmish enough for your brain to run wild with actually imagining that completely fleshed out. It ended up being so effective its one of the biggest and most liked aspects of T1/T2 when people talk about the movies. It was done so well it made T4 a let down due to the direction it took things since everyone already had an expectation of how the future war should look based upon T1/T2.Lucas also leaned away from the 'war' part of Star Wars as well for the same reason. Hard to realistically scale out these massive conflicts and weapons on paper even. Let alone the budget and time for a giant space war on screen.
The Fremen and Paul's enemies violate every single law in the war by the third book. They are mass killing civilians and wantonly slaughtering crowds of people without any second thought. The Fremen are literally completely psychotic by the second book's end and have killed over 60 billion people on various planets. All of the laws of war are thrown out before Leto II becomes Emperor.As soon as the Fremen are the invaders, everyone else would conclude that they're abusing the international prohibition against nuclear explosions.
Seems like Villeneuve is probably going to make his changes here. Unfortunately, he'll probably have Chani be the one who's totally right in the end for it to happen so as to avoid the audience wanting Total Fremen Death.The Fremen and Paul's enemies violate every single law in the war by the third book. They are mass killing civilians and wantonly slaughtering crowds of people without any second thought. The Fremen are literally completely psychotic by the second book's end and have killed over 60 billion people on various planets. All of the laws of war are thrown out before Leto II becomes Emperor.
The reason that nukes aren't used against Paul on Arrakis is that every ship that approaches is searched thoroughly for smugglers of weapons. But Paul knows he will become blind from a stone burner so he lets one get smuggled in on purpose. Because it is part of the Golden Path and he has to lose his eyes in order to not change the future.
Did he? The series started without real wars (rebellion vs empire) and ended with full blown wars (clone war)Lucas also leaned away from the 'war' part of Star Wars as well for the same reason. Hard to realistically scale out these massive conflicts and weapons on paper even. Let alone the budget and time for a giant space war on screen.
Yeah I meant the early inception of Star Wars. By the time of the prequels Lucas thought that CGI was a magic power that could put anything on screen that was in his imagination and do it realistically. Including enormous scale battles and every type of alien possible. It all looked terrible of course but at that point Lucas was surrounded by sycophants and leeches and wouldn't hear any constructive criticism. He basically thought that nothing was impossible anymore due to the new technology his studio had.Did he? The series started without real wars (rebellion vs empire) and ended with full blown wars (clone war)
I would say that's more of an example of the movie being shit at explaining some of the worldbuilding the books can just blurb out without seeming pedantic. It's a thing that you can't use shields on most of Arrakis because they piss off the worms. You would just never have them on installed on harvesters. It's kind of cringe/a gamble using them on ornithopters though because you can't really guarantee that they don't have them installed and won't just turn them on to get revenge on anyone one dumb enough to be using lasguns.This is why books are naturally better mediums for more out there content like Dune. Your brain naturally fills in the blanks and connects these type of details in the way that makes most sense to you. Where as in a movie/show theres only one way its shown, so when you see Villenuve's vision of the Fremen using lasers to instantly obliterate the harvesters youre left asking a million questions due to the implication.
Was he in Lynch’s version? I don’t remember that.Agreed. I didn't feel the weight of a very powerful and jealous man, moved so far to extinguish the Atreides bloodline to protect his house. Someone like Charles Dance or maybe even Mark Strong could've been the Emperor? A bit short sighted on Denis' part to cast Walken just because he was in Lynch's version.
Asking for a perfect film adaptation of a novel is sort of like asking if you'll still have your cake after you're done eating it.Watches the movie recently. Generally enjoyed it. Although, that might be because my standards are so low for Hollywood, this film looks like a masterpiece now when way back when, it would probably be considered mid to generally positive.
I didn't really have a problem with Zendaya, the problem was in the script, it turned Chani into a complete insufferable brat.Asking for a perfect film adaptation of a novel is sort of like asking if you'll still have your cake after you're done eating it.
I saw it today. It was pretty good. I felt like it sagged in the third half, though that's mostly to do with almost completley cutting Alia out of the plot. I could see potentially not wanting to have to work with a child actress for the role but it's still disappointing.
I don't get why people are so pissed of with Zendaya. The only real problem with her performance is that she has too much of a real-life modern-day vibe to her manner, but otherwise she's a fine actress. I thought the chick who played Irulan was much worse, but I remember her being a non-character in the book too, so it's not that big of a problem for me.
The Spacing Guild being a complete non-entity is probably the biggest objective criticism and I have no idea how or why Denis decided to pretend they didn't exist.
Agreed. I'm too old to really care about zoomer celebs but Zendaya just seemed played Space Zendaya, she wasn't bad. It was definitely the script that made Chani unbearable.I didn't really have a problem with Zendaya, the problem was in the script, it turned Chani into a complete insufferable brat.
I didn't think she was insufferable at all. She seemed justifiably concerned with Paul's growing power, especially with Paul talking about how he's going to lead a genocide, and while that's different from the book it didn't rub me the wrong way at all.I didn't really have a problem with Zendaya, the problem was in the script, it turned Chani into a complete insufferable brat.
Because most of the people on this site and thread are hardcore consumer types that will watch this instead of reading the original books. They are no different than the people on reddit and youtube who buy anything and everything simply because it's new. For them the HBO versions of Dune are the only versions of Dune that they will ever know. Just like the Jackson versions of LOTR are the official canon versions not the actual Tolkien writings.This is a thing? Why would you waste your water on a propaganda mill that hates and actively retcons the history of the culture that produced classics like Dune?