“Dune” Endures (2013)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
The spice must flow?
Fear is the mind killer?
Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" includes the phrase "Walk without a rhythm, you won't attract the worm". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8
Maybe to a lesser extent, "He who controls the spice controls the universe", "wheels within wheels", and the gom jabbar are all things I've heard people reference.
It's definitely entered the language. Maybe not as deeply as Star Wars, but it's not absent either.
"Fear is the mind-killer," whispers Paul Atreides. "So is this movie," groaned the critics.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/th...
There's one scene that they put back in, toward the end, where Thufir Hawat pulls out his own heart plug; very emotional scene that IMO they should've kept in the original.
https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/1-16.htm
Edit: It comes up in country songs sometimes, e.g. https://youtu.be/g6a9sYiBtlM?t=539
Having delt with other high stress situations and remembering this full quote prepared me.
Being able to identify my emotion in a high stress moment and knowing that the fear would pass is what calmed me down and think my way out of my problem.
It's not enough to remember the words. You also need to practice.
I do love the book too. But the movie is better.
there must be other people who believe that, but I've never met any of them.
My dad also liked the movie and I’ve tried to be relatable to people his age, only to notice that I missed 1980s newsgroups and conventions where people dissed the movie adaptation.
maybe I’ll read the book.
Though as you say “Fear is the mind killer” shows up all over the place.
In 1992, it was one of the first "modern" 4X games (SimCity 1989, Civilization 1991). Even given shorter game development timelines, it deserves more credit than it gets.
The Space Opera soundtrack by Exxos is also epic!
Pauls' hand would feel intense pain, the wrinkled crone told him, but if he withdrew it from the box she would kill him with the poison needle. I was transfixed by the drama of the scene and by the strange words... gom jabbar, Maud'Dib, the Gesserit, jihad, kull wahad.. the throaty, mysterious resonance of words and names as they rolled off Dad's tongue, in his powerful voice. I was intrigued by the sounds. And by the way the Reverend Mother used "the Voice" on Paul to control him, similar to methods my father often employed against me.
"The language is beautiful," Mom said, after listening to the chapter. Frequently over the years she spoke of the poetry of his writing, and rarely made suggestions for improvement in that area. Her comments primarily concerned plot when she thought he was getting too convoluted, and characterization, particularly the motivational aspects of female characters.
I heard Dad speak passages aloud in his study as he wrote them, before presenting them to my mother. He understood the psychology of human society, the way stories had been told orally for centuries before anything was ever written down. The way troubadours and jongleurs traveled from castle to castle, telling tales and singing songs. He believed readers subconsciously heard the written text through their ears, receiving them as oral transmissions. As a consequence, he labored long hours to obtain just the right word selection and rhythm. The best writing, he believed, touched the subconscious.
He enjoyed relating his stories to my mother, a process that recalled times as a boy spent around scouting campfires when he captivated the attention of scouts and scoutmasters alike. It brought back as well darkened bedrooms Frank Herbert shared with his cousins, in which they hung on his every word. Mom enjoyed hearing his tales. She was an excellent listener, as she had been in her childhood when her Scottish father told her clever mystery stories about caves and secret panels..."
-- Brian Herbert on his father, Frank Herbert
(KJA is and was married to the editor-in-chief of Banta mSpectra, the imprint with the book licensing rights to Star Wars and Dune. This is the only reason he was allowed anywhere near these series.)
We all have different talents.
It is not a book for tawdry conventions and endless merchandising. It is a book for parents to introduce to their children, with a sly smile, on a free weekend, when they have come of age.
It's the progressive rock of science fiction novels. ;-)
When I think of unexpected Maiden I recall The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but this was a good crossover too.
It is not like I don't like Iron Maiden but yeah, there is some metal band somewhere doing "Harry Potter" metal song. Though maybe I am too cynical :)
It's definitely a track I'd skip more often than not if I'm listening to my Maiden playlist. The addition of a voiceover, which I think I recall they planned, in the intro might have made an interesting difference. Much like the other crossover piece I now remember, The Prisoner.
One of my all time favorite games, played it on the amiga originally
For Dune, I'd recommend the CD version https://www.freegameempire.com/games/Dune-CD
There's a great series of articles on Filfre about both games and the Dune universe https://www.filfre.net/2018/11/controlling-the-spice-part-1-...
DJ Aphrodite - Spice ( Of The Gods Remix )
Paradox - A Certain Sound
Even allowing for the fact that it doesn't faithfully replicate the Dune universe (e.g. House Ordos exists in the game) - some of the music is great for looking at Dune through a different set of eyes. As an example of this, the track "Prophecy part 1" kind of feels like there's a mundane reality that the coming of a saviour inhabits and it doesn't go away as a result of the saviour's presence.[1] Even better, this doesn't have to be the only interpretation of the track or any of the others in the soundtrack. It's wonderful.
[1] https://youtu.be/UlQDWzeWuKg?list=PL738DEE2001BC5C1C&t=19
While their writing is not as brilliant as Frank Herbert's, the books they wrote, mainly the prequels, have helped me understand just how big the original vision was and have helped me enjoy the sequels more. God Emperor is truly as masterpiece, but it took a couple of reads, and the sequels, for me to appreciate it more.
The prequels are basically Star Wars books set in the Dune universe.
The same way KJA "improved" Star Wars.
His wife, incidentally the editor-in-chief of the publishing imprint that then owned the publishing rights to the Star Wars and Dune literary universes, is to blame for unleashing his word vomit on mankind.
(I personally do believe that some notes were left, but I suspect they were not complete, and were utterly ignored by Brian & Kevin. Because they is no explanation which makes more sense. There's no way he would have tied up with series by referencing characters never-before introduced from before the previous books.)
So, maybe? I lean towards thinking there were notes myself, as I can't see anyone making up that ending de-novo.
It seemed to me that the two figures in Duncans visions were going to become important, but they'd be rogue/evolved/advanced face-dancers rather than representatives of the machine intelligence.
I guess we'll never know for sure unless the notes are published.
Given the lengths that Frank Herbert went to avoid having computers in Dune, it would not make sense for his big bad to be a computer revealed in the last few pages of the series, especially when his big bad was always intended to be Destiny.
Dune isn't a "geek power fantasy" Isekai style, it's a cautionary tale against blind faith in leaders and religion. It's made clear from the start that the protagonist, Paul, isn't a hero, as him and his mother manipulate the fremens to gain their trust.
Unfortunately the original books of Frank Herbert are really hard to convert into movie / TV format and that's why Dune never became as popular as star wars. Part of the reason is the inner narrative and attention to details like facial expressions. Actually what makes the books great is what's stopping them from becoming mainstream.
The author admits to having given up after the fourth book, God Emporer of Dune, which is, to be fair, a fairly radical shift from the original trilogy. I can see it putting off someone deeply invested in the original.
I have re-read it in my late 30s and now I actually favor the later novels. I consider all 6 novels as one work.
The deconstruction of a hero (Paul) was in my opinon necessary and logical progression of the story arc. I think Herbert wanted to say that heroes inevitably end up being harmful to the society.
My opinion is that if the sequels were written in the same manner as the first book, we'd end up with an excellent but still run-of-the mill epic saga like Star Wars, LoTR etc. In my view, Herbert's Dune stands above all precisely because it's not just another (great) SF novel.
Herbert said he set out to write a book on philosophy and religion, but didn't want to approach the subject academically since it would probably be only read by scholars. He wanted to reach a broader audience and so he wrapped his ideas into science fiction so it's more easy to swallow for the average bookworm.
I'm not sure what sci-fi fans he's hanging out with...
> This de-emphasis on technology
There is de-emphasis on thinking technology -- there is still "magic level" technology everywhere else.
"Fear is the mind killer" liberally riffed the deep house, electronic, call it whatever, is awesome...
No popular culture penetration..?
Edit link:
The movie next year oughta do it, if the star-studded cast and acclaimed director are any indication.
"It's like The Last Airbender, but with sand."
From one other review:
"The second scene depicts the mysterious “Guild Navigator,” a brainiac character Lynch devises as a literal giant talking brain floating in a tank of brine. His mouth is triangular-shaped. There’s really no clean way of saying this, so here goes: It looks like a vagina. And it secretes gas. Lynch likes to shoot this in graphic close-up, and they’re explicit enough that if you see the film cut on TV, the editors completely omit these shots."
https://www.metro.us/entertainment/in-slight-defense-david-l...
I respect your appreciation for the movie, but to most people it's objectively bad.
From Wikipedia:
"In retrospect, Lynch disowned the film and acknowledged he should never have directed Dune:
I started selling out on Dune. Looking back, it's no one's fault but my own. I probably shouldn't have done that picture, but I saw tons and tons of possibilities for things I loved, and this was the structure to do them in. There was so much room to create a world. But I got strong indications from Raffaella and Dino De Laurentiis of what kind of film they expected, and I knew I didn't have final cut."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(1984_film)#Critical_rece...
That last scene with Neil Patrick Harris' character also destroyed that movie for me.
It's one of my favourite movies, however it deviates quite a bit from the books. Still good :)
I can see why other might not like it though.
I liked the aesthetic of the movie (everything was 'old' and worn and staid). I liked the mini-series because it stayed closer to the original story, but (because of budget?) things looked too shiny: things seemed too 'fresh' for a societal structure that had been static for generations and generations.
That was kind of point of the Golden Path: you wanted the Imperium to seem 'static' because of inertia, and humanity needed something to shake them up from stagnation.
Some of the movie is fantastic, but some of it is laugh out loud silly.
It's one thing to read about the voice and worm-riding, it's very hard to put those into movies.
Apparently a new film is being made by Denis Villeneuve. Let's hope for the best.
The weirding way, the Voice, even the psychedelic sequences - these had to be explained, or shown, and how? How do you film these things in a way that audiences can understand?
Not saying there's clear answers now, but there's been another thirty years of exploration in how you show weird, hard-to-film genre elements. There's also another entire set of explorations on exactly these things (the Scifi Channel's miniseries) from which to see what works and doesn't.
What an odd framing. True, perhaps, but what about from the 1984 movie?
> "The spice must flow!"
> "If you walk without rhythm, you won't attract the worm"
> "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, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion."
Frank Herbert isn't exactly known for succinct, catchy one-liners. Here's at least one I recognize from the book, "Fear is the mind-killer":
> "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
Sure, Dune may not be as big as LOTR or Star Wars, but before the blockbuster films, what catchphrases from LOTR were (are?) remotely commonplace?
"And my axe!" was common enough for a while. Less so now but it's still around. LOTR memes that rely on single lines with varying popularity are pretty common but that's probably stretching it.
"What's taters, eh?" and "They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!" were also pretty memetic.
I've always loved the fourth book the most, and I've always felt it was most simply described as "Nietzsche's Gay Science, but to a plot." and I will totally talk about this with anyone who wants to.
The next three books get increasingly philosophical and many people don't like them, but I very much do.
It was subpar for me in just about every way, and cringey would be an apt description of the entire experience.