is it really possible that we don't as yet have a thread about DAVID LYNCH'S DUNE?

the "non-director's cut" three-hour version is p much just as rushed in the final hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxgDk2I_bSc

relive ALL the excitement and adventure

Isn't the book like that? It's been decades now (oh god) but I remember a huge amount of Paul's edification followed by womp bam boom insurgent takeover

Maybe the film colored my memory of the novel - but it certainly didn't ruin my idea of what an ornithopter should be (but by god, they tried)

the book (which as you recall is VERY LONG) spends quite a long time on the desert stuff where the film has already begun to hurry

also iirc one of paul's principal dilemmas/heroic struggles is with how to overturn the existing political status quo without unleashing a "jihad" that would bring violence and destruction to the universe at large. though i can't really remember why that would have seemed so likely a proposition. kinda interesting in that it was written a decade and a half prior to the iranian revolution which to my limited understanding sorta took the global powers-that-be by surprise...? idk

also btw just gotta say i am very very late to the party on this but for those who appreciate the long-term terraforming aspects of Dune the novel, i am finally reading RED MARS, the first part of kim stanley robinson's MARS TRILOGY and it is fucking incredible on this and several other points.

Do we have wormsign?🐛 #dune pic.twitter.com/Gh8Hqf4CIf

— Kyle MacLachlan (@Kyle_MacLachlan) July 16, 2017

Usul has called a big one!

Those drawings above have to be Ryoichi Ikegami (Crying Freeman, Mai The Psychic Girl, Sanctuary).

I avoided watching this for years because Lynch seemed to hate it, I thought Sting was the main character, I don't like deserts and the only clips I had seen were of the big brain creature and the baron.

Wasn't expecting much, but HUGE HUGE HUGE surprise! There's a lot wrong with it but damn, there's a lot of great looking stuff in here, Toto are surprisingly great, Kyle MacLachlan and Sean Young look amazing, most of the special effects and settings look better than sci-fi films today, the worms emerging from the sand look convincingly massive, love all the whispery and dreamy scenes.

I like this better than Bladerunner, Metropolis, 2001, Star Wars, Alien films and any big sci-fi film I can think of right now. But it's hard to experience some of those films as fresh as I got Dune, they're weighed down by their pop culture legacies.

I actually don't think Jodorowsky's version would have been better, it would probably be an even bigger mess with fewer good parts (although the soundtrack probably would have been better).

Keep thinking of Jack Nance playing an instrument. Very funny.

I recently watched the first half of this and found it pretty enjoyable; didn't understand why it had acquired such a bad reputation. Then I resumed the second half later and thought, "oh, I see."

I read the script the other day and thought to myself "this is really one hell of a stupid story"

however I do like the movie mostly for the visuals and weirdness

did you feel that way about the book's story, too?

i haven't read dune since high school. i've always thought of myself as a general "supporter of dune", but even back then, during a time when my critical radar was completely non-existent and i pretty much devoured and loved whatever i read or saw, dune was underwhelming.

(response idea: 'no you're underwhelming'

but now i guess i'm the kind of jerk who wonders if dune is the most overrated book of the 1960s

this thread is about the film, not the book (another response idea)

however I do like the movie mostly for the visuals and weirdness

same. and certain parts are undeniably gripping and unforgettable. the "fear is the mind killer" scene is so good.

The book isn't overrated. It's the first space opera that incorporated the scope of Tolkien, having an old fictional world with borders extending far beyond the present action, and ideas from the nascent science of ecology about the sandworm/spice lifecycle. However, filming it as a messiah/Muhammed story misses all of that. You might as well film Stranger in a Strange Land if you want SF spiritual heroics on a budget.

However, filming it as a messiah/Muhammed story misses all of that

There's a pretty big dose of this in the book, tbh

yes i'm unconvinced a tolkien-style epic is the best lens for "ideas from the nascent science of ecology" tho i can see how a multi-generational approach might come in handy. but it gave the ideas a good pulpy hook i guess

also, nascent? ecology p much begins with haeckel in the 1860s (when it was still called "oecology" lol), so "burgeoning" is probably a better word, bcz it was a BIG NOISE in the 60s: it hugely overlapped with my dad's job and he read dune and enthused abt it to me (age 10-ish i guess). the problem looking at it now is that the ecology is soooooooo basic. it's a one organism eco-system: does anything native to arrakis use the spice to tell the future? (the only other animal i can even remember being mentioned is the little mouse that goes "pip pop"). if not the spice only has ultra-planetary (and thus anti-ecological) function?

there are enough Dune stans around here to get into the top 10 of our spec fic poll, but I definitely prefer the movie, warts and all, myself.

idk if the scope of Dune is really that unique, although certainly it gets brought up a lot. As far as time scales and space epics go, Foundation predates it and I'd be surprised if there aren't other examples.

as far as ecology in the genre goes, I prefer the Word for World Is Forest (which, granted, was later)

for me what was eye opening about dune was that it was sci fi about human potential not technological potential

ie the deadliest person in the story wasn't the person w/ the biggest blaster gun but the female monk who had spent the most time strengthening her fingers on the digit mill

olaf stapledon also does the generational thing i think ("first and last men" was another book my dad recommended to me, but i never read it so i might be wrong)

i think sanpaku's right tho that dune is early on the tolkien-as-space-opera jag -- foundation is surely too early to have been able to be trying to be that (i think it's quite unlikely asimov had read him or even knew he existed when foundation was being written: LotR wasn't big news until the 60s). either way, foundation isn't a foray into the same kind of cosplay territory

(also it's terrible)

Foundation is def terrible in a way that Dune is not

I think I read somewhere that halfway through the film D Lynch was like "I dont care about this anymore"

Interesting to note that at the time they offered return of the jedi to lynch - now that's something id like to see
there are so many endless sequels too - the story goes on and on and on

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/patrick-stewart-didnt-know-who-sting-was-dune-1104219

was nto aware of this but yawn, of course reboot eberything

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/dune-reboot-two-movies-two-years-denis-villeneuve

The thing that’s interesting about dune (book) re: messiah shit is that it’s clearly conveyed as a constructed thing, not real, something seeded by the bene jesserit over the millennia, a conscious plot to regain power... it’s based in real power dynamics not magical prophecies

And it leads directly to the galactic genocide of billions

d'oh

The sense of vast history is something that the book really excels at -- by presenting the then-present of the book's publication not even as a blip but as something antique and lost in a much wider swathe of lost history in turn, and rendering the organization of human society as such as a mutated amalgamation of past histories in turn, the book constantly touches between something that feels familiar and something else that feels utterly strange. It's not as distanced as it might be, but that makes concrete details -- like when the Atriedes soldiers are joking with each other like, well, young soldiers, until one of them notices Duke Leto -- all the more important, and in turn makes you think of what the concrete details of our own vast lost history really were like.

yeah turns out genetically engineering the ubermensch totally backfires xp

(i think it's quite unlikely asimov had read him or even knew he existed when foundation was being written: LotR wasn't big news until the 60s)

I think this quite likely as LOTR wasn't even published at the point that even the first book (let alone original stories) was published. I think Foundation influence on Dune probably greater than LOTR's, but I concede Foundation is pretty terrible (finally got around to reading a couple of years back).

it gave the ideas a good pulpy hook i guess

http://imgur.com/BQbu1q1l.png

lol i actually looked up the dates of foundation (which i hadn't really known) and didn't bother looking up the dates if LotR (which i thought i did know)

if you'd quizzed me pre-look-up i'd have got them both wrong: Foundation 5-6 years too recent, LotR 5-6 years too early)

I just love how much mushrooms frank herbert was doing when he wrote the book and how much it comes across

https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/07/magic-mushrooms-were-the-inspiration-for-frank-herberts-science-fiction-epic-dune/

Asimov on Tolkien

It was back in 1967, I think that I read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I liked it - moderately. I felt it went on too long; that there was too much irrelevant detail; that the battle scenes were a bit wearisome.

I have since read it four more times and have just finished the fifth reading.

Each time I liked it better than the time before and on this fifth occasion I clamored restlessly against having it end at all. Far from thinking it went on too long, I bitterly resented Tolkien's having waited so long to start it that He ended with only time to write half a million words.

Tolkien on Asimov (from a letter written in 1967, oddly enough)

I read quite a lot – or more truly, try to read many books (notably so-called Science Fiction and Fantasy). But I seldom find any modern books that hold my attention.*

*There are exceptions. I have read all that E. R. Eddison wrote, in spite of his peculiarly bad nomenclature and personal philosophy. I was greatly taken by the book that was (I believe) the runner-up when The L. R. was given the Fantasy Award: Death of Grass. I enjoy the S.F. of Isaac Azimov.

tolk: right abt eddison, (very) wrong abt azimov

he would put a few weathered chanterelles in a 5-gallon bucket of water, add some salt, and then, after 1 or 2 clavs, pour this spore-mass slurry on the ground

"clavs" must surely be a robot transcriber's error for "days"

if you squint it looks right

every once in a while i encounter someone with the surname 'mapes' and it is disconcerting

New sales guy at my office is named Feyd-Rautha Rabinowitz, so I know what you mean

The sense of vast history is something that the book really excels at -- by presenting the then-present of the book's publication not even as a blip but as something antique and lost in a much wider swathe of lost history in turn, and rendering the organization of human society as such as a mutated amalgamation of past histories in turn, the book constantly touches between something that feels familiar and something else that feels utterly strange.

― Ned Raggett

yeah i really enjoyed herbert's dissertation on historiography (i.e. god emperor)

that came out sounding sarcastic but it's not! great book

I gave a book report on god emperor of dune in 8th grade like the fucking world class nerd that I am. I assume it was incomprehensible.

I gave a book report on god emperor of dune in 8th grade like the fucking world class nerd GOD EMPEROR that I am

*bows down*

what I find implausible is the idea that after 3500 years of genetic screwing around humans would be at all recognizable psychologically like humans from the 60's - it seems like they would be more inhuman with stranger motivations

tbf paul's son turns himself into a worm and lives for several thousand years

"In Heretics of Dune, Reverend Mother and Imprinter Lucilla is charged with the seduction-imprinting of the Duncan Idaho ghola so that the Sisterhood may assert some control over him; he ultimately avoids her. Lucilla also mentions the hundreds of sexual positions and variations she knows. In Heretics, the Honored Matres have themselves refined this ability to such an intense level that the targeted male becomes completely enslaved. "

TRUE

the worms seem a bit phallic

tbf paul's son turns himself into a worm and lives for several thousand years

#goals tbh

let's call it what it was - a worm human hybrid

HE BECAME A HUT

He went to live on Tatooine with George Luckas

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Leto-become-a-worm-in-Dune

i like dune

agree that the messiah plot is more its center than the ecology, tho the latter was certainly a big part of its success+influence. what mark s points out as counterthematically simplistic, indeed ridiculous, thru an ecological lens-- a near-dead planet whose dominant organism's life cycle revolves around the rebirth of humanity from stagnant intergalactic feudalism-- makes more sense as mythic element in story about historical motion, its violence, the weirdness (psychedelia) of its inevitability. the lynch movie actually isolates this theme v successfully imo-- without change, something sleeps inside us-- and if you watch a version incorporating some of the cut material (the tv cut lynch took his name off is m/l unwatchable, but there are fan cuts w some sense of style) you even get a hurried hint of the theme d-40 describes (prophecy-- historiography-- as consciously constructed organizing force passing out of the control of its constructors). lynch's use of princess irulan as narrator also a nod to the book's use of her (in chapter epigraphs) to cast the story as depersonalized past history even as you are reading it-- tho lynch doesn't actually use her like this himself.

recently watched the scifi channel miniseries lol (i like dune). perplexing in many ways. its whole premise, from pushy title (FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE) on, is faithfulness to the source text, thru reverence and thru having the space to do it right (special features on the cheap dvds i got include a lot of producer talk about the ~power of the miniseries format~). but right off the bat it has her reverence gaius helen mohiam test the young paul atreides in a brightly lit white room the designers of the enterprise-d would disdain as bland; and when h.r. g.h.m. orders the lady jessica out of the room she exits via a door that goes whoosh. the book clearly says this stuff happens in a dank drippy feudal castle and this is exactly what the supposedly irreverent lynch delivers-- to (km otm) terrific effect. the series takes pains to accurately reproduce the political machinations of the emperor, the guild, and the council of nobles it has too little faith in you-the-viewer to call the landsraad (presumably also the reason it won't call the spice melange)-- but it doesn't even try to recreate the actual tone and vibe of strange medieval space opera that is so key to the historically slippery quality ned describes. (at the same time it takes lynch's camp harkonnens as absolute canon-- has the baron, whose "suspensors" in the book only support him the way a cane would, flying around the ceiling and everything-- while stopping only to make them even gayer.)

anyway. first and last men def a precedent in terms of future-historical scale. the clearest descendants are book of the new sun and the wheel of time, but i think the most mature+beautiful use of this kind of palimpsestic historical sweep is in leguin's stone masterpiece always coming home, in which historical motion is both theme and structuring metaphor-- like gravity's rainbow a book obsessed from title down w a specific curve. dune is pulp by comparison. but i love its deliberate fairytaleisms: a story about a duke, a baron, an emperor, a guild, witches, free men. the most likable quality it shares with LOTR is that this whole vast glossaried invented history is tangibly ginned up from a bedtime story. well and that it's clearly by a guy who likes going for walks.