Dune

[Princess Ivy]

OK, I got interested in this from this board. I watched some of the children of Dune miniseries (although missed gaping holes of it) and eventually got the film. Although I enjoyed it, I couldn't help but wonder about a lot of things. Yesterday I bought the book. I'm now halfway through the second part, and thoroughly enjoying it. its so seldom that a book or film lives up to its reputaion.

 

[Leto]

If you have any question, feel free to ask. Most things got answered further along the serie. Yet, each book can be read as a stand-alone.
One thing, Navigators in the book are much more humans than in the movie.

 

[merritt]

Hi,


I Loved Dune the book! Also, try the 1st Dune movie, the guy who played Baron Harkonen was great in that movie, so evil.

merritt

 

[Leto]

Err, when I meant human was by the look. Elric (appearing in the second book) is an arrogant jerk.

Good to see you back merrit.

 

[Princess Ivy]

I noticed that, although, the book (finished now) does say that the spacers won't let you look at them, no one dares cause they control the space travel. They do wear contacts, its mentioned during the seige of Arrakeen, but it is not confirmed that they are human. Just read the first one, but i don't really have anything left unanswered. As i've caught a couple of chunks of the mini series.
talked mom into it as a late birthday gift (which was really sneaky as she already spoiled me), i'm not gonna push my luck for the sequels, and my library card is full right now. so the others will have to wait.
sigh

 

[Princess Ivy]

Hi,


I Loved Dune the book! Also, try the 1st Dune movie, the guy who played Baron Harkonen was great in that movie, so evil.

merritt

Thats the movie that I have. Yep, I loved him. so fantastically over the top. though i did think that Sting was horribly miscast as the na-baron

 

[Leto]

I noticed that, although, the book (finished now) does say that the spacers won't let you look at them, no one dares cause they control the space travel. They do wear contacts, its mentioned during the seige of Arrakeen, but it is not confirmed that they are human. Just read the first one, but i don't really have anything left unanswered. As i've caught a couple of chunks of the mini series.
talked mom into it as a late birthday gift (which was really sneaky as she already spoiled me), i'm not gonna push my luck for the sequels, and my library card is full right now. so the others will have to wait.
sigh

The two who appear during the siege are Guild's members but not real navigators (still in their ship). They've got Ibad eyes as every one else addicted to spice (Fremen, smugglers and Reverend Mothers - who also use contacts outside the Chapterhouses).

 

[Treikayan]

Overall, I enjoyed both the miniseries of Dune and the Dune Messiah/Children of Dune series. Currently, I'm rereading all of FH's books now. The first book that made me cry was Dune Messiah when Chani dies and Paul loses his prescience. Bijaz was done wonderfully I think.

As always, there are descrpencies in the movies vs. the books, but I enjoyed watching them and being able to understand the details. I got into Dune from a friend locally.
Glad to know there are other Herbert fans out there.

 

[Tim Bond]

I did not like the movie really - the mini-series was really boring to me.

In the movie the voice the bene-gesserit used was amplified for a direct weapon of some sort that could crush you. In the mini-series the voices got all tripped out and weird and loud.

As I recall, in the books - the level of control the BG had over the voice was through extensive training on extreme subtlety in voice inflections and superior modulation of various tones within the very normal ranges of voice output/sensitivity/response in those who heard their voice and not some raw power of banshee like proportions - in fact they could add this modualation very graduly and even produce results subtle enough that a victim may not fully realize it was being done... if they did realize it they would quickly become immune to its effect - which they saved for a last ditch emergency.

This ability was simply an extention of that control of voice which women use everyday, it was never described in terms of output and effect like a laser weapon, but in terms of control targeted to the victims responses - a sort of neural voice key in to very basic responses in the primitive workings of the mind. Men TEND to by vast majority miss alot of communication that goes on between women and can often be controlled in a similar manner dur to an overreliance on monotone voice inflection and the expectation for content to exist on the facts of what gets heard and often miss their most subtle of responses that do take place often outside of their awareness due to a genetic division between the hemipheres of the brain and cultural reinforcement. In fact a rare few semi-/and normal women actualy approached the voice in terms of ability to control others like the BG did in later books. Men in the series to approach the use of the voice must undergo a special training to overcome these disadvantages and when they do - the factor of training and very real detachment can make them very potent.

Look around at mothers who move off monotone and speak very lyrically to their children with a full spectrum of intuitive understanding about the depth, content, and meaning behind a voice and you will see what I mean - they do control a situation in the realm of voice and communication and the more blunt speakers tend to respond and bend to thier wishes often against their baseline inclinations and can be actually compelled under appropriate conditions pretty easily with a talented enough individual. Some women just cannot do this with thier voice - much like the majority of men.

The BG also tied this ability in with body-language and reading facial expressions. Coupled with extensive education on targeted populations and thier myths implied or explicit and with unarmed martial-arts training and a training regime directed for peak physical performance - this is why they were so terrifying. They knew you at a very baseline of your internal movements on all creature/human/cultural/mythic levels, could shape your actions on all these levels and if you were even about to realize and act on this profound level of control they had over you - they would see you coming to this conclusion before you even had a chance to consciously realize you had begun and they would strike when and where you were most vulnerable - they tended toward mercy though, and in the books would resume control if possible.

These women were not the bland good-looking female with soft muscles and a clumsy gait or even merely cruel old women - all with some scary banshee voice they would throw around to scare people. Might as well be clumsy and inferior in an easier way - just have them carry the guns of the day and get it over with.

This was about superior humanity along extra-natural lines and not supernatural lines and thus becoming divergent from mainstream stock entire - and thus no longer able to define thier breeding program as human.

 

[SciFi_Short_Story]

One thing, Navigators in the book are much more humans than in the movie.

Are they really? I seem to recall that they 'used to be humans, but no longer were.' And I do know they live in a type of fluid, which makes them less humanistic in their interpretation. However, now that I think about it, I seem to recall something about a mermaid-type appearance.

Any ideas or clarifications?

 

[Leto]

As described in first chapter of Dune Messiah, they're humanoids living in spice gaz tank, with 2 arms and 2 legs but eyes fish-like and of course "blue-on-blue" and palmed hand and feet. Similar to Namor the Submariner without the winged ankles.

 

[WizardofOwls]

I have read most of the books (still haven't read the last one yet), and have read none of the books that were written by Frank's son. I thoroughly enjoyed these books and loved the movie with Sting, but found the mini-series boring.

 

[fungi from Yuggoth]

All of the original six are worth reading, although Herbert in later books tended more toward introspection and an heavy-handed preaching of his own philosophy that got to such a degree that I found the last book, Chapterhouse, almost impossible to enjoy. I also noted rather a change in tone after book three to a more recognizably "SF" world, replete with laser beams and aliens, which I found somewhat disappointing (much of the appeal lay in the low-tech quasi-Islamic world of the original).

 

[steve12553]

I've been a fan since I read the first book in 1978 or so. I enjoyed the first movie by merely accepting the fact there was way to much story to put in a two and a half hour movie that made sense. You had to have read the books and could be able to fill in the blanks. The mini series' were better for the non- reader but still fell into the catagory the required you to have read the books. An example is TIM BOND's references to the "Voice". You really had three choices. Do it like they did in the movies, explain it with a lot of voice overs and narration or don't explain it [It would come out as a Jedi mind trick]. Their very hard book to translate to film. I'm happy we got something visual.

 

[Cyril]

Both attempts to film Dune are complementary movies.

Lynch's film quality are a strong sense of mysticism. I felt the fanatism of Fremens and their adoration of Muab'dib as their prophet. I never felt that in the miniseries and religious rituals shown in it seems to me ridiculous because I didn't believe in it. In the movie, I felt the power of the prophecy in the Fremen community and this is in my opinion the best success of Lynch attempt. Lynch also understood a thing they didn't understand in the miniseries : the desert of Arrakis is in Dune a character, a central one, the main one. It's unfortunately just a scenery in the miniseries.

But the great success of the miniseries is the Harkonen family. In the movie, Harkonen are bad and almost stupids, not the machiavellian plotters of the books. In the miniseries, they are. They are intelligent, make complex plans motivated by search of power, not only veinal seeking for richness or just nastiness as I felt it in the Lynch's movie. Even Rabban the beast is intelligent and not the sanguinary stupid brute of the movie. This is just a man terrified by the Fremen revolt.

 

[steve12553]

That's absolutely right. I hadn't put it into words but the first movie did have a high degree of mysticism. Respect for the desert as a character. An aura about the fremen and a religious fear of the worms.

 

[flynx]

Interesting views on 'the voice' and I was comlpletely appalled that in the film they transformed it into a physical weapon usable by anyone. It seems they were trying to describe the power of voice by physical means but they didn't need to do that at all when you hear The Reverend Mother in one climactic scene order "Sardaukar. To me." as she sweeps out of the hall.

A lot of the subtle nuances of the book were actually embodied in the film but were easily missed because of the medium, for example, that same scene displaying the powers of the Bene Gesserit in opposition to House Atreides and the attendant difficulties faced by a powerful family supposedly culminating their breeding programme for a kwitatz and that very child (the mother of Paul and his sister) producing inimical forces in not one but two abominations.

 

[topspin]

Respect for the whole DUNE series. Also check Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersons PRELUDE TO DUNE series and BUTLERIAN JIHAD series, gives loads of background info.

 

[Fay Re Nuff]

Interesting views on 'the voice' and I was comlpletely appalled that in the film they transformed it into a physical weapon usable by anyone. It seems they were trying to describe the power of voice by physical means but they didn't need to do that at all when you hear The Reverend Mother in one climactic scene order "Sardaukar. To me." as she sweeps out of the hall.

A lot of the subtle nuances of the book were actually embodied in the film but were easily missed because of the medium, for example, that same scene displaying the powers of the Bene Gesserit in opposition to House Atreides and the attendant difficulties faced by a powerful family supposedly culminating their breeding programme for a kwitatz and that very child (the mother of Paul and his sister) producing inimical forces in not one but two abominations.

i do agree, and yet, they still managed to carry a lot of the original intent within the film.

 

[steve12553]

i do agree, and yet, they still managed to carry a lot of the original intent within the film.

The film needed to be eight hours long to carry it right but that exceeds "The Alfred Hitchcock bladder rule for movie length." At the time it was produced I remember hearing the a lot of money and time was invested in sets for certain scenes that were only a minute or two long.