Dune (2020) - Denis Villeneuve

The aesthetic so far does look a bit... familiar - a bit near future - but trying to nail what things will look like in 22000AD+ (Dune timeline as per appendix in the first book), is a hopeless task: you don’t want it to be wacky and out there and end up looking silly, but not too ‘300 years in the future standard science fiction’ either. But saying that I’ll hold off till the trailer as production stills don’t tell you too much and if Denis can inspire awe and grandeur like he did in Arrival and BR2049 I’m sure he can pull off the far future.

People often think of Dune as low-tech but it’s really not - just there’s nothing resembling AI or a technological enslavement in the sense of pervasive attachment to computers (which it was the Butlerian Jihad was supposed to be before his son’s godawful Skynet retcon) - it's just not the focus on the story and it sits in the background, and besides the ships and Holtzman-related tech, there’s all sorts of cool stuff like the tech the Ixians make that's pretty mental, as far as it making us look as basic as Bronze Age man is to us. I want to feel future shock!
 
My book showed up from Amazon...in Spanish :( Not a biggie, it's a free return but it does bug me that searching "dune book", "dune novel", "dune frank herbert" all return the spanish edition as one of the first results.

Fair dues it does show it on the item description page...half way down in a small box :D
 
Well this must be of of a few book series that I haven’t read although I loved the film and looking forward to this new one
 
RobTi said:
Okay can I ask what your opinions of books 7 & 8 are ?
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I will quote myself.
Well let's hope it isn't an abomination like the follow-ups made to Frank Herbert's Dune saga.
Six good books followed by some utter background drivel, and then coupled onto the end 2 books of complete excrement.
Awful in content, and terrible in editing, some passages were repeated in different chapters, as if the two authors coming together had two separate editions and neither read the other authors pov.
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RobTi said:
Okay can I ask what your opinions of books 7 & 8 are ?
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Anything by Brian and Kevin is not Dune canon to me. There is no evidence that 'Frank's notes' on any story beyond Chapterhouse exist, and the proprosed Butlerian Jihad prequel were anything like what we ended up with.

I much prefer the ideas suggested in the Dune Encyclopedia (out of print so it's fine to download as a PDF), which Frank contradicted in places a little in later books (since he didn't plan ahead hugely and this was written before Heretics), and has some internal contradictions due to it being written by in-universe characters who are not privvy to all the historical facts. I love it though. It also had Frank's approval. Speaking of that prequel, which was going to co-authored between Ellis McNelly who wrote parts of the Encyclopedia and Frank... you can read the intro to the book that never was here - doesn't seem quite like what we got eh?

There are two obvious differences between what Frank envisioned and what Brian decided to retcon that I find about as infuriating as seeing a work of fiction you like tarnished can be:

1. At the end of Chapterhouse it's plainly clear that the Honored Matres were running from evolved Face Dancers that had liberated themselves from their Tleilaxu masters and rather than just mimicking personas, they could absorb entire psyches and had become exponentially advanced, and it's clear that is what 'Daniel and Marty' are - pretty much stated by themselves no less - whilst at the same time being something like stand-ins for Frank and his wife, dropping into the story to watch their creations disappear into the ether, forever out of reach. Due to Leto II's Golden Path succeeding insofar as humans being shielded from prescience and scattering through the universe, humanity's fate was assured and you get an open ending that has a sense of closure as well.

2. The Dune series is about humanity dealing with itself. Maybe Frank has some future ideas for thinking machines in a future book, but his idea about what the Butlerian Jihad was, was entirely different than the one Brian and Kevin came up with; that the rise of thinking machines made people complacent, in the sense of letting machines think for or control them. The jihad was a philosophical and ultimately violent uprising against this, which resulted in the development of human potential, in conjunction with fantastically advanced machines (thank you Ix and Richese), but ones that did not do the thinking for humans.

Quoting Frank himself:
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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This is infinitely more interesting and congruent with the idea of Dune than the idiot space Skynet and his robot nazi mate we got served with.

There's only 6 Dune books, the rest is fan-fiction. :p
 
robgmun said:
I can't lie, i'm pumped as hell for this. Villeneuve has become what i hoped Blomkamp would become but failed.
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I also had high hopes for Blomkamp after District 9 but he quickly turned out to be a one trick pony.

Actually, that's not totally fair, he did some good sci-fi shorts a few years back as part of Oats Studios.
 
SixTwoSix said:
I also had high hopes for Blomkamp after District 9 but he quickly turned out to be a one trick pony.

Actually, that's not totally fair, he did some good sci-fi shorts a few years back as part of Oats Studios.
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I liked Elysium too but it just wasn't a patch on District 9, it was Chappie that he lost me at, the SFX were great but everything else about it was just horrible
 
I remember when the first movie came out they marketed it like Star Wars and aimed a lot of marketing at very young kids like me including a toy range.

The range largely flopped but I remember as a very young kid getting the toys for the Sting character and the fat Ginger in a bargain bucket. They were actually exceptionally detailed and well designed figurines as well as being bigger than many others like Star Wars, Sting was totally recognisable and had a karate chop action, they were actually really great toys.

So to say I was excited to watch the movie after finding them as a kid was an understatement. Wow, if Star Wars was that great and only had small toys, then Dune is going to be amazing with those big, detailed toys.

Yeah, well, let's just say it was immensely boring for a kid to watch with some disturbing, surreal and shocking elements thrown in for good measure, later I'd become a moderate fan of David Lynch and realise that's basically his style, so not blaming the source material but that movie killed the franchise for me pretty much for good.

Though definitely interested to see what this new version is like, I know the prior movie didn't do the books justice.
 
So, started the book on my break. Powered through the first 25 odds pages before getting distracted by someone. It's remarkably well written and has a great flow. So far it doesn't stand out as being written 50+ years ago. I'm just having a hard time not visualising Lynch's movie as I read.

I think i'm going to finish this quickly.
 
PC777 said:
I remember when the first movie came out they marketed it like Star Wars and aimed a lot of marketing at very young kids like me including a toy range.

The range largely flopped but I remember as a very young kid getting the toys for the Sting character and the fat Ginger in a bargain bucket. They were actually exceptionally detailed and well designed figurines as well as being bigger than many others like Star Wars, Sting was totally recognisable and had a karate chop action, they were actually really great toys.

So to say I was excited to watch the movie after finding them as a kid was an understatement. Wow, if Star Wars was that great and only had small toys, then Dune is going to be amazing with those big, detailed toys.

Yeah, well, let's just say it was immensely boring for a kid to watch with some disturbing, surreal and shocking elements thrown in for good measure, later I'd become a moderate fan of David Lynch and realise that's basically his style, so not blaming the source material but that movie killed the franchise for me pretty much for good.

Though definitely interested to see what this new version is like, I know the prior movie didn't do the books justice.
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I was 4 when it came out, so must have just missed it. Never knew they tried to market it at kids....with Lynch at the helm? No wonder nobody was happy with it :P

I still really enjoy the Lynch film...it's too long, and too rushed, but the cast, mood, ambience, music, costume, visuals are all bang on imo. It's good Villeneuve hasn't tried to do anything wacky with it, although the looks are some more modern lines to the hardware.
 
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