Dune - The Book and the 1984 film *spoilers for both*

Nope. It would only be Leto III if he were the son of Paul and Chani's firstborn (the one who was killed).

Since both of them were Paul's sons and both were named Leto, the surviving one gets the Roman numeral "II."

 

I tried reading DUNE when I was 12 or 13 and gave up about 25 pages in during the hand in the box ibt. Then over a decade later, just a few months prior to the film coming out, I picked it up (same copy, I hadn't tossed it) and opened right up to the banquet scene, which drew me in completely. I read about 40 pages past it, THEN went back and was able to read it cover to cover in a couple days. Since then, when I can't get into a book, I open it at random and give it a chance to be the DUNE banquest scene.

I have owned several copies of the Naha book (shot of Kyle on the cover is always a favorite with past girlfriends and my wife, because it looks exactly like me - the neg is flipped so his hair is parted on the left, not the right), and while I agree it is very good, I would recommend the CINEFANTASTIQUE double issue that features DUNE even more strongly. Lots of great pics (though I guess most of them are on the DVD now) and an interesting set of bits about Apogee and Dykstra leaving the show.)

 

I never had a problem with GEoD's time-jump or narrative. Quite liked that meditative quality. I did it think was interesting that Heretics seemed more a return to the conventional adventure/action formula. Perhaps FH or publishers felt it didn't quite work? And HoD does feature one of my favourite Dune universe characters: Waff.

 

Yeah.. i get it now after 20+ years later since i read the books initially

Thanks though for the effort.

 

Doesn't Heretics of Dune suggest that according to Fremen beliefs Leto III is a reincarnation of Leto II and thus why he's called Leto II?

 

They are not female Tleilaxu. Waff the Tleilaxu master tests this theory and concludes they are not. The BG in Chapterhouse conclude the Matres are former BG from the Scattering who were able to survive withdrawal from the spice using the adrenaline compound utilized by the Matres (and we know since Dune that the BG use other drugs not just the Spice) and incorporating the bureaucracy of the Fish Speakers.

 

That was explained in Heretics: the axlotl tanks are Tleilaxu women.

More evidence that Pinky and the Brain were totally useless.

 

I would have to reread Heretics of Dune to verify that, but it doesn't matter: Leto (Ghanima's twin) was NOT the son or any sort of offspring of anybody but PAUL.

Paul named his firstborn after Duke Leto. The kid was killed before reaching adulthood and was never the Duke. Paul named his second-born son Leto, as well. That kid did become Emperor.

However, the fact is that both Letos were sons of Paul. Ghanima's twin does not come from his deceased brother in any way whatsoever. Therefore he is properly known as Leto II.

Think of it this way: If your father's name is John Smith and he sired a son who was named John Smith, Jr. and that son died, there would be nobody named John Smith, Jr. Later, after you were born and were also named John Smith - YOU would be John Smith, Jr. and not John Smith III - because you would not be your brother's son. You would be your father's son.

Besides: The Dune Encyclopedia - written by Dr. Willis McNelly and authorized by Frank Herbert - has extensive entries for Leto II (aka the God Emperor). There are no entries whatsoever for any character called "Leto III."

My apologies. I had forgotten about the Fish Speakers, and will try to cleanse the abomination of having been corrupted by KJA/BH's false information.

I know that.

 

IIRC it wasn't a widely held belief so much as it was a couple of priests (at least I think they were priests) pontificating the way only religious nuts and comic book fanboys know how.

Actually, hold I'll get a direct quote.

 

That's such a cool picture! Where did it come from?

Briefly, count me as a huge fan of God Emperor of Dune. There's something just eerie about the whole thing, where you have a near-omniscienct Leto II lording over everyone, and half of what he says is the most profound truth ever and the other half is the most cynical BS ever spouted, and you can never be sure which is which! Sadly, the two FH novels that followed are not as compelling, because after Leto's death free humanity forever from the danger of falling under prescient tyranny, to come back to the Old Empire just seems parochial. The Honored Matres are terrible antagonists, which makes Chapterhouse the worst of the six.

Despite its mangling of canon, I actually like Paul of Dune, especially the plot of Count Fenring, and his daughter. Of course, I just skipped the noncanon parts of the book going back into Paul's past.

I really wanted to read BH and KJA's story about the beginnings of Leto II's Golden Path, but they wimped out. Maybe they realized their limited talents couldn't really begin to do justice to expanding the story of the God Emperor's reign.

 

They'd have made it All About Norma.

 

Love the first book. The books decline in quality after that, but I will say that Herbert took risks to expand the storyline. I read the book after watching the SciFi miniseries back in 2000. Even as a 16 year old, I loved it. It was less daunting than people had warned me it would be, and I gobbled it up in a few days.

The Lynch film does some things right, but so much else wrong. Its biggest problem is DAVID LYNCH. But narrative wise, I can't imagine how anyone who hasn't read the book could understand what the hell is happening. I do appreciate how it tries to show the inner monologues that happen in the book and how it tries to explain the complicated feudal system in the story and it does a better job than the miniseries of showing the military power of the various Houses. But other than that....ugh.

Lynch is one of those guys who just won't get out of the way of his own filmmaking. I know he has his fans but I can say that I don't enjoy anything of his that I've seen.

I enjoyed the SciFi channel's original miniseries more once I started to look at it like a televised stage production. That way, I can forgive its cheapness. Children of Dune, on the other hand, NAILED IT. The feel, the style of that production is perfect and I wish we had a version of the original novel that's more like that.

 

Just google 'god emperor of dune' and it will come up in top images . I thought it was striking considering we'd been talking about principal characters in novel. I also liked it's Sistine Chapel quality; it felt the sort of thing one might see on a Rakian ceiling. And I always enjoy seeing others interpretations of characters, seeing as we're presumably all fans of the books here and have our own very personal ideas of what they look like. Though I'll admit mine is much more coloured now by the Lynch movie and mini-series.

 

Most of you probably know this already but there's a Lynch cameo in the film:
http://sgtr.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/dune.gif

 

I'd forgotten about that. It looks like that spice harvester is being driven by Lorenzo St. DuBois off "The Producers". Oh, man not again...

 

I've finally seen Dune from beginning to end. Its easily the worst sci fi book adaptation I've ever seen, and probably the worst one ever. This movie did not go 30 seconds without screwing something up from the book or just being obnoxious. It also loved to have pointless, usually disgusting, imagery for no real reason except that the writer/director is an moron. I could write a large essay about the problems in this movie, but I'll just bring up a few. The villain, Baron harkonnen, was ruined. He went from a very evil, but clever and sane, villain to a basically completely made clown. In the book he was really into violence and stuff like that, and a lot of his violence was disturbing. But in this movie its jumped the shark. He's diseased (with a face ravaged by disease) and seems to get off on drenching himself with blood and doing other bizarre things. He's constantly laughing like a bad supervillain and just acting like a complete nutjob. He also poisoned Hawat, who was his prisoner, and agave him the poison antidote by making Hawat milk a cat. That was so bizarre I find it hard to even be angry at that, I'm just confused about what idiot thought that was a better idea than how the book Baron dealt with Hawat. Anyway, the baron is easily the worst written character, and completely misses what the original character was.

The movie also just messed up basically everything possible from the book. Instead of just being a good fighter with powers honed by people for centuries, Paul had a "weirding weapon", basically a blaster, and thats how he and his men fought. Instead of hand to hand combat, we got crappy blaster fights. He also seemed to gain the ability to control worms, and control the weather (both extremely stupid things , and in the case of making the planet rain stupid and actually very destructive because rain+spice under the ground = chain reaction that kills all the worms and, in effect, billions of people, so I hope his control of the weather is really good). I could literally go on for hours, but it comes down to this. Dune is a horribly written movie that basically fails in all areas, and is an insult to the book its "adapting" (and I use that term loosely).

Most characters are written badly (although Patrick Stewart does a good job with his 10-20 lines in the movie) a lot of the plot was fast forwarded through, and it was in love with its own crappy special effects. People could say that the movie needed more time, and I agree that Dune can really not be adapted in 2 hours. That said, what we got in 2 hours was so wrong that there is no way Lynch could have done any better (and would probably have done much worse) even if he could have made it as long as he wanted. The only thing i can say positive about this movie is that I think that the actors were honestly trying to do the best with what they were given, and they deserve credit for that. Still, nothing saves this movie from being a horrible adaptation of an excellent book.

Also, just as a side comment, what was up with the pug? There was literally just a random pug (apparently owned by the atriedies) that just kept popping up. Gurney Hallack even went into battle with a rifle in one hand and the pug in another.

 

It's an atmospheric, fun movie that at least covers most of the key events from the book. There are adaptations out there like Sandkings or I, Robot that only take the title and ignore the rest of the book.

 

I've never read the book, but I, Robot is a vastly superior movie compared to Dune. Dune was just 2 hours and 17 minutes of David Lynch ruining a great sci fi book. Atleast I, Robot was entertaining and didn't make me want to break something.

In the end, the Dune mini series is the real adaptation. It was long, but actually done well and it was a real adaptation, not a movie that seemed to just be the stupid screenwriter picking his favorite parts of the book and then doing them horribly, connected with a lot of stupid imagery and changes that did nothing but screw up the story.

 

I'd be curious to know what you think of the Scifi mini.

 

Strongly disagree.

Only because you hadn't read the book .

The mini-series had no atmosphere. The Baron was vastly improved, but most of the cast were wooden as hell. William Hurt has absolutely no charisma, Paul is a whiny bitch, and Gurney seems to be reading his lines from an auto-cue.