Dune Production is In Trouble

[Starbreaker]

That's what I thought. I guess he's around something or so. He's old enough to hold a position of power, but still young enough to relate to Paul. He's more of a friend that a mentor to him.

[O'Dib]

I'm in the middle of reading Brian Herbert's sequel to Chapterhouse, which describes the process of growing gholas as a traditional 9 month coming to term of a baby, without any accelerated growth afterward. And it's not a matter of lost Tleilaxu of the Scattering forgetting advances in cloning technology, considering Scytale, the last original Master, utilizes the same methods. Aside from the ability to birth one baby after another, the whole thing almost defeats the purpose of Axlotl tanks, as I thought the mutated "mounds of flesh" women would've been able to birth full grown men. Makes me wonder how closely they actually followed Frank's notes.

[Admiral_Young]

^There's a joke among Dune fans that the 'found Frank notes in a vault' story is a made up thing and they made most of the stuff up.

[Starbreaker]

It's not a joke. Some people hate Herbert & Anderson so much they've sent death threats.

[Brandonv]

I for one would like to see another attempt made at a Dune movie. With a good script and art direction I think it has the potential to make a really epic sci-fi movie.

I actually think the 1984 version came pretty close to getting it right. My main complaints with the Lynch version are:

1. Too much use of guns. Why is everyone using projectile weapons in the fight scenes? When reading the novel, I was under the impression that most combat was done with knives and swords, because shields where effectively impenetrable (and potentially dangerous if hit by a laser).

2. Weirding modules. I understand that the weirding way would have been hard to show in 1984, so I can kind of give them a pass on this one. But the whole concept of the weirding module never made much sense to me.

3. The confusing script. This is a really important area, and to be honest I don't know if there is really any way to translate the complexities of the Dune universe for a general audience. I think the key is to somehow explain the relationship between the Imperium, the Spacing Guild, and the Bene Gesserit. The Lynch film used a lot of exposition and inner monologues to try to explain these things, but it just left audiences confused.

[Starbreaker]

They passed out guides to the Duniverse in some theaters in '84.

[Hound of UIster]

O'Dib wrote:

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I'm in the middle of reading Brian Herbert's sequel to Chapterhouse, which describes the process of growing gholas as a traditional 9 month coming to term of a baby, without any accelerated growth afterward. And it's not a matter of lost Tleilaxu of the Scattering forgetting advances in cloning technology, considering Scytale, the last original Master, utilizes the same methods. Aside from the ability to birth one baby after another, the whole thing almost defeats the purpose of Axlotl tanks, as I thought the mutated "mounds of flesh" women would've been able to birth full grown men. Makes me wonder how closely they actually followed Frank's notes.

They didn't. Kevin J Anderson if he is unknown to you is a hack writer who churns out novels for licensed properties. He is well known for 1) dictating his works via tape while hiking and then having a secretary transcribe them and 2) being hated by almost anyone who has read his licensed material.

After he got ran out of several licensed properties including Star Wars, he set his eye on Dune and was able to convince Herbert's gullible son to have him expand on the original work. The discrepancies and mistakes are undoubtedly the result of laziness on their parts and sacrificing faithfulness to the original material for dramatic license.

[Reverend]

Starbreaker wrote:

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Duncan was only a few years older than Paul in Dune. When he reappears as a ghola, he's about the same age from what I remember.

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Duncan is actually more like in his 30's would be my guess, and is considered one of Paul's teachers and mentors, the Duncan portrayed in the Lynch films looked like he was in his early 40's. The Ghola Duncan was of course the same age when he died on Arrakis.

I was talking about Duncan's age difference between God Emperor, Heretics & Chapterhouse. In the first I think he's about the same age he was when the original Duncan died, the next book skips a thousand or so years and has a new Idaho ghola, this time just a boy (about 10 I think) then by the next book he's something like 20.

As for the original Duncan, I think he was always a good decade or two older than Paul, who, let's remember was barley a teenager when the first book starts.

Admiral_Young wrote:

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^There's a joke among Dune fans that the 'found Frank notes in a vault' story is a made up thing and they made most of the stuff up.

I don't doubt they did follow his notes, they just aren't any near as good at actually writing as Frank was. Just like an excellent script can be utterly destroyed by a hack director, the best story notes in the world can't write themselves into even a "good" novel.
One of the best things about Frank for me wasn't so much what he did write about as what he didn't. He may have worked everything out in painstaking detail but that didn't mean he had to spell out every last step. Had he written the last book himself, it wouldn't have been half the length of either of those two wastes of good paper. He respected his readers enough to let them think for themselves and could deftly cover in a single paragraph what it takes his son and Anderson about three chapters to plod though.

I'm not sure how much of that is lack of talent, but I rather suspect it had more to do with padding it out to wring as many books as they could out of the franchise.

O'Dib wrote:

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I'm in the middle of reading Brian Herbert's sequel to Chapterhouse, which describes the process of growing gholas as a traditional 9 month coming to term of a baby, without any accelerated growth afterward. And it's not a matter of lost Tleilaxu of the Scattering forgetting advances in cloning technology, considering Scytale, the last original Master, utilizes the same methods. Aside from the ability to birth one baby after another, the whole thing almost defeats the purpose of Axlotl tanks, as I thought the mutated "mounds of flesh" women would've been able to birth full grown men. Makes me wonder how closely they actually followed Frank's notes.

It's been a while since I've read any of them but I'm pretty sure the BG intentionally only grew the Duncans (and later, Teg) to a "natural" term. They didn't want fully grown and awakened Gholas, they wanted children they could raise and assure control over. It stands to reason that the same would hold true on the no-ship.

[The Wormhole]

Reverend wrote:

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It's been a while since I've read any of them but I'm pretty sure the BG intentionally only grew the Duncans (and later, Teg) to a "natural" term. They didn't want fully grown and awakened Gholas, they wanted children they could raise and assure control over. It stands to reason that the same would hold true on the no-ship.

You are indeed correct. The Duncan Idaho and Miles Teg gholas seen in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune were created as babies and grew naturally before having their memories awakened. And since this happened in Frank Herbert books no one can blame Brian Herbert for continuing to do this in his books.

[Admiral_Young]

I think people blame Pinky and the Brain for bringing Omnius into sequels, and regrowing Paul, Leto and original character Gholas. I really can't see Frank wanting to bring back his original characters like that.

[JoeZhang]

The Anderson/BH books are absolutely dire - they'd be just about passable as throw-away pap in the Star Wars Universe, as sequels in the Dune universe? utter shite.

[Hound of UIster]

I don't think Frank Herbert would begrudge his son making a living off of his literary legacy.

[Admiral_Young]

I don't think he would either, but I don't think that Frank would have agreed or that what Brian and Kevin have claimed are his 'long lost notes' are really them.

[JoeZhang]

Hound of UIster wrote:

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I don't think Frank Herbert would begrudge his son making a living off of his literary legacy.

So what? Whatever the motives or possible parental approval, the books are still terrible.

[Admiral_Young]

I remember that there was talk when they were first writing the 'house' books that they had compiled all of Frank's notes along with ones they'd created into a Dune Compendium and fans started clambering to see this published one day to which Pinky and the Brain responded that there are no plans to publish it lol. I've always found it mysterious that in the same year that it was announced they were doing the first Dune prequels 'the house books' they made they claim about discovering a previously unlocked safe in Seattle or theareabouts. How convenient.