Dune 2018 (19,20,21...)

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by wayoung, Dec 22, 2016.

  1. Nightowl1701

    Nightowl1701 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 29, 2011
    Location:
    Orlando, FL
    He's in there (Stephen McKinley Henderson's playing him), they just haven't brought him up. The big missing character here is Feyd Rautha, and since he's apparently not in the Baron's scenes they're evidently holding him back (along with the Emperor, Irulan, Alia and maybe the Fenrings) for the Part 2 that might never happen.
     
  2. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    May 17, 2016
    Location:
    wayoung
    Thufir has been in the trailers and has his own poster. I can never get images to work so here's the first result from Google image search

    https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/DUNE_VERT_Thufir_Hawat_2764x4096_DOM.jpg





    Yeah it's confirmed Feyd isn't in this movie at all. Prevailing fan theory is that they merged him with Rabban to give Bautista a meatier role (it's been denied but the script isn't even done, so....).

    I can't imagine Feyd being introduced in the 2nd movie only. I don't know how that would work. But I also can't see Timothy Chalamet defeating and killing Bautista in single combat so:shrug:
     
  3. Mage

    Mage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 17, 2007
    Not to mention how important the character of Feyd is towards the plans of the Bene Gesserit to create their Kwisatz Haderach. How the Baron needed him as his succesor. It would be odd indeed to not include him.
     
  4. Marc

    Marc Fleet Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2003
    Location:
    Shinning Waters
    But until the fight with Paul at the end, Feyd is mainly the political machinations on Guidi Prime (the baron's plans for him and Hawat's attempts to set the Harkonnens against each other).
     
  5. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    It's not like the Harkonnen have featured heavily.
     
  6. Timby

    Timby o yea just like that Administrator

    Joined:
    May 28, 2001
    The long-standing rumor that won't go away is that Disney is looking at purchasing Regal outright once the sunset period on the consent decrees expires next year.
     
  7. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 26, 2007
    Location:
    In many different universes, simultaneously.
    Because it would be weird if Chani's mother married a woman of Sietch Tabr and became Stilgar's blood-brother? :vulcan: Chani's mother died before her father did, and she looked to Stilgar (her uncle) for guidance in the ways of the desert and Reverend Mother Ramallo for guidance in the ways of Fremen women.

    Liet is important in Dune, referenced and respected in Dune Messiah, and I think he's mentioned in Children of Dune. After that he disappears from the story (unless a stray memory surfaces in Leto II's mind in God Emperor due to Other Memory, since Leto II wasn't yet born while Kynes was alive). I don't remember if Odrade references him in Other Memory in the last two books (it would be shaky at best, since she'd be reaching all the way back to Paul, and the Bene Gesserit of 4500 years later aren't too fond of Paul and Jessica, since they were responsible for Leto II's existence, aka "The Tyrant".

    The axolotl tanks aren't anywhere near as graphic in FH's books as they are in KJA/BH's crap.

    It's been nearly 20 years since 9/11. Are we supposed to excise the word "jihad" completely, especially in major literary works?

    The Jews don't show up until Heretics, so there's not much danger of giving or receiving offense in this movie, or in any movies based on the first four books.

    The Face Dancers (Tleilaxu) have already been part of visual interpretations of these books. The miniseries had Scytale as a character, as he's one of the main characters in Dune Messiah.

    Sorry, I'm blanking on the "politically incorrect" content. Yes, to our modern RL sensibilities, some of the attitudes shown in Dune are antiquated and politically incorrect (ie. Duncan is not pleased to discover that the Fish Speakers in God Emperor engage in same-sex relations, and considers it immoral). But I look at it as Duncan being a product of the society and time he was born into and lived in, which was 3000 years previously. The Fremen are also against incest; anyone caught in that situation is put through the deathstill and their water is poured out on the sand instead of added to the tribe's water. I would be very surprised if anyone thought the Fremen view of incest was politically incorrect (this is brought up in Children of Dune, when the Bene Gesserit suggest that Leto and Ghanima mate and produce a child so the precious Atreides genes will be preserved for their breeding program).

    Actually, what mainstream audiences absolutely would not accept is the very young age of some of the characters and how it would look like children being forced into adult wars and sexual situations (it's hard sometimes to divorce reality from the story and remember that the 9-year-old twins in Children of Dune were actually born with adult consciousnesses; this is why they were aged several years in the miniseries so young adults could play those roles).

    Yeah, I'm trying to come up with how many main characters in Heretics and Chapterhouse who are male, and... three? Duncan, Teg, and one of the Tleilaxu Masters, if memory serves. There's another character, Rebecca's father, but he just complains and argues for awhile and makes it clear how much he disapproves of the Bene Gesserit, until Rebecca tells him he can't order her around anymore.

    Oh please yourself. Yes, there actually is.

    Being Stilgar's brother, Kynes has to be a man. Stilgar explicitly refers to Kynes as "my brother."

    He's entitled to his opinion.

    Who is "Hannah"? If you're going to argue with me, please get the names right. The character's name is Harah. And since there appear to be quite a number of people here who turn their noses up at the rest of the series, here's the scoop: Harah eventually marries Stilgar, after she is no longer needed to look after Alia. Paul didn't want her at all, but he had to take her to satisfy Fremen custom. It's not that she's a prize. It's that she becomes Paul's responsibility and he has a duty to make sure she and her sons are provided for. He frees her, and she eventually opts to marry Stilgar (thus becoming his third wife).

    If you'd actually read Dune Messiah, you'd know that Irulan is not a "trophy wife" and yes, she has lines in addition to the chapter epigrams. But of course people who limit themselves to the first book wouldn't know that.

    Pointless gender-swapping in nuBSG is one of the reasons I stopped watching after the first episode. And there are enough female characters in Dune already. They don't need to manufacture one out of a male character.

    KJA/BH would love that. Please let there be not one syllable about Norma Fucking Cenva in this.

    From the article: " Dune director Denis Villenueve is still attached to direct the pilot episode, and he and Spaihts are among the producers, along with Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson."

    Well, I guess that's that. Sorceresses of Rossak, Norma Fucking Cenva, and a total mess. KJA/BH do NOT understand Dune, they don't understand or care about respecting the source material, and their depiction of the Bene Gesserit was... "ridiculous" is about the most polite term I can muster.

    Byron Merritt was a member of Arrakeen, back when he was running dunenovels.com (the official forum for the nuDune books). He kept spouting off about how awful the people from Arrakeen were, so I invited him to join and see for himself how much we all respected his grandfather's writing and his legacy.

    Holy crap, that didn't turn out well...

    :rolleyes:

    Stilgar is Chani's uncle.

    The thing about gender is that the Bene Gesserit breeders (which include Jessica and Margot, and Jessica's mother - and please do not tell me Mohiam was her mother; that was an invention of KJA/BH) are supposed to be able to choose to conceive either a male child or a female child, by adjusting the biochemistry within their own bodies. This is how Jessica decided to give Leto a son and heir, rather than the daughter she was ordered to bear, for the sake of the breeding program.

    This has nothing to do with Kynes, who had no connection I'm aware of to the Bene Gesserit, save whatever contact he might have had with Reverend Mother Ramallo (the Fremen Sayyadina) during his time in Sietch Tabr, or Jessica herself (I'm curious as to whether this movie will include the banquet scene; the Lynch movie didn't, but the miniseries did).

    If they're doing all six novels, Duncan Idaho is not the "star" of God Emperor, but he would share the limelight with however they depict Leto II. I find it very odd that a man of this actor's age could plausibly play Duncan in Heretics, because he's only about 15 or 16 years old in that book. He ages somewhat by the end of Chapterhouse (we're not told specifically how much time Duncan spends in the no-ship with Murbella before he and Sheanna take the ship and go on the run (so to speak).

    There's a fundamental difference between Paul and Alia, and that is that Paul was born normally, grew from a normal baby, through all the stages that humans go through, from infancy, toddler, child, teenager, and finally adult. As his physical aspect grew and changed with his age, so did his mental aspect (though of course no child with the Bene Gesserit training Paul had from childhood could be like most children, but he did have a childhood).

    Alia never had a childhood, or at least not much of one. She was Pre-Born, what the Bene Gesserit call Abomination, becoming a Reverend Mother while still in utero. In the miniseries, adult Alia tries to describe to the twins the horror she felt at going through this experience, but since they had each other, plus the cooperation of some of their Other Memory personas to keep them from being overwhelmed by the thousands of other personas that are part of their consciousness, they can't relate to Alia's situation. Alia had nobody to help her through that (something Jessica should have done, but since she didn't go through the Spice Agony in the normal way either, it was like the blind leading the blind and the one being led getting lost). So when Alia receives an offer of protection from the Baron, she grabs onto it as a lifeline.

    But of course this happens in Dune Messiah, after Alia is older (she's 16 when she has to take the regency for Paul's children). Again, Jessica is of no help whatsoever, having fled back to Caladan and trying to get back in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood's good graces.

    By the time Alia becomes obsessed with trying to read the future, she's desperate to hold on not only to power, but her own sanity. She's got the Baron in her head, gradually working his way to controlling her, and she doesn't realize it until it's nearly too late (toward the end of Children of Dune).

    Oh, FFS.

    NO. Stilgar already had two wives, and at some point after Paul released her, he and Harah married (Paul was responsible for her for a year after he killed Jamis, but after that he could free her and she could marry someone else if she chose).

    I've just done a re-read of Stilgar's biography in the Dune Encyclopedia; it says Stilgar had a bond of blood-brotherhood with Liet-Kynes, so he was essentially Chani's uncle, and took her into his household after her mother died (Liet-Kynes was often away on the Emperor's business, or traveling around to various sietches and places on Arrakis where the Fremen were attempting to grow plants or cache water, so he was only a part-time father figure at best).

    I re-read part of the novel a couple of nights ago (I just finished a couple of very long posts on another forum, answering peoples' questions about the novels, miniseries, and the Lynch movie), and Stilgar refers to Kynes as "my brother."

    I took that to mean that Stilgar considered Kynes his social equal and family in terms of kinship.

    According to the Dune Encyclopedia, Liet-Kynes could have introduced Chani to life in the Imperium; she had the right to know that side of her lineage, but he chose to let her remain entirely Fremen. The Encyclopedia goes on to say:
    Source: The Dune Encyclopedia, p. 47

    The Imperium is essentially a space-going feudal society. Women did not have the same opportunities for authority and leadership as men, on many planets and in the Imperial court. The exceptions are the Bene Gesserit and whatever planets may be female-dominated (ie. Rossak). And in spite of the respect and reverence accorded to the sietch's Sayyadina, it was still the Naibs who made the decisions.

    These are the reasons I find it ridiculous and untrue to the source material to have Kynes as a woman. Based on what is stated in the novel and in the Encyclopedia, it's just not something that would happen in-universe.

    I'd appreciate getting to read it, if that's okay.

    Chani's presence in the series is expanded on in Dune Messiah, and she makes a "spiritual" appearance in Children of Dune as the person in Ghanima's Other Memory who will act as the gatekeeper to protect her daughter from becoming overwhelmed and dominated by her ancestral memories. Ghanima is 9 years old when this happens, and so she is able to avoid Abomination, as Alia was not.

    The Lynch movie did a decent job with Hawat, showing him as Paul's teacher, Leto's advisor, and there's a scene where he is commanding the Atreides troops when they're searching for Harkonnen traps, spies, and other nasty surprises left behind.

    Margot, Lady Fenring should at least be mentioned. Jessica finds a coded message from her in the conservatory in the residence in Arrakeen (the Fenrings lived there before the Atreides moved in). Later in the novel, there's a scene in which we find out that Margot has received orders from the Bene Gesserit to seduce Feyd-Rautha and conceive a child, to preserve his genes for the Bene Gesserit's ongoing breeding program (come hell or high water, they are determined to produce the kind of Kwisatz Haderach they want, and Feyd was actually supposed to be the father of the Kwisatz Haderach by mating with Alia).

    Oh, FFS.

    Yep. Both of the Baron's nephews have a purpose in the story. There's no way to combine them into one character and have it make any sense.
     
    arch101, theenglish and jaime like this.
  8. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    May 17, 2016
    Location:
    wayoung
    Impressive. A block of text like that and it all boils down to :

    ":wah:Waaahhhhhh :wah: stop adding girls to my sci fi:wah:Waaahhhhhhh:wah:"
     
    Coops likes this.
  9. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
     
  10. Coops

    Coops Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2021
    Yup. The gender levelling isn't going to go away so stick to original versions or look the other way.

    On a separate note, what soundtrack I've heard, to my ears at least, appears to acknowledge how great Brian Eno's Prophecy piece was and still is by echoing it from time to time. Perhaps it's just the instrumental nature of the music but I can hear it.
     
    wayoung and The Nth Doctor like this.
  11. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2013
    Location:
    London
    Lot of interesting stuff there, my shortest answer is:

    A lot of my later posts were musing on the process of adapting to film as a reason behind some of the changes.
    I also kind of have to include the Brian and Kevin stuff because it’s the only ending I got. It was… not as bad as I had been led to expect, but most of the most unpleasant stuff was in those books. I will be surprised if there aren’t serious changes made to axolotl tanks, the Shia-Muslim Tleixatl, all of that, if it makes it to film. Not to mention the fact that *all* face dancers are trans in many respects.

    I only found one page of my Dune ‘fan-fic’, a sort of Chani based prologue, and another page with something I wrote as an aside in the same exercise, which was before I read the Kevin and Brian show stuff. (Which naturally, means it is better than it xD) will send you a message.
     
  12. jaime

    jaime Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2013
    Location:
    London

    Erm. To the best of my knowledge, she is a ‘girl’ who reads Sci Fil
     
  13. theenglish

    theenglish Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2001
    Location:
    Western Canada
    That's an impressive and thoughtful response Timewalker-- thanks for that.
     
    arch101 and Timewalker like this.
  14. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    Your quote attribution is not working right.
     
  15. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 26, 2007
    Location:
    In many different universes, simultaneously.
    :rolleyes:

    So I guess you didn't bother reading anything else, or you didn't understand it.

    You've been around long enough to know on this and any other Dune forum we've both been members of that I'm a woman, so your accusations of sexism are nothing but bullshit. I'd say the same if a female character was gender-swapped to male.

    Actually, if you want to criticize a show for its lack of female characters, look no further than Bonanza. Three grown sons of marriageable age in a time when most men with a stable home and income did get married, all living with their father, and every female guest character who might have married them either dies, gets killed, leaves town, runs off with another man, goes back east, or various other reasons, and the only time one of the brothers did marry, his wife died anyway.

    Not a good setting for women, evidently, strong-minded or not.

    I've been writing a novel (actually it turned into a series) over the past 3 years, based on one of my favorite computer games. That one suffers from a lack of female characters, since the only one still alive happens to be the villain. I took a look at the main characters' household and noted that there were no female relatives mentioned, not even a cook or housekeeper... so I invented some. But at least I didn't genderswap any of the other characters to do it, and I'm not having any of the women step outside the lines of what is considered acceptable behavior of women for that time period.


    For female characters, the Dune series has (in no particular order):

    *Jessica
    *Mohiam
    *Alia
    *Harah (her role is much more important than people give her credit for)
    *Irulan
    Wensicia
    Several of Alia's female guards
    Ghanima
    Lichna
    Sabiha
    Naila
    Siona
    Hwi Noree
    Sister Chenoeh
    *Shadout Mapes
    *Margot, Lady Fenring
    *Reverend Mother Ramallo
    Sheeana
    Lucilla
    Rebecca
    Darwi Odrade
    Taraza
    Murbella
    Streggi
    Bellonda
    the leader of the Honored Matres
    And several others whose names I'm blanking on.

    There are 8 of these characters who are in the Dune novel. Why isn't 8 good enough?

    Was there some point in just posting quoted material, or did some tags go astray?

    What "levelling"?

    It's politically-correct change for the sake of politically-correct change. It goes against the canon material in a pointless way and does nothing to improve the story.

    And for anyone (there have been some here) who have decided my objection is due to the actress' skin color... re-read what I said at the time. I would object no matter what the physical appearance. It's the gender-swap I object to. All else is irrelevant.

    I tried to listen to some. I had to shut it off.

    Hunters/Sandworms (excuse me, waterworms) might be the only formally published ending anyone got (and the ending is so beyond ridiculous that it makes me wonder why I wasted any part of my finite lifespan reading it), but it's vastly inferior to a Dune 7 fanfic I ran across on a GeoCities site a long time ago. I really should have saved it, but at the time I had no idea that GeoCities was going to be deleted.

    Yes, though it would be more accurate to say that I am a woman who has read SF since 1975 and began reading Dune in the '80s, not long before God Emperor of Dune came out in paperback.

    It was an interesting experience, since I was sick at the time and had a fever. So of course I wanted something to read and picked Dune off my bookshelf (I'd already had those books for so many years and hadn't bothered to read them; I'd actually thought of selling them, but now I'm so glad I didn't). It's an experience reading about a very dry planet when you're feeling like crap and thirsty like that in RL... And on my first day out of the house, I went back to my usual book-hunt and found God Emperor.

    This was a lucky find, as I'd just finished Children of Dune and wished there were more books... and so I promptly bought it, started reading it, and was hopelessly confused less than 100 pages in. That book is a tough slog, for the first time and the 10th time. I understand it more now than I did before, but I am never going to like Leto II or feel sorry for him.
     
    jaime likes this.
  16. Coops

    Coops Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2021
    Well this movie isn't going to be for you, obviously. Avoid it and the threads like this. Enjoy Herberts world on paper, it'll never let you down :)
     
  17. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    I haven't read this gigantic wall of text but honestly - if you need to slavishly adhere to source material for minor stuff when adapting it for the big screen you might need to do a self check.

    Peter Jackson cut Tom Bombadil out of his LotR movies and changed the sequence of some scenes, fandom went nuts, the world didn't stop and the LotR movies are rightfully regard as masterpieces by most people.

    Get over yourself or not. If you can't don't watch the movies and keep reading the books, either way the world won't stop.
     
  18. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    Just saw a trailer ad by Warner Bros. Germany on Facebook stating Dune would be released on 16.09

    I'm confused - i thought the movie would come out in late October?
     
  19. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 20, 2001
    Location:
    West Haven, UT, USA
    In the US.

    International release dates are a different story entirely, as the film will first be screened internationally on September 3rd in Venice, Italy at the Venice International Film Festival.
     
  20. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 26, 2007
    Location:
    In many different universes, simultaneously.
    Look, I even gave nuTrek a try, all three of them, even though I could already tell from the preliminary interviews, photos, and trailers that I was unlikely to like it. That batch of movies, too, indulged in change for the sake of change, and not because it actually made any sense or added to the story.

    Sorry, but you are not the arbiter of where I can and cannot post, or what opinions I can hold or express. My pov is not just limited to what's in the novels or Encyclopedia. It includes my impressions after interactions with one of the authors who wrote nuDune, and Frank Herbert's grandson whose job it was to help promote it on the dunenovels.com forum. Byron had no idea what he was getting into there...

    There may well be something about this movie that it turns out I like, but so far I haven't really seen anything. I've seen a few things I really don't like, but then that's also true of the Lynch movie and the miniseries.

    Since you haven't read it, why should I grant you the validity of any sneering, dismissive opinions you have of it?

    There are plenty of SF works I'd love to see adapted to movie form (or possibly TV). If I ever had the chance, you can be damn sure that I would be as faithful as possible to the source material, or what's the point?

    This is not a minor change. They had better have one hell of an explanation for it in the movie, because at this point, it's just change/retcon for the sake of change/retcon, and the complaint that "there aren't enough women otherwise" is - I'm going to say it, because I'm tired of explaining why it's not true - STUPID.

    Harah is a very underused, and underappreciated character. If he wants to have more female presence in this movie, he should really let this character do what she does in the novel.

    Y'know what? I don't give one fraction of a fuck about what anyone did in LotR, because I never saw it. I never read any of the books, never saw the movies, have not a clue how many there are, and I really don't care. I have no idea who Tom Bambadil is, or why this matters (not saying it doesn't; obviously it must matter to some fans, or you wouldn't have brought it up as an example you think I should know about). Obviously fandom will have its "sides" it takes on various issues.

    I am not yours to order around. As I said back in '09 when a bunch of people on this forum descended with a hell of a lot of dogpiling and verbal abuse because I didn't like their precious movie, I do have the right to my own views and to express them. My opinions are not required to match yours, and in fact I am exasperated with the production team for this gender-swapping casting decision. Do not make the mistake of assuming I'm angry with you and the rest here because they made that decision.

    I am exasperated with you for dismissing my views and arguments - which are well-reasoned ones based on close to 40 years of reading, re-reading, studying, discussion, and conversing with people who have had a much greater involvement with Dune than anyone in this thread (whether I agree with them or not).

    So get over YOURself.


    And this is such a ridiculous tactic to take with me anyway, on a forum where people flip out over the exact hexadecimal shade of a gold/green uniform, the color of a warp nacelle, how many inches long a Bird of Prey is, the color of the decorations on said Bird of Prey, and so much more minutiae that I just don't care about... who cares about that? Maybe a model maker would care, because they like accuracy and authenticity. But someone like me, who cares more about the characters and story and if they're in-universe consistent, just doesn't care about that kind of trivia, or about details in some franchise I will never see because the attempt I made to actually read the books bored me to the point where I pulled out a volume of the Britannica and read that instead.

    At least I haven't done what some here have done: "I haven't read anything beyond Dune because I know it's boring."

    Well, since you've never tried it, how do you know? Just because some reviewer, critic, or your Aunt Mathilda said so?

    I will not be seeing this in a theatre, because I don't go to theatres anymore. It's going to have to wait for TV, or at least an affordable video. Maybe if it comes up in the on-demand feature my telecom offers (which is how I ended up watching the second nuTrek movie; I was given a code for a free movie, so I used it).

    But I will watch it somehow, eventually, and maybe my first impressions will be shown to be wrong. It'd be nice if the worst parts of previous productions could be avoided (ridiculous Sardaukar, funny hats, characters with no personality...
     
    jaime likes this.