Cool news on Dune

[Agenda]

Am I the only one who likes the Lynch still suits? Yeah, they weren't exactly correct, but they were kinda cool.

 

[Harvey]

They're cool-looking, I'll grant you that. Probably the only cool-looking costume in the entire film, in my opinion. But they don't make any sense.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Oh yeah... Lynch's Sardaukar uniforms were some of the worst crap I have seen. Ugh. People usually just remember the good stuff, but for every great costume there was a pretty bad one in that film.

 

[Reverend]

Doesn't Dune actually take place 10,000 years after the Butlerian Jihad? I know, semantics.

Did Herbert ever state how far in the future the Jihad took place?

Dune is a bit tricky with the dates. The glossary at the back of the first book says it takes place in the 10,190s AD, which would make it some nine thousand years in the future.

The prequels drop the AD and use the term AG for After Guild, meaning 10 000 years after the Guild was founded.

Personally, I just go with the year 100 000 AD, as that was what Frank Herbert originally intended.

Not in my copy it doesn't. As far as I can tell, in Dune the dates after the revolt don't have suffixes while the pre-revolt ones are consistently marked B.G. For example: -

JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) -- the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

But this pretty much seals it: -

B.G.: idiomatic for Bene Gesserit except when used with a date. With a date it signifies Before Guild and identifies the Imperial dating system based on the genesis of the Spacing Guild's monopoly.

Am I the only one who likes the Lynch still suits? Yeah, they weren't exactly correct, but they were kinda cool.

In terms of the look I think they work fine so long as you pretend it's not actually rubber, but some exotic material that looks like rubber. The colour however, is a very bad choice from a camouflage point of view. Not that logic was a major part of any element in that film. I suspect most most design choices were made exclusively on the basis that Lynch liked how it looked on film and that was the extent of it.

 

[Mr Light]

While neither version was perfect I always associated Dune with ancient archaic clothing and technology (so to speak). Since they eliminated computers and regressed from technology and all that.

 

[The Wormhole]

Doesn't Dune actually take place 10,000 years after the Butlerian Jihad? I know, semantics.

Did Herbert ever state how far in the future the Jihad took place?

Dune is a bit tricky with the dates. The glossary at the back of the first book says it takes place in the 10,190s AD, which would make it some nine thousand years in the future.

The prequels drop the AD and use the term AG for After Guild, meaning 10 000 years after the Guild was founded.

Personally, I just go with the year 100 000 AD, as that was what Frank Herbert originally intended.

Not in my copy it doesn't. As far as I can tell, in Dune the dates after the revolt don't have suffixes while the pre-revolt ones are consistently marked B.G. For example: -

JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) -- the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

But this pretty much seals it: -

B.G.: idiomatic for Bene Gesserit except when used with a date. With a date it signifies Before Guild and identifies the Imperial dating system based on the genesis of the Spacing Guild's monopoly.

I just did a quick run-through of my copy, and you're right.

Thing is, I remember reading AD there at some point, and I've been telling people this for several years.

Oh well, I guess next time I read AG in one of Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's books it won't be as jarring as it was previously.

 

[DarKush]

I also loved (most) of the costume and set designs of Lynch's Dune. It was arguably the strongest aspect of the movie.

I agree. I thought the look of the film was great. I still love those stillsuits especially. The only thing I had a quibble with visually was the Sardaukar uniforms. I thought they looked great, but didn't fit the Sardaukar. They needed to be more flexible. I preferred the Children of Dune mini Sardaukar uniforms more.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I also loved (most) of the costume and set designs of Lynch's Dune. It was arguably the strongest aspect of the movie.

I agree. I thought the look of the film was great. I still love those stillsuits especially. The only thing I had a quibble with visually was the Sardaukar uniforms. I thought they looked great, but didn't fit the Sardaukar. They needed to be more flexible. I preferred the Children of Dune mini Sardaukar uniforms more.

.. plus the actors wearing the Sardaukar uniforms need to be convincing as warrior s.o.b.s, and not appear to be effete actors camping it up.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Am I the only one who likes the Lynch still suits? Yeah, they weren't exactly correct, but they were kinda cool.

In terms of the look I think they work fine so long as you pretend it's not actually rubber, but some exotic material that looks like rubber. The colour however, is a very bad choice from a camouflage point of view. Not that logic was a major part of any element in that film. I suspect most most design choices were made exclusively on the basis that Lynch liked how it looked on film and that was the extent of it.

Which is why they don't cover the face--we need to see the actors.

 

[Reverend]

Am I the only one who likes the Lynch still suits? Yeah, they weren't exactly correct, but they were kinda cool.

In terms of the look I think they work fine so long as you pretend it's not actually rubber, but some exotic material that looks like rubber. The colour however, is a very bad choice from a camouflage point of view. Not that logic was a major part of any element in that film. I suspect most most design choices were made exclusively on the basis that Lynch liked how it looked on film and that was the extent of it.

Which is why they don't cover the face--we need to see the actors.

Yes, that was implicit.

While neither version was perfect I always associated Dune with ancient archaic clothing and technology (so to speak). Since they eliminated computers and regressed from technology and all that.

Not quite right. Their technology is in fact extremely advanced, it's just it's been forced along very different lines, away from computerisation and into more and more sophisticated mechanisation. Metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, textiles, chemistry, electromechanics, genetics, astrophysics, sociology and a thousand other disciplines are far more advanced than what we know today. Mostly, precisely because they were forced to accelerate to fill the void left in human civilization left by the removal of computers, to say nothing of the various schools of the mind.

I think that's what really appeals to me from a science fiction/futurist point of view. It's a future along unconventional lines, in a way the opposite direction that most other authors speculated we were heading towards, or rather I suppose the world that would be left after it survives a technological singularity. It may give the impression of an archaic technology, but it's in fact just a different approach, the kind of technology that Nikola Tesla might have dreamed of.

 

[lennier1]

It usually hurts to see something along the lines of "truthful adaption" since while the books and their story are great Herbert has a god-given talent to be boring as hell.

Reading the books the first time it felt like he every now and then spent 50 pages describing how sandworms farted in the desert. And reading them a second time in hope that they'd turn out better didn't help much.

(I know my sandworm reference is a bit OTT but think back to how Children Of Dune introduces Baron Harkonnen and you'll know what I mean.)

Hope this version will turn out better than the miniseries adaptions which were way too truthful regarding to how boring Dune can be when it's not approached right.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

This is a pretty interesting topic because I was kind of trying to think of how to make Dune into a movie that isn't either incomprehensible or boring, and was handwriting a script along those lines just to see if it would work. I agree with lennier1 about the 50-page fart issue. Such things aren't really explained in the dialogue between the characters, so when it happens everybody except the audience knows what the hell happened. I just happen to have reserved the miniseries at the library, gonna pick it up and watch it, post my opinion tomorrow, or maybe the day after...

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

“Well, this is supposed to take place 10,000 years from now, so I wonder why people are still dressed like Captain Nemo,” he said with a laugh. “It feels very 19th century to me. I think the [character’s clothes] should be much more modern than that. That’s one thing [I’ll change]; that’s a basic thought.”

Ok but see, that was one of the things I LIKED in the Lynch version. The Jules Verne look of everything made it stand out in the realm of sci-fi films. Much preferred that to some of the bizarro (and cheap looking) costumes we saw in the miniseries. Actually my favorite visual interpretation of the Dune universe to date is the artwork from the collectible card game. Used the Lynch version as a basis and improved on it.

Dune has a very fuedal society to it - Emperors, Dukes, Barons, heriditary house so Lynch's Baroque styling is very much in keeping with that theme so I never hard a probllem with it.

Just what I was thinking. And it's a kind of regal, martial style that I find very appealing. (It's also why I'm a big fan of Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet.)

Hope this version will turn out better than the miniseries adaptions which were way too truthful regarding to how boring Dune can be when it's not approached right.

True dat. While I enjoyed all of the extra nuances that the miniseries added to the universe, I often felt that the story got completely lost in the minutae. The David Lynch movie at least did a good job of always reminding you who the good guys were & who the bad guys were. So long as the movie is able to keep sight of that, they should be fine.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The latest news is that a new writer named Chase Palmer has been chosen to rework Morrel's ideas into Josh Zetumer's script.

http://www.mania.com/writer-found-for-dune_article_120545.html

 

[UncleRogi]

Paul was born in 10191 After Guild, which The Dune Encyclopedia (for what it's worth) indicates was approximately 10000 years from now. Of course, the prequels screwed that all up.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The Dune Encyclopedia as awesome as it is was never considered canon by Frank Herbert himself so the dates included in it are purely conjecture. Also Paul wasn't born in 10,191 that is the first year that "Dune" takes place in I think you're getting confused Uncle Rogi. Paul is 15 years at the start of "Dune" which Irulan clearly states in the first chapter of the book is 10,191.

 

[Agenda]

Don't you guys know? The original books aren't the ultimate authority, anymore. The prequels and interquels are.

Discrepancies to rationalization: The clear implication of these statements and rationalisations made in Paul of Dune and by Kevin J. Anderson, is that Dune is the aforementioned Life of Muad'Dib. That any inaccuracies are made within an in-universe document by a narrator who did not have full information. That the sources for discrepancies found in the main text suggests that Frank Herbert's original Dune should, or could, be read as propaganda.
This reduces Dune itself to an document in a fictional universe, which is not created by Frank Herbert, but has as its highest authority Keven J. Anderson and Brian Herbert.

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Discrepancies_between_Dune_novels

 

[Starbreaker]

The date discrepancies are minimal, and sometimes Frank even corrected himself in later books... it doesn't ruin the stories for me, because they're all fictional anyway.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Don't you guys know? The original books aren't the ultimate authority, anymore. The prequels and interquels are.

Discrepancies to rationalization: The clear implication of these statements and rationalisations made in Paul of Dune and by Kevin J. Anderson, is that Dune is the aforementioned Life of Muad'Dib. That any inaccuracies are made within an in-universe document by a narrator who did not have full information. That the sources for discrepancies found in the main text suggests that Frank Herbert's original Dune should, or could, be read as propaganda.
This reduces Dune itself to an document in a fictional universe, which is not created by Frank Herbert, but has as its highest authority Keven J. Anderson and Brian Herbert.

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Discrepancies_between_Dune_novels

Well screw them and screw the horse they rode in on -- I have expunged the trashy prequels that I have read from my memory. Way to destroy your father's legacy.

 

[clint g]

And this is why I never, EVER pay attention to dates in sci-fi all I need to know is what came before and what came after. The date itself only serves to confuse