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The Baron fuckin' hates the Bene Gesserit, though, and mentats don't have a literally-compelling voice.
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Jan 20, 2023 23:47
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There are some important bits around that scene, but yeah you could shift them around or just not depict a literal orgy pretty easily.
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Apr 24, 2023 17:20
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Yeah, Arrakis should be austere and harsh, but the rest of the Imperium should be "we've had like ten millennia of being indulgent rear end in a top hat nobility." Though I could believe the Harkonnens going for their own austere severity in counterpoint to some prevailing fashion because the Baron is absolutely someone who would do something like that just for the offputting aesthetic. As long as that severe brutalism was itself so grand in scale as to be its own kind of indulgent, anyway.
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Apr 27, 2023 19:32
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That the sequel trilogy made enough money to be worth doing more until it stops working? Because Disney is not particularly dumb when it comes to money. Episode 9 still profited just fine, and Star Wars in general has been doing well with most of the shows, so more movies with the newer characters aren't automatically a bad idea from their perspective.
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Apr 30, 2023 19:40
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TerminalSaint posted:It orbits real-world star Canopus which is bright giant and very white. The book brings up the effect it has on perceived colors a couple times. These kind of details seem to fall by the wayside really easily in the adaptations. I seem to recall early on (when Jessica finds the hidden garden, I believe) the book mentions Arrakis has a nearly space-black sky even during the day because there's too little moisture in the atmosphere to scatter the sunlight to cause a blue sky. I always felt like that would've been cool to see rendered properly, but also understand why they don't bother.
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May 5, 2023 17:39
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Failed Imagineer posted:I think Rayleigh scattering is almost entirely due to N2 and O2 anyway Fair. I considered the possibility the science had moved on and disproved that, but also didn't care that much to look it up. Thanks.
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May 5, 2023 18:09
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Leto II screaming, "I was once a man!" as he drops into the Idaho River.
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May 7, 2023 16:21
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For my part, I was like 8 or 9 when the Bosnian War started so a lot of it flew over my head. And then when I got to actual world history stuff, yeah, the education was garbage. It could be conveniently divided between a very small selection of "events leading eventually up to the US" (including some stuff going way back to like Rome and even Greece as part of our civic mythology of being the heirs of glory and the banner-carriers of ancient ideas of democracy) and mostly "world events the US got involved in." The Bosnian War itself was both too recent to really get into our textbooks and also too "minor" for teachers to wedge into courses mostly actually about the American Revolution and World War 2. When I was briefly in a college program to become a high school history teacher, one of the required reading books was Lies My Teacher Told Me. If I recall it opened up with the author bemoaning how most college professors in the US are happy to hear that an incoming student was passionate about a subject in high school, but history professors just feel dread about how much their students are going to have to unlearn first.
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May 8, 2023 03:25
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Leto knew all this was coming but he thought it would take longer because the Harkonnens weren't ready for such a move - Duncan's mission that he's off on early is to wreck some poo poo on Geidi Prime to help make sure of that. But the Sardaukar let the Harkonnens move even faster than Leto could plan for. Yueh's job was to sabotage the palace shields as much as it was to capture Leto.
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May 20, 2023 01:48
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Arglebargle III posted:The bull-fighting metaphor is even less subtle in the book. The Atreides were scared but they weren't scared enough. Oh yeah. The first half of the book spends a lot of time in Leto's head, showing how he comes so close to abandoning everything and taking his family into hiding in exile, realizing that there's no good that will ever come of the trap that is Arrakis. But he keeps walking forward deeper and deeper into the trap because of his pride and his hatred. It's some real good stuff, Leto wrestling with his flaws and losing - and knowing he's losing - and no adaptation has really done it justice.
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May 20, 2023 04:44
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Oh, no, Leto's not a fool. But his pride and anger do get the best of him at the worst times. One of the bits that really stuck with me, he's starting to seriously consider just abandoning everything but then the hunter-seeker drone goes after Paul and he spends the next while internally raging how they went after his son. Even though it's something he knows should always be on the table, stuff like that obliterates his ability to back down even for the safety of Jessica and Paul. He's smart but got outplayed because he's not quite the same level of ruthless.
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Jun 9, 2023 00:09
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Jessica also turns against her BG teachings out of love. Harkonnen twists mentats with their emotional desires and vices. Paul and his son Leto both break eventually over love. As a matter of worldbuilding it's rather silly that this so-called inviolable conditioning is broken by something so trivially obvious, but thematically love and other high-intensity emotions are some of the most powerful forces in the universe. Attempts to constrain the human will by conditioning and training are just as much folly as pursuing the overman and expecting him to be beholden to you once realized.
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Jun 12, 2023 03:56
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's also a handy writer's trick to have the main plot device driving the story and overall material motivations of almost every character and faction involved also be the main source of most of the superhuman abilities and traits in the story. And really, it just makes sense that a substance which reliably gives you superpowers is going to be extremely valuable and sought after in any context, and its uses are going to be well documented and exploited. It also works with the oil metaphor simply because having access to oil and its derivatives does give you superpowers relative to others. Those superpowers might be bound up in planes, ships, and tanks, but they're still powers other people don't have unless they too have access to your super drug. We don't really think of our technology in that way, but then again artificially induced superpowers would be a kind of technology too. Ghost Leviathan posted:Seems rather a contrast to how Leto actually respects and listens to his lieutenants, and how he's attracted some of the best talent in the galaxy as a result. Having skilled people on your side doesn't help much if you don't listen to them or give them the chance to actually use those skills. Been mentioned before, a big part of how the plans within plans blow up is multiple players ignoring the human element and that people aren't one-dimensional tools. Heh, machine thinking. Most of his lieutenants all have very personal grievances against the Harkonnens, too. Leto (and his father) loved, intentionally or not, picking up his prize strays from people the Baron abuses and casts off. If blows up in his face with Yueh, but imagine a different set of circumstances where Leto was even able to turn Rabban. There's too much bad blood between Rabban and Gurney specifically (and others generally) for it to last long, but that could have been a coup. Perhaps literally.
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Jun 15, 2023 16:07
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porfiria posted:I never really got why Paul couldn't stop the Jihad--wasn't the whole reason the Guild had to listen to him because he could blow up the Spice? We don't get much in the way of hard details about the Jihad itself, but the legend of Muad'dib has grown so rapidly that after getting the Guild and Emperor to capitulate, Muad'dib is now too big for Paul to control. All he can do is attempt to steer the tiger (or rather, the worm) in a way that doesn't destroy everything and also that doesn't destroy him. He may be the Kwisatz Haderach and the Mahdi, but there's only one of him and millions of Fremen who are ready to fuckin' go. Also there's no reason to believe they'd stick to knives and dart guns. The Fremen would get their hands on all kinds of fun toys as soon as the Emperor capitulated. Any weapons anyone else had, they had too. As well as the advantage of dropping in from space since the Guild was under Paul's thumb.
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Jun 30, 2023 00:47
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No reason fashions can't just have changed as the books went along. Live with the increasingly paranoid Corrinos as rulers and tastemakers, spending the last several centuries emphasizing over and over an aesthetic of militaristic minimalism. Then, in a cultural preview of the Golden Path, fashions explode outward in a wide variety of ostentation as a new dynasty assumes power and spreads not just terrible death but also people and ideas across the empire. Even as Muad'dib secures his rule, there's now a lot more cultural cross-contamination.
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Jun 30, 2023 22:01
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They live in a Hard World that makes them Hard Men (and women, but mostly it cares about men) who can do all the Hard Work. There's an underlying thing also with stuff like the Bene Gesserit and Mentats that human potential could reach ridiculous extremes with the right conditioning and training. It's just that BG and Mentat training are very intensive to produce each one while the conditions of Salusa Secundus and Arrakis act as absurdly harsh training regimes of their own that force humans to unlock some sort of "ultimate survivor-soldier" potential en masse, or die. It's strongly implied by the timeline (I don't think it's stated outright) that stuff like BGs and Mentats were conditioned and created by the loss of advanced computing after the Butlerian Jihad, needing something to replace some of the capabilities the machines previously allowed.
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Jul 1, 2023 03:11
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Boris Galerkin posted:Not a book reader but from the movie isn’t “spice harvesting” just driving a big rear end car around in circles until enough has been collected? That doesn’t seem particularly skilled/difficult especially since they don’t need to worry about following road laws like CDL drivers in real life need to do. We don't get a lot of detail about what goes on inside a harvester even in the book, so you're not wrong. What we know is that a spice deposit can be found where it's mixed in with the sand in sufficient quantities to send a harvester out, where it seems to hoover it up and then separate the spice from the sand. It may just be a huge vacuum and a complicated sieve. Whatever it is, it's enough repetitive industrial action to draw worms in like crazy, so yeah a harvester always has thopter scouts to watch for wormsign and a carryall on call to haul it out. The Fremen don't seem to use harvesters the same way the Imperials do, but again we don't get told much about what their harvesting operation looks like, at least in the first book. (I don't remember if it comes up later, but I don't think so.) But they must do it because they use spice for everything they can - it's somehow processed to make paper. It's their most abundant resource after sand and rock. But for all we know they go out with giant sieves and sift the sand like someone panning for gold.
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Jul 1, 2023 16:24
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Reading Godmakers was so freaking weird. You can see the shape of so many things to come in Dune, just in this bizarre funhouse-mirror sort of way where the tone is completely off while still pretending to be almost as serious. Some of it comes from the book originally being a bunch of short stories, so each one hits on a particular idea or worldbuilding element taken mostly separately from all the rest, while Dune made them into a more cohesive whole.
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Jul 3, 2023 20:41
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Paul's also been wrestling from the moment of his first oracular vision with his own moral culpability in what he, as the Mahdi and Kwisatz Haderach, enables and encourages. He spends a huge chunk of the first book wanting to find a possible future that doesn't end in either the Fremen jihad or his own death. Or both. The "better," or at least less destructive, future may have only been possible if he just died, and he's terrified of that as well as wanting his revenge. He never gets away from the costs of his empire and what pursuing the Golden Path would actually mean, and just checks out because he can't handle it anymore, especially without Chani at his side.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:02
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Just to be clear, this isn't subtext - it's actual-text, in that it's what the first three books is very explicitly about. Kynes, as he's dying in the desert after the Harkonnen attack, remembers his father's very explicit words that the worst thing that could happen to a people would be to be saved by a Hero. Herbert was not subtle. It's just that it's a moment that gets very easily snipped out when needing to edit an adaptation.
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Jul 5, 2023 21:56
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Good. gently caress CHOAM.
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Jul 22, 2023 16:44
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Paul feels incredibly overwhelmed and struggles with choice paralysis a few times from his prescience. Just desperate to find a path forward that he can consider "good." I'd call that an apt analogy for information/media saturation, even if not necessarily intended. He even spends long times just parsing his visions in between strikes against the Harkonnens, effectively doomscrolling his prescience.
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Jul 24, 2023 02:38
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Jewmanji posted:This would be a mentat ability, not prescience. Back in the book, Paul's incomplete mentat training is what lets him do that so effectively with his prescience. Column A, column B. quote:Yeah you lost me. Not sure how passively ingesting a Twitter stream is a useful analogy for willing the galaxy into a holocaust. Paul ends up spending a lot of time during a time skip just delving constantly into his prescience to try to avert that holocaust while staying alive. He doesn't so much will it into being as fail to will it out of being. Hence likening it to someone immersing themselves in the poo poo stream of the internet out of a morbid inability to look away from a variety of problems on the horizon. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's where my brain went with it.
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Jul 24, 2023 03:05
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Jul 28, 2023 06:28
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It also reflects on what Paul becomes upon achieving the throne - not a hero-king but another, more terrible emperor. Shaddam affects the appearance of that which backs his power with the Sardaukar, and with the Fremen so does Paul.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:55
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Rowlf as Gurney, then, obviously. Piano, baliset, same thing.
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Jan 31, 2024 22:43
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Gonzo as Duke Leto, and Camilla the Chicken as Jessica. Conversely, to go later in the series, Gonzo instead as Leto II and Camilla as Hwi Noree.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:58
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There's still plenty of room to enjoy a fresh experience, to see what the adaptation picks up on and what it leaves behind, how it renders so many things to the silver screen.
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Feb 9, 2024 19:54
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So, bearing in mind my memory is imperfect and it's been a bit... The Golden Path itself becomes more of a "thing" after the first book, because Paul's visions then are primarily about trying to thread the needle between Dying Miserably In The Desert and Infinite Galactic Jihad. He's just not looking that far ahead yet. If I recall, Leto II the Second talks about Paul seeing it more clearly later but being afraid of what he would have to do to see it through. Essentially, the same moral "weakness" that made Paul try to thread that needle originally and not just embrace the Jihad is the same one that made him unable to embrace the Golden Path. Leto II was born into and grew up stewing in prescient visions and knowledge, and was if anything an even more perfect Kwisatz Haderach than Paul. He couldn't not see and embrace it because it was always with him - he has the occasional temptation to divert and follow a different path for himself, living out a normal human life, but he would always know. The first book has some direct narration of Paul's early experiences with his visions, and he likens it to being able to see a different landscape around him but with natural features blocking things off. I can't recall the metaphor used, whether being in a valley with cliffs blocking certain paths, or maybe swells in a stormy sea. Maybe both at different times. So he can see different futures but also there are massive forces closing off possibilities as events come to fruition, as momentum from previous events carries them forward blocking things off. And as he travels forward, he's descending deeper into the valley so more and more is being closed off from choices he doesn't make but others do.
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Feb 11, 2024 17:51
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Scags McDouglas posted:Oh yeah you right dog. You don't even need to care about the prequels, it's text in the first book that basically everyone in the Atreides entourage has been personally wronged by the Harkonnens. Gurney's supposed to have a big scar on his face from his time as a Harkonnen slave.
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Feb 12, 2024 00:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Kinda funny given the original Bene Gesserit plan is a flat out Romeo and Juliet situation, uniting two houses with an ancient, bitter rivalry through marriage. Arguably an even bigger long shot and more likely (as in the play) to end in tragedy and sending them back to square one one way or another. The BGs are very smart masterminds but also way too used to dealing with people who value what they have and don't want to risk it too much. An essentially conservative society. They are not prepared for anyone willing to go all the way to achieve their goals, which Paul is, then Leto II is... but also Baron Harkonnen is. That pairing would have been an amazing disaster and probably would've ended in its own little red wedding way before they could've even gotten their Atreides/Harkonnen heir out to conserve the bloodlines.
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Feb 12, 2024 06:30
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Shageletic posted:I remember them referencing Fenring as a failed KH but wa there anything he did in the books that actually point to him having any sort of prescience? I can't remember anything. No, because they didn't put him through anything that would've helped realize the prescience (beyond probably "vaguely prophetic dreams" like Paul was having) when they realized he was infertile. He's one of a bunch of attempts that stopped or failed at various points.
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Feb 12, 2024 18:11
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How common is "common," though? Common to the Houses isn't the same as common to anyone else. Materiel gets lost or "lost" pretty easily, but it's still relative in what seems to be a very imbalanced society. The opportunity to combine the two may just not come up for most people.
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Feb 15, 2024 17:52
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Schwarzwald posted:If it had been the two of them having a conversation in a well lit room you wouldn't have remembered it at all. Dang, an audiovisual medium benefiting from both engaging audio and compelling visuals. Wild idea. Makes you think.
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Feb 27, 2024 00:41
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not trolled not crying posted:This was my big problem with the third act. I saw it two days ago and I'm still sure I must have missed something because it was baffling how ALL the bad guys just voluntarily set themselves up for such an obvious trap in the middle of an open area. And was it necessary for all of them to be there? You'd think they leave some important people behind just in case it was a set up so they could have some back up. It can't be explained just by "yeah well they were blinded by their overconfidence and arrogance" because with such a lovely strategic mindset how could they have ever gotten so big in the first place? So the short version is that in the book, they're assembling at one of the most secure locations on the planet and are still drastically underestimating the Fremen. The Fremen have not done gigantic frontal assaults like this, and the Emperor and the Baron are there because [i]"what are you even loving doing, you flying idiot, why is your moronic nephew letting these loving DESERT SAVAGES grind spice production to a halt?! I will rip you a new one with my Sardaukar who are the only reason you're even in power here, and I am here to register my displeasure VERY loving PERSONALLY because you clearly won't take things seriously otherwise!" If there's anything worth showing up personally and posturing for, it's the spice.
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Feb 29, 2024 22:01
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Blood Boils posted:Huh, that's quite a character change, since iirc in the books Paul IS a religious fundamentalist Not really. The Fremen unite around him as the Mahdi but then become their own force as much as they are his because of the sheer momentum of their faith and culture. He is still struggling with what happens in his name in Messiah, and if anything it's even more textual how much he hates and is terrified by it despite riding the wave of religious fervor to his victory in the first book. It's so much bigger than anyone, even the superman.
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Mar 1, 2024 02:04
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Blood Boils posted:The bene gesserit are themselves religious fundamentalists! They have incredible faith in the necessity of creating the Perfect Man The Golden Path isn't really an ideology in-universe so much as it is the one path visible in his (and his son's) prescience that doesn't ultimately end in human extinction. Like it doesn't take any special belief, it is a thing he actually sees with his extra senses, much as a sighted man can see a mountain peak that a blind man cannot. The desirability of it and its means to see it through might be up for ideological debate, but its existence is as factual as the existence of Paul himself in the story. Plus the idea that Paul becomes fully assimilated in the Fremen ways is really complicated. The Fremen warp around him more than he changes to fit them, much as the complaining old Fedaykin Farok says in the beginning of Messiah. Paul has to cleave to some of their ways at times to keep people from getting too restive, but other times he's perfectly willing to shout someone down for how he breaks with their ways. As far as his own eyes go, he ties them up with technicalities on how he can still "see" and only finally fucks off as tradition demands after repeatedly breaking tradition, because it gives him an excuse to throw his burdens away when they become unbearable.
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Mar 1, 2024 08:42
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abelwingnut posted:so how does this work? The BGs manipulate cultures to implant their own ideologies and prophecies, yes. And the coming of the Mahdi wasn't really a prophecy, it was a manipulation of existing savior prophecies to prepare the Fremen to shelter a BG and maybe even accept a Kwisatz Haderach someday. BUT, the plan is based on something that they know is technically possible, given both the BGs themselves can look into past-life memory, and the spice can induce visions - it's the basis of Guild navigation. There are even implied to be other drugs that can do similar if less drastic things than the spice, as the first book mentions it as one of an indeterminate plural number of "awareness spectrum narcotics." So there's stuff there for them to have based it all upon, setting stuff up to capitalize on their grand scheme working.
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Mar 1, 2024 18:25
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Establishing and maintaining empire has its own terrible, brutal logic. Including how those running the empire eventually lose sight even of that logic and invite their downfall against what should be an insignificant enemy.
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Mar 1, 2024 20:29
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Blood Boils posted:An ideology IS a system of belief. It doesn't matter how extra or real it is to Paul or Leto or you or me, that's just the type of thing that it is. And... I said... it doesn't require belief. In the bit you're quoting. I didn't contradict myself. It's a sequence of events they can perceive, just like seeing a mountain isn't an ideology.
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Mar 2, 2024 05:44
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