The new Dune movie.

[Patrick Thistle]

That rather misses the point, then.

Yes, that's one of the subplots isn't it - Rabban wanting to earn Baron Harkonnen's favour and him preferring Feyd.

I did like the comment in the article suggesting it could be a late reveal and turn out to be Justin Bieber.

[Eggchaser]

As long as he keeps his clothes on.

[Wouter D]

Dave Bautista is going to be the common thread between Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, cast-wise, but I couldn't work out who he is in Dune. Surely not Feyd Rautha? I looked it up and realised he is playing Rabban, the other Harkonnen scion. And there's nobody else listed for Feyd?

Found this blog post asking the same question. Where is Feyd?
https://jamesworrad.com/2020/03/08/d...e-fck-is-feyd/

Negotiations with Sting are still ongoing.

[Eggchaser]

That rather misses the point, then.

[Hot Pepsi]

Dave Bautista is going to be the common thread between Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, cast-wise, but I couldn't work out who he is in Dune. Surely not Feyd Rautha? I looked it up and realised he is playing Rabban, the other Harkonnen scion. And there's nobody else listed for Feyd?

Found this blog post asking the same question. Where is Feyd?
https://jamesworrad.com/2020/03/08/d...e-fck-is-feyd/

I think the film could consolidate the two Harkonin princes.

[Patrick Thistle]

Another article - which discusses how Jodorowsky's Dune would have ended. (All I can say is, thank fuck that never got made. )
https://www.inverse.com/entertainmen...jodorowsky/amp

[Patrick Thistle]

2049 is very different. There is definitely a connection to the first film. Not seeing Blade Runner would make 2049 less enjoyable but I think the film is a very different story. It's not currently on any of the regular streaming/movie channels, so only PPV. I assume it will come to Prime or Netflix at some point, so I would recommend giving it a go. I never read Dick's short story so have nothing to compare (as I wrote in another thread about books/films). I loved the first film, so maybe am not the best judge. Haha.

Blade Runner is one of the few movies I have owned on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. And yet, it has issues... anyway, people might enjoy BR2049 without seeing Blade Runner. They may even enjoy it more because the worst callbacks won't jar so much.

The book is very different to the movie. I wouldn't recommend people read the book if they loved the film.

[Patrick Thistle]

Dave Bautista is going to be the common thread between Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, cast-wise, but I couldn't work out who he is in Dune. Surely not Feyd Rautha? I looked it up and realised he is playing Rabban, the other Harkonnen scion. And there's nobody else listed for Feyd?

Found this blog post asking the same question. Where is Feyd?
https://jamesworrad.com/2020/03/08/d...e-fck-is-feyd/

[danielmak]

Totally loved Arrival. Never saw BR2049 (I’m one of those nerds who was underwhelmed by the original BR, particularly compared to the book).

2049 is very different. There is definitely a connection to the first film. Not seeing Blade Runner would make 2049 less enjoyable but I think the film is a very different story. It's not currently on any of the regular streaming/movie channels, so only PPV. I assume it will come to Prime or Netflix at some point, so I would recommend giving it a go. I never read Dick's short story so have nothing to compare (as I wrote in another thread about books/films). I loved the first film, so maybe am not the best judge. Haha.

[Lang Spoon]

God I'd forgotten the whole Jewish subplot in Chapterhouse. Up there with the whole Honoured Matres Sex kick for the worst bit of nonsense in the series. The only good bit in the last book is the two wee Face Dancers in their garden at the end.

[hobbes]

Sci-Fi writer Adam Roberts retweeted an interesting thread about Judaism and Dune. It's the only religion to make it's its way to Dune's present untouched. The Bene Gesserit meddle and shape all the other world religions to suit their purpose. The Jewish people who do pop up in the books are a little, stereotyped.

I probably read Dune too young, it was fun but I raced through books on the surface then.

The Bene Gesserit are a political group rather than religious. They only use religion as a tool to wield power against others, but eschew it themselves.
I'm sure I read that they were based on the author's Catholic Aunts though.
Judaism as that article says, doesn't come up until the last book. And it's handled as cack-handedly and poorly as the rest of the last book is. Herbert's abilities certainly waned in later life.

[San Bernardhinault]

I loved the first book, enjoyed the second and third, gave up somewhere around four. Definitely diminishing returns. But that was nerdy teenage me who loved nerdy epic SF. I was also totally in love with Asimov’s Foundation series. Never saw the Lynch Dune - my Lynch period came well after my Dune period, and by the time I might have been interested I’d been put off by the reputation.

Totally loved Arrival. Never saw BR2049 (I’m one of those nerds who was underwhelmed by the original BR, particularly compared to the book).

I’m only medium excited. Films of books I loved as a youngster tend to underwhelm me.

[Patrick Thistle]

Not a thread, an article

That was really interesting. Thanks Levin

Seems like I haven't missed anything by not reading the full series.

[danielmak]

I have not read the books or watched the Lynch film, but watched the trailer since I'm a fan of both Blade Runner films. The trailer looks excellent. I don't know when it will come out in the US but I'm not going to the cinema during COVID. That's a shame because this looks like a film worth seeing a big screen. Either there will be a vaccine (not likely) or I will see it when it reaches a movie channel or streaming service.

[Levin]

Not a thread, an article

[Patrick Thistle]

.
Then there's the under story, hinted at and suggested in the original books (and explored in the most feeble and hamfisted way by his son in a series of follow up books) about how society got to where it was. Relationships with artificial intelligence and a technological singularity that left humanity reeling and scrabbling back to older ways for existing.

Hence the reliance on spice so that humans can navigate hyperspace because AI was verboten.

[Levin]

Sci-Fi writer Adam Roberts retweeted an interesting thread about Judaism and Dune. It's the only religion to make it's its way to Dune's present untouched. The Bene Gesserit meddle and shape all the other world religions to suit their purpose. The Jewish people who do pop up in the books are a little, stereotyped.

I probably read Dune too young, it was fun but I raced through books on the surface then.

[Hot Pepsi]

Seen a comment that they've changed "jihad" to "crusade" in the dialogue in the trailer. Presume it will be the same in the actual film release too.

Makes sense, I guess.

There’s a whole backstory about how the religious traditions we are familiar with eventually merge to create new ones, like the devotees of the Orange Catholic Bible, Buddislam, Zensufis, etc.

I’m sure there will be plenty of hot takes on how the change from jihad to crusade is PC gone mad. They’re both loaded in a way they would not have been when Herbert wrote Dune. I’d have gone with “religious war.”

[hobbes]

I adored the first 3 books. The 4th one a little less and with diminishing returns from thereon. The scope and scale of them is impressive though. And there are some really impressive ideas there. The idea of a group manipulating religions and blood lines across centuries to achieve their aims, the way humans will fall back on feudal states when oligarchies and monopolies exist, the utter pointlessness of all of it when set against millennia of infighting.
Then there's the under story, hinted at and suggested in the original books (and explored in the most feeble and hamfisted way by his son in a series of follow up books) about how society got to where it was. Relationships with artificial intelligence and a technological singularity that left humanity reeling and scrabbling back to older ways for existing.
It's a mindblowing body of work for its time, for all its clunkiness when compared to some of today's sci fi.

[Patrick Thistle]

Seen a comment that they've changed "jihad" to "crusade" in the dialogue in the trailer. Presume it will be the same in the actual film release too.

Makes sense, I guess.

[Eggchaser]

Certainly the version of Dune I have has a glossary. It helps when the Baron says something about the art of kanly, and it's literally the one line and the only time anyone refers to it. It's not mentioned again, before or after. So you turn to the glossary to find out it's the very formal manner in which Houses that aren't quite at war with each other write correspondence to each other.

[Various Artist]

It was the trailer itself, both its epic scale & kinetic thrust, and the cast - my daughters love Timothy Showaddywaddy and Zendaya while my son was more impressed by Oscar Isaac, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa's presence.

They're all pretty widely read but I don't think the books are on their radar at all.

Ah, thanks Ray. I had the feeling that that last sentence was almost certainly the case, but I was intrigued precisely because I found the idea of a younger generation (and females in particular, given the genre's traditional male-dominated [?] audience) reading Dune so unlikely, so I thought I'd better check!

[Patrick Thistle]

As a word of advice, if you are going to read it, Dune itself takes a little while to get going, but is worth it. Dune Messiah is a short follow up that I can barely remember. Children of Dune similarly made little impact on me. God Emperor of Dune is where I checked out of the series because it seemed to just go utterly whacko.

[Ray de Galles]

I didn't find Arrival to be predictable. Perhaps because I wasn't making any effort to predict where it was going. Nor do I see predictability as necessarily a problem in stories.

Oh, I don't necessarily have a problem with it myself but 'Arrival' seemed to place an awful lot of importance on a "reveal" that was obvious early on and then not entertain or inspire much getting there.

[Ray de Galles]

This last phrases particularly piques my curiosity, Ray. Are your children already fans of the book(s), perhaps, or were they simply agog at the trailer as a thing purely in its own right?

It was the trailer itself, both its epic scale & kinetic thrust, and the cast - my daughters love Timothy Showaddywaddy and Zendaya while my son was more impressed by Oscar Isaac, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa's presence.

They're all pretty widely read but I don't think the books are on their radar at all.