Denis Villenueve to direct Dune

[SpaceChampion]

The only character trait I've seen associated with Duncan Idaho often is impulsive, not brash or machismo.  His impulsiveness is why god emperor Leto wanted him around -- harder to see with his prescient ability.

[Vaughn]

Momoa is fine for the Duncan Idaho of the first book. If you are thinking ahead to the ghola Idaho, that doesn't seem relevant as I don't think the cast have signed up for anything beyond two movies, nor is it likely this same cast would be involved in any future TV series.

[Vaughn]

I loved the 'Blade Runner 2049' score so it's too bad Wallfisch isn't working with Zimmer on this one.

[Zorral]

17 hours ago, felice said:

Yeah. It's a story written by a white American man about the white figurehead of an army that sets out to conquer the galaxy being filmed by another white guy, and the Fremen culture is determined far more by their current environment than their origins on Earth many thousands of years earlier. In the current political environment, it's a sensible move.

Except this isn't any better since 'crusade's' etymology is from the 17th Century, via French-Spanish = "the state of being marked with the cross," which has no connection in the Dune universe.  To my mind it doesn't in the least obscure 'jihad', just changes religious - political - social language of Europe and the Middle East from the 7th - 21st centuries. In the meantime, then and now jihad means "effort" or  "struggle" on behalf of God.

 

 

[Corvinus85]

17 hours ago, felice said:

Yeah. It's a story written by a white American man about the white figurehead of an army that sets out to conquer the galaxy being filmed by another white guy, and the Fremen culture is determined far more by their current environment than their origins on Earth many thousands of years earlier. In the current political environment, it's a sensible move.

 

16 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Except this isn't any better since 'crusade's' etymology is from the 17th Century, via French-Spanish = "the state of being marked with the cross," which has no connection in the Dune universe.  To my mind it doesn't in the least obscure 'jihad', just changes religious - political - social language of Europe and the Middle East from the 7th - 21st centuries. In the meantime, then and now jihad means "effort" or  "struggle" on behalf of God.

 

 

Herbert used "jihad" for other wars, as well, like the Butlerian Jihad which was against AI. He also created a religion that combined most of our modern major religions with its own holy book, the Orange Catholic Bible. 

If the intent of the filmmakers is to mainly just tell the story of the first novel, I understand the change from "jihad" to "crusade". But if the intent is to go deeper, and explore this universe more, then I agree with Zorral. They could have simply said "holy war"

[sologdin]

no connection in the Dune universe

isn't the butlerian jihad also referred to as a crusade? i.e., the concepts are blended, kinda like how all the religions are merged?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, sologdin said:

no connection in the Dune universe

isn't the butlerian jihad also referred to as a crusade? i.e., the concepts are blended, kinda like how all the religions are merged?

Remember the Fremen are Zensunni wanderers.

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

To my mind it doesn't in the least obscure 'jihad', just changes religious - political - social language of Europe and the Middle East from the 7th - 21st centuries. In the meantime, then and now jihad means "effort" or  "struggle" on behalf of God.

 

Yeah but that isn't true at all is it.  While the true meaning of jihad is as you say, for most of the target audience it very specifically means 'anti-western religious-political violence'. Meanwhile Crusade while its true meaning is a very specific set of religious wars, it has colloquially come to mean 'any particularly strident campaign'.  

[unJon]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

Yeah but that isn't true at all is it.  While the true meaning of jihad is as you say, for most of the target audience it very specifically means 'anti-western religious-political violence'. Meanwhile Crusade while its true meaning is a very specific set of religious wars, it has colloquially come to mean 'any particularly strident campaign'.  

[Clueless Northman]

Well, it'll be interesting to see "Muad'Dib's crusade" then. There's a lot of Arabic-inspired words in Dune, not just jihad. I mean, it's after all a world where Islam remained (or became once again) at least as influential as Christianity on Earth, and later on across the galaxy. It would be silly to purge them all.

[sologdin]

Remember the Fremen are Zensunni wanderers.

agreed.  it makes sense to preserve a sunni concept of jihad in there.  i wonder what correlate buddhist ideas are present?

we therefore need a reread project with attention to these intellectual antecedents, as preparatory for the film.

[Zorral]

Herbert didn't only take Arabic words for his Dune glossary.  Many of the titles come the various succession of empires that followed the first Persian empire (though not from the empires of the region that preceded it in the Bronze Age).  He took so much too from the myths and legends with which Muhammad grew up with and learned on the trading routes.  Beyond that, again, from the sacred legends and tales of Muhammad's earlier life, and then the period in which Allah dictated the Quran, and how the Arabs exploded out of the Peninsula.  Also cultural and social life of the desert tribes.  Then, later, elements from the Mongolian invasions, and the Ottoman Empire.

This has so impressed me, even still now, how seamlessly he wove that into an interstellar future epic, that he combined with Europe too, of the the Renaissance during the eras of Italian-Spanish struggles to dominate the Italian peninsula.  Most genre writers playing with language, particularly back when he wrote Dune, make risible messes.

He left out the Black Death though.

[Werthead]

Just rewatched the Lynch version. There were a few things I hadn't fully appreciated before:

• It takes the film 25 minutes to get to the first actual scene from the novel.
• It takes the film almost 90 minutes for Paul and Jessica to meet the Fremen. The film is only 136 minutes long in total. So the entirety of Paul and Jessica with the Fremen, fighting the Harkonnens, bringing the Emperor to Arrakis and defeating him, takes about as long as a single episode of a 1990s network TV drama.
• The ornithopters in the film are really shit.
• David Lynch is actually in the movie (as the radio operator on the spice harvester).
• Frank Herbert acted as the clapper boy for the very first shot of the movie (he's in the special features).
• After some concern, the #DunePug can be seen briefly in the final scene in the throne room. Meaning that, in the film-verse, Patrick Stewart spent two years as a hardened mercenary and spice smuggler fighting Harkonnens with the Atreides War Pug at his side. Why didn't we get a fucking trilogy about that?
• The Emperor jumping personally into a lasgun turret to lay down some pain is hilariously incongruous.
• The bit at the end where Irulan declares, "Where there was war, Muad'dib would bring peace," is still hilarious if you've read the books.

I also saw an online discussion about the lack of casting news for Feyd and how they're going to keep Momoa in the story for Film #2 and saw a couple of ideas. The first was combining Feyd and Rabban: Feyd does jack shit in the books and the idea to have him go to Arrakis as a saviour figure never went anywhere, so there is some merit to this suggestion. Not sure if I'd believe even a super-powered Chalamet taking down Bautista in one-on-one combat though. The second was killing Gurney in the attack on Arrakeen and instead having Idaho take over his storyline, escaping the attack, going with the smugglers (probably no #DunePug this time) and reuniting with Paul later on. He can also just segue into Messiah and Children in the improbable event they get that far, and just drop the whole ghola and memories thing.

Both have a lot of arguments for storytelling efficiency and clarity.

[Corvinus85]

By the way, the ornithopters from the trailer look a lot like how they were designed in the RTS Dune 2000.

[Werthead]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

By the way, the ornithopters from the trailer look a lot like how they were designed in the RTS Dune 2000.

Sort of, but these ones look like they are more delicate (more like the 1992 Cryo Dune game) and have multiple wings and a rear set of flapping wings as well. They look way more like dragonflies then the Dune 2000 ones, which are a bit chunkier.

[Fez]

40 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Just rewatched the Lynch version. There were a few things I hadn't fully appreciated before:

• It takes the film 25 minutes to get to the first actual scene from the novel.
• It takes the film almost 90 minutes for Paul and Jessica to meet the Fremen. The film is only 136 minutes

I've only ever seen the extended version Dune, the one that's 186 minutes and that Lynch disavowed. I've never been clear what makes up the bulk of the 50 minute difference. I know the rather odd cuts to drawn images (in place of SFX that was never created I assume) are only in it, plus most of the voice-over narration (which, I actually like the lengthy intro, but not the rest once the movie starts). But that can't be all of it. There must be a bunch of scenes that Lynch shot that aren't in the theatrical release. I suspect a bunch of them involve the Fremen, because I recall the second of the movie being kinda endless.

[Poobah]

This is fun:

 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

also saw an online discussion about the lack of casting news for Feyd and how they're going to keep Momoa in the story for Film #2 and saw a couple of ideas. The first was combining Feyd and Rabban: Feyd does jack shit in the books and the idea to have him go to Arrakis as a saviour figure never went anywhere, so there is some merit to this suggestion. Not sure if I'd believe even a super-powered Chalamet taking down Bautista in one-on-one combat though. The second was killing Gurney in the attack on Arrakeen and instead having Idaho take over his storyline, escaping the attack, going with the smugglers (probably no #DunePug this time) and reuniting with Paul later on. He can also just segue into Messiah and Children in the improbable event they get that far, and just drop the whole ghola and memories thing.

 

Ugh.  Just. Ugh.  To all that shyte.

 

[Vaughn]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The first was combining Feyd and Rabban: Feyd does jack shit in the books and the idea to have him go to Arrakis as a saviour figure never went anywhere, so there is some merit to this suggestion.

Sure, if you want to just ignore the entire seconday plot that the Hawat and the Baron are working on for the second half of the book. Or the fact that Feyd was on a mirror path of Paul to try to get the throne. Feyd and Beast are contrasting characters, purposely - you might as well just combine Gurney and Idaho or Kynes and Tuek if you don't want bother with details.

I don't understand all this talk about the books. Best case, we get two movies covering one book from this cast and creative tea. That's it. Let's enjoy that. Did you watch 'Master and Commander' and spend your time worrying about who would play Diana in other sequels that were never coming?

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Vaughn said:

Sure, if you want to just ignore the entire seconday plot that the Hawat and the Baron are working on for the second half of the book. Or the fact that Feyd was on a mirror path of Paul to try to get the throne. Feyd and Beast are contrasting characters, purposely - you might as well just combine Gurney and Idaho or Kynes and Tuek if you don't want bother with details.

I don't understand all this talk about the books. Best case, we get two movies covering one book from this cast and creative tea. That's it. Let's enjoy that. Did you watch 'Master and Commander' and spend your time worrying about who would play Diana in other sequels that were never coming?

The thing is, if the first movie is successful enough to get the second movie and the second movie is equally successful, then we're going to get the third movie. Paramount wants a massive franchise here, that's why they're working on a TV show as well.

We might not get Villeneuve directing all the films or the same cast involved (well, that goes without saying as most of them are out of the story in the first novel), but if Dune is a reasonably big or even middling hit, we'll be seeing more Dune movies coming along.