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Dune Spoiler Thread


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Just started watching a second time. Picked up on a few things I missed the last time - for instance, Thufir Hawat's eyes changing to a dull gray when he calculates how much it cost the Emperor to send over documents for Leto to 'sign'; signifying his mentat-ness.

I also paid more attention to Chani's voice over - one thing I've never understood is that if the Atreides estimate Fremen population to be in the millions, then why were they never able to give the Harkonnen serious trouble in their 80 year reign? I mean, this has parallels with the British Empire where they were able to colonize wide swaths of the world with minimum force, the reasons for which mostly being a lack of national identify compared to local tribal identity. I imagine the sietches would be mostly independent but someone like Paul managed to unite them, Why not a local Fremen?

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Saw it last night in IMAX. A satisfying visual feast. The screen opened up to full size for most exterior shots, making the aerial views of the desert and city just incredible.

"This is only the beginning."

A perfect last line to which my son (who has not read the books or seen previous adaptations) sat up with the credits and asked, "What was that?"  

"The beginning."

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10 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Just started watching a second time. Picked up on a few things I missed the last time - for instance, Thufir Hawat's eyes changing to a dull gray when he calculates how much it cost the Emperor to send over documents for Leto to 'sign'; signifying his mentat-ness.

I also paid more attention to Chani's voice over - one thing I've never understood is that if the Atreides estimate Fremen population to be in the millions, then why were they never able to give the Harkonnen serious trouble in their 80 year reign? I mean, this has parallels with the British Empire where they were able to colonize wide swaths of the world with minimum force, the reasons for which mostly being a lack of national identify compared to local tribal identity. I imagine the sietches would be mostly independent but someone like Paul managed to unite them, Why not a local Fremen?

It’s more comparable to pre Islamic Arabia - and Mohammed was able to unify the Arabs due to religious zeal , solid tactical leadership and lack of a national state/religion already in place. Many of the same factors helped Paul. The missionaria protectiva - the missionary work  done by the  bene gesserit unwittingly helped Paul as he became a self fullfilling prophecy, able to meet alot of the predicted stuff. Paul’s own prescience  and training helped win over the Fremen too.

 

The fremen also become more powerful with time, once kynes started getting them to store large water basins, begin early terraforming efforts , start to unify them towards a common purpose. A lot of this was developed during those 80 years so you could say half of Paul’s success was his timing, the fremen were ripe for the taking. 

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1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Just started watching a second time. Picked up on a few things I missed the last time - for instance, Thufir Hawat's eyes changing to a dull gray when he calculates how much it cost the Emperor to send over documents for Leto to 'sign'; signifying his mentat-ness.

I also paid more attention to Chani's voice over - one thing I've never understood is that if the Atreides estimate Fremen population to be in the millions, then why were they never able to give the Harkonnen serious trouble in their 80 year reign? I mean, this has parallels with the British Empire where they were able to colonize wide swaths of the world with minimum force, the reasons for which mostly being a lack of national identify compared to local tribal identity. I imagine the sietches would be mostly independent but someone like Paul managed to unite them, Why not a local Fremen?

The Fremen didn't want to give the harkonnen serious trouble. They first were tribal in nature and very isolated from each other, and were largely static - they had adapted to the old ways and had their system that worked, and part of that was near constant oppression from outsiders and cannibalizing their best leaders to make way for the new. 

Kynes was the one who gave them a vision of a world of water. To Fremen this would be akin to proposing a world where no one needs money and anything you want is free. It is a ludicrous vision, but kynes was able to sell it enough to unite them. 

And once kynes was gone the prophet could afflict them with nationalism, afflict a society trained on perfect insularity, xenophobia and honor killing on the entire cosmos. 

But until then, those traits of insularity and xenophobia lent themselves to not doing anything more than base survival. 

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Re-watched last night.  The second time around Jamis, played by Babs Olusanmokun (an actor who is great to watch) howling in a prolonged shaking rage and beating on his chest, it feels even more problematic than first time.  Who thought it was a good idea to play it that way?

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17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Re-watched last night.  The second time around Jamis, played by Babs Olusanmokun (an actor who is great to watch) howling in a prolonged shaking rage and beating on his chest, it feels even more problematic than first time.  Who thought it was a good idea to play it that way?

I read that as extreme frustration he wasn't able to kill this stripling of a boy who seems to be just stringing him along. I read it as "Step up and kill me. Don't strip me of my honor."

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On 10/27/2021 at 9:30 PM, Kalsandra said:

Dune 2 was a crazy popular, awesome video game that was the first real RTS out there. A LOT of people learned what Dune was because of it that had zero exposure to it before that.

It popularised and defined the RTS. There were plenty of RTS games before, but they didn't have a unified or recognised format (Carried Command was a first-person, 3D RTS in 1988, which was a hell of a lot ahead of its time; Herzog Zwei, obviously, and War in Middle-earth had a lot of RTS elements in 1987; Dune 1 actually had a half-arsed real-time strategy element as well), which Dune II provided. Dune II's format was the one that WarCraft borrowed and then the Dune II team rejigged to create Command & Conquer, and off we went.

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The Fremen didn't want to give the harkonnen serious trouble. They first were tribal in nature and very isolated from each other, and were largely static - they had adapted to the old ways and had their system that worked, and part of that was near constant oppression from outsiders and cannibalizing their best leaders to make way for the new. 

I also think the Fremen realised that the Harkonnens would be happy to sterilise the planet of whatever Fremen life they could find (even if just butchering their village-dwelling cousins) without endangering the spice supply, which they know they would be less inclined to do against the Atreides because of opprobrium from the Landsraad.

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17 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

That is actually the vibe I got the 4 times I watched it so far.

I get that, and I thought it was interesting, but it reads very differently in the US given it's a black man banging his chest like a gorilla. 

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I've tried all sorts of searches and I can basically find no one bringing up this very interesting point outside of two posts on this forum and one tweet from another apparent white ally on Twitter.

Make of that what one will.

 

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34 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

I get that, and I thought it was interesting, but it reads very differently in the US given it's a black man banging his chest like a gorilla. 

I did not consider that. Obviously a perspective I lack.

I interpreted that and his blustering as an attempt to build up his own confidence. Paul disarmed him earlier(and could have killed him easily if he had a knife) and he had every reason to doubt his own ability to win. edit: I'm obviously speaking from a movie only point if view. I think in the book he blamed witchcraft his earlier failure against Paul.

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Denis Villeneuve confirming he wants to adapt Dune Messiah after Part 2, but he feels that after the books get too "psychedelic" to adapt faithfully.

Bit of an odd comment. Dune Messiah is relatively slow and talky despite being really short, to the point that I suspect they'll seriously bump up the depiction of the jihad at the start of the film. Children of Dune is far more adaptable than Messiah, having more intrigue and action. Children of Dune also rounds off Paul's story, creating a natural endpoint for the story begun in Dune: Part 1. I dunno, maybe Villeneuve doesn't want to sound too James Cameron by suggesting he can make four films when only one has been moderately successful so far.

Granted, God-Emperor is unfilmable without massive changes, but you could make a solid adaptation out of Heretics and Chapterhouse, maybe lowballing the weird sex ritual stuff and emphasising the Honoured Matre/Bene Gesserit war. My only concern with that would be that Herbert never finished the story, so they'd probably draw on the Anderson/Herbert Jnr. shitshow, which should be resisted.

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7 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 Many of the same factors helped Paul. The missionaria protectiva - the missionary work  done by the  bene gesserit unwittingly helped Paul as he became a self fullfilling prophecy, able to meet alot of the predicted stuff. Paul’s own prescience  and training helped win over the Fremen too.

The fremen also become more powerful with time, once kynes started getting them to store large water basins, begin early terraforming efforts , start to unify them towards a common purpose. A lot of this was developed during those 80 years so you could say half of Paul’s success was his timing, the fremen were ripe for the taking. 

Right, I understand the Bene Gesserit had laid the groundwork for the arrival of an outworlder messiah (one of the things I thought the movie did nicely, with enough references to it); which was simply them hedging their bets for one of their many prospects to take root. Also agree with your and other comments here that note the Fremen being primed only recently to believe in something beyond their local tribes as being key points, following by the transfer of power being the spark that set everything in motion. But to the point of Paul being a Mohammed-like figure, the latter was local to the region when Islam took root. I guess my question is more about why Herbert chose outsider vs insider when surely he must have been aware of the 'orientalist or white savior aspects of that choice.

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11 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Right, I understand the Bene Gesserit had laid the groundwork for the arrival of an outworlder messiah (one of the things I thought the movie did nicely, with enough references to it); which was simply them hedging their bets for one of their many prospects to take root. Also agree with your and other comments here that note the Fremen being primed only recently to believe in something beyond their local tribes as being key points, following by the transfer of power being the spark that set everything in motion. But to the point of Paul being a Mohammed-like figure, the latter was local to the region when Islam took root. I guess my question is more about why Herbert chose outsider vs insider when surely he must have been aware of the 'orientalist or white savior aspects of that choice.

Because he was subverting the trope.  Paul didn’t want the Jihad but for all his power he couldn’t prevent it.

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There was a scene shot in which Yueh gives Paul a copy of the Orange Catholic Bible that belongs to his wife, therefore simultaneously establishing the religion of the Imperium and providing some foreshadowing of Yueh's whole storyline.

FFS.

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12 hours ago, Werthead said:

There was a scene shot in which Yueh gives Paul a copy of the Orange Catholic Bible that belongs to his wife, therefore simultaneously establishing the religion of the Imperium and providing some foreshadowing of Yueh's whole storyline.

FFS.

Numerous scenes were cut - the banquet, the one above, I think more about Gurney (in an interview with Brolin he does confirm he played the baliset), a scene between Thufir and Paul after the hunter-seeker moment, and more with Duncan with the Fremen. #Releasethedirectorscut.

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