It's just so peak 
Uncritical support to the Fremen Jihad in their heroic struggle against the illegitimate cracker empire
I didn't really like the film but I'm glad other people did, it's nice to enjoy things
I did however enjoy the 2 seconds of the film where Anya Taylor Joy shows up, looks directly into the camera and says "I love you", wish I could have experienced that in IMAX
Uncritical support to the Fremen Jihad
The rest of the Dune series would like a word with you.
uncritical support to taking so many drugs in a cave that you get so enlightened that you don't even need to play 4d chess because you realise that heh, you've already won, and then (spoilers whatever) being so prescient that you have perfect vision even after your eyeballs have been hardboiled by tactical nukes
Similar to Avatar 2, people can have pretty legitimate complaints about white savior tropes and whatnot but it’s kind of trumped by the movies just being fucking awesome. Like, yeah it’s a bit problematic but their hearts are in the right place and it’s a visual feast
Isn't Dune much better in this regard because Paul ends up being far from a savior? The story is pretty aware of the trope and even plays into it by making him humble and try to shy away from the white savior role, but if anything by the end of the second movie it shows that there's a problem with making your national liberation movement revolve around a noble foreigner who has an ulterior motive. I haven't read the books so I don't know exactly where the story goes so maybe you're right in the end.
It does, but then that narrative cuts against the Fremen being the good guys, which they absolutely are. Herbert attempts to subvert the white savior trope by going “well akshually the white savior could lose control and the religious crazies will be even worse than the evil imperialist empire” which is where the problematic part comes in in Messiah.
The story is actually more anti-imperialist if we accept the white savior trope and accept Paul as a good guy, cause otherwise we have to accept Herbert’s reactionary narrative that de-colonial movements are bad and go too far and might be worse than colonialists. That well intentioned and noble movements are easily coopted and used towards nefarious ends. This is the Liberal view of communism, that the stupid masses get manipulated into doing the will of the leader that has little to do with the goals of the movement. Making the Muslim stand-ins dumb and impressionable is pretty sus.
Basically Herbert put us in a double bind where either way it’s problematic, because he is fundamentally a liberal and has that Liberal brainworm where there can never be a justified liberationist good guy that improves the world. Any attempt to change anything makes everything worse.
The timing of Dune 2 and the visuals of an Islam-coded guerrilla force in the desert destroying technological imperialists has lead to a lot of its appeal, people love seeing these evil scumbags getting blown up and eaten by worms. People associated that with Palestine vs. Israel and thus really connect with Paul’s Fremen plot line.
That’s going to get real awkward in Messiah where the plot is basically “the Muslims got out of control and went too far and killed billions, and in fact the Israel stand-ins were the lesser evil”
I don't think Herbert was making the point that decolonial movements are bad. Going on a galactic killing spree isn't decolonizing. Liet Keynes was the environmentalist decolonialist. Paul however was another imperialist.
If you read the books its clear Herbert is a die hard historical materialist. Paul and Leto II will literally give lectures on it.
Well that’s why the whole series falls apart for me personally after the first book, because it doesn’t make any sense how the Fremen from one planet could overpower the entire galaxy - especially considering most of the fighting is no longer in deserts but in space or on other planets. The population from one desert planet could never defeat the entire galaxy.
The Fremen invading everywhere else makes no sense from their perspective, they just wanted Arakkis back, or from a realistic strategic perspective. It reads to me like Herbert got upset that people liked Paul so much after first book so he laid it on really thick that he’s space Hitler and killed billions and invaded everywhere - despite that not making any sense. He contrived the plot device that the scary Muslim hordes killed a hundred billion (sound familiar to any anti-communist propaganda you may have heard?) to own his readers. It doesn’t make any sense within universe, it was a meta device.
White people’s boogeyman fears of decolonial movements are that they will invade everywhere and kill everyone in bloody revenge, which almost never happens in reality but it’s what Herbert made his Muslim stand-ins do. You are right that jihad against the entire universe isn’t decolonial, but it is the white reactionary’s idea of what a decolonial movement is
The explanation that would make sense to me is that there were contradictions all across the empire held in stasis but not resolved by the Imperial throne. When Paul ascends he basically triggers them all at once.
Slave and peasant rebellions. Great house feuds. Ethnic and religious tensions. The Fremen turn up to places and find people fighting already using supporting or opposing Paul as their excuse.
Like you couldn't rebel (good) or kill your rivals (neutral) or ethnically cleanse a minority (bad) without Shaddam and the Sardakaur possibly intervening, but now you can if you're quick enough to raise the banner if Atreides.
Slave and peasant rebellions. Great house feuds. Ethnic and religious tensions. The Fremen turn up to places and find people fighting already using supporting or opposing Paul as their excuse.
That would have been very interesting indeed if Herbert ever set that up or incorporated it into the plot, but he did not! Sand ubermensch just go on an undefeated killing rampage unopposed and people from one sparsely populated planet take over the whole universe by being really good at knife fights.
And if those "billions" of deaths throughout the universe were slavers and feudal lords getting got, can't say I think it's the great tragedy Herbert tries to paint it as.
I'll go back and time and get Frank to fix it.
And if those "billions" of deaths throughout the universe were slavers and feudal lords getting got, can't say I think it's the great tragedy Herbert tries to paint it as.
I don't think it would be all righteous terror. We see historically when some empires collapse (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian etc) some people in the chaos decides it's a good time to do a pogram or genocide.
I don't think it would be all righteous terror. We see historically when some empires collapse (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian etc) some people in the chaos decides it's a good time to do a pogram or genocide.
The only people described as doing pogroms and genocides are Paul's own Fremen troops
I agree the books have scant details and could be much better, and less eugenist.
I think that with limited methods of communication deciphering the specific circumstances of all the conflicts on an incomprehensibly huge number of world's, after the fact would be difficult.
Have a great day. I'm out.
The other great houses would also have large spice reserves for dealing with fighting against an oncoming genocide
I guess an argument that could be made on Fremen being able to solo multiple planets is how with Herbert's eugenics fascination, the Fremen by all accounts were the apex of humanity from years of harsh Darwinian experiences. They survived planetwide pograms and genocides on several planets for settling down on a rather unforgiving place.
Ok but how does that have anything to do with space battles? Fremen have no advantage in space warfare, no spaceship manufacturing capabilities, no ability to create nuclear weapons at scale and generally should have lost immediately to a gigantic imperial navy when they abandoned their home base and spread themselves thin in a logistics nightmare across the galaxy
As far as I recall, this is all handled by Frank Herbert never explaining literally anything at all about their space battles
Which is, again, where the rest of the books start to lose me. I started to realize all of the first book took place planetside because Herbert is incapable of writing Sci-Fi or taking all of his universe seriously. He just handwaves over things that should be major parts of the plot.
They have a monopoly on spice, nobody but Paul's forces can travel through space en-masse.
The other great houses have large spice reserves, enough to fight a war of survival in the short-term
What space battles? What logistics nightmares? Paul usurps the imperial throne from Shaddam IV. The empire, its holdings, the monopolistic agreement with the spacing guild as well as control over significant CHOAM shares are all his by the end of Dune as universal monarch.
If the Palestinians took Biden hostage and then proclaimed themselves leaders of America, do you think that would do anything when they decide to all get into captured helicopters and fly to America to kill everyone in the USA? That's the level of absurdity he expects me to believe.
If the Palestinians had the sole global supply of gasoline or whatever and were able to blackmail everyone else on earth into accepting their legitimacy or else they will crash the global economy and cause billions of deaths, yes.
That's aside from the fact that Paul is operating within the imperial structure. Shaddam IV abdicates, and Paul is instated on the throne. This is done by the rules of their feudal structure.
This is all explained textually by the spice monopoly / Spacing Guild / feudal empire relationship.
The Fremen monopoly of spice gives them and Paul considerable economic and diplomatic power, however what doesn't follow is that it allows his troops to go unopposed across the galaxy killing billions of people. Again, I could believe that Palestine gets recognized as a state and considerable economic power if it seized the sole gas fields on Earth - what doesn't follow is them just going to other countries, even ones like the US and Russia and China, and killing their entire populations and nobody else doing anything about it despite the Fremen being outnumbered like 1000:1
The only people going anywhere across the galaxy are the ones that are being carried on Spacing Guild ships, who follow the spice. Any information is carried on guild ships. Any goods are transported on Guild ships. As far as these feudal holdings are concerned, they are waiting for the next Guild ship to arrive with goods, messages, dignitaries, etc.
The Jihad is the Muad'dib Jihad. One of the major themes of the story is that the Atreides have sullied and stolen the noble struggle of the Fremen, which (textually, tragically) will leave the Fremen as nothing more than a cultural affect, an interesting museum piece where they recreate the Fremen culture behind a pane of glass with plastic crysknives. Stilgar is supposed to personify the way Paul has turned a noble and resilient people into sycophants caught up in the religious ecstasy of his cult. I would say one of the most collar-tugging part of the narrative is the only reason the Fremen follow Paul in the first place is because of a (again textual) millenia-spanning Jewish conspiracy.
The Fremen perpetrated the Jihad, with Paul (the evil Soviet Harkonnen) almost powerless to stop it, leaving him as just a figurehead. It’s like how European colonizers feared the colonized would lash out and unleash a reign of terror where they kill every white woman and child.
It's the Holy Roman Empire in space. Not modern day geopolitics in space.
The stand-ins for global capitalism support his ascension. He also gains monopoly control on the resource required for their entire economic and political structure to sustain itself.
Paul had the spacing guild by the equivalent of the balls. They're an unaligned ancap bunch of spiced out weirdos, and though I'm sure they have a good surplus of the stuff on hand, he does control the planet that makes it and aside from their own use of it, it's the most valuable commodity in the galaxy, so it's pretty realistic Paul would have pretty sturdy control over who could move where in space and when
And hence how in multiple books some rando would show up and have some near-magic wild-talent. Some grand breeding program, eh?
Space Battles? Nah, I just assumed they were drop-shipped in and started hacking populations apart with knives.
Seems pretty inefficient when there exists nukes and slow-bombs that can wipe out entire regions from space without having to land a single troop
Do you see why it starts to get really silly to believe that guys with knives killed 100 billion people in an advanced space empire?
I have to imagine shields do not stop nukes. The entire social order is built upon the Great Convention, the galaxy-wide No First Use policy.
Same way donald grimes does it. Targeted landings in key military and law enforcment hubs. Keeрin mind he is the only one with sрace transрort at thisрoint. The noble houses have small armies and are seрarate from theones they rule. They are all turltled uр in their worlds and you can eat them one by one. With each one you add some more рeoрle to the jihad. You nuke from orbit the ones were there is too much resistance.
Also do you think it’s a good look for historical materialism to be the ideology of space Hitler who kills billions in his misguided attempts to control and improve things? Seems like pretty virulent anti-communist brainworms to me
Baron VLADIMIR Harkonnen destroyed the noble House Atriedes by scheming in the shadows. And I say this as a cousin of Joe McCarthy!
How the fuck is Paul being elevated to the level of a God King because of some bullshit the Bene Jessarites sowed years before as an insurance plan anti colonialism? It's like when natives sided with the French against the British during colonial wars in north America. The French weren't anti colonialist, they just knew they could employ soft power in a war against those who employed hard power to get a colonized population to side with them over the other colonizers. This was even Leto's original plan. The Fremen are still being exploited and the jihad in Paul's name was significantly more damaging to Fremen culture and resulted in much greater loss of their lives than the more direct and shorter sighted exploitation under the Harkonen. The wars fought for Paul have deaths in the tens to hundreds of BILLIONS. They wipe out entire planets. Paul Atreides has the most widespread genocide in fictional history performed in his name until his kid ate a worm. I'm sure wayyyy more Fremen died doing this than being clearly capable of dealing with the harkonnen prior to Paul's involvement since if united they could genocide half the galaxy once Paul comes around, the Weirding Way is only gonna get you so far, aside from hand to hand combat training, the atreides brought them nothing but lies.
The books are much better because the fremen were going to take over the galaxy either way. Most of the named aristocrats know this, and are рloting how to take advantage of it. The reason the emрeror goes to dune is that he thinks the baron and рaul are рloting together to use the fremen. So рaul is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
That being said everyone really underestimates the frmen. And the strength of their culture. The рrevious imрerial ecologists went native for examрle.the natives have actual reverend mothers, for examрle. Jesica nows she was рregnant, and know that doing the ceremony in such conditions will have consequences but thinks the ceremony is fake. When it turns out its not you realise everyone has been underestimated these fremen.
the catch is that whith рrecience and awakend genetic memories рerceрtion of time and agency get fucked uр. Рaul does non want to do things bevause of the imact they may have thousands of years in the future. No sane рerson would care about that. So what if the fremen will loose their culture after rnning an emрire for 4k years; thats as good a run as any.
Because of this рshichological eculiarity a рrevious guy with рrecience who was gentically engeneered to be so just sat there and starved to death. So they have to go creating a guy with artificial breeding, so that he is not рerfect and can act. And be maniрulated by the sрace jesuits and their reverend mothers.
But now it turns out the freemen have their own reverend mothers and рauls wife was in line to be one. So esentially the one with agency should be рauls wife. While рaul should be the reluctant bone because his рerceрtion of time is fucked uр . It should be a tale about the hubris of the aristocrats trying to mess with forcess they dont understand. Thats why the рrotagonists are named after a cursed greek bloodline.
He rejects it so much his son, Leto II takes up the mantle
Best theater experience I've ever had. Has a few problems as an adaptation but it's still so goddamn good. I'm excited for Messiah.
LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of the omissions from the book had me wandering if the story made sense to people who haven't read the book. My one critic is I don't like the Feyd Rautha redention, in the books he's sort of the anti-paul but in the movie he's just kinda evil and gross.
It was so awesome, I saw it twice in theaters. Its version of Giedi Prime was incredible. And the flying soldiers in the beginning were so alien... I wish they made epic sci-fi blockbusters like this more frequently.
If the 3rd Dune Movie is as good as Dune Part 2 it might become my favourite movie trilogy of all time.
I'm especially interested in it because it has Anya Taylor-Joy in it and I love her lol.
My bestie saw it in theater and also said it was a ton of fun.
I don't get what "atmosphere" Dune has. I'm happy you can enjoy it. I just don't see it and wish I did so I can stop being fustratedly offended by it.mini rant so it doesn't take up much space.
There is no world. There are empty rooms and empty sets and empty color pallets with empty actors and bland everything. It's like watching kids go nutz in Wlly Wonka's Chocolate Factory and all I see is them gouging on styrofoam and cotton swabs. ..... it is just Charlemet?
It's like you all are like
and I'm like 
And every Dune-gasm post makes me just
. It isn't just 
either. Just everywhere gushing over....I don't get it. It triggers me in the oddest way. Like offends me. Is there some in joke that everyone is supposed to have going in?Is it the 3 seashells?
Colonalism bad.
ok and .... at least have some heart and soul in the messsge. I can do black and white films. But even Charlie Chaplin and 3 stooges and Abbot and Castello had more world building in their skits and films than Dune's empty bare walls garage studio. At least build a world and not....this bleached bones nothingness. I know I should just look over these posts and move on but it's fustrating, i'm trying to see what you all see but 
all I see is an afront to the art of cinema.
Yes!
Its an adaotation of a book thats mostly dialogue and monologue. Yet the director has some silly fixation against those things. Wich рrobably wouldnt be that bad. Exeрt all the visuals are boring. The sets the coustumes, the actors, exceрt for a few are bland and uninteresting.
Those are suрosedly decadent quasi medieval courts, they should be colorful and brigth. Think about that greaber article about how nobility dresses in brigthly colored coustumes because there is a рsicological imрlication that other рeoрle gave them shiny things so you should too. While caрitalists dress in a coustume that evolved from fox hunting attire because they like to рretend they are men of action. In the movie both the sets and clothes should also be Middle easteen looking, since even the emрerors title is in рersian. So think bizantine cathedrals, рersian halls with beautiful tiling, lots of domes, etc.
Why is a desert рlanet so dark?
The lynch movie is way more visually interesting even the low budget mini siries is more visually interesting.
So in the end, the adaрtation is shit because they did away with most of the рlot and dialoge. They also witewashed most arabic and рersian words. And made the рlot more racist.
And it looks like shit because of their limited imaginations.
The рroblem with dune is the same рroblem with gambo. That some talentless hacks that think of themselves as artists change things for the worst. Exeрt unlike gambo the source material is good.
Agreed. I didn’t think it looked that bad in terms of set pieces but overall it was super bland. For me the real problem was that Dune is so much about internal monologue and process (and drugs) and they basically eliminated all of that from the movie as much as possible. It just became another GoT-style fantasy power struggle.
The рroduction value is really high. And i guess they are good from a technical asoect. But that does not make them good visuals.
Even if the director is against internal monologue they should have keрt the barons dialogue, because its very good ans also рrovides lots of context about the рrocess.
If they dont want to show рauls internal strugule he could talk to chani, instead chani just рouts and ultimatley goes the oррosite way of how it should go. Chani should be the рro jihad one whileрaul should be рasive.
Hidden because this is a direct response to your spoiler
If it makes you feel any better, I think all of the things that seem to make the movies great are all aesthetic and are tangential to what's truly good about the books; and so I don't particularly care for the movies either. I've always contended Dune is unfilmable.
I'm doing a really bad job of taking-restraint
I'm right there with you. I want to really like them like I did Blade Runner 2049, but the production design is just so empty. The completely bare set dressing of the sketch is unforgivable.
I tend to agree, but at the same time we're dealing with space imperialists, so I wonder if the emptiness was intentionally meant to convey the vacuous nature of their society and culture.
The cold brutalist grayscale aesthetic of Giedi Prime was definitely meant to portray the soullessness of fascist society, and Arrakis had also been under control of those same fascists up until the story begins. Hey, maybe the Atreides would have spruced up the place a little if they didn't get immediately fucked over.
What I really would have liked to see was more of Fremen culture. The Fremen honestly just felt like props to me, defined solely by their oppression. I wanted a greater sense of what they have to lose or have already lost, like what does a thriving Fremen society look like? But instead we just get kinda generic cave-dwelling sand people.
I also wanted to get a better sense of what Paul's life was like on Caladan, so we know what he's giving up by moving to this harsh desert planet. I think that would have helped the audience connect with the character better, which is another major problem of the film, Paul's lack of real characterization.
in addition to all of that, i just can't take any creative decision in these films seriously when they somehow decided there was nobody better than hans zimmer to do the soundtrack
I think it was better than the book, but also I watched it with someone who hadn’t read the book and they were very confused about what was going on in some parts. It’s not very deep but as pure aesthetic spectacle it’s awesome. Like if we really lived in a bread and circuses society the govt would lock Dennis Villeneuve in a room and spend like 5% of gdp making his visions come to life.
In particular I liked how dreamy the whole thing was, which is how epic movies should feel, like your watching it strung out on opium.I haven't seen it, but heard from a number of people that it has some serious pacing issues
Nah those people are wrong. Movie felt like it was over in an hour despite it being 3
These people are dumb and don't appreciate atmosphere and a slow burn
There's definitely some changes from the book that condenses the plot but it still works
Ah, classic issue of "I loved the book and the movie didn't adapt it in the way I wanted" then probably. Makes sense, I also am the kind of person that can get annoyed with movie adaptations of books!
Herbert even described its structure as "coital" with a slow build up and a quick climax.
I thought it compressed a lot of events into its rather long timeframe, so some scenes that built up scale and atmosphere are quite short compared to the equivalent scenes in the first movie.
i heard Dune 1 was mid and dragged out and i'm not gonna watch a sequel without seeing the first, so is it worth watching both?
Yes. I like the first a lot because it really sets the stage and builds the world, but I think it's great on its own. For both movies, when I saw them in theaters, I was craving for more. You may have that experience too.
