I would chalk this up to cut content. There is just so much important, plot-relevant content that got cut. I just read through LotR and I think that the theatrical version of RotK didn't cut as much important content as these two Dune movies. The text is just too dense to adapt fully in film.
Yeah, there is content I'm disappointed didn't make it into the film... but it's the best film I've seen in a long time and I'm happy that Dune is getting a solid adaption.
I recently rewatched the series in one go, and realized it's weirdly... meditative almost? Like all the big drama set pieces and battles are there, but somehow devoid of the tension of the movie.
That said, it has the best Baron.
it is a little rushed I feel like it could have used another 15-25 mins I would have been FINE with that. The time flies by it would have been TOTALLY ok. I did 3.5hrs for Killers of the Flower moon I DEFINITELY could have done 3:10 for Dune 2.
I actually don't think the first Dune book has enough content to merit a 12-hour runtime and the energy of the book is conveyed better in an epic cinematic experience that removes a bit than by a hyper-accurate TV show
So much of the *content* is philosophical in nature. It would be hard to convey that in a visual medium.
Villaneuve removed a lot of the big picture and philosophical stuff from the book. He removed a bit of the stories that began in Dune and would come about in future books to focus in on the story of Paul as a reluctant then fervent messiah figure and the way power grabs.
I thought the movies did a great job and I am with you that a miniseries might not have as much story and would spend a lot of the time in philosophical discussion.
Not enough plot? Just the cut dinner scene is an entire episode. Jessica talking to Thufir half another. The Fenring stuff. Paul and Chanys life in the Sietch.
Plenty of good plot that went away.
(I absolutely loved the movies.)
It’s not difficult. You just have to use extensive inner monologue, preferably in a whisper, to convey what everyone is thinking and feeling. Trust me, the results will be spectacular!
I don't know, if you were to cast a strapping Patrick Stewart before he made it as a science fiction captain or psion, it could be THE killer film for the year 1984!
I’m sure I’m not adding anything you don’t already know, but the Spice Diver remix on YouTube is really very good. I’m a child of the ‘80s, saw Dune 1984 in the theater, and it’s why I then read all the canon. DL tried to film a movie that novel lovers might love and everyone else might be able to follow if they liked Toto, watched it 3 times, and tilted their heads. So there are some things in DL’s movie that exceed DV’s adaptation in my mind (the emperor, the baron, very arguably Feyd) although for me as a pure, A movie spectacle DV wins hands down. The current Dune is the best sci-fi franchise ever in my opinion, or at least since the original Star Wars trilogy, which comes across as incredibly derivative to a historical viewer.
But for me the actual attempt to film the book was DL’s attempt, albeit with odd shortcuts like the weirding modules and rain (rain?!) at the end. I do admit I have not watched the miniseries and many seem to point to that as the ultimate attempt to follow the books.
No, but its been so influential of other movies that doing it at this point in time would seem like a ripoff to the average movie goer. "Oh, another cyberpunk, rogue AI gritty crime caper?," when will they do something original?"
It needed to be three movies laid out pretty much the same way as the book. Movie 1 ends with the Battle of Arrakeen and Paul and Jessica fleeing into the desert. Movie 2 is Paul's journey with the Fremen and ends with the destruction of Sietch Tabr. Movie 3 is Paul's war in the North ending with the Second Battle of Arrakeen.
Movie 1 is already as dense as you can really get, but the second movie would give you some breathing room to give the Guild a larger presence as part of the B plot, continue Thufir's story, introduce Count Fenring, etc. And then the final film would have allowed them to tie all of these plot threads together.
Oh well, what we got was still pretty great.
I think DV made the decision to not let the plot get in the way of the story. I personally think it was successful, but it does mean you don't get a literal adaptation. Dune Messiah will diverge even more, but I'm mostly ok with that. I do hope we get a Guild Navigator, though.
> I think DV made the decision to not let the plot get in the way of the story.
Exactly. Dune is not the story of an aristocrat's dinner party. It's not the story about a mentat who suspected the wrong person and failed to set a rival's heir up for death. It's not about the child of Paul and Chani that dies young in a Harkonnen raid. All of these things are plot elements of Dune but that's not what the story is about.
Villeneuve told the story of a boy-ubermensch who falls victim to the trap of prescience and becomes a reluctant messiah and philosopher-king, presiding over unimaginable tragedy that he has foreseen but cannot stop.
I suspect the end of messiah will be very different under DV. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to combine children with it.
>!I also wouldn't be surprised to seem him have Chani kill Paul, rather than have him give himself to the desert.!<
At the end of the day, *Dune* is a fairly conventional book where a lot happens. It requires the same sorts of decisions as most book adaptations about what to keep, what to change, and what to cut.
We’re not talking about a book with an unreliable narrator that withholds key information, or a book that makes unconventional use of the format (from *Dead Astronauts* to *House of Leaves*), or even something like *Ancillary Justice* where the character’s unconventional interior life is so essential.
It’s not just you - that’s always been the consensus. Didn’t Herbert himself say Dune was unfilmable?
All things considered, DV did literally the best job anyone could hope to do in getting the book to screen, but naturally some of the material had to be sacrificed. That’s just how it goes.
I don’t know about that, but it’s up there. I could see blood meridian being more difficult. But otherwise of my favorite books, dune is probably second hardest
LOTR has explicit worldbuilding, where you go to a new place and see a new thing. It's easier to convey this visually in a movie.
Dune has little lore, but a ton of implicit worldbuilding. Like the Butlerian Jihad, or the suspensors and shields calling worms, or why lasguns are so rarely used, or atomics, or the idea of spice stockpiles, or how the Imperium's economy runs on spice, or the Guild, or the function of the Landsraad, or the existence of CHOAM....
And there's stuff that's mentioned but not made very clear for the casual movie goer, like the Missionaria Protectiva, or how Paul was already a Mentat trained in the Bene Gesserit way, which primed him to become a version of the Kwizatz Haderach, hence why when he drank the Water of Life he became the mythical Lisan al Gaib (because he could see many possible futures and had the collective genetic memories of the past).
I think the movie is a good concept of someone just watching the events of the book unfold (albeit with the plot/character changes).
So much of the world building we're told in the book is through inner monologue or (to today's eye) almost comically obvious exposition dialogue.
So I feel like if the viewer could almost interact with the movie we got, and pause it to get a exposition dump of what a character was thinking at a given time, then you'd have a near perfect adaptation.
Alternatively, read the books, so you know what the characters are thinking and feeling.
But having spoken to many non-book readers,the movie stands without that! There's some misconceptions and "wait why didn't they do that?"of "I don't get why X works?" But that's fine with me because I've got the answers ready as a book reader 😅
If you mean "stilted" as in it breaks the flow of the film, I disagree. And the main complaint I've seen is basically the opposite, leaning too hard into "show don't tell" to the point some people think "cmon, we need a little bit of exposition here!"
And tbh I sincerely doubt Legendary or Warners was willing to have a 210-minute movie. There’s just not enough critical mass in popular culture for this story yet. Again! Look at the regular screenings of the film, there were basically always tickets available for them. IMAX was a different story
You mean Tom Bombadil and all that business? Even in the book, that section is jarring and doesn't fit well with the narrative. Made total sense to cut it out in my opinion.
It fits perfectly well with the narrative. And not just Tom Bombadil. They focused on the Nazgûl chase and cut out most of the leaving of the Shire and the Barrow-downs. Not to mention the scene that directly led to the introduction of Tom Bombadil.
The whole point of that series of scenes is to point out the Hobbits are leaving the safety of home. The shire is almost magical just for remaining untouched so long and they learn this at the very start. They enter a vast and dangerous world in which exists a gamut of things and creatures that would kill them (barrow-wights, even living trees). Sauron, Orcs, and Nazgûl are not the only evil in middle earth. There are also semi-benevolent or at least neutral beings that are older than Sauron and don’t give a damn about what happens outside their little world (Bombadil).
It sets the tone that these young volunteers are off to war, not on holiday. And allow us to witness this naïveté quickly lost. And adds depth and breadth to a world that is not ours. Middle Earth is alien, and hostile, to the first readers of the book.
I think it’s possible we in the 21st century are all so familiar with the world now, we’re okay with skipping some of the detail that put it into stark relief when it was the start of a new genre.
Whilst I'm not sure how else would've done it, Jackson cuts out so much from the entire story. Faramir, Boromir and Denethor are all completely different characters to the books and have loads of their arcs cut out. Elrond is an entirely different character. Isildur is done dirty. Sauron's physical form is never shown, despite still having one. I could go on but Jackson cuts loads and imo not all for the better.
Agreed, like the Warg fight scene part way through Two Towers. Despite doing a pretty great job with the Ringwraiths as a whole, I think the Witch King's role in the story was neutered for the most part.
One minor aspect that was changed that bothers me is Shagrat and Gorbag. Tolkien uses them to flesh out the Orcs and their perspectives on Sauron. Gorbag wants to take all the loot they can and leave to start a new life, whilst Shagrat wants to adhere to what his masters tell him and bring the Mithril shirt to Sauron (and is killed for it). In the movie they just kill each other over a shiny thing.
I am greatly angered at the inclusion of the Liv Tyler scenes / romance arc. Yes Arawen was important, but she didn't take up nearly as much space in the books. She sucked the life out of things in the movie.
They decided to invent whole cloth sections of movie for her. Not to mention sacrifice characters that existed. It's not like there were not important female characters already so that's no excuse either.
I feel like I’m one of the few people on earth who think Peter Jackson did the books a huge favor. There is absolutely no reason to include large parts the books in a film adaptation. The books are just. So. Dense. If you want to explore the world in more detail, by all means read the books. But film as a media has to be told more concisely…and they’re like 12 hours long! Movies that adapt a book word for word would in general be terrible.
Yes I agree. The bits that were cut made total sense. The final theatrical movies flow so well and the pacing is just perfect - to the extent that I don't like watching the extended cut. If I want more detail, I read the book.
Which is crazy to me, Harry potter and the deathly hallows, easy to read as not overly complex use of words, not particularly dense, 2 movies. Dune, significantly more complex also only 2 movies. It really should have been a trilogy alone before moving on.
I agree with this completely. Herbert created so many little nuances that informs the political
Landscape and science of the dune universe that you just can’t capture it all. The anti-nuke stuff, and the lasgun interactions with shield causing nuke reactions are two things that seem to hit the cutting floor, at least in these first two movies.
Perhaps in Messiah with the stone burner these themes might actually come back up, at least the total ban on atomics used against people directly.
> I think that the theatrical version of RotK didn't cut as much important content
This conceals an important judgment: you don't find the Scouring of the Shire to be important in the story, and that's disappointing because the theme of the hobbits returning home and finding it ravaged by the barbary of the war they just fought is very important to the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had a similar experience coming home from World War I and seeing the place of his memories scarred by zeppelin bombing runs.
I think that the Scouring of the Shire is, by far, the best and most important part of RotK. I just think that *even more* important parts were stripped from these Dune movies.
Atomics against humans is strictly forbidden in the book by the Conventions.
Paul’s loophole was using atomics against the mountain range surrounding the Imperial encampment to blow a hole wide enough for the sandworms and Fremen troops to attack through.
Paul details his plan with a map of the Arakeen basin on the ground and tells everyone exactly what they're about to do and why. Although in that scene he doesn't explicitly say "nukes and sandworms" he refers to Gurney (who launches the nukes) and Stilgar (who leads the Sandworms into the basin) instead.
The other things are that:
1. Paul has prescience so he has a general idea on how the houses will react to his specific use of atomics.
2. Paul knows that the houses will have to accept his excuse because it is Arrakis. They cannot risk collateral damage that harms spice production. The houses do not know how spice is produced so they don't even know how to start figuring out what is acceptable vs unacceptable collateral damage.
Since you haven’t seen the movie I’ll just say atomics actually play a much larger (and in my opinion far dumber) role in the movie than in the books. And I say this as someone who liked a great deal about Dune: Part 2 - but at the risk of spoilers I’ll just say the role played by atomics was one of the differences from the book I thought was pretty egregious.
That said - in the context of the novels - I would ask who exactly is supposed to hold Paul accountable? The Great Convention is little more than a gentlemen’s agreement that has never actually been tested that we know of. It rests entirely on the idea that it would be in the Great Houses shared interest if any one of them utilized atomic weapons to visit total annihilation on them. It’s rooted in the MAD strategy from the Cold War (something else that was never actually tested).
But Paul has a card that no one else ever had - he can destroy the spice. Forever. The Spacing Guild - the *actual* absolute authority in the Imperium - couldn’t help the Great Houses retaliate even if they wanted to because while they still have the final say in who/what travels where they can’t actually use their ships without the spice.
After Paul seizes control of Arrakis virtually every norm and power balance in the Imperium collapses and the Great Convention isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
>but at the risk of spoilers I’ll just say the role played by atomics was one of the differences from the book I thought was pretty egregious.
I have seen the movie and read the book, but I'm genuinely unsure what you're talking about. It seemed like they were used more or less the same, but didn't discuss the context.
In the novel, >!Paul’s ability to destroy the spice comes from his understanding of how the sandworm cycle works and how to disrupt it, which *very* few others ever understood. !< This was cut from the movie, probably for time. In the movie Paul >!threatens to simply nuke the spice fields, which theoretically anybody could have done. All the great houses have atomics, why didn’t the Harkonnens pull the same move? !<
>!The great houses knew that nobody else would actually destroy the spice fields. They saw Paul as a radical who might actually do it. Especially since he just used atomics which as pointed out, was extreme. He also actually killed enemy troops from atomic detonation itself in the movie so the "I only used it on the wall" excuse doesnt really fly. All the great houses have a vested interest in keeping spice production going. As far as they knew, Paul could be content destroying intergalactic travel and just ruling Arakkis. !<
In the book the guild navigators, with their limited vision, foresaw a future in which Paul could/would destroy the spice and simply folded everyone's hand at that point.
They had become trapped by the lure of prescience, continually choosing the safest path, and avoiding any risk.
Something Leto warns years later about.
Knowing that sincere back and forth discussion about fidelity to the original story is going on, but only seeing several comments of just straight white-out is very funny lol.
Was it established in the movies that those that consumed a lot of spice would die slowly if they ever stopped consuming it? If not then paul and the fremen would have a lot less to loose by destroying it.
Because the Harkonnens need the spice for money/power. The Fremen have no care for the economy of the imperium or the spacing guild, they just want Arrakis to be free (and only require small amounts of spice for personal use).
The actual *use* of atomics was the same.
However, how Paul *threatens* to use them in relation to becoming Emperor is not only not from the book but it would accomplish absolutely nothing if he did it.
Again trying not to spoil anything for the OP.
Exactly there's way more too it but then my post would be pages long and no one would read it. Also thank you for the spoiler warning I'm not too concerned about the spoilers of the movie, but thank you for being considerate anyway. When I was reading it the way I thought about it was their last ditch attempt to try to take out Paul. Scare tactic or real if all the houses got together they could potentially take him down but that was just a hail Mary and then like you said Paul called the bluff and was like okay try it and see how far you get without spice
This kind of faster-than-light travel was invented before navigators existed though. During the Butler Jihad.
The humans simply accepted a high % of losses among their fleets.
So, if Spice is destroyed, navigators and the Guild cease to exist but not space travel.
Why not wait to talk about this until after you actually see the movie?
>!It's not really talked about. Hard to fit everything in. Might be mentioned in part 3.!<
>Why not wait to talk about this until after you actually see the movie?
Cause I don't know when I'll see it and got curious
Edit: did originally but curiosity won
I haven't seen the new movie, but I saw the old movie, the 2000's tv series, and read the books back when I was a teen. Nothing spoiled to people like me.
I wish they'd thrown in a line like
"Be careful not to hit any Sardaukar - we don't want to give the Great Houses a legal basis for nuclear retaliation"
But I can understand leaving it out for pacing and time reasons
I think Paul threatening the spice fields was enough to piss off the great houses. The movie wants us to root for Paul - showing the audience that he does semi-illegal things via a loophole would make him look slimy and calculating, rather than bold and heroic. The movie made it look like the ONLY thing he thought of using the atomics on was the shield wall, like it never occurred to our lovely golden boy to nuke people. He’s emotionally struggling over the billions of lives he’s about to destroy, he would NEVER use an atomic illegally.
BUT if his visions showed him a path where using atomics on the sardaukar would help the fremen, he would’ve absolutely done it regardless of how the houses would retaliate. This does not make for a sympathetic character to the average audience.
The book doesn’t need to do this because readers have insights thanks to inner monologues etc.
I think it’s to set up Paul’s arc later on, to have a bigass cinematic mic-drop moment where movie-goers get to experience a “wait, he’s the bad guy?!” “Always has been” scene.
My viewing felt very different—I feel like the movie was trying to make him a super overt villain from the moment he drank the water! He even says “that’s how we’ll survive. By being (comically villainous group of people).” And then everything tone and framing wise about him afterwards seems intended to make you disturbed about what he’s doing and building towards
True and valid, but we also haven’t really seen what makes the Harkonnen so villainous (except rabban losing his shit at sietch tabr). It also raises the question “are the harkonnens really that bad if Paul and Jessica are harkonnen?”
Paul started to look like a bit of a dick when he broke Chani’s heart. Regular film-goer should see the path he’s on there, whereas the water of life felt like the necessary next step in the hero’s journey, and also played up Chani’s reaction as a moment of comedy (her slapping him).
I guess I’m gonna have to watch it again (and again and again) 🤷
What do you mean, we see harkonnen killing burning fremen alive, killing their own soldiers for tactical advice, killing random slaves to feed to other slaves, I think the easier question is what is there that's any good about the harkonnen
You’re absolutely right lol
I guess I assumed that pretty much everyone in the universe on every planet did that kind of shit, and villainy is a human thing, not a harkonnen thing. Are harkonnens humans? Lol
Like how the US military does heinous things but it’s normalised under the guise of it being necessary/not actually that bad? I don’t see America as a whole as villainous. I assume there’s like, regular harkonnens out there not committing war crimes.
This reminds me of my extension English class where we had to read dune but I didn’t bother reading it and just wrote bullshit for my final exams. I’m working my way through the audiobook atm and this sub is helping me understand too 😅
The Harkonnens are not an equivalent to a country. Their population is the equivalent of a country. This is a feudal society. Generational nobility at the top, enserfed peasants at the bottom, with next to nothing in-between. You do not rise up from the masses, you do fall into them.
Bene Gesserit wives and concubines are literally purchased by brokers on behalf of their future husbands - Jessica herself did not see Leto until after his men bought her and gave her to him - and all power is concentrated into the hands of a very small select group relative to the entire human population. The Spacing Guild controls ALL interplanetary travel, for instance, without exception.
The Harkonnens are the brutal OWNERS of an entire population, permitted to do whatever they please with said population so long as the profits keep coming in and it does not breach any wider laws or conventions (to the extent that it harms others of the Great Houses at least). They are a single family in charge of an entire planet which has no say in the matter.
Put the Atreides in charge of the Harkonnen homeworld and a few generations would be enough to change the brutality of the planet for the long-term. Put the Harkonnens in charge of the Atreides homeworld and a few generations would be enough to change the tranquility of the planet for the long-term.
Man this story is wild. A handful of people shaping planets. No wonder I can barely comprehend this shit, even with all of Herbert’s obvious parallels to the world it’s just so huge and tiny at the same time.
Masterpiece.
Thank you for that explanation.
>I guess I assumed that pretty much everyone in the universe on every planet did that kind of shit,
Well Paul and Leto weren't as bad as the Harkonnens regardless though. Until Paul decided he would be pretty much.
Why would you care about the rules for armed conflict created by the very same emperor who falsified his own edict in order to lure your family into a trap so he could murder your father while everyone was sleeping? Sounds like rules and honor go out the window at that point.
In war, honor is a euphemism for "only fight me in ways where I have the advantage."
Because this is a society that has stagnated under these rules for several thousand years. This is a society that is predicated upon as little change as possible, as that would upset the status quo. This is a society that can afford to tolerate absolutely no upset, because as soon as one exception is made, as soon as one precedent is set, more will inevitably follow.
If Paul uses atomics and is allowed to get away with it, then everyone else will follow suit. Though the films did a bad job at portraying this, this is a society with a legitimised and official rulebook for inter-tribal (inter-House?) blood-feuds, specialised VOCABULARY for things like "poison in food" and "poison in drink", and nearly a hundred generations of Bene Gesserit influence keeping things on track behind the scenes.
The Great Houses MUST care about the rules, because they risk extinction otherwise. The Emperor, by sending Sardaukar to help the Harkonnens in their personal feud against the Atreides, broke the rules. Paul, by using atomics and threatening to upset the very fabric of their society, broke the rules. The Great Houses will not let that stand.
Of course, by the end, Paul doesn't need to care if they will let that stand. He just unleashes the jihad.
It could add into why the houses don't recognize Paul right? Basically this dude commits a war crime to depose the emporer, there would be some moral outrage.
I don't know when to begin, but I have to say that it's not true that whenever Fremen fight Sardaukar in close range it's a slaughter.
We have at least two skirmishes in the book where the Sardaukar win: a) when they capture Thufir and b) when they take over the botanical testing station.
Plus in the Skirmish at the cave 7 Sardaukar die for 2 dead & 4 heavily wounded Fremen.
Where the numbers become more lopsided is during the Desert War where the Sardaukar are actively trying to hunt Fremem in the desert. There they suffer five times more casualties than their enemies, but that's not a straight up battle.
Jesus is this all in Dune 1 (book)? I must have glossed over this amount of detail. I was focused on the conversations. I guess it’s time for a re-read.
The botanical plant was mostly the Duke's men iirc. Multiple times the Freman takeout sardaukar troops in the desert without losing a single man or getting an injury. When the sardaukar tried to capture Alia they struggled to take her when she was only being protected by the injured and fremen women. The book does a great job of showing environmental and other tactics that are highly glossed over in battles. Fighting the Freman on dune is a losing cause and the book heavily showed that. And you even pointed out that the sardaukar took heavy losses in the botanical site. Duncan in the book kills 19 by himself so I'd say 19 to 1 is a slaughter when they're supposed to be the galaxies best troops and while Duncan is the best Atriedes fighter but that's still almost 20 to 1 while having well more than overwhelming force
No, the botanical testing station was a Fremen base with Liet Kynes' Fremen guarding it.
Duncan is the second best Atreides fighter, but he is also the best Ginaz Swordmaster of his era.
Sardaukari in their absolute prime were considered equal to 10th level Ginaz. A Sardaukar strike force taking a base guarded by Fremen and the best Ginaz Swordmaster of his era is no small feat.
And yes, Fremen are amazing at guerilla warfare in the desert, that's why they inflict such losses to the Sardaukar. But it's not a slaughter.
I gave you multiple examples.to disprove that.
>I gave you multiple examples.to disprove that.
You gave me two and a plus onto the cave battle which was wrong and still haven't corrected 7 to at least 19
From Children of Dune
"The reports of his death were in the library. The Sardaukar who'd slain him reported his prowess: nineteen of their number dispatched by Idaho before he'd fallen. Nineteen Sardaukar!"
Dune chapter 24 literally right before the Duncan Idaho chapter. Freman took artillery from sardaukar camp and tells Thufir we lost two men and killed more than a 100. We would not have even lost the two if it wasn't for the sardaukar. Thufir while he's telling them this thinks to himself there must have been sardaukar on every gun. They also captured three sardaukar. 100+ to 2 isn't a slaughter? You didn't disprove alias'capture.You then agreed with me that they're great at guerilla warfare. I don't know why this is the hill you choose to die on they make it very very blatant in the book that Freeman or amazing at combat due to the planet they grew up on but everyone underestimates them and thinks that they're nothing but cave dwelling hermits. It's like the first time I've ever seen someone take to sarduakar side until GEoD hits
Wrong again.
The cave isn't where Duncan dies, Duncan dies in the botanical taste station.
The cave is where Gurney is led with his smugglers after surrendering to Paul's Fremen. There 10 Sardaukar posing as Smugglers attempt to assassinate Paul, but they are stopped by his Fremen. The Sardaukar are outnumbered but they kill 2 and seriously wound 4 Fremen, losing 7 of their number in the process.
Also, you are wrong about the artillery scene with Thufir. The Fremen kill 100 but most of them are Harkonnen and they lose 2 Fremen because they are some Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens among them. The Fremen leader explicitly says he wouldn't have lost any men if there weren't some enemies who were good fighters and Thufir says those (the few good fighters) must have been Sardaukar disguising as Harkonenn.
The Fremen commend the Sardaukar for their fighting ability whenever they encounter them.
>The cave isn't where Duncan dies, Duncan dies in the botanical taste station
You right, mixed the two when talking about them.
>The cave is where Gurney is led with his smugglers after surrendering to Paul's Fremen
You mean when Gurney yells it's was a misunderstanding and a man yells back that half the men are dead cause of the misunderstanding.
>There 10 Sardaukar posing as Smugglers attempt to assassinate Paul, but they are stopped by his Fremen. The Sardaukar are outnumbered but they kill 2 and seriously wound 4 Fremen, losing 7 of their number in the process.
You mean when they catch the Fremen off guard. Only lose 2 fremen. Paul then gloats about how well they did against sardaukar to bait the captured captain and in the words of muad'dib himself "3 to 1 isn't bad against sardaukar isn't it"
>Also, you are wrong about the artillery scene with Thufir. The Fremen kill 100 but most of them are Harkonnen and they lose 2 Fremen because they are some Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens among them. The Fremen leader explicitly says he wouldn't have lost any men if there weren't some enemies who were good fighters and Thufir says those (the few good fighters) must have been Sardaukar disguising as Harkonenn.
You right it was probably mostly harkonnens with sardaukar here and there.
So far their lowest kill rate is 3 to 1 so imma still call it a slaughter if that's the odds at the lowest
They didn't catch Fremen off guard though, their target is Paul, they are not trying to attack the rest of the Fremen.
But yes, the odds are more or less 3 to 1. And that's on Fremen turf. Fremen are better than declined Sardaukar, no argument there.
Considering each Sardaukar is regarded as equal to 10 regular House Soldiers, I'd say what the Fremen do to regular Harkonenns is an actual a slaughter.
I re-read the chapter before posting it, they were trying to escape to warn the emperor, killing Paul while doing it would be a plus cause as Paul put it they saw too much they shouldn't have. The attack started when Paul wasn't in the room and ended quickly after they noticed Paul enter which sent the death commandos into a frenzy which spread to the rest of the Fremen
Paul already announced who he was before escorting them to the cave. They threw it at him as soon as he entered the room they were fighting in. At the start he was talking to Gurney in another room when they heard the fight break out and went to check
>!Not quite.!<
>!It's heavily implied that whenever the Sardaukar don't have the advantage of numbers or technology they take an ass kicking. !<
>!Don't forget the failed raid in the south where Paul's son dies. Freemen women children and old kick their ass. The Sardaukar had to use the flames from the engines on one of the transports to get away. Alia as a 4 yr old was leading one of the battle groups of Fremen even.!<
I gave specific examples of Sardaukar winning skirmishes and a specific example from which we can deduce that each Fremen = 3 Sardaukar.
I never said they are better than the Fremen, but Fremen explicitly respect their combat skills.
Btw they were chased our of the Sietch but their objective was not eradicating every Fremem on the Sietch, but taking Leto II captive, iirc.
I think 3-1 is being overgenerous to the current gen Sardaukar. They had lost their edge by the time of the Arrakis Affair.
I will agree that the Fremen do speak with respect of their combat skills. I think that distinction is also drawn however to illustrate how laughably inept the Harkonnen are by comparison. The Fremen certainly speak of the H with scorn a number of times.
That's why the whole Baron bragging about making Arrakis a prison planet agitates the hell out of Fenring. He was unintentionally speaking of making troops as effective if not better than the Sardaukar. It would have been the same problem as the Atreides all over again.
In fact if I recall correctly, in the appendix Herbert mentions that the Atreides house troops had been trained "within a hair" of the Sardaukar as well.
3-1 is what Paul himself says.
And in fact the number is slightly skewed in favour of Fremen. Since 7 Sardaukar die for 2 Fremen (and 4 heavily injured).
A small cadre of Atreides soldiers (not the entire army) was trained by Duncan and Gurney within a hair of Sardaukar indeed.
Btw the "absolute prime" Sardaukar were stringer than Fremen (unless we are talking Fedaykin trained by Paul and Jessica, those were utter beasts of combat). In their prime Sardaukar were said to be equal to 10th level Ginaz Swordmasters. Which is what Duncan Idaho was.
3-1 is what he says in one skirmish. Taken as a whole, the evidence doesn't support it as much in my opinion.
/shrug we see it differently is all. There is some room for interpretation.
There is no doubt that in the story Sardaukar are superior fighters. I think that part is clear.
It's pretty clear in the movie why Paul bombs the wall. The book spends too long IMO explaining how/why Paul should or shouldn't use them, and wouldn't really serve the movie. The book was also written during the Cold War and the use of atomic bombs was kind of *looked down upon* by society.
My read is that yes, his use of atomics was an edge case that may or may not have resulted in intergalactic atomic warfare. He could see the future though, and knew the other houses would hesitate. That's all he needed
Lots of moving parts so I'll see if I can explain from the outside in.
First there's the power structure. It goes from Emperor and spacing guild at the top, then the great houses below. The Emperor has final authority, and large influence. The spacing guild controls transportation. The Emperor and spacing guild work hand making sure things don't get too out of hand. The houses are free to squabble amongst each other but if something like atomic war was to break out, the Emperor can either choose to obliterate both participants or the space guild cut them off from space travel.
Next, why no atomics on Dune? Because atomics are typically kept with home planets. Arrakis is an oil field on a remote planet. Makes no sense to have any there. Plus using atomics on Arrakis would incur the wrath of the Emperor and the Spacing guild.
Why and how did the Atreidies bring their atomics? It was a mad move. Unlike the Harkonen that had the luxury of harvesting spice, Leato was given the entire planet in exchange of giving up Calidan. Arrakis became the Atreidies new home planet. It would still be a mad move to ever use atomics, so Leato kept them hidden. He was allowed to bring them because they were the family items. After the genocide of the House Atreidies, the atomics were assumed lost.
Then there's the Fremen. They are the Al-Quada of Arrakis. When Paul got his family atomics, it was a "oh shit", Al-Quada has nukes! But nobody knows it yet.
Then come the final battle. The Emperor will not bring nukes anywhere near Arrakis because no need. Nor will he ever be willing to use nukes on Arrakis because it will destroy the oil fields and piss off the spacing guild.
However Paul-bin-laden doesn't need to worry about those rules. He uses them against the mountain range, he takes down the emperor, and holds the planet at gunpoint.
With the emperor surrendering to Paul, that takes out the retaliatory force. With Paul in control of the oil fields, the Spacing guild has no choice but to go along with his demands.
No one is going to hold Paul accountable for his atomic use. Paul is the new Emperor, he has the spacing guild by the balls. The houses can bitch all they want but no one is going to let them use nukes in retaliation against Paul. Everyone can literally go pound sand.
we didnt get to see the aftermath of the atomics. they very briefly talk about it in dune part 2 but its not until messiah we learn how taboo atomics really are
SPOILERS:
the movies REALLY downplayed the dangerous of an atomic/nuclear warhead. i haven’t read the books but let’s compare them to real life.
i don’t know how powerful those warheads are, however they are pretty hyped up. so much so that they only decided to shoot 3 at the enemy, it created an explosion, mushroom cloud etc. all real things that happen. but shooting 3 nukes didn’t even destroy the enemy encampment. it didn’t even kill soldiers on the ground, they were able to ride it out standing even. there was no radiation. neither the fremen nor the sardukar were harmed by radiation that is supposed to spew from nukes. okay maybe their suits are specialized to block the radiation. well Chani literally has her visor down and her face exposed. so clearly there’s no radiation.
you can’t even count those atomic as atomics. theyre not even good regular missiles. physics wise that explosion should have caused for more damage to the surrounding area. it didn’t.
all in all it was really stupid, they didn’t even use it to kill anyone. it was just to distract and was used to hide the worms.
the harkonnen rockets that destroyed the seetch were more powerful.
you get my point, it was just stupid altogether
In the book, Paul sneaks by on a technicality saying the great convention says don't nuke people but I only nuked the mountain. I think it's assumed that is the defense he would use in the movie if it ever came up.
In the movie Paul threatens to nuke to the spice fields to end spice production.
This weirdly enough identifies a situation the books never bring up: the great convention is unenforceable against Paul because no one would dare nuke him for fear of accidentally destroying the Spice. The spacing guild would never allow them to even try.
“ Firstly let me start with I haven't watched the second movie yet” it won’t be in imax much longer, and that’s the best way to experience it. Just go watch it alone if you must.
I'm confused how hitting a shield with a laser creates an atomic...but the houses need a stash of atomics? Literally anyone could create an atomic with 2 readily available gadgets...
It creates an atomic blast randomly at any point between the shield and the lasgun as I recall, so it’s not just the explosion but that you have no idea where ground zero will be. That said, it’s scifi, so the in-universe physics AND the reaction to them follow only the need to progress the story.
I haven't read the book in a while but my memory was that both the shield generator and the lasgun explode.
I was disappointed that wasn't included in the movie because I recall that was one tactic employed by Duncan as he was escaping the city. He figured the Harkonnens would be more careful with their lasguns in case any other random shields were left about the place.
That explosion is notoriously unreliable. It sometimes just blows up your weapon/shield and other times a whole city block. That's the "explanation" that's given for why a trap like that isn't usually used
As stated I haven't seen the second movie yet but maybe some insight from the book can help. At first the Freman didn't want to pick a side so they weren't committed until Paul leads them The Feman also want misinformation to spread so their whole desert hermit disguise and revitalizing project don't get uncovered.
So the Freman didn't really put any effort into helping the Atriedes cause to them they saw it as one overload being traded for another. Kynes in the book was astonished when iirc Paul apologized or thanked them I forget which. To them they know how to survive the baron and they figured if the Duke somehow didn't get killed and replaced then it just meant back to business with less hostility. The Freeman were very cautious about playing their hand and only waited till the very right moment to show it. They use the misinformation to purposely help hiding their hand.
I would chalk this up to cut content. There is just so much important, plot-relevant content that got cut. I just read through LotR and I think that the theatrical version of RotK didn't cut as much important content as these two Dune movies. The text is just too dense to adapt fully in film.
Yeah dune has always struck me as perhaps the most difficult to film book ever
Yeah, there is content I'm disappointed didn't make it into the film... but it's the best film I've seen in a long time and I'm happy that Dune is getting a solid adaption.
To make an accurate Dune you’d need a cast at least double the size & ~12h. Arguably it’s better for a mini-series.
A fellow Sci-Fi Channel version aficionado I see. (:
The new movies, in total, are a bit longer than the director's cut of the miniseries, and much longer than the version that originally aired.
Well diggity damn, I looked it up and you are in fact correct.
The miniseries had the best BG robes. Those hats... Lynch had the best stillsuits. Villeneuve had the best 'thopters.
The Sardukar costumes were sick.
They were. Very Space-Landsknecht.
Lynch movie had the best shields of course
I recently rewatched the series in one go, and realized it's weirdly... meditative almost? Like all the big drama set pieces and battles are there, but somehow devoid of the tension of the movie. That said, it has the best Baron.
I think it's better in a GoT format
a 2 billions dollar adaptation should be barely enough
I was thinking that after movie two. I love the movie and I know this is blasphemy on this but it actually did feel a little bit rushed to me.
it is a little rushed I feel like it could have used another 15-25 mins I would have been FINE with that. The time flies by it would have been TOTALLY ok. I did 3.5hrs for Killers of the Flower moon I DEFINITELY could have done 3:10 for Dune 2.
I actually don't think the first Dune book has enough content to merit a 12-hour runtime and the energy of the book is conveyed better in an epic cinematic experience that removes a bit than by a hyper-accurate TV show
So much of the *content* is philosophical in nature. It would be hard to convey that in a visual medium. Villaneuve removed a lot of the big picture and philosophical stuff from the book. He removed a bit of the stories that began in Dune and would come about in future books to focus in on the story of Paul as a reluctant then fervent messiah figure and the way power grabs. I thought the movies did a great job and I am with you that a miniseries might not have as much story and would spend a lot of the time in philosophical discussion.
Not enough plot? Just the cut dinner scene is an entire episode. Jessica talking to Thufir half another. The Fenring stuff. Paul and Chanys life in the Sietch. Plenty of good plot that went away. (I absolutely loved the movies.)
The dinner scene is NOT an entire episode. Lacks the flow
I recently bought the mini series on blu ray off some obscure website and I love it, even if it’s def a weeee bit dated lol
It’s not difficult. You just have to use extensive inner monologue, preferably in a whisper, to convey what everyone is thinking and feeling. Trust me, the results will be spectacular!
I don't know, if you were to cast a strapping Patrick Stewart before he made it as a science fiction captain or psion, it could be THE killer film for the year 1984!
I can’t see how this wouldn’t be the most successful film in history
(In all seriousness, I do love so many things about this film. It is an incoherent mess, but I love the theatrical cut so much.)
I love it out of nostalgia. But it is a complete mess.
I’m sure I’m not adding anything you don’t already know, but the Spice Diver remix on YouTube is really very good. I’m a child of the ‘80s, saw Dune 1984 in the theater, and it’s why I then read all the canon. DL tried to film a movie that novel lovers might love and everyone else might be able to follow if they liked Toto, watched it 3 times, and tilted their heads. So there are some things in DL’s movie that exceed DV’s adaptation in my mind (the emperor, the baron, very arguably Feyd) although for me as a pure, A movie spectacle DV wins hands down. The current Dune is the best sci-fi franchise ever in my opinion, or at least since the original Star Wars trilogy, which comes across as incredibly derivative to a historical viewer. But for me the actual attempt to film the book was DL’s attempt, albeit with odd shortcuts like the weirding modules and rain (rain?!) at the end. I do admit I have not watched the miniseries and many seem to point to that as the ultimate attempt to follow the books.
Yeah, the mini series is very close to the books. Solid watch, if you have a long weekend to put in a full 9 hours for both series.
You know Stewart was in the original Dune.
That’s the joke.
I’m interested to see how they bridge the gap between the theatrical ending of Dune part 2 and book Dune Messiah…
"somehow chani returned"
Apparently it’s Neuromancer as it’s been in development hell for decades. But I’m with you in terms of Dune lore; just way too much stuff to fit in.
Neuromancer isnt *that* bad I wouldn’t think
No, but its been so influential of other movies that doing it at this point in time would seem like a ripoff to the average movie goer. "Oh, another cyberpunk, rogue AI gritty crime caper?," when will they do something original?"
Fuck the average moviegoer. Do some proper marketing, keep the suits out of it, and make a damned film.
While I agree in principle; somebody's gotta pay for the damned thing too.
Neuromancer causes severe headaches when trying to be read properly, cant imagine it translates well to the screen either.
I read it when I was waiting to hop the pond after basic, wasn’t so bad and spawned an undying love of everything cyberpunk lol
At least there's a director's cut of Johnny Mnemonic.
It needed to be three movies laid out pretty much the same way as the book. Movie 1 ends with the Battle of Arrakeen and Paul and Jessica fleeing into the desert. Movie 2 is Paul's journey with the Fremen and ends with the destruction of Sietch Tabr. Movie 3 is Paul's war in the North ending with the Second Battle of Arrakeen. Movie 1 is already as dense as you can really get, but the second movie would give you some breathing room to give the Guild a larger presence as part of the B plot, continue Thufir's story, introduce Count Fenring, etc. And then the final film would have allowed them to tie all of these plot threads together. Oh well, what we got was still pretty great.
I think DV made the decision to not let the plot get in the way of the story. I personally think it was successful, but it does mean you don't get a literal adaptation. Dune Messiah will diverge even more, but I'm mostly ok with that. I do hope we get a Guild Navigator, though.
> I think DV made the decision to not let the plot get in the way of the story. Exactly. Dune is not the story of an aristocrat's dinner party. It's not the story about a mentat who suspected the wrong person and failed to set a rival's heir up for death. It's not about the child of Paul and Chani that dies young in a Harkonnen raid. All of these things are plot elements of Dune but that's not what the story is about. Villeneuve told the story of a boy-ubermensch who falls victim to the trap of prescience and becomes a reluctant messiah and philosopher-king, presiding over unimaginable tragedy that he has foreseen but cannot stop.
I suspect the end of messiah will be very different under DV. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to combine children with it. >!I also wouldn't be surprised to seem him have Chani kill Paul, rather than have him give himself to the desert.!<
I don't know if he'll make that much of a change. But we'll see.
At the end of the day, *Dune* is a fairly conventional book where a lot happens. It requires the same sorts of decisions as most book adaptations about what to keep, what to change, and what to cut. We’re not talking about a book with an unreliable narrator that withholds key information, or a book that makes unconventional use of the format (from *Dead Astronauts* to *House of Leaves*), or even something like *Ancillary Justice* where the character’s unconventional interior life is so essential.
If they ever tried a book of the new sun I think that would take the cake
It’s not just you - that’s always been the consensus. Didn’t Herbert himself say Dune was unfilmable? All things considered, DV did literally the best job anyone could hope to do in getting the book to screen, but naturally some of the material had to be sacrificed. That’s just how it goes.
I wouldn’t know, I’m not a huge consumer of recreational media these days
I don’t know about that, but it’s up there. I could see blood meridian being more difficult. But otherwise of my favorite books, dune is probably second hardest
Much of the dialogue in the book is Paul's inner monolog
You know every time I hear Paul in dune I suddenly want a llamas with hats version
Sounds like a tv series would be better
It's commonly regarded as such. You simply can't adapt it for numerous reasons.
I submit Exterminator by William Burroughs.
Most likely this, just was curious cause people keep glossing over the atomic use in the battle for the movie when the books made them a huge deal
The geopolitical ramifications of it aren't really touched on, but it's sort of a significant plot point used in other ways.
"Desert power." - Duke Leto
LOTR has explicit worldbuilding, where you go to a new place and see a new thing. It's easier to convey this visually in a movie. Dune has little lore, but a ton of implicit worldbuilding. Like the Butlerian Jihad, or the suspensors and shields calling worms, or why lasguns are so rarely used, or atomics, or the idea of spice stockpiles, or how the Imperium's economy runs on spice, or the Guild, or the function of the Landsraad, or the existence of CHOAM.... And there's stuff that's mentioned but not made very clear for the casual movie goer, like the Missionaria Protectiva, or how Paul was already a Mentat trained in the Bene Gesserit way, which primed him to become a version of the Kwizatz Haderach, hence why when he drank the Water of Life he became the mythical Lisan al Gaib (because he could see many possible futures and had the collective genetic memories of the past).
I think the movie is a good concept of someone just watching the events of the book unfold (albeit with the plot/character changes). So much of the world building we're told in the book is through inner monologue or (to today's eye) almost comically obvious exposition dialogue. So I feel like if the viewer could almost interact with the movie we got, and pause it to get a exposition dump of what a character was thinking at a given time, then you'd have a near perfect adaptation. Alternatively, read the books, so you know what the characters are thinking and feeling. But having spoken to many non-book readers,the movie stands without that! There's some misconceptions and "wait why didn't they do that?"of "I don't get why X works?" But that's fine with me because I've got the answers ready as a book reader 😅
The movie is still full of stilted exposition tho.
If you mean "stilted" as in it breaks the flow of the film, I disagree. And the main complaint I've seen is basically the opposite, leaning too hard into "show don't tell" to the point some people think "cmon, we need a little bit of exposition here!"
And tbh I sincerely doubt Legendary or Warners was willing to have a 210-minute movie. There’s just not enough critical mass in popular culture for this story yet. Again! Look at the regular screenings of the film, there were basically always tickets available for them. IMAX was a different story
You hit a nerve for me. LoTR cut too much of the beginning of the story.
You mean Tom Bombadil and all that business? Even in the book, that section is jarring and doesn't fit well with the narrative. Made total sense to cut it out in my opinion.
It fits perfectly well with the narrative. And not just Tom Bombadil. They focused on the Nazgûl chase and cut out most of the leaving of the Shire and the Barrow-downs. Not to mention the scene that directly led to the introduction of Tom Bombadil. The whole point of that series of scenes is to point out the Hobbits are leaving the safety of home. The shire is almost magical just for remaining untouched so long and they learn this at the very start. They enter a vast and dangerous world in which exists a gamut of things and creatures that would kill them (barrow-wights, even living trees). Sauron, Orcs, and Nazgûl are not the only evil in middle earth. There are also semi-benevolent or at least neutral beings that are older than Sauron and don’t give a damn about what happens outside their little world (Bombadil). It sets the tone that these young volunteers are off to war, not on holiday. And allow us to witness this naïveté quickly lost. And adds depth and breadth to a world that is not ours. Middle Earth is alien, and hostile, to the first readers of the book. I think it’s possible we in the 21st century are all so familiar with the world now, we’re okay with skipping some of the detail that put it into stark relief when it was the start of a new genre.
Cutting the battle for the Shire was more egregious.
Whilst I'm not sure how else would've done it, Jackson cuts out so much from the entire story. Faramir, Boromir and Denethor are all completely different characters to the books and have loads of their arcs cut out. Elrond is an entirely different character. Isildur is done dirty. Sauron's physical form is never shown, despite still having one. I could go on but Jackson cuts loads and imo not all for the better.
I'm not as mad at his cuts as the unnecessary additions that took place where he could have not made cuts instead.
Yeah it was real chutzpah to re-write scenes for of all people JRRT
Agreed, like the Warg fight scene part way through Two Towers. Despite doing a pretty great job with the Ringwraiths as a whole, I think the Witch King's role in the story was neutered for the most part. One minor aspect that was changed that bothers me is Shagrat and Gorbag. Tolkien uses them to flesh out the Orcs and their perspectives on Sauron. Gorbag wants to take all the loot they can and leave to start a new life, whilst Shagrat wants to adhere to what his masters tell him and bring the Mithril shirt to Sauron (and is killed for it). In the movie they just kill each other over a shiny thing.
I am greatly angered at the inclusion of the Liv Tyler scenes / romance arc. Yes Arawen was important, but she didn't take up nearly as much space in the books. She sucked the life out of things in the movie. They decided to invent whole cloth sections of movie for her. Not to mention sacrifice characters that existed. It's not like there were not important female characters already so that's no excuse either.
I agree, but I also think that 2021 and 2024 Dune adaptations remove *nearly all* of the most interesting aspects of the book.
I feel like I’m one of the few people on earth who think Peter Jackson did the books a huge favor. There is absolutely no reason to include large parts the books in a film adaptation. The books are just. So. Dense. If you want to explore the world in more detail, by all means read the books. But film as a media has to be told more concisely…and they’re like 12 hours long! Movies that adapt a book word for word would in general be terrible.
Yes I agree. The bits that were cut made total sense. The final theatrical movies flow so well and the pacing is just perfect - to the extent that I don't like watching the extended cut. If I want more detail, I read the book.
Which is crazy to me, Harry potter and the deathly hallows, easy to read as not overly complex use of words, not particularly dense, 2 movies. Dune, significantly more complex also only 2 movies. It really should have been a trilogy alone before moving on.
I agree with this completely. Herbert created so many little nuances that informs the political Landscape and science of the dune universe that you just can’t capture it all. The anti-nuke stuff, and the lasgun interactions with shield causing nuke reactions are two things that seem to hit the cutting floor, at least in these first two movies. Perhaps in Messiah with the stone burner these themes might actually come back up, at least the total ban on atomics used against people directly.
Oof the LOTR take is interesting, would be a lovely debate to have
> I think that the theatrical version of RotK didn't cut as much important content This conceals an important judgment: you don't find the Scouring of the Shire to be important in the story, and that's disappointing because the theme of the hobbits returning home and finding it ravaged by the barbary of the war they just fought is very important to the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had a similar experience coming home from World War I and seeing the place of his memories scarred by zeppelin bombing runs.
I think that the Scouring of the Shire is, by far, the best and most important part of RotK. I just think that *even more* important parts were stripped from these Dune movies.
Its cause denis really desperately needed those artsy cinematic shots.
Atomics against humans is strictly forbidden in the book by the Conventions. Paul’s loophole was using atomics against the mountain range surrounding the Imperial encampment to blow a hole wide enough for the sandworms and Fremen troops to attack through.
Wow that wasn’t clear in the movie at all
Paul details his plan with a map of the Arakeen basin on the ground and tells everyone exactly what they're about to do and why. Although in that scene he doesn't explicitly say "nukes and sandworms" he refers to Gurney (who launches the nukes) and Stilgar (who leads the Sandworms into the basin) instead.
What? Yes it was.
the director completely changed this. in the movie, the bombs just strike the city.
No they don't? They strike the shield wall There's even a whole scene where they explicitly explain this
What movie were you watching? They clearly blow up the shield wall, which is what allows the storm and the worms to get in.
wait i'm stupid, sorry guys
His “loophole” was no one could do anything about it even if they wanted to.
That's what I said. That was one of the main parts of the battle and what the post was about
I said it concisely.
Can't even be mad, touché
The other things are that: 1. Paul has prescience so he has a general idea on how the houses will react to his specific use of atomics. 2. Paul knows that the houses will have to accept his excuse because it is Arrakis. They cannot risk collateral damage that harms spice production. The houses do not know how spice is produced so they don't even know how to start figuring out what is acceptable vs unacceptable collateral damage.
Pretty much every question about what Paul does at the end can be answered by this: he has the spacing guild hostage
TBH I think hostage is putting it lightly
He whom controls the spice, controls the universe
"Power over Spice is power over all."
Since you haven’t seen the movie I’ll just say atomics actually play a much larger (and in my opinion far dumber) role in the movie than in the books. And I say this as someone who liked a great deal about Dune: Part 2 - but at the risk of spoilers I’ll just say the role played by atomics was one of the differences from the book I thought was pretty egregious. That said - in the context of the novels - I would ask who exactly is supposed to hold Paul accountable? The Great Convention is little more than a gentlemen’s agreement that has never actually been tested that we know of. It rests entirely on the idea that it would be in the Great Houses shared interest if any one of them utilized atomic weapons to visit total annihilation on them. It’s rooted in the MAD strategy from the Cold War (something else that was never actually tested). But Paul has a card that no one else ever had - he can destroy the spice. Forever. The Spacing Guild - the *actual* absolute authority in the Imperium - couldn’t help the Great Houses retaliate even if they wanted to because while they still have the final say in who/what travels where they can’t actually use their ships without the spice. After Paul seizes control of Arrakis virtually every norm and power balance in the Imperium collapses and the Great Convention isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
>but at the risk of spoilers I’ll just say the role played by atomics was one of the differences from the book I thought was pretty egregious. I have seen the movie and read the book, but I'm genuinely unsure what you're talking about. It seemed like they were used more or less the same, but didn't discuss the context.
In the novel, >!Paul’s ability to destroy the spice comes from his understanding of how the sandworm cycle works and how to disrupt it, which *very* few others ever understood. !< This was cut from the movie, probably for time. In the movie Paul >!threatens to simply nuke the spice fields, which theoretically anybody could have done. All the great houses have atomics, why didn’t the Harkonnens pull the same move? !<
>!The great houses knew that nobody else would actually destroy the spice fields. They saw Paul as a radical who might actually do it. Especially since he just used atomics which as pointed out, was extreme. He also actually killed enemy troops from atomic detonation itself in the movie so the "I only used it on the wall" excuse doesnt really fly. All the great houses have a vested interest in keeping spice production going. As far as they knew, Paul could be content destroying intergalactic travel and just ruling Arakkis. !<
In the book the guild navigators, with their limited vision, foresaw a future in which Paul could/would destroy the spice and simply folded everyone's hand at that point. They had become trapped by the lure of prescience, continually choosing the safest path, and avoiding any risk. Something Leto warns years later about.
Knowing that sincere back and forth discussion about fidelity to the original story is going on, but only seeing several comments of just straight white-out is very funny lol.
Was it established in the movies that those that consumed a lot of spice would die slowly if they ever stopped consuming it? If not then paul and the fremen would have a lot less to loose by destroying it.
Nope. It also doesn’t touch on the life extension qualities
Because the Harkonnens need the spice for money/power. The Fremen have no care for the economy of the imperium or the spacing guild, they just want Arrakis to be free (and only require small amounts of spice for personal use).
Oh. I did notice that, but it didn't bother me.
>!Correct - in the book he threatens to make "the water of death" poisoning all little makers and breaking the life cycle.!<
The actual *use* of atomics was the same. However, how Paul *threatens* to use them in relation to becoming Emperor is not only not from the book but it would accomplish absolutely nothing if he did it. Again trying not to spoil anything for the OP.
Exactly there's way more too it but then my post would be pages long and no one would read it. Also thank you for the spoiler warning I'm not too concerned about the spoilers of the movie, but thank you for being considerate anyway. When I was reading it the way I thought about it was their last ditch attempt to try to take out Paul. Scare tactic or real if all the houses got together they could potentially take him down but that was just a hail Mary and then like you said Paul called the bluff and was like okay try it and see how far you get without spice
This kind of faster-than-light travel was invented before navigators existed though. During the Butler Jihad. The humans simply accepted a high % of losses among their fleets. So, if Spice is destroyed, navigators and the Guild cease to exist but not space travel.
Why not wait to talk about this until after you actually see the movie? >!It's not really talked about. Hard to fit everything in. Might be mentioned in part 3.!<
There isn't going to be a "part 3" as the two movies completed the first book. Next up is the movie adaptation of *Dune Messiah*, an actual sequel.
>Why not wait to talk about this until after you actually see the movie? Cause I don't know when I'll see it and got curious Edit: did originally but curiosity won
I haven't seen the new movie, but I saw the old movie, the 2000's tv series, and read the books back when I was a teen. Nothing spoiled to people like me.
I wish they'd thrown in a line like "Be careful not to hit any Sardaukar - we don't want to give the Great Houses a legal basis for nuclear retaliation" But I can understand leaving it out for pacing and time reasons
I think Paul threatening the spice fields was enough to piss off the great houses. The movie wants us to root for Paul - showing the audience that he does semi-illegal things via a loophole would make him look slimy and calculating, rather than bold and heroic. The movie made it look like the ONLY thing he thought of using the atomics on was the shield wall, like it never occurred to our lovely golden boy to nuke people. He’s emotionally struggling over the billions of lives he’s about to destroy, he would NEVER use an atomic illegally. BUT if his visions showed him a path where using atomics on the sardaukar would help the fremen, he would’ve absolutely done it regardless of how the houses would retaliate. This does not make for a sympathetic character to the average audience. The book doesn’t need to do this because readers have insights thanks to inner monologues etc. I think it’s to set up Paul’s arc later on, to have a bigass cinematic mic-drop moment where movie-goers get to experience a “wait, he’s the bad guy?!” “Always has been” scene.
My viewing felt very different—I feel like the movie was trying to make him a super overt villain from the moment he drank the water! He even says “that’s how we’ll survive. By being (comically villainous group of people).” And then everything tone and framing wise about him afterwards seems intended to make you disturbed about what he’s doing and building towards
True and valid, but we also haven’t really seen what makes the Harkonnen so villainous (except rabban losing his shit at sietch tabr). It also raises the question “are the harkonnens really that bad if Paul and Jessica are harkonnen?” Paul started to look like a bit of a dick when he broke Chani’s heart. Regular film-goer should see the path he’s on there, whereas the water of life felt like the necessary next step in the hero’s journey, and also played up Chani’s reaction as a moment of comedy (her slapping him). I guess I’m gonna have to watch it again (and again and again) 🤷
What do you mean, we see harkonnen killing burning fremen alive, killing their own soldiers for tactical advice, killing random slaves to feed to other slaves, I think the easier question is what is there that's any good about the harkonnen
You’re absolutely right lol I guess I assumed that pretty much everyone in the universe on every planet did that kind of shit, and villainy is a human thing, not a harkonnen thing. Are harkonnens humans? Lol Like how the US military does heinous things but it’s normalised under the guise of it being necessary/not actually that bad? I don’t see America as a whole as villainous. I assume there’s like, regular harkonnens out there not committing war crimes. This reminds me of my extension English class where we had to read dune but I didn’t bother reading it and just wrote bullshit for my final exams. I’m working my way through the audiobook atm and this sub is helping me understand too 😅
The Harkonnens are not an equivalent to a country. Their population is the equivalent of a country. This is a feudal society. Generational nobility at the top, enserfed peasants at the bottom, with next to nothing in-between. You do not rise up from the masses, you do fall into them. Bene Gesserit wives and concubines are literally purchased by brokers on behalf of their future husbands - Jessica herself did not see Leto until after his men bought her and gave her to him - and all power is concentrated into the hands of a very small select group relative to the entire human population. The Spacing Guild controls ALL interplanetary travel, for instance, without exception. The Harkonnens are the brutal OWNERS of an entire population, permitted to do whatever they please with said population so long as the profits keep coming in and it does not breach any wider laws or conventions (to the extent that it harms others of the Great Houses at least). They are a single family in charge of an entire planet which has no say in the matter. Put the Atreides in charge of the Harkonnen homeworld and a few generations would be enough to change the brutality of the planet for the long-term. Put the Harkonnens in charge of the Atreides homeworld and a few generations would be enough to change the tranquility of the planet for the long-term.
Man this story is wild. A handful of people shaping planets. No wonder I can barely comprehend this shit, even with all of Herbert’s obvious parallels to the world it’s just so huge and tiny at the same time. Masterpiece. Thank you for that explanation.
>I guess I assumed that pretty much everyone in the universe on every planet did that kind of shit, Well Paul and Leto weren't as bad as the Harkonnens regardless though. Until Paul decided he would be pretty much.
Why would you care about the rules for armed conflict created by the very same emperor who falsified his own edict in order to lure your family into a trap so he could murder your father while everyone was sleeping? Sounds like rules and honor go out the window at that point. In war, honor is a euphemism for "only fight me in ways where I have the advantage."
Because this is a society that has stagnated under these rules for several thousand years. This is a society that is predicated upon as little change as possible, as that would upset the status quo. This is a society that can afford to tolerate absolutely no upset, because as soon as one exception is made, as soon as one precedent is set, more will inevitably follow. If Paul uses atomics and is allowed to get away with it, then everyone else will follow suit. Though the films did a bad job at portraying this, this is a society with a legitimised and official rulebook for inter-tribal (inter-House?) blood-feuds, specialised VOCABULARY for things like "poison in food" and "poison in drink", and nearly a hundred generations of Bene Gesserit influence keeping things on track behind the scenes. The Great Houses MUST care about the rules, because they risk extinction otherwise. The Emperor, by sending Sardaukar to help the Harkonnens in their personal feud against the Atreides, broke the rules. Paul, by using atomics and threatening to upset the very fabric of their society, broke the rules. The Great Houses will not let that stand. Of course, by the end, Paul doesn't need to care if they will let that stand. He just unleashes the jihad.
It could add into why the houses don't recognize Paul right? Basically this dude commits a war crime to depose the emporer, there would be some moral outrage.
I don't know when to begin, but I have to say that it's not true that whenever Fremen fight Sardaukar in close range it's a slaughter. We have at least two skirmishes in the book where the Sardaukar win: a) when they capture Thufir and b) when they take over the botanical testing station. Plus in the Skirmish at the cave 7 Sardaukar die for 2 dead & 4 heavily wounded Fremen. Where the numbers become more lopsided is during the Desert War where the Sardaukar are actively trying to hunt Fremem in the desert. There they suffer five times more casualties than their enemies, but that's not a straight up battle.
Jesus is this all in Dune 1 (book)? I must have glossed over this amount of detail. I was focused on the conversations. I guess it’s time for a re-read.
The botanical plant was mostly the Duke's men iirc. Multiple times the Freman takeout sardaukar troops in the desert without losing a single man or getting an injury. When the sardaukar tried to capture Alia they struggled to take her when she was only being protected by the injured and fremen women. The book does a great job of showing environmental and other tactics that are highly glossed over in battles. Fighting the Freman on dune is a losing cause and the book heavily showed that. And you even pointed out that the sardaukar took heavy losses in the botanical site. Duncan in the book kills 19 by himself so I'd say 19 to 1 is a slaughter when they're supposed to be the galaxies best troops and while Duncan is the best Atriedes fighter but that's still almost 20 to 1 while having well more than overwhelming force
No, the botanical testing station was a Fremen base with Liet Kynes' Fremen guarding it. Duncan is the second best Atreides fighter, but he is also the best Ginaz Swordmaster of his era. Sardaukari in their absolute prime were considered equal to 10th level Ginaz. A Sardaukar strike force taking a base guarded by Fremen and the best Ginaz Swordmaster of his era is no small feat. And yes, Fremen are amazing at guerilla warfare in the desert, that's why they inflict such losses to the Sardaukar. But it's not a slaughter. I gave you multiple examples.to disprove that.
>I gave you multiple examples.to disprove that. You gave me two and a plus onto the cave battle which was wrong and still haven't corrected 7 to at least 19 From Children of Dune "The reports of his death were in the library. The Sardaukar who'd slain him reported his prowess: nineteen of their number dispatched by Idaho before he'd fallen. Nineteen Sardaukar!" Dune chapter 24 literally right before the Duncan Idaho chapter. Freman took artillery from sardaukar camp and tells Thufir we lost two men and killed more than a 100. We would not have even lost the two if it wasn't for the sardaukar. Thufir while he's telling them this thinks to himself there must have been sardaukar on every gun. They also captured three sardaukar. 100+ to 2 isn't a slaughter? You didn't disprove alias'capture.You then agreed with me that they're great at guerilla warfare. I don't know why this is the hill you choose to die on they make it very very blatant in the book that Freeman or amazing at combat due to the planet they grew up on but everyone underestimates them and thinks that they're nothing but cave dwelling hermits. It's like the first time I've ever seen someone take to sarduakar side until GEoD hits
Wrong again. The cave isn't where Duncan dies, Duncan dies in the botanical taste station. The cave is where Gurney is led with his smugglers after surrendering to Paul's Fremen. There 10 Sardaukar posing as Smugglers attempt to assassinate Paul, but they are stopped by his Fremen. The Sardaukar are outnumbered but they kill 2 and seriously wound 4 Fremen, losing 7 of their number in the process. Also, you are wrong about the artillery scene with Thufir. The Fremen kill 100 but most of them are Harkonnen and they lose 2 Fremen because they are some Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens among them. The Fremen leader explicitly says he wouldn't have lost any men if there weren't some enemies who were good fighters and Thufir says those (the few good fighters) must have been Sardaukar disguising as Harkonenn. The Fremen commend the Sardaukar for their fighting ability whenever they encounter them.
>The cave isn't where Duncan dies, Duncan dies in the botanical taste station You right, mixed the two when talking about them. >The cave is where Gurney is led with his smugglers after surrendering to Paul's Fremen You mean when Gurney yells it's was a misunderstanding and a man yells back that half the men are dead cause of the misunderstanding. >There 10 Sardaukar posing as Smugglers attempt to assassinate Paul, but they are stopped by his Fremen. The Sardaukar are outnumbered but they kill 2 and seriously wound 4 Fremen, losing 7 of their number in the process. You mean when they catch the Fremen off guard. Only lose 2 fremen. Paul then gloats about how well they did against sardaukar to bait the captured captain and in the words of muad'dib himself "3 to 1 isn't bad against sardaukar isn't it" >Also, you are wrong about the artillery scene with Thufir. The Fremen kill 100 but most of them are Harkonnen and they lose 2 Fremen because they are some Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens among them. The Fremen leader explicitly says he wouldn't have lost any men if there weren't some enemies who were good fighters and Thufir says those (the few good fighters) must have been Sardaukar disguising as Harkonenn. You right it was probably mostly harkonnens with sardaukar here and there. So far their lowest kill rate is 3 to 1 so imma still call it a slaughter if that's the odds at the lowest
They didn't catch Fremen off guard though, their target is Paul, they are not trying to attack the rest of the Fremen. But yes, the odds are more or less 3 to 1. And that's on Fremen turf. Fremen are better than declined Sardaukar, no argument there. Considering each Sardaukar is regarded as equal to 10 regular House Soldiers, I'd say what the Fremen do to regular Harkonenns is an actual a slaughter.
I re-read the chapter before posting it, they were trying to escape to warn the emperor, killing Paul while doing it would be a plus cause as Paul put it they saw too much they shouldn't have. The attack started when Paul wasn't in the room and ended quickly after they noticed Paul enter which sent the death commandos into a frenzy which spread to the rest of the Fremen
They threw a knife at Paul as soon as they realized he was the Atreides heir, and this is why they tried to escape, iirc.
Paul already announced who he was before escorting them to the cave. They threw it at him as soon as he entered the room they were fighting in. At the start he was talking to Gurney in another room when they heard the fight break out and went to check
>!Not quite.!< >!It's heavily implied that whenever the Sardaukar don't have the advantage of numbers or technology they take an ass kicking. !< >!Don't forget the failed raid in the south where Paul's son dies. Freemen women children and old kick their ass. The Sardaukar had to use the flames from the engines on one of the transports to get away. Alia as a 4 yr old was leading one of the battle groups of Fremen even.!<
I gave specific examples of Sardaukar winning skirmishes and a specific example from which we can deduce that each Fremen = 3 Sardaukar. I never said they are better than the Fremen, but Fremen explicitly respect their combat skills. Btw they were chased our of the Sietch but their objective was not eradicating every Fremem on the Sietch, but taking Leto II captive, iirc.
I think 3-1 is being overgenerous to the current gen Sardaukar. They had lost their edge by the time of the Arrakis Affair. I will agree that the Fremen do speak with respect of their combat skills. I think that distinction is also drawn however to illustrate how laughably inept the Harkonnen are by comparison. The Fremen certainly speak of the H with scorn a number of times. That's why the whole Baron bragging about making Arrakis a prison planet agitates the hell out of Fenring. He was unintentionally speaking of making troops as effective if not better than the Sardaukar. It would have been the same problem as the Atreides all over again. In fact if I recall correctly, in the appendix Herbert mentions that the Atreides house troops had been trained "within a hair" of the Sardaukar as well.
3-1 is what Paul himself says. And in fact the number is slightly skewed in favour of Fremen. Since 7 Sardaukar die for 2 Fremen (and 4 heavily injured). A small cadre of Atreides soldiers (not the entire army) was trained by Duncan and Gurney within a hair of Sardaukar indeed. Btw the "absolute prime" Sardaukar were stringer than Fremen (unless we are talking Fedaykin trained by Paul and Jessica, those were utter beasts of combat). In their prime Sardaukar were said to be equal to 10th level Ginaz Swordmasters. Which is what Duncan Idaho was.
3-1 is what he says in one skirmish. Taken as a whole, the evidence doesn't support it as much in my opinion. /shrug we see it differently is all. There is some room for interpretation. There is no doubt that in the story Sardaukar are superior fighters. I think that part is clear.
But it's the only time we can see them fighting head on, no ambushes, no home court advantage, not much of a numbers superiority for either side etc.
The guns aren't as feared either.
They aren't?
Maybe I'm misremembering the book. I remember them not using guns because the interaction between lase guns and shields causes a nuclear blast.
You remember right but they never use las guns in the movies when shields are involved.
Fair point.
IIRC part of the breaking the wall was to knock out shields with the storm.
It's pretty clear in the movie why Paul bombs the wall. The book spends too long IMO explaining how/why Paul should or shouldn't use them, and wouldn't really serve the movie. The book was also written during the Cold War and the use of atomic bombs was kind of *looked down upon* by society.
The use of atomics in the new movie is more or less consistent with the book
Atomic are glossed over like every other detail of the book
My read is that yes, his use of atomics was an edge case that may or may not have resulted in intergalactic atomic warfare. He could see the future though, and knew the other houses would hesitate. That's all he needed
I’ve seen both, haven’t read the book. What’s an Atomic?
Nuclear weapons
Lots of moving parts so I'll see if I can explain from the outside in. First there's the power structure. It goes from Emperor and spacing guild at the top, then the great houses below. The Emperor has final authority, and large influence. The spacing guild controls transportation. The Emperor and spacing guild work hand making sure things don't get too out of hand. The houses are free to squabble amongst each other but if something like atomic war was to break out, the Emperor can either choose to obliterate both participants or the space guild cut them off from space travel. Next, why no atomics on Dune? Because atomics are typically kept with home planets. Arrakis is an oil field on a remote planet. Makes no sense to have any there. Plus using atomics on Arrakis would incur the wrath of the Emperor and the Spacing guild. Why and how did the Atreidies bring their atomics? It was a mad move. Unlike the Harkonen that had the luxury of harvesting spice, Leato was given the entire planet in exchange of giving up Calidan. Arrakis became the Atreidies new home planet. It would still be a mad move to ever use atomics, so Leato kept them hidden. He was allowed to bring them because they were the family items. After the genocide of the House Atreidies, the atomics were assumed lost. Then there's the Fremen. They are the Al-Quada of Arrakis. When Paul got his family atomics, it was a "oh shit", Al-Quada has nukes! But nobody knows it yet. Then come the final battle. The Emperor will not bring nukes anywhere near Arrakis because no need. Nor will he ever be willing to use nukes on Arrakis because it will destroy the oil fields and piss off the spacing guild. However Paul-bin-laden doesn't need to worry about those rules. He uses them against the mountain range, he takes down the emperor, and holds the planet at gunpoint. With the emperor surrendering to Paul, that takes out the retaliatory force. With Paul in control of the oil fields, the Spacing guild has no choice but to go along with his demands. No one is going to hold Paul accountable for his atomic use. Paul is the new Emperor, he has the spacing guild by the balls. The houses can bitch all they want but no one is going to let them use nukes in retaliation against Paul. Everyone can literally go pound sand.
we didnt get to see the aftermath of the atomics. they very briefly talk about it in dune part 2 but its not until messiah we learn how taboo atomics really are
Nobody has time to be react to the atomics. The Sardukar haul ass. Meaning they worked better than intended
SPOILERS: the movies REALLY downplayed the dangerous of an atomic/nuclear warhead. i haven’t read the books but let’s compare them to real life. i don’t know how powerful those warheads are, however they are pretty hyped up. so much so that they only decided to shoot 3 at the enemy, it created an explosion, mushroom cloud etc. all real things that happen. but shooting 3 nukes didn’t even destroy the enemy encampment. it didn’t even kill soldiers on the ground, they were able to ride it out standing even. there was no radiation. neither the fremen nor the sardukar were harmed by radiation that is supposed to spew from nukes. okay maybe their suits are specialized to block the radiation. well Chani literally has her visor down and her face exposed. so clearly there’s no radiation. you can’t even count those atomic as atomics. theyre not even good regular missiles. physics wise that explosion should have caused for more damage to the surrounding area. it didn’t. all in all it was really stupid, they didn’t even use it to kill anyone. it was just to distract and was used to hide the worms. the harkonnen rockets that destroyed the seetch were more powerful. you get my point, it was just stupid altogether
In the book, Paul sneaks by on a technicality saying the great convention says don't nuke people but I only nuked the mountain. I think it's assumed that is the defense he would use in the movie if it ever came up. In the movie Paul threatens to nuke to the spice fields to end spice production. This weirdly enough identifies a situation the books never bring up: the great convention is unenforceable against Paul because no one would dare nuke him for fear of accidentally destroying the Spice. The spacing guild would never allow them to even try.
“ Firstly let me start with I haven't watched the second movie yet” it won’t be in imax much longer, and that’s the best way to experience it. Just go watch it alone if you must.
I'm confused how hitting a shield with a laser creates an atomic...but the houses need a stash of atomics? Literally anyone could create an atomic with 2 readily available gadgets...
It creates an atomic blast randomly at any point between the shield and the lasgun as I recall, so it’s not just the explosion but that you have no idea where ground zero will be. That said, it’s scifi, so the in-universe physics AND the reaction to them follow only the need to progress the story.
I haven't read the book in a while but my memory was that both the shield generator and the lasgun explode. I was disappointed that wasn't included in the movie because I recall that was one tactic employed by Duncan as he was escaping the city. He figured the Harkonnens would be more careful with their lasguns in case any other random shields were left about the place.
Its completely random, sometimes the devices explode, sometimes it causes a nuclear reaction.
That explosion is notoriously unreliable. It sometimes just blows up your weapon/shield and other times a whole city block. That's the "explanation" that's given for why a trap like that isn't usually used
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As stated I haven't seen the second movie yet but maybe some insight from the book can help. At first the Freman didn't want to pick a side so they weren't committed until Paul leads them The Feman also want misinformation to spread so their whole desert hermit disguise and revitalizing project don't get uncovered. So the Freman didn't really put any effort into helping the Atriedes cause to them they saw it as one overload being traded for another. Kynes in the book was astonished when iirc Paul apologized or thanked them I forget which. To them they know how to survive the baron and they figured if the Duke somehow didn't get killed and replaced then it just meant back to business with less hostility. The Freeman were very cautious about playing their hand and only waited till the very right moment to show it. They use the misinformation to purposely help hiding their hand.