“Dune” Endures (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#91

Post by stevekemp » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

etiam wrote: post #86

gamblor956 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: Brian and KJA had access to detailed notes from Frank Herbert, and used none of them in favor of KJA's "improvements" to the Dune mythos. The same way KJA "improved" Star Wars. His wife, incidentally the editor-in-chief of the publishing imprint that then owned the publishing rights to the Star Wars and Dune literary universes, is to blame for unleashing his word vomit on mankind.

I've been yearning to read those notes for decades now. Any idea of their situation? Is there a chance they'll ever be released?

There seems almost zero chance that the notes will be released. Brian has been increasingly adament about it, largely because a lot of people are vocal about suspecting they don't exist.

(I personally do believe that some notes were left, but I suspect they were not complete, and were utterly ignored by Brian & Kevin. Because they is no explanation which makes more sense. There's no way he would have tied up with series by referencing characters never-before introduced from before the previous books.)

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#92

Post by shantly » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:31 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #48

richk449 wrote: post #11

Author seems overly dismissive of the sequels. While they aren’t as great as the first, many of them are still very good books with interesting ideas. The stuff written by others (not Frank Herbert) on the other hand, does seem to be dreck based on my sampling.

> Author seems overly dismissive of the sequels. The author admits to having given up after the fourth book, God Emporer of Dune , which is, to be fair, a fairly radical shift from the original trilogy. I can see it putting off someone deeply invested in the original.

I read on but for me the story was over at the end of God Emperor, which felt like the end of the core arc of the first four books. The rest gets harder to follow—like other Frank Herbert novels I’ve tried to read—and doesn’t provide the same motivation. The characters especially just do nothing for me, past God Emperor.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#93

Post by balfirevic » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:40 PM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #76

sli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... what catchphrases from LOTR were (are?) remotely commonplace? "And my axe!" was common enough for a while. Less so now but it's still around. LOTR memes that rely on single lines with varying popularity are pretty common but that's probably stretching it.

"My precioussss", "One does not simply walk into Mordor", "Well yes, but what about second lunch?", etc.

cough second breakfasts! cough

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#94

Post by koheripbal » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #58

_qwfv wrote: post #7

> Catchphrases from the book have not entered the language. The spice must flow? Fear is the mind killer? Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" includes the phrase "Walk without a rhythm, you won't attract the worm". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8 Maybe to a lesser extent, "He who controls the spice controls the universe", "wheels within wheels", and the gom jabbar are all things…

"Fear is the mindkiller" may be super memorable, but the end of the litany (paraphrased): "I will let it pass through me and over me and when it is gone I will look where has been and there only I will remain" - well, applies to just about anything with great success.

Practicing this once saved my life while scuba diving. I was stuck in a cave and I began to panic and hyperventilate.

Having delt with other high stress situations and remembering this full quote prepared me.

Being able to identify my emotion in a high stress moment and knowing that the fear would pass is what calmed me down and think my way out of my problem.

It's not enough to remember the words. You also need to practice.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#95

Post by empath75 » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

_qwfv wrote: post #7

> Catchphrases from the book have not entered the language. The spice must flow? Fear is the mind killer? Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" includes the phrase "Walk without a rhythm, you won't attract the worm". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8 Maybe to a lesser extent, "He who controls the spice controls the universe", "wheels within wheels", and the gom jabbar are all things…

I think there was some kind of law that every third psytrance record needed to sample a line from Dune.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#96

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #16

_qwfv wrote: post #7

> Catchphrases from the book have not entered the language. The spice must flow? Fear is the mind killer? Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" includes the phrase "Walk without a rhythm, you won't attract the worm". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8 Maybe to a lesser extent, "He who controls the spice controls the universe", "wheels within wheels", and the gom jabbar are all things…

The author of the article is not very knowledgeable about dune it seems. Dune has quite the fan base it just never had a good commercial success in movies and TV to become mainstream.

[deleted]

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#97

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

s_Hogg wrote: post #41

pmoriarty wrote: post #25

"One winter evening, I heard him read my mother a passage about a young man named Paul Atreides who was forced to place his hand into the blackness of a box while an old woman, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, held a poison needle at his neck, the gom jabbar. Though I didn't realize it at the time, this was the opening chapter of Dune. Pauls' hand would feel intense pain, the wrinkled crone told him, but if he…

Why is Brian Herbert as lucid as this talking about his dad, but so terrible when trying to write a book following on from his work? Bit of a puzzle to me.

Roger Ebert was an excellent film critic, but that mean he could make/write a good movie (see Beyond the Valley of the Dolls).

We all have different talents.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#98

Post by ethbro » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #83

_qwfv wrote: post #7

> Catchphrases from the book have not entered the language. The spice must flow? Fear is the mind killer? Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" includes the phrase "Walk without a rhythm, you won't attract the worm". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8 Maybe to a lesser extent, "He who controls the spice controls the universe", "wheels within wheels", and the gom jabbar are all things…

Dune is old enough to have deeper connections than just catch phrases. It spawned RTS games via the Dune 2 game based on the movie. RTS games then which spawned Moba's like League of Legends via Warcraft III (Defense of the Ancients). Though as you say “Fear is the mind killer” shows up all over the place.

Folks forget about Dune 1 too.

In 1992, it was one of the first "modern" 4X games (SimCity 1989, Civilization 1991). Even given shorter game development timelines, it deserves more credit than it gets.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#99

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #69

s_Hogg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Brian Herbert as lucid as this talking about his dad, but so terrible when trying to write a book following on from his work? Bit of a puzzle to me.

Money. Kevin J Anderson actually did most of the writing of the Dune Prequels and post-Frank sequels, and is quite possibly the worst SF writer that has ever lived. (KJA is and was married to the editor-in-chief of Banta mSpectra, the imprint with the book licensing rights to Star Wars and Dune. This is the only reason he was allowed anywhere near these series.)

I wonder if we can cast the current prequels into the eternal darkness and start with new ones made by a good writer.

Re: “Dune” Endures (2013)

#100

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

cannonedhamster wrote: post #8

Animats wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last Dune movie (1984) didn't do it. "It's like The Last Airbender, but with sand."

I might be in the minority but I liked the Dune movie. It introduced the universe, how it worked, had a solid cast. The movie is clearly one from the 80s with it's dedication to atmosphere.

> I might be in the minority but I liked the Dune movie.

I liked the aesthetic of the movie (everything was 'old' and worn and staid). I liked the mini-series because it stayed closer to the original story, but (because of budget?) things looked too shiny: things seemed too 'fresh' for a societal structure that had been static for generations and generations.

That was kind of point of the Golden Path: you wanted the Imperium to seem 'static' because of inertia, and humanity needed something to shake them up from stagnation.