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The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

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Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#81

Post by bleachedsleet »

ataru wrote: post #33
stuff4ben wrote: post #5

On the one hand, as a technologist, this pisses me off because we've advanced so far in the field of word processing. Autocorrect, holding more than 40 pages in memory, cut/paste, etc. Why does this Luddite persist in the old ways?!?!?! But as a writer who knows the pains of distraction... maybe he's on to something?

Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account. Maybe he doesn't want to figure out how to disable cloud saves. Maybe he doesn't want to pay a subscription fee. Maybe he doesn't want emojis, mentions, hash tags and recommendations about what his friends are reading. Maybe he doesn't want a analytics report in his mail describing about how he used the software this week. Maybe he doesn't want "undoubtedly absolute…

Or maybe they weren’t and you’re just making an appeal to antiquity out of misplaced nostalgia and recollections about some amorphous Golden Age that never quite existed as you remember.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#83

Post by massysett »

stuff4ben wrote: post #5

On the one hand, as a technologist, this pisses me off because we've advanced so far in the field of word processing. Autocorrect, holding more than 40 pages in memory, cut/paste, etc. Why does this Luddite persist in the old ways?!?!?! But as a writer who knows the pains of distraction... maybe he's on to something?

After searching for a good note-taking system I have settled on Notepad (on my employer’s Windows system) and TextEdit (on my Macs at home.) This with files and folders gets me all the organization I need. Even a fancier text editor doesn’t give much benefit.

Similarly a ton of my professional work involves emails. Though they’re in Outlook the editor might as well be Pico: very seldom do I even use the bold font or any other accoutrement.

He’s definitely on to something. Word processors are really a kind of Wysiwyg typesetter. They just don’t add much for the actual writing process that a simple text editor doesn’t already give you. Typesetting is a different process.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#84

Post by omarhaneef »

There are lots of stories about writers who are very productive using an old method:

--This dune story,

--Game of thrones (asoif) written on wordstar

--And of course dozens of writers who still use pen and paper

This is what these environments have in common: no or minimal internet to distract you

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#85

Post by colanderman »

chasil wrote: post #71
anyfactor wrote: post #62

I often wonder this about old tech. What attracts some people to keep using it? Is it the comfort or familiarity or is it minimalism? I sometimes want to feel the experience of my Pentium 1 PC with that rubberdome keyboard and ball mouse. But I know it was a frustrating experience. The mouse didn't work exactly, we had to alt+ctrl+delete every 20-30 minutes. They keyboard felt like jello. The CRT monitor gave us head…

Just for fun, I have installed "Joe's Own Editor" by running "yum install joe" from Oracle's EPEL mirror. Then I ran "joe /etc/passwd" (after exiting root) then pressed ^K-h, and Wordstar's help menu appeared. Wordstar and the vi editor share evolution on serial terminals of the 70s (vi specifically on the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A). They were designed for a minimal number of keys, and thus keeping the hands on the home ro…

I use JOE as my daily driver. I grew up on Borland Turbo C, so it was an easy transition for me when I picked up Linux circa 2000.

JOE ships with several keybinding variants as well. E.g. `jstar` launches JOE with more WordStar-like bindings.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#86

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

alistairSH wrote: post #55
kgwxd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you've read the book, it's a good watch. But the movie does very little character building, or maybe it tries to do too much of it too fast. Without the preset idea of what the characters are about, I could see how the movie might be a bit flat.

That was my one major complaint. Many of the secondary characters don't get the screen time they deserved. But, I assume doing so would push play time from 2.5 hours to 3+, or cause a split into 3-4 parts instead of 2. Worthwhile sacrifices, I suppose. After all, for anybody who wants more, there's always the book.

> or cause a split into 3-4 parts

The first novel is already split into 3 well-defined acts.

I think it would've made sense to make 3 films. It would have given them some breathing room to build up the world and the establish the characters in the first film, and it would have ended with a tremendous climax.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#87

Post by TrevorJ »

anyfactor wrote: post #62

I often wonder this about old tech. What attracts some people to keep using it? Is it the comfort or familiarity or is it minimalism? I sometimes want to feel the experience of my Pentium 1 PC with that rubberdome keyboard and ball mouse. But I know it was a frustrating experience. The mouse didn't work exactly, we had to alt+ctrl+delete every 20-30 minutes. They keyboard felt like jello. The CRT monitor gave us head…

>I often wonder this about old tech. What attracts some people to keep using it? Is it the comfort or familiarity or is it minimalism?

I suspect that asking the same question about musical instruments would lend a lot of immediate understanding about what might be going on.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#89

Post by petercooper »

rado wrote: post #9

DOS is the perfect place for “Dune”. The 30yo game, that is.

If anyone hasn't played the game Dune, it is definitely worth checking out - if only to watch a Let's Play on YouTube.

It's not really an RTS a la the more famous Dune 2, but a sort of adventure/strategy mix. The appeal, though, is just in how luscious it is. It's a bit dizzying, beautiful (remarkably so, for the era), and full of soul in a way that few games of the era were. The Adlib Gold soundtrack in particular remains an amazing work of art too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUfGyfbzl9k

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