Superficially, there is a sequence in the film where Peter O'Toole's very blue eyes appear to glow: https://youtu.be/nBiZu5C6lCo?t=12219
Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
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Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#12A comment mentions it, but Sabres of Paradise is another key component to understanding Dune as a referential text as it pertains to imperialism and religious fervor as an insurrectionist response.
Lol. More like Dune lifts wholesale from Sabres of Paradise, translating the stories about Imam Shamyl into space, only adding some bits of LSD inspired trippiness. If anything, Herbert toned down the historical accounts. On the other hand, Lesley Blanch went for the dramatic over the historical in Sabres. The story about the Sultan that drowned his son's mistress, for example, was from a Greek movie version.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works
The first book I concur but the series goes in directions I would never have predicted in multiple places in later books, off the top of my head - books four and five stand out in memory, though he laid the groundwork in the first book.
Sure, but when was the last time anyone claimed a major franchise was ripping off God-Emperor?
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#14[flagged]
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#15The parallels with Lawrence are obvious, but I find that the character of Paul Atreides follows some older models as well.
Towards the end of the first book of Dune he has become an almost mythical figure, a Moses using his divine insight to lead his people to freedom, or a Mohammed throwing them into a global war of conquest.
That ambiguity is perhaps the book's greatest achievement: Paul's actions are only justifiable if the reader believes in him completely (he has really seen all possible futures and picked the best one) or not at all (he just wanted revenge and could not have foreseen the consequences).
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#16[flagged]
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#17The article makes reference to Tim O'Reilly's excellent Frank Herbert.
That book is well worth reading by anybody who wants to better understand Frank Herbert, and is available for free at https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#18> The 1962 film based on a romanticized version of Lawrence’s journey... rested on the idea of the ‘white savior,’ whose role was to lend a sympathetic ear to oppressed peoples and provide assistance to improve their lot in life.
I really think this is the wrong interpretation of the end of that movie.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#19Mostly based on The Sabres of Paradise...
Paul is based on Shamyl 3rd Imam of Dagestan from that book
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#20When I finally got around to reading Seven Pillars , I wasn't too far in before I was convinced Herbert had the book on his desk the whole time he was writing Dune . So many minor similarities, little scenes that don't quite match up but if you squint they do. Even the arc toward eventually committing war crimes, while seeking some great end for the people he's leading, feels like a connection. But also little stuff…
What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works
It’s even more stark the further back you go. When the printing press was invented, it didn’t usher in a new era of creativity but instead the first few centuries resembled modern Hollywood: shameless sequels and reboots. By far the most popular books were translations of Greek classics and rote derivatives of the Arthurian legends. It wasn’t until the first iterations of copyright and a few other cultural shifts that a “professional” writer class was born and started to expand on the creativity of our stories. Until then publishing wasn’t profitable enough to support a real creative process, so they cribbed as much from existing canon as they could to make ends meet. See how long it took science fiction to properly develop into a literary form, for example.