Tell me of your homeworld's activity books, Usul.

December 11, 2015 7:25 AM

The Dune Coloring Book and Dune Activity Book were available for about two weeks during 1984 before a sober adult opened one up to a random page and realized their kid was going either going to to need a lot more black and red crayons or a lot more therapy. (slKitchenOverlord)
posted by ricochet biscuit (60 comments total)

I saw these the other day, and they are amazing. Just, absolutely, unbelievably, how-the-hell-did-this-get-to-production amazing.
posted by tocts at 7:30 AM on December 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

From Chris-Rachael Oseland, whose work we have admired recently.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:34 AM on December 11, 2015

I saw a few pages of this out of context recently and just thought it was somebody making a clever joke about how f'd up tie-in marketing was (and often still is).

That it is real is almost a disappointment.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:35 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

cocaine is a hell of a drug.
posted by logicpunk at 7:40 AM on December 11, 2015

what child wouldn't be delighted to receive a sticky, creased, and hand-colored Dr. Yueh postcard
posted by theodolite at 7:40 AM on December 11, 2015 [13 favorites]

I had seen a bit of this a while back but had no idea it was from an actual product that got shipped. It felt far too much like something out of the alternate universe Dune Is A Smash Hit 1984 that I prefer to pretend actually happened.
posted by cortex at 7:40 AM on December 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

Just, absolutely, unbelievably, how-the-hell-did-this-get-to-production amazing.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:42 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Once again, the Atreides Pug gets screen time but no love.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:42 AM on December 11, 2015 [10 favorites]

Just, absolutely, unbelievably, how-the-hell-did-this-get-to-production amazing.

I think it is a manifestation of the enduring belief by marketers that science fiction and kidstuff are more or less synonymous. Certainly there have been a lot of toy lines for R-rated movies (The Terminator, Alien, Starship Troopers), and they can't all be aimed at Comic Book Guy.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:43 AM on December 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

Mommy, when do I get my heartplug?
posted by delfin at 7:45 AM on December 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

I don't think it was cocaine that made the coloring book.

I think it really was low-level producers being told this was going to be the next Star Wars, and then never seeing anything other than a few still shots from the set.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:45 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I get the sci-fi = kids mental connection, but they lost me with the actual contents of this coloring book. "Kids love a good knife fight scene, right? And they really appreciate that parents aren't trying to talk down to them or make them feel safe when the doctor says he'll burn out the sickness. Kids need to know how alternate universe medicine works."
posted by filthy light thief at 7:48 AM on December 11, 2015 [9 favorites]

My husband actually had this coloring book as a child, and recently bought one on eBay because he wanted to make sure it was as weird as he thought it was.

It had no ill effects on him other than convincing him that the Dune movie was actually a good film. He insisted I sit down and watch it with him because "I loved this film as a kid - I even had the coloring book!" After 15 minutes of painful viewing, he shut it off in embarrassment.
posted by castlebravo at 7:50 AM on December 11, 2015 [14 favorites]

I had this. I was 10 in 1984 and we all figured this was going to be, well not another Star Wars, but certainly a big crowd-pleasing sci-fi adventure smash. I also got a photo film of the book and some other Dune merch that Christmas.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 7:57 AM on December 11, 2015

After 15 minutes of painful viewing, he shut it off in embarrassment.

I have avoided revisiting the film specifically because of this fear, as I too loved it as a kid. Please thank your husband for confirming my fears and allowing me to keep my rose-tinted (well, sepia-tinted in this case) childhood memories intact.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:00 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I fucking love this movie.

Do not watch the extended version though, it is garbage.
posted by Artw at 8:02 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

what child wouldn't be delighted to receive a sticky, creased, and hand-colored Dr. Yueh postcard

Yueh, Yueh, Yueh, a million colors were not enough for Yueh!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:02 AM on December 11, 2015 [23 favorites]

I stumbled across a French dubbed version of DUNE on Canadian TV once and found myself caught up in it and ended up watching the whole thing. Somehow it just seemed to work in French.

I do not speak French.
posted by Naberius at 8:03 AM on December 11, 2015 [26 favorites]

Just watched Star Wars last night with my teenage daughter who had never seen it before (Her judgement: Loved the Jawas, Luke and Han were annoying. Admired Leia's saltiness) and I was struck by how grim it was at points. Dumping Jawa corpses unceremoniously on a pyre, charred skeletons of beloved Owen and Beru, "a million voices cried out in terror and were silenced".
posted by Rock Steady at 8:05 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

what child wouldn't be delighted to receive a sticky, creased, and hand-colored Dr. Yueh postcard

Gom Jabar sold separately!
posted by Fizz at 8:11 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

I had a Return to Oz colouring and activity book; I swear one of the pages was a ECT headset being placed on Fairuza Balk.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:13 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Heh. I was profoundly disappointed in the film at the time, but I've grown to appreciate it for what it is since then (an expose of how dogs really run the universe).
posted by Four Ds at 8:13 AM on December 11, 2015

I was also a teen in the target demographic, sat in the theatre gradually more and more amazed at how shit the film was. My favourite part of Lynch's Dune didn't arrive until maybe a year ago - watching Jodorowsky, at the end of Jodorowsky's Dune, laughing and smiling when he went and saw it and realized it was shit. Man, I felt good for him in that moment! Redeemed!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:16 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well where else am I going to be able to play Weigh the Big Baron?
posted by bibliowench at 8:17 AM on December 11, 2015

After 15 minutes of painful viewing, he shut it off in embarrassment.

Didn't even stay for Sting?
posted by thelonius at 8:18 AM on December 11, 2015

The comment for this image:

My cousin is really into tantric yoga, body oil, and finding new ways to stab me.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:23 AM on December 11, 2015

The thing of it is, setting aside the problem of child-appropriateness, and the problem(s) of suitable coloration (yay, brown!), few of these drawings are set up for coloring in the first place? They're not coloring-drawings, they're just line drawings, and that's not the same thing!
posted by aramaic at 8:30 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Right now that adult coloring books are hitting it big (I was browsing the Game of Thrones coloring book a few hours ago and it looks pretty good) it's the right time for a reedition of the Dune ones, I think.
posted by sukeban at 8:31 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well, the movie isn't that good, and, as much as I'd like to see Jodo's version, if it was completed instead of Lynch's it would be remembered even worse, because Jodo gave even less fucks about the source material.
I'd like to see a properly budgeted (the 2001 series wasn't bad, but looked like it was recorded on a small bathroom), 10 hour-long episodes take on the book, but I'm not holding my breath for a show about religious desert dwellers kicking out an oppressive power for the control of a valued commodity.

But wait, real Dune postcards?
posted by lmfsilva at 8:36 AM on December 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

Right now that adult coloring books are hitting it big

I received this one as a birthday present from some friends: Colour Me Good James Franco.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:53 AM on December 11, 2015

Feyd.
A coloring page.
posted by nat at 8:58 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm happy with Johanna Basford and random pretty flowers "art therapy" stuff, but I got the Megamunden tattoo coloring book last week and I'm waiting for the Liberty of London patterns one to arrive in the mail.

The author of the James Franco coloring book has a lot more, of course including Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch (apart from the Sherlock coloring book).
posted by sukeban at 9:02 AM on December 11, 2015

The comment for this image:

My cousin is really into tantric yoga, body oil, and finding new ways to stab me.

By the same token, this page should really include the best single line of dialogue in the movie: 'The Emperor says, "Bring in that floating fat man, the Baron."'
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:05 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

All this hate for Lynch's Dune is surprising and terrible. I love this movie and think of it probably daily. There is no better way to end a daily checkin meeting at work than yelling LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:07 AM on December 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

lmfsilva- I have the same memory of the Dune miniseries looking like cheap (which is not the same as "low budget") crap, but only yesterday I was looking up Virttorio Storaro's career and it turns out he shot it! I'm almost tempted to give it another chance now that it's possible to see on DVD in the proper aspect ratio (to say nothing of a non-CRT TV).

I mean, that won't make the performances or writing any better, but at least it might be pretty...
posted by Merzbau at 10:09 AM on December 11, 2015

Disappointed that there isn't a page where you can color in Feyd's styrofoam underwear.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:21 AM on December 11, 2015

Bah! Coloring's a thing for cattle and loveplay.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:21 AM on December 11, 2015 [11 favorites]

zombieflanders: "Once again, the Atreides Pug gets screen time but no love."

Ummm, that wasn't a pug, that was a Guild Navigator.
posted by Samizdata at 10:27 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

item: "The whole "cocaine amirite?" angle is pretty stupid. I mean I did wheelbarrows full of coke when I was younger and never turned a shitty movie into an age-inappropriate coloring book.

Well, except for when I made that Pulp Fiction coloring book."

I suppose that is better than the "Great Leaders of History": Caligula one I did.
posted by Samizdata at 10:30 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

qcubed: "After 15 minutes of painful viewing, he shut it off in embarrassment.

Oh, good. Then he didn't have to experience the travesty of "weirding modules"."

"For Muad'Dib IS a killing word!"

Something I sometimes say when making a particularly nasty kill in games...
posted by Samizdata at 10:37 AM on December 11, 2015

By the same token, this page should really include the best single line of dialogue in the movie: 'The Emperor says, "Bring in that floating fat man, the Baron."'

This is related by only the thinnest of threads but: the other night I watched the 1954 adaptation of The Caine Mutiny for the first time, and was astonished to see that:
1. Jose Ferrer is in it!
2. And Jose Ferrer, playing a Navy lieutenant serving as legal counsel, chews exactly as much scenery as he does playing the Padishah Emperor of the Galaxy.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 10:38 AM on December 11, 2015

He was also Stephanie Vanderkellen's dad on Newhart!

This concludes today's José Ferrer History Moment.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:53 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't hold my breath, Merzbau. Some bits - particularly outdoors - were particularly awful - I recall a scene the matte background looked one of the tacky backgrounds photographers had here 20 years ago for passport photos, and the dune looked literally a pile of sand. Many others looked a crappy painting around a sand pit. Making the freakin' desert look claustrophobic has to be one of the hardest things, and they managed it. Lighting was terrible too (waaaaaaay too many gel filters), although when the sets look so fake, it's hard to make anything stick. I think the creators had their heart in the right place, but the budget was laughable, both are the reasons why I'm not overly critical of it.

Children of Dune was slightly better. And has James McAvoy and Susan Sarandon.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:57 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

There is no better way to end a daily checkin meeting at work than yelling LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS.

Every so often, when I want to child someone mildly, I say "Muad'Dib!" in a slightly shocked voice like Stilgar did when Paul cracked the courtyard (and Feyd) in half.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:22 AM on December 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

I say "Muad'Dib!" in a slightly shocked voice like Stilgar did when Paul cracked the courtyard (and Feyd) in half.

This is also an excellent way to determine who does or does not have proper nerd credibility in the office or at social situations.

Those who respond: "Bless the maker." Should instantly be befriended.
posted by Fizz at 11:35 AM on December 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

I always sort of liked how the Dune miniseries was so theatrical / operatic. It was an interesting response to dealing with a low budget.

As with most good science-fiction books, though, what it really needs is a 10-episode season on HBO.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:36 PM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Am I the only one bothered by the puzzle about Captain Picard's Chapman Stick turning out to be BALIET? If the answer to the puzzle is a made-up word, at least try to get the word right.

Unless it is some labor/labor, aluminum/aluminium thing where the legs end in FSEET in some countries.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:38 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

102nd century Galach had an "intrusive s", sort of like a silent s except instead of being there and being silent it was actually quite loud but also absent.
posted by cortex at 2:51 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

"moods are for cattle and loveplay!" is totally a thing in our house. That, and an ongoing minor obsession with Jürgen Prochnow. (THE KEEP. Such a weird movie!)
posted by epersonae at 3:16 PM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

I sort of lump people who are into the miniseries in with people who are into the The Shining miniseries in my mind.
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Am I the only one bothered by the puzzle about Captain Picard's Chapman Stick turning out to be BALIET? If the answer to the puzzle is a made-up word, at least try to get the word right.

Ball -l Bal
Pigs -pg is
feet -fe et
Baliset.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:20 PM on December 11, 2015

These few activity book pages tell the story better than that entire multimillion dollar movie. I saw it first run in the theater and left completely confused and quietly thinking "What the fuck was that about? It made no sense at all. I literally just watched it and I have no clue what just happened." It was just a complete failure as a mechanism to communicate a story to a viewer.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:01 PM on December 11, 2015

I remember a Dune Cut and Color Activity Book with a recipe for No-Bake Spice Cookies. (Peanut butter, cinnamon, and flour, I think.)
posted by clew at 5:23 PM on December 11, 2015

What? Ew. Raw flour is gross.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:04 PM on December 11, 2015

Sure, it was a cinematic trainwreck and a flawed, incomplete adaptation, but all I have to say to the haters of Lynch's movie and its weirding modules is CHAH – SAH!

(Apparently he did think about filming the Weirding Way as described, and decided he didn't want to see "kung fu on sand dunes," understandable in the days before Hollywood fully absorbed Hong Kong.)
posted by mubba at 11:43 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh geez, someone should make* a Skyrim mod that replaces all the dragonborn shouts with a sample of the weirding module vocalizations from the film.

*someone has probably already made
posted by cortex at 7:22 AM on December 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

a Skyrim mod that replaces all the dragonborn shouts with a sample of the weirding module vocalizations from the film.

That plus the Macho Dragons mod would make feel sorry my laptop dedicated card burned out.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:35 AM on December 12, 2015

Yeah what's all this nonsense about the movie being no good? It's a big budget science fiction film from the 80s directed by David Lynch with Kyle Maclachlan playing a space messiah and Jean-Luc Picard carrying a little dog and Ming the fucking Merciless as a relatively restrained background character, plus giant sand worms and a bonkers soundtrack by Toto. And Sting in leather pants and a floating fat man who talks in rhyme. What the hell more do you want?
posted by Mocata at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

Ming the fucking Merciless

"Brewmeister Smith," surely.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Chrysostom: "Ming the fucking Merciless

"Brewmeister Smith," surely."

It is a pity your friends will not be here to see you become addicted to ELSINORE BEER!
posted by Samizdata at 1:20 AM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]