"If he's so damn ineffable, why doesn't he write his own biography?"
July 12, 2018 12:01 PM   Subscribe

 
Still ticked off that my Dune (1984) is Actually Good panel was not accepted for ECCC. Would have been a good one. Thee would have been dialogue shouting.

I do however not that of the panels ive organized it was the hardest time I’ve had getting even one non-white male for a panel.
posted by Artw at 12:07 PM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


CTRL-F "pug" - FOUND

I mean, it doesn't include the full glory of the Atreides Pug Battle Bjorn, but I'll take it.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:12 PM on July 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


The only true Dunes fans are the Jodorowsky Dune fans.

But scanning the article quickly it seems an ok overview of the story and film but not that much about fandom?''
posted by sammyo at 12:17 PM on July 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


Ask Rudolph Wurlitzer about the reception to his Dune screenplay sometime.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:23 PM on July 12, 2018


It seems like it would be harder for the assholes to screw up the fandom of a universe that has Bene Gesserit.

The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness. — from Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries by the Princess Irulan

Herbert is often a problematic writer for me, but he seems to get some social issues with an unusual depth for an author who has that almost mechanistic scheme vs counterscheme plotting style at times.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:26 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


Misogyny doesn't necessarily come with the property, it comes with the male portion of its fandom. I suspect we are one Game of Thrones style adaptation away from a bunch of shitty dudes suddenly claiming ownership of the Dune canon.
posted by Think_Long at 12:30 PM on July 12, 2018 [18 favorites]



I love me some Dune, but let's not be too quick to hold it up as a work devoid of misogyny.

Quoth the Wikia: "During their evolution in uncharted space, the Honored Matres perfected sexual intercourse into a narcotic process. By using carefully crafted skills, an Honored Matre practitioner learned how to coerce an outsider – typically of the male gender – into total subservience."
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 12:35 PM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


The secret to the Jodorowsky Dune is that it remains glorious so long as it is never actually made.

Also we got Alien AND The Incal out of it, that’s some good shit.
posted by Artw at 12:35 PM on July 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


I'm gonna admit something a bit embarrassing: before I read the book, or saw the movie, I read the Marvel Comics comic book adaptation of (the movie (of the book)) Dune.

And it was fucking glorious.
posted by phooky at 12:43 PM on July 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


I loved Dune, but never made it through even one of the sequels. Not sure why, they just seemed uninspiring to me.
posted by thelonius at 12:44 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


Nothing Sienkiewicz can be embarrassing.
posted by Artw at 12:44 PM on July 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


Every female character in Dune is squarely within the bounds of the mother/whore dichotomy. Agree with He Is Only The Imposter: it's still pretty damn misogynist.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 12:50 PM on July 12, 2018 [25 favorites]


mother/whole/tiny murderous child
posted by Artw at 12:52 PM on July 12, 2018 [51 favorites]


The first sequel (Dune Messiah) is great, and was originally planned as part of the first book. I like it because it undercuts some of the happily-ever-after from the first book and is more critical of Paul.

Children of Dune is something of a slog, but required if you want to get to...

God-Emperor of Dune, which is delightfully bonkers. The story of sandworm-human hybrid who rules the galaxy for thousands of years and his pet clone who keeps trying to overthrow him.

Dune Heretic, introduces the sex witches I mentioned above, and falls more in the distressingly bonkers zone.

I haven't read Chapterhouse Dune.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 12:54 PM on July 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


I just finished reading Dune yet again. I was younger than Paul when I read the series for the first time. For this most recent reading I am closer to his father's age. I find that it's a good book to revisit to see how my view of the story changes with time.

I find that the story has aged remarkably well. Perhaps that is because it is set so far in the future the Earth isn't even a distant memory.
posted by Gwynarra at 12:55 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


"[The cast includes] gloriously and shirtlessly, Sting"

I watched this film at the age of about 13 or 14 and hold that one scene responsible for giving my puberty process a serious boost.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:56 PM on July 12, 2018 [24 favorites]


I suspect we are one Game of Thrones style adaptation away from a bunch of shitty dudes suddenly claiming ownership of the Dune canon.

I love Dune like no other book I've ever read in my life, but having said that: We should never forget that /r/TheDonald without a trace of irony appropriated the name "God Emperor" to refer to their mascot/our implacable despot; one might also wonder if some part of the Dark Enlightenment might have its roots in dudes not unlike myself reading Dune in middle school and coming away with a desire to see feudalism brought back on an interplanetary scale.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:57 PM on July 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


what's this Dune thing about then
posted by cortex at 12:57 PM on July 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


Yeah, I agree with He Is Only The Imposter 's characterization of Frank Herbert's Dune books. I have read Chapterhouse Dune and if Dune Heretic was bonkers, Chapterhouse is significantly moreso. I have a huge soft spot for the 1984 movie, and cannot stand the SciFi Channel adaptations. I mean, the actors in Lynch's version chew the scenery hard enough to leave dents!
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:59 PM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


The first sequel (Dune Messiah) is great, and was originally planned as part of the first book.

If I still have my copy, I will give it one more try.
posted by thelonius at 1:08 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Once Villeneuve releases his 2-film adaptation -- which, as with his BR2049 & Arrival, will probably be disappointing, milquetoast, and boring -- we'll get some asshats coming around.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:09 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


The only good online fandom left is Dune.

Well, it was until all the tourists showed up!

Gosh, I haven't read Dune in thirty years or so. I quite liked it at the time, more so than most of the other big sci-fi monuments of the period. Then I think I read Dune Messiah and Dune Buggy, but I never went past that.

I actually like Lynch's Dune, if only as a movie that could not possibly look more 1984.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:12 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


what's this Dune thing about then

It's like Tremors but in space.
posted by graventy at 1:18 PM on July 12, 2018 [53 favorites]


kalessin: Yes, you are very correct. As much as I love Dune (and I've read all of Frank's sequels multiple times, and even a couple of the mediocre books his son wrote!), at its heart it's structured on a male-female binary, and although he tries to transcend the patriarchal aspects of that structure, he ends up mystifying it in some kind of masculine and feminine essential forces.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:19 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


I enjoy the Lynch Dune as its own bonkers thing, but I still feel the casting of Paul with a 25-year old was a serious mis-step. I guess the SciFi miniseries did this, too? It's pretty important to the plot that Paul is initially a callow, naive 15-year old.

I love me some Kyle MacLachlan, but he wasn't right for the part.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:27 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Previously? Yes, I deem it so.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:28 PM on July 12, 2018


The 'official' budget was around $40 million, making it among the most expensive films ever made. In his essays on the movie, Harlan Ellison suggested that the real budget was far above that. Somewhere north of $70 million, with Universal scrambling to hide the cost.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:31 PM on July 12, 2018



Every female character in Dune is squarely within the bounds of the mother/whore dichotomy

Huh? Gaius Helen Mohiam and the whole Bene Gesserit isn't femininely empowered enough for you?
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:32 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


"I love me some Kyle MacLachlan, but he wasn't right for the part."

He wasn't right for the book character, but the Lynch Dune had really very little to do with the book. It's like the movie version of _Starship Troopers_.
posted by Docrailgun at 1:34 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


It would also have deprived us of many of MacLachlan's greatest tweets.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:45 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


mother/whore/tiny murderous child

True that.


I would also hold that the offline fandom has some pretty high-quality parts too. Any fandom that can bring us the gloriously weird Dune Encyclopedia, a fantastic boardgame a quarter century ahead of the boardgame revolution, and the batshit might-have-been of the Jodorowsky film has got it goin' on.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:46 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I guess the SciFi miniseries did this, too? It's pretty important to the plot that Paul is initially a callow, naive 15-year old.

Alec Newman was indeed 24 or 25 when they were filming Harrison's Dune, but (a) he's a wee little thing, and (b) he does a very good job of portraying early Paul as a teenage brat.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:48 PM on July 12, 2018


“history will call us wives“

Ooh!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:49 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


the Lynch Dune had really very little to do with the book. It's like the movie version of _Starship Troopers_

Verhoeven's movie is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel, as adaptations go. Verhoeven is unsympathetic towards the political system, but it's a pretty faithful portrayal insofar as its agents espouse pretty much the same sets of ideals as in the book.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:52 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Can't stand the David Lynch movie. To be fair, I have disliked every David Lynch movie I have ever seen.

I have fond memories of the book. I think it's been close to three decades since I read it.
posted by kyrademon at 1:55 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


FWIW I'd consider the omission of power armor in Troopers a much bigger change than space-kung fu becoming sound guns, but that may just be me.
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on July 12, 2018 [12 favorites]


I think I had that Dune game! But I never once succeeded in playing any Avalon Hill game.
posted by thelonius at 2:01 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


I love Dune. I think that (as with some other Big Names in 60's Sci Fi) Herbert managed to create a masterpiece almost in spite of himself. The women do generally fall onto the virgin/whore spectrum, and yet they are still complex characters, with their own motivations and thoughts. They are forced into certain roles by their society and its expectations, but the novel turns and confronts that head-on.

I feel like Dune Messiah is a really important companion to Dune, though. You have to see the inevitable outcome of accepting the job of messiah, and the collateral damage among the people who follow you, or, yeah, you end up with people thinking that maybe it would be neat to be Emperor and have an army of dedicated Feydakin around you.

"Bonkers" is a really good description of God Emperor. I think it's a reasonable extrapolation of what would happen if a preternaturally cynical 10-year-old was granted immortality and the means of establishing complete totalitarian control over the known universe. I'll have to read it again before I say much else, though. I may not remember it completely accurately.

With Heretics and Chapterhouse, though, Herbert starts exhibiting the same behavior that makes Heinlein's later novels impossible for me to read. There's just a lot of very strange sexual behavior that shows up. Imprinting, and Honored Matres, and Odrade and young Teg, and, just. Ick. The Bene Gesserit of Dune didn't actually have creepy sexual voodoo. They were extensively trained in the observation of human behavior and psychology, and had trained themselves to use their voice and expression and body language to exploit what they've observed. They can kill you with their bare hands in a pinch, but would rather not. The BG of the last books, along with the Honored Matres, are like bad fanfic versions of the BG of Dune. They just fuck real good, or something.

I read Dune again every couple years. I read Messiah from time to time. I've read Heretics and Chapterhouse exactly once each.
posted by curiousgene at 2:10 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


I think Dune holds upon very well. It seems to become more relevant with time.
Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are also good.
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:23 PM on July 12, 2018


I quite like Dune (the film) and Dune (the book) but Herbert had some fucked up ideas about women. Like, the universe is secretly ruled by a conspiracy of witchy women who can make people do things by nagging them in a shrill voice. Later, hotter sex witches take over with sex and sexiness. Then Duncan-Sue Idaho outfucks the head sex witch, enslaving her to his superior sexual prowess and laying the groundwork for the fucking rebellion. It is to ugh.
posted by rodlymight at 2:37 PM on July 12, 2018 [19 favorites]


By the way, I do not for one moment believe that Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's Dune sequels (Hunters and Sandworms) are in any way based on any notes that Frank Herbert left behind. I read Hunters, and it was really awful. I couldn't bring myself to read Sandworms.
posted by curiousgene at 2:46 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Then Duncan-Sue Idaho outfucks the head sex witch, enslaving her to his superior sexual prowess and laying the groundwork for the fucking rebellion. It is to ugh.

posted by rodlymight at 1:37 PM on July 12 [+] [!]
I don't usually do this, but.. eponysterical!
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:49 PM on July 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


I read Hunters, and it was really awful. I couldn't bring myself to read Sandworms.

I read the prequels about the butlerian jihad and houses corrino and atredies and they're not?? that?? terrible? Like they're decent fanfics of canon I enjoy, I will accept that these things happened within this universe. But the 2 final ones are agony, they are indescribably terrible. I can't even remember reading them very clearly, it's like the childhood memory of a car accident or badly broken bone, just vague images of incredible suffering that your mind, in self-defense, does not allow you to revisit.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:06 PM on July 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


just vague images of incredible suffering that your mind, in self-defense, does not allow you to revisit.

Hell, that's how I feel about the first two sequels.

Herbert is problematic for me. I did reread it within the last decade and while I still fell under the spell of the world-building the clunky prose and the misogyny was even more apparent than my last read. I will always consider it a classic. There's a hardcover and a paperback copy in the house, not to mention one on my iPad for quick reference. But by the Orange Catholic Bible, it has not aged well.
posted by Ber at 3:15 PM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I think Dune holds upon very well. It seems to become more relevant with time.

The Butlerian Jihad is making more and more sense, so there's that
posted by thelonius at 3:16 PM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


We should never forget that /r/TheDonald without a trace of irony appropriated the name "God Emperor" to refer to their mascot/our implacable despot

Are they actually referencing Dune, or Warhammer 40K, or the actual rulers throughout history who claimed that title? I always assumed it was a 40K reference, but I don't know why.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 3:31 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Huh? Gaius Helen Mohiam and the whole Bene Gesserit isn't femininely empowered enough for you?

I don't understand your confusion.

What makes a work misogynist isn't just whether female characters are "powerful" or "empowered." No one has that simplistic a view. What matters is how the characters are portrayed: What kinds of narrative roles are they given, what kinds of tropes or stereotypes do they make use of? And so on.

The Bene Gesserit make use of some pretty standard misogynist tropes about powerful women. They're seductresses whose power rests in feminine guile, who manipulate from behind the scenes, whose schemes center around reproduction... and yet who still need a man to fulfill their prophecy because the feminine isn't enough.

I still love the Dune world, but to insist it's not misogynist because there are powerful female characters is facile.

It's a particularly interesting one to imagine with genders changed. What if the Bene Gesserit were evenly mixed, male and female? Or all male? Would Herbert have written them with the same tropes? If he did, would the audience receive it the same way? I think the answer to that question is "not by a long shot."
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:33 PM on July 12, 2018 [28 favorites]


I've heard several times that it was a Warhammer 40K reference, yeah, which I will cling to even without the canon knowledge (or interest in reading about channish Trump memes) to verify because say what you will about Leto II, he could put sentences together and manage a long-term plan.
posted by cortex at 3:37 PM on July 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


I always assumed it was a 40K reference, but I don't know why.

Given how much WH40K borrowed from Dune that one would be tough to call.
posted by Artw at 3:38 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


I think the last Herbert book I picked up, and ended up getting rid of, was Helstrom's Hive. Hitting the 70s horror cliche of gratuitous sexual assault of a disposable character as a puppy-kicking moment for the cult just threw me right out. (And doesn't Dune have the coded-gay bad guy as well?)
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 3:39 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


i would absolutely and without question accept a giant immortal religious fanatic worm as our president rather than the current one
posted by poffin boffin at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


(And I'm a person who thinks that jumping into his other cycle involving prescient ubermenchen is likely a better choice than plowing past God Emperor.)
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 3:44 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm gonna admit something a bit embarrassing: before I read the book, or saw the movie, I read the Marvel Comics comic book adaptation of (the movie (of the book)) Dune.

And it was fucking glorious.


That's all because of Billy the Sink
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:51 PM on July 12, 2018


GenderNullPointerException: (And doesn't Dune have the coded-gay bad guy as well?)

kalessin: It was my impression that Lynch's casting of Sting as the Baron's nephew, Feyd-Rautha, as a death cult pervert, and also the Baron himself, was pretty coded-gay/coded-perverted. I honestly don't remember the book well enough to comment on Dune-the-book, though.
The book makes it quite clear that (unconsenting) young slave boys are the Baron Harkonnen's preferred sexual partners. Feyd-Rautha's sexual partners, at least the ones mentioned, are slave women. Piter DeVries expects to be given Jessica as his reward. Gay or straight, the Harkonnen sexual morality is depicted as universally depraved and to give Herbert his due, in his portrayal it seems to me that the consent issue is the most important element of that. That said, there's still plenty of cause for concern about the sexual politics of just about every sub-group depicted including the Atreides and the Fremen.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:07 PM on July 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


So I don't think Herbert intended for us to admire or emulate the society of Dune, and that includes the Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild, Mentats, etc. Thr society of Dune is an oppressive empire ruled by one percenters (literally the Landsraad is like a combination of the UK's House Of Lords and also a corporation because every house owns CHOAM shares and only Landsraad houses own them). That empire is fuedal, partiarchal, oppressive and pretty openly depicted as such by the narrative - the status of women in the Dune series is portrayed as being about the same as women in Europe of the Middle Ages - but not depeicted as an admirable arrangment (the Fremen women, by contrast, are warriors alongside the men although still not first-class citizens) and in general the sexual attitudes of the society of Dune seem regressive even by mid-20th century standards but it also seems pretty clear the story wants you to find that society reprehensible- so my read of the Bene Gesserit was that they had done what women have akways done in oppressive societies - used what tools were at their disposal to get and keep what power they could.
The gendered mythology is never presented by the novel as true, only what the characters believe, in fact, the story, again, seems to be setting the reader up to at least question the theology of all the spiritualities - they're all depicted as really fucked up - and even Paul, suppoedly the only male Bene Gesserit, turns out to be a pretty terrible messiah - as emperor he presides over a war that kills 60 billion people and his kids are pretty awful too.
I don't think Herbert was giving us heroes but rather he was exploring the idea that humanity might progress with technology and regress as a society, along with the idea that recieved myths are often oppressive, like, I think he's kind of saying "hey folks, we could turn out to be real assholes" - so while I think it's totally a fair read to say that the society portrayed in Dune is incredibly mysogynist, I'm not sure the story itself is, at least up to God Emperor Of Dune.

Everything after God Emperor of Dune suffers in lots of ways, most notably being super boring because the later novels are just retreads of the previous novels and the mutation of the Bene Gesserit into the Honored Matres only one of a number of dumb things that happen in those books and honestly, as a result of being bored I sort of skipped over all the dumb sex witch stuff because it was super boring and repetitve, so that stuff might be sexist but so totally just stop reading at God Emperor Of Dune is I guess what I'm recommending.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:35 PM on July 12, 2018 [32 favorites]


seconding the realization that there are no more Dune books after God Emperor
posted by eustatic at 4:40 PM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


but... chair dogs, Sex nuns, the flash but a clone baby, sex nuns addicted to sex with a clone of duncan idaho, secret jews, talking dogs, re-awakened child clone memories from bizarre anti-sex addiction training, marty and daniel (whoever/whatever they are) , pig slug meat......

Yeah ok, fair point. Stop at God Emperor.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:49 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I love you nerds. There are so many correct opinions among these comments.

God help me, I read them all and I read the Butlerian Jihad prequels, because I hate myself. The degree to which I was actually reading vs. hate-reading increased exponentially starting with Children of Dune. I doggedly pushed on until finally, at the end of Chapterhouse, I threw the book across the room and stormed out of the house.

I fucking love the Lynch movie while also realizing that it is so bad in so many ways. I found the Sci-Fy series to be sterile and uninteresting. I probably would have hated Jodorowski's, but I very much enjoyed the documentary.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:00 PM on July 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


eustatic: "seconding the realization that there are no more Dune books after God Emperor"

I never even got through that one. It was still a trilogy when I read Dune in the '70s and I figured that was the end of it since that was before every franchise had to be milked to death. So I was very excited when God Emperor was announced and finally released and paid for the hard cover edition and then couldn't even finish the damn thing.
posted by octothorpe at 5:09 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I started to get off the Dune train in Children of Dune when Leto II becomes covers himself in sandtrout and becomes Superboy. I found God Emperor a slog but I appreciated the fact Herbert at least had the guts to follow through on the insanity that results after covering oneself in sandtrout. I bailed on the later books, and it sounds like it was a good idea to do so.

I read the first prequel series (the House series) and found them good, fleshing out a lot of the political and diplomatic intrigue that Dune alluded to while also showing just how damn noble Leto really was compared to the other shitbags around him. 20 pages into the first Butlerian Jihad book, however and I was like "Nope, the Duniverse is dead to me now."
posted by KingEdRa at 5:28 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


Original book: blew my teenage mind
Sequels: okay
Unauthorized Dune Encyclopedia: hilarious, brilliant!
Lynch film: it's great, all the critics hate, but the story is all chopped up, so I see why they dont get it, but who doesn't like little pugs on the battlefield with swell art direction?
Later TV series: what series?
Books by Frank's kids: crap
posted by ovvl at 6:02 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I think I had that Dune game! But I never once succeeded in playing any Avalon Hill game.
posted by thelonius at 2:01 PM on July 12


The Avalon Hill Dune was pretty fun, and also had some absolutely canon-perfect faction powers that could range from useful to totally bastardly. The Guild player had significant bonuses to getting supplies and troops delivered on planet, for example. And the Bene Gesserit player started the game by writing another player's name on a piece of paper and keeping it secret. At the end of the game, if the winner was the person on that piece of paper, the Bene player reveals that they engineered this victory through thousands of years of prophecy, and the Bene steal the win. Totally rude in a low-player-count game, hehe..
posted by FatherDagon at 6:09 PM on July 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


the story wants you to find that society reprehensible

It's not at all clear to me that the story critiques its gender roles - or that because some aspects of the society are shown to be reprehensible that all of them therefore are shown to be reprehensible. Herbert has much mroe critique for some aspects of his society than others. The feudalism in Dune is never really attacked wholeheartedly, for example. Sure, massive numbers of people die, but the main characters are nobles and their who are in a struggle for power against each other instead of against the people who are really suffering. It's not that much different than a hundred other fantasy and sci-fi novels set in a feudal society.

It's really not that different than a hundred other fantasy or sci-fi novels set in feudal societies except that Herbert has a point to make about faith, ecology, and so on. It's a bit smarter.

If anything, Game of Thrones is more explicit that it's making a critique of how women were treated in feudal societies. And yet there are parts of the books that are clearly misogynist - not because they're critiquing misogyny, but because the author didn't really think about the implications of what he was writing.

Herbert would have been a really special kind of man if he was making the deep critique of gender roles that you think is present, at the time he was writing Dune. I think it's far more likely he just didn't think about it, and that this is what he thought the ultimate female power in this society would look like.

But sure, if you want to take that from the text, that's fine. It's a nice reading, and makes the book resonate more strongly.

But for me, I would find it a lot easier to accept that interpretation if there were more major female viewpoint characters in Dune, and if they challenged the society's beliefs about them instead of embodying them. (As do Jessica, Alia, etc...) I've been reading myopic male fantasy and sci-fi authors for too long to think that the most charitable interpretation is the most plausible one, even when it's a story that I really like.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:13 PM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


Don't forget the Spicediver fan edit that runs 30 or 40 minutes longer than the theatrical release. It has additional footage from the extended cut, but it has been edited to make some sense.

Reconstructing Lynch's 'Dune:' A Look at 'Dune Redux'

moviesDune (1984) Alternative Edition Redux [fanedit]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:20 PM on July 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


I feel like I read something once where Dune was supposed to be “okay, what would someone with actual superpowers do,” a literary Authority. In addition to general musings on oil and religion, the whole premise was that humanity would be totally wrecked by Superman, good intentions or no.

I haven’t been able to find that source, and I’m not sure he really stuck with it even if that was the original intent — GEOD is essentially “only Leto II can ensure humanity’s ultimate survival”.
posted by curious nu at 6:27 PM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oh Christ. If the extended cut taught us anything it’s that adding the offcuts is BAD. Does it add in the stupid prologue BEFORE THE PROLOGUE that’s just speaking over paintings?
posted by Artw at 6:27 PM on July 12, 2018


While I didn't like the Lynch film in the 80s, there was a recent fan-edit that went viral a year or so ago that made it into a tighter movie more in line with the book. I was only about 30 minutes into watching it (and loving it) when it got pulled, but damn, I had forgotten (or never noticed) how much about that movie is amazing. The sets and actors and art direction were great.

If anyone knows how to get your hands on a copy of that fan-edit, pass it along, we won't tell :)

On preview... Is that the same one?! Wow, awesome!
posted by anonymisc at 6:27 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


(It does not include the horrible Ken Burns crap, by appearances. Still, I am suspicious)
posted by Artw at 6:36 PM on July 12, 2018


Dune added the word "concubine" to my young vocabulary.
posted by swift at 6:39 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Later TV series: what series?

If you actually haven't seen it, it's worth a look.

It's weird looking. They had a low budget and one way they embraced that low budget was shooting an awful lot of it in an explicitly theatrical or operatic style -- lots of it plays out in front of obvious backdrops, and they do stage-style lighting tricks, and so on.

But it's reasonably faithful as an adaptation, and the acting is *mostly* really solid, and most of the production design and costuming and suchlike are weird enough to be believably a far-future aesthetic.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:40 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


But sure, if you want to take that from the text, that's fine. It's a nice reading, and makes the book resonate more strongly.

I mean that's one of the things that makes the story what it is, and one of the things mentioned in the article - that it's complex enough to allow for many interpretations. But also, I suppose that I don't need a story to perform critique, which seems overly editorial - it's enough that the story portrays pretty much everyone in power as either corrupt or corruptible, religions as corrupt, the society as viscious and oppressive. At the same time, I agree that examining ideas about gender wasn't Herbert's main project (the toxicity of messiahs / the many ways in which human society could advance in ability yet regress in the way it treats individuals seems more like that was his main project) so I'm not going to argue with the idea that the story has a lot of unexamined sexism - I just, again, don't think Herbert wanted us to admire anything about this society, and that included the way women were treated / their lot in life.

It all also seems way more prescient now - Orwell's worry that we'd be controlled by totalitarian governments doesn't seem to be coming to pass, but the world of Dune, which is capitalism by the very rich and fuedalism for everyone else, seems to be taking shape.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:45 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


There was a great post (from JHarris, natch) about the Dune board game several years back (and, how did I miss this, another from Chrysostom in 2017). I've still never played it and I'd really like to sometimes because it sounds like sort of the perfect marriage of Herbert's hard-but-wobbly sci-fi vision and Avalon Hill's pre-computer-strategy-game design tendencies.

(There have also been many many other Dune-related posts over the years, as is only right and should continue (and we also did a FanFare book club for the Herbert novels that appropriately enough I ended up losing steam on by Chapterhouse even though I was the fuckin' organizer) but I am at dinner and shouldn't do an exhaustive roundup right now.)
posted by cortex at 6:54 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


AH Dune may be the best melding of literary theme to a game ever*. It's certainly a product of it's time, requiring 6 players, and the game may last an hour or six hours, but boy did Eberle, Kettridge and Olatka nail it.

*War of the Ring coming in a close second...
posted by Windopaene at 7:00 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Dude was definitely formative to my teenage years and my understanding of religions. There are definitely some problems with it though.

I’ll forgive them all for the fact that the God Emperor meets his doom by falling in the Idaho river. And act orchestrated by Duncan (dunk-in) Idaho

That is some god-tier dad pun skills
posted by das_2099 at 7:04 PM on July 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


Docrailgun: "He wasn't right for the book character, but the Lynch Dune had really very little to do with the book. It's like the movie version of _Starship Troopers_."

Okay, but the movie still has scenes that only really work when Paul is a boy on the verge of manhood. The gom jabbar scene, or especially the "I'm not in the mood" one, where believable teen petulance comes off super off from a mid-20s character.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:08 PM on July 12, 2018


On the other hand, the idea of an incredibly tedious and unreflecting rich 20-something manchild isn't a long reach.
posted by cortex at 7:13 PM on July 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


I went through a Herbert phase as a teen and young(er) adult beyond the Dune novels, including those chapters of Hellstrom's Hive and The White Plague. I'd say that gender essentialism of different degrees was a feature of how he built those worlds. Sure, we can like problematic things, but it's hard to see the Bene Gesserit and the end-game polyandry of The White Plague as entirely separate within a body of work. Hellstrom devoted an entire chapter to a science drone's visceral disgust about both the biological and cultural aspects of women's sexuality. Sure, science fiction is a genre of thought-experiments, but still there are likely patterns when the man is unceremoniously thrown into the midden while the deconstruction of the woman as a disgusting sexual person is an extended internal monologue.

That doesn't mean that one can't bend the narrative into a direction that makes sense for you. But, people who see the Bene Gesserit as an old witch trope leveled up through eugenics are not wrong either.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:15 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


Saw a few scenes of the film when it came out, walked away. 10-15 years ago I sat down and watched the whole thing. What a mess. Honestly, a real editor might have made something of it ... many great shots. No wonder Herbert was pissed.

Maybe you need to read the book first. I hadn't done that, it was the 60s. I WILL read it. Cuz ... Frank sounds like my ideal next door neighbor ... IF I can EVER forget the film experience, I should live so long.

In the meantime, another (probably better) book of that era called 'Canticle for Leibowitz' has no movie. Where's the justice?
posted by Twang at 7:19 PM on July 12, 2018


I didn't like Dune the book, and probably disliked it even more because of all the people who were like, how can you possibly not like it? I found it tedious, and Paul inherently dubious as a central character because of his Mary Sueism, before I'd even heard of Mary Sue. (Someone's already mentioned the gross sexism of concept of the Kwizatz-Haderach, and anyone who complains about the protagonist of Avatar white-man-savioring his way across an alien planet should give the same regard to this dude.) But I sorta liked Lynch's movie because it really is Lynch's version of space opera, plus has a pretty incredible cast (Patrick Stewart; Brad Dourif; Sting, doing probably the most interesting thing that he's ever done in any medium). And Bill Sienkiewicz's comics adaptation of Lynch's movie is also quite striking.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:19 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Dune? You mean Mighty Whitey in Spaaaace? it really isn't as much of a progressive critique as you think it is. "All things to all people", unless you're a woman or non-white.

I just, again, don't think Herbert wanted us to admire anything about this society, and that included the way women were treated / their lot in life.

Yeah, people keep saying that about various creatives, but it still boils down to "This fantasy world I created? The one where I control all the details? It's one where women are treated like property." I mean, if it was just one book, that would be one thing. But Dune, Game of Thrones, Altered Carbon, Gor, Westworld and so on and so on. Time and time again these guys publish their fantasy worlds...where women are property or prizes to the man. At some point you got to stop saying "Well this is satire/commentary/warning/whatever and start asking" What the hell is going on with these people? "
posted by happyroach at 7:28 PM on July 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


In the meantime, another (probably better) book of that era called 'Canticle for Leibowitz' has no movie. Where's the justice?

I think the issues there are a) it's not a novel so much as three novellas, and b) it's a very downbeat ending for a film.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:32 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


It looks like the fan-edit linked above is a different project from the one I was watching but was never able to see the rest of. Ah well, this one is probably good too :)
posted by anonymisc at 8:20 PM on July 12, 2018


I think the issues there are a) it's not a novel so much as three novellas, and b) it's a very downbeat ending for a film.

Also I think you’d need a hell of a script to render it into something cinematic.
posted by Artw at 8:23 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I just, again, don't think Herbert wanted us to admire anything about this society, and that included the way women were treated / their lot in life.

That's a very different statement than "the way that women are portrayed isn't misogynist." For example, authors rarely set out to write a story to make us admire monarchy, but that doesn't keep them from writing story after story where we're supposed to root for the rightful king.

But more importantly, by the story critiquing its misogynist themes, I simply mean that the story calls them into question - you know, like it does with is themes of faith. The misogynist themes are never really called into question; Herbert's portrayal of women is identical to the portrayal of someone who believes that this is what feminine power is like. The characterization and the story work according to those themes, rather than against them.

That doesn't mean I think Herbert wanted us to admire how women are treated in the world of Dune - and this is, again, a different question than how women are characterized in the world of Dune. How the Emperor sees his wife is different than how Herbert sees her. It's how Herbert sees her that is the problem.

(Confusing a critique of how women are characterized with a critique of misogyny existing in the worldbuilding is a really common way to derail criticism of misogynist characterizations. Even then, happyroach makes a good point about what kinds of worlds male authors seem to like building.)
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:29 PM on July 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


For those of you who are fans of Lynch's Dune, here's a YT video of Patrick Stewart telling an amazing, hilarious story about meeting Sting.

(also check out Patrick Stewart's circumcision story... I love that crazy old man.)
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:35 PM on July 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


When you look at Hebert's larger body of work, such as 'White Plague' about an engineered plague killing off almost every woman on Earth, you see more problems.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:43 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Confusing a critique of how women are characterized with a critique of misogyny existing in the worldbuilding is a really common way to derail criticism of misogynist characterizations

Thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind if I ever want to derail somebody's critique of misogyny. Usually I just like to have conversations about stuff and try to learn from other people, but hey, maybe one day I'll need to derail something.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:50 PM on July 12, 2018


I like both film adaptations of Dune. People have been demanding that I shouldn't for as long as I can remember. These people are tiresome and I'm glad I don't have to listen to their gripes over coffee after a night at the movies.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:00 PM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


Despite its over-the-top Lynchian touches, having read the book already, his film pretty much told the story. If you hadn't read the books, I'm guessing it made much less sense. IIRC not everything that happens is really fully explained. You sort of needed to already know everyone's backstory.

But since the game was better than the movie, and no cable, meant never have seen any of the other Dune, nor have much wanted to.

And read the fbook once,when I was young, couldn't make it through much of the sequel...
posted by Windopaene at 9:23 PM on July 12, 2018


Another awesome Dune-related property: the 1992 video game Dune II for Sega Genesis. Really fun RTS game.

On Herbert and gender... even though the book came out in 1965 and features acid trips on hallucinogenic spice excreted by giant sandworms, Herbert was already 45 when it came out, so he was too old to be a hippie and really to be a part of the radical shifts in thinking about identity of the 1960s. Reading his work, it's clear that his influences are primarily late 19th century, and early-mid 20th century: Freud, Jung, imported Zen Buddhism. He was critical of government's oppression of individual freedom, but more like Orwell and Huxley than anyone you could call "anti-establishment" or revolutionary. He was also passionate about ecological issues, and much environmental activism/thought relies on gender essentialism. There continue to be branches of eco-feminism based on gendered concepts of "Mother Earth," Gaia, etc.

From what I know of Herbert as a person, he was generally supportive of women's issues -- perhaps not feminism per se, but at least as an aspect of his humanism. And I don't think that in Dune there's any sort of conscious anti-woman agenda or critique of femininity (I'm saying it's not Bukowski's Women).

But at the same time, as whimsicalnymph points out, the mother/whore dichotomy defines every female character. I think that is probably in spite Herbert's "intentions" (very loosely defined) because of the limits of his conceptual vocabulary. No matter what your goals, you can't be all that progressive if your most advanced vocabulary for talking about gender comes from Freud and Jung.

Now, I think that Freud can be very helpful for talking/thinking about gender, if you understand his limits. (I don't know much of Jung's work, so I can't say anything about it.) I hold with the interpretation that Freud's writings on sexuality are meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and that he could at times be a thorough critic of patriarchy -- but while remaining within the bounds of patriarchal thinking. There were certain assumptions about men and women and sex that Freud couldn't or wouldn't dismantle, and maybe he knew that and maybe he didn't. So while Freud can show you many of the cracks in heterosexual male identity (what he's best at, I think), and the flaws in how heterosexual masculinity conceives of sex and women (which he sometime does unwittingly by embodying those flaws), you can't build a new order of sexual liberation using only, or even mostly, his ideas. It's going to be fundamentally problematic and lead to contradictions and injustices, despite the best, most altruistic, humanistic goals.

That's what happens to Herbert in Dune (and especially the sequels!), I think, and again that's perhaps in spite/regardless of whatever progressive, regressive, or otherwise "intention" may have informed his writing. In a certain sense, he was one of the last great writers of an early wave of sci fi and speculative thinking more generally. The book's trippy aspects attracted many kids of the 60s and 70s, but he was more like their cool, crazy uncle than one of the gang heading out to Woodstock. I think if he were alive today, he might be like an anti-Jordan Peterson.

TBH, I'm sort of surprised that there isn't more toxicity surrounding the fandom -- perhaps that's because there's a pretty high bar to pass just for basic entrance. Many find the first novel impenetrable, and the majority of fandom itself probably doesn't read past that. But, yeah, there's a lot of really problematic stuff. In case it isn't clear, here's commentary on a couple of the excerpts quoted above (first from Herbert himself, second from the wiki):

The Reverend Mother I mean, the name. And the BG's goal? To bring about the birth of the Male Super-Messiah. They are psychic ninja space nuns, Brides of the Kwisatch Haderach must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan so they are also high class space prostitutes with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, *unattainable* high class space prostitutes -- unless you're a Special Chosen Father for their breeding program or, like Duke Leto, just too damn sexy to resist holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, because all women grow ugly and lose all value to men as they age she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness. so those old witches bitches may be the most dangerous of all!

"During their evolution in uncharted space, the Honored Matres again, the name... perfected sexual intercourse aww yeah, my favorite kind of moms: MILFS! into a narcotic process. oh shit! those sluts gave us STDs: sexually transmitted drugs! By using carefully crafted skills, an Honored Matre practitioner learned how to coerce an outsider – typically of the male gender – into total subservience." of course, never trust a woman who just *gives* you sex, like some whore who enjoys it or something -- they are succubi who want to drain your life essence and control your mind!

I'd say it's somewhat problematic.


Oh, and finally: Has no one seen the SciFi mini-series Frank Herbert's Dune (with William Hurt as Duke Leto?!) or its sequel Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (with James McAvoy as Leto II! Alice Krige as Jessica! Susan Sarandon as Princess Wensicia!)? They are not inspired TV, but they enjoyable and fairly faithful adaptations.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:53 PM on July 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


I'm disappointed that the Butlerian Jihad is not actually Judith Butler overthrowing gender norms.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:05 PM on July 12, 2018 [17 favorites]


It's not totally clear from the extremely legit and official video game adaptation that that's not the case, so
posted by cortex at 10:07 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


I found God Emperor a slog

It is spelled S-L-U-G.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:17 PM on July 12, 2018 [13 favorites]


I've long come to the conclusion I probably won't ever get through these books. I watched the movie as a youngin' and thought it was super rad, because it was about the same time as when I saw Tremors for the first time and 4-year-old me fell in love with both films using whatever oddball criteria kids of that age use. Tremors, Dune, Poltergeist -- outside of Disney, that was my big-kid-movie trifecta.

So in late elementary school, precocious me chanced upon it in the library, gave it a go, and managed a few chapters. I forgot what made me stop; I might've just run out of loaning time and decided not to extend it. I passed on the TV series later on. Skip to until around a year ago, when I tried reading it again because it's just so iconic and it was recommended as an answer to one of my earlier Asks... and my god, I couldn't finish the Kindle sample. Paul just hates women.

I find it unfortunate. I want to like it.
posted by lesser weasel at 11:38 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]




Dune? You mean Mighty Whitey in Spaaaace? it really isn't as much of a progressive critique as you think it is.

But it ends with the Great White Savior being a failure. His actions lead to tremendous suffering. A genocide. Worse than Hitler. All because he "went native" and thought he could be a messiah. How much more of a critique could it be? Paul is not a hero; he's not even an antihero. He is a failure. Literally the only thing that he is supposed to do is not cause a Jihad, and the book ends with him causing a Jihad. He's a massive fuck-up. He has the powers of a god and he fucks it up.

I found it tedious, and Paul inherently dubious as a central character because of his Mary Sueism, before I'd even heard of Mary Sue.

This doesn't even parse. How is Paul a Mary Sue? He's the protagonist of his own story.


So I reread the book most recently a few years ago, when I was a relatively new father. And the thing that got me the most was how human Paul is, and how much what happens flows from his instincts as a parent. There's this tremendous tension set up between Paul and his mother, with these huge stakes. "You need to control it; you need to keep it in check". The cost of Paul really becoming the Kwisatz Haderach is made clear: billions will die, terror will reign. And he keeps it in check. He keeps things under control, just under the surface. The Fremen follow him, and everything is cool.

And then the Harkonnens kill his son. And Paul is pretty much like "fuck this pacifist shit, the Harkonnens are going down; the emperor is going down." And that happens, and the Jihad happens, and 60 billon people die.


That's what happens when you kill a god's son, people. Oh. Hold on.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:48 PM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


Yow! There is hamburger all over this highway, fer sure.

I read the book as a teenager, when it first came out in paperback. All I took it for then, all I take it for now, is as an extended parable based upon the fact that Our Oil is under Their Desert. Herbert was a gifted hack with extraordinary prescience. What I really like about his vision in retrospect is my impression that he acknowledges that there aren't any answers, only that things will play out along one paranoiac delusion or another. Not dystopian, but dys-onotologic, if you will.
posted by Chitownfats at 12:08 AM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm disappointed that the Butlerian Jihad is not actually Judith Butler overthrowing gender norms.

It actually seems to be named after Samuel Butler:
Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.

...

War to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 3:11 AM on July 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Another awesome Dune-related property: the 1992 video game Dune II for Sega Genesis. Really fun RTS game.

Basically ripped off wholesale by Blizzard for Warcraft and StarCraft.
posted by octothorpe at 3:17 AM on July 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Both of which also ripped off Warhammer/WH40K, which in turn ripped off Dune. The whole *Craft franchise is like the illegitimate grandchild of Dune along multiple axes.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:35 AM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


Oh, what I meant by "worldbuilding" are two related things. First of all there's Le Guin's critique that science fiction has a mode of force-feeding social trends to a culture until you can conclude that it causes cancer. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic example that says pop-culture aesthetics cause cancer, and leans hard on canonization of male-dominated classic literature. Dune works with the view that if women control reproduction they'll use it to manipulate history. Granted, Dune is one of those franchises that throw a dozen different variables into the experiment, but given how much of the plot depends on eugenics, racial memory, and biological family connections, it's still part of the picture.

The other thing I'm interested in is what kinds of tacit knowledge does the author assume of the reader. I'm watching Star Trek and so many episodes depend on tacit heterosexism where "of course" male characters and female characters are mutually attracted to each other. In Dune, the way in which women are cast as religious leaders and manipulators of biological family relationships builds on tacit understandings of gender roles.

Whether the text endorses the results of the thought experiment or tacit wisdom is another matter altogether. The use of that thought experiment and tacit wisdom reflects a bias where some ways of viewing gender are more true than others.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:55 AM on July 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


Westwood Studios made Dune 2, and Command and Conquer. Dune 2 was developed independently but released after Westwood merged with Virgin Games in '92. (Bought out by EA in '98.) C&C was more complex and in development for a while. Blizzard purportedly made Warcraft to exploit the lack of any other entrants into the RTS genre after Dune 2 was successful.

Wayback has an archived gamespot article that goes into the lineage.

Starcraft started development in '95. I don't know if Chris Metzen (one of the Starcraft leads) was a gamer at the time but he would've been 18 or 19 and studying design when Dune 2 came out, and 22 when he started work on Starcraft. I can't find the age of the other creator/designer (James Phinney).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:23 AM on July 13, 2018


How has this gotten this far without mentioned Comicbookgirl19s Dune Club?
It's an online book club with a big recap discussion on Sunday nights. Currently doing Dune Messiah
posted by Damienmce at 6:48 AM on July 13, 2018


Usually described as a "god game" I wonder if Populous could be described as the first RTS.
posted by Artw at 7:30 AM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I feel like those kinds of “god games” were treated as a hybrid of city-builders and turn based strategy (4x mostly, with some CRPG derived tactical elements). And then later on they got more RTS-ish.

Dune 2’s designer said he had played Herzog Zwei but was mostly working with ideas he had while making Eye of the Beholder.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:01 AM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Right but Populous had real-time movement of units, base building etc... the main two differences are the terrain building and that the units are largely self directed, which you could argue is an advanced RTS feature.

If it were released now it would probably be seen as some kind of RTS/voxel building game hybrid.
posted by Artw at 8:30 AM on July 13, 2018


That's right. and it had a day/night cycle too, I think?

0 A.D. is an impressive open source "historical RTS" that reminded me of Populus when I first found it. I don't know why it isn't more popular.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:37 AM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


But it ends with the Great White Savior being a failure. His actions lead to tremendous suffering. A genocide. Worse than Hitler. All because he "went native" and thought he could be a messiah.

You realize that nothing you said here voids the "Mighty Whitey in Spaaaace" trope? Sure he did terrible things. But they happened because the white guy was in charge of the brown people.

In the story the brown people are nothing until the super-special white guy leads them. That's the trope. It didn't have to be portrayed as a good or bad thing, just that it exists.
posted by happyroach at 9:06 AM on July 13, 2018


Also, the Fremen are really going nowhere until a white guy (Pardot Kynes) gave them a plan for greening Arrakis. So, even pre-Paul, you have a white savior trope.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:13 AM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


which, as noted above, is the experience of Herbert working as an ecologist in Vietnam. So it reflects real world material relations and lived experience of the author
posted by eustatic at 9:28 AM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


minus the scientist being assassinated, i suppose
posted by eustatic at 9:28 AM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


This post and the resulting discussion made me think “maybe I should try to read Dune again”. The first time was when I was a kid in the seventies reading my parents’ copies, and while my eyes passed over every page of the first couple of books I can’t really say that I read them in any meaningful fashion; the second time was a few years ago and I gave up about a third of the way through the first one. And then the discussion kept going, and I started thinking, no, I really do not need to read this story about a White Messiah after all.

Thanks, MeFi. ❤️👌🏾
posted by egypturnash at 10:19 AM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Since Paul is basically space TE Lawrence dies that mean we can call Prometheus a Dune derived product* too? :-)

* other than the four or five ways it is already. There’s shots in there that I am pretty sure are based on Jodor Dune concept art from BEFORE the team on that going over to Alien.
posted by Artw at 10:31 AM on July 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Since Paul is basically space TE Lawrence dies

Holy shit dude. There is a strange thesis that enters my mind some nights, as I wash the dinner dishes. It has to do with the fact that John Williams's main theme for Star Wars is so transparently a transposition of Jarre's for Lawrence of Arabia.

A series of images floods my mind at this point. Consider the never-explained skeletal remains C3PO trudges past in the course of his slog through the desert wastes of Tattooine — for verily, we then enjoyed an era in which George Lucas wasn't able to dump exposition on every damn image on screen — which I even at the age of nine associated with sandworms. And then it occurs to me: Star Wars ain't nothing but a melange of Dune and Lawrence of Arabia.

Tusken Raiders? Clearly Fremen in stillsuits. The Jedi are a gender-flipped Bene Gesserit. The outgunned desert rebellion is Lawrence's own — for godsake, Alec Guinness is right there. There's more, if you unpick the weave.
posted by adamgreenfield at 12:38 PM on July 13, 2018 [11 favorites]


You could tell that Lucas had read through a stack of old sci-fi paperbacks, Dune included, before he wrote Star Wars.
posted by octothorpe at 1:27 PM on July 13, 2018


Lucas has been pretty explicit about the Dune and David Lean references in his movies, along with Kurosawa and Joseph Campbell. One of the charming things about Lucas is that he's absolutely incapable of being subtle when it comes to nerdy shit he really loves.
posted by Think_Long at 1:37 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


This saddens me as the friend I shared Dune with in Junior High school recently forced me to block him on Facebook by spouting nonsense about Haitian orphans and Pizza restaurants. Yes recently! like this June.
posted by Megafly at 2:10 PM on July 13, 2018


June MAGA-Liar.
posted by Artw at 2:21 PM on July 13, 2018


Also, the Fremen are really going nowhere until a white guy (Pardot Kynes) gave them a plan for greening Arrakis. So, even pre-Paul, you have a white savior trope.

It's hard for me to separate out a close reading of Dune-and-only-Dune from the more collected context of the later books and in particular the Dune Encyclopedia, but, acknowledging that I don't remember how much of this is there in the actual text of the first novel (and I think much of it is elsewhere):

The Fremen aren't going nowhere; they have a tens-of-thousands-of-years-long history of stubborn survival as a people across planet-hopping dispossessions, forced migrations, hard-fought liberations, separations and reunions; they are surviving and owning their place on Arrakis despite literally the harshest conditions imaginable and a hostile Imperial presence. They're not realizing their ecological prophecy, but then again most human populations don't get around to materializing the prophetic visions of their religious myths. In the mean time they were also psychonautic pioneers and anthropologists, figuring out how to use the spice to restore (Herbert's goofy notion of) genetic racial memories to revive the details of their own long-lost Earth/Arabian language and culture over the interim of literal eons.

Kynes comes along and kickstarts some greening, and that's helpful and gives the Fremen a different focus for a while, but Kynes is a blip in that long long history. Then Paul comes along and sets them all on the path to destruction; a major theme of the books from God Emperor on is how the Fremen's reward for following the Atreides as a messianic cult was their total destruction as a people.

The white guys aren't saviors, they're colonizers and destroyers. The Fremen were, in the text of the novels, very much doing better without them.
posted by cortex at 5:45 PM on July 13, 2018 [9 favorites]


Is it clear that Paul is supposed to be "white"? The book mostly avoids clarifying how its characters fall into 20th-century ethnic categories, but I thought the point was kind of that Paul was a mixture of European on his mother's side and Middle Eastern on his father's. That might have its own problems, but they're different problems (let's just pretend the "space jews" bit from one of the later books never happened and everyone will be happier).

The Jedi are a gender-flipped Bene Gesserit.

Yep! Kenobi totally used Voice on that stormtrooper, and he became part of Luke's Other Memory when he died - that's why he makes sure Luke is nearby before he lets Vader kill him. Yoda and Anakin do the same thing.

The scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke confronts Jabba and tries to use Voice on him is straight out of God Emperor, too.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 8:04 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


In the story the brown people are nothing until the super-special white guy leads them. That's the trope. It didn't have to be portrayed as a good or bad thing, just that it exists.

But they've built all of this massive infrastructure and are ready to change the world until this outsider comes and fucks it all up. I dunno. It reads like an inversion of the colonial narrative to me.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:26 PM on July 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm disappointed that the Butlerian Jihad is not actually Judith Butler overthrowing gender norms.

It actually seems to be named after Samuel Butler


Yeah but really it was his buddy Frank Butler. Too many butlers.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:36 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I always assumed that the butler did it. Never meet your heroes.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:31 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


They're not realizing their ecological prophecy, but then again most human populations don't get around to materializing the prophetic visions of their religious myths. In the mean time they were also psychonautic pioneers and anthropologists

...clearly inspiring this, which constitutes its own massively sufficient justification AFAIC. Seriously, if you're a Dune fan of any generation, you'll most likely get a kick out of the lyrics to "Giza Butler" (heh and double heh).
posted by adamgreenfield at 4:01 AM on July 14, 2018


During the last year I spent any time in Second Life there was some interesting Dune fandom. People built up some sites, including desert and sandworm. You could put on a stilsuit.
posted by doctornemo at 11:58 AM on July 14, 2018


Coincidentally, I'm reading Santaroga Barrier now. What a strange book.
posted by doctornemo at 11:59 AM on July 14, 2018


Glad to see hear everyone here is refusing to acknowledge the existence of those terrible SyFy channel mini-series'.
posted by PenDevil at 12:17 PM on July 14, 2018


PenDevil: I mentioned them!


On the subject of Jodorowsky's Dune: after seeing the documentary on the failed production of the film, I decided that if time travel is ever invented, I'm going to steal a billion dollars, take it back to Paris 1975, and make sure that goddamn film gets made.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:53 PM on July 14, 2018


One thing that should not go unmentioned is the connection to MeFi's edit window.
posted by radwolf76 at 6:20 PM on July 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


FYI BBC America is playing Dune right now, with a second showing in 3 hours.
posted by homunculus at 5:34 AM on July 15, 2018


I wonder how the use of Islamic and Middle Eastern terms plays out now, nearly 20 years into the war on terror.
posted by doctornemo at 8:07 AM on July 15, 2018


"Still ticked off that my Dune (1984) is Actually Good panel was not accepted for ECCC."

Why would such a panel need to exist? Is there another Dune movie, is that one somehow better? Without knowing or seeing it, I have to say obviously not. The only problem I remember having with the movie was white Fremen, but it was 1984 so go figure. I've never heard anyone shit on the Dune movie. Honestly, if my perceptions of things are just totally off here, I think I am better living in ignorance, if for no other reason than I'd have nothing nice or productive to say to someone who would shit on it.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:58 PM on July 16, 2018


It's the only place i am remotely going to be able to share this-

There is a meme now polling people. Pick a movie where everyone in the cast is to be replaced with Muppets, except for one human actor. What is the movie, who is the actor?

It was no contest for me. DUNE, and keep Sting.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:40 PM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've never heard anyone shit on the Dune movie.

???!!!!!?!??!???!??!?!?!!?!????

Ebert; Maslin.

"The music, by Toto and Brian Eno, is intermittently effective."
posted by mr_roboto at 3:12 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


It’s not “shitting on” an abomination to call it out as such, my friend. And I do mean “abomination,” as in a Thing That Should Not Exist.

But then I’ve never once cared for Lynch, or Sting, and AFAIC the highlight of Kyle MacLachlan’s career was wrapping his pipes around the Portland Anthem.
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:35 AM on July 17, 2018


It was no contest for me. DUNE, and keep Sting

Dune, but keep the pug.
posted by dng at 2:59 AM on July 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


PenDevil: "Glad to see hear everyone here is refusing to acknowledge the existence of those terrible SyFy channel mini-series'."

They were almost instantly forgettable. The blue eye effect worked better than in Lynch's film and the ornithopters were kind of cool but other than that, there's not much to talk about.
posted by octothorpe at 5:12 AM on July 17, 2018


The pug would have to be a human to match the rules, though. So replace the pug with a bewildered man in a t-shirt with a pug on it. He still just sits quietly on the floor of the Atreides manor, or cradled in Leto's or Gurney's arms.
posted by cortex at 7:47 AM on July 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


The pug thinks he's people, so it's okay.
posted by dng at 7:58 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


the battlepug transcends puny human rules
posted by poffin boffin at 8:56 AM on July 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


That would be the bewildered man in the pug t-shirt's sole line in the film, yes.
posted by cortex at 10:44 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


The Dune movie is a movie I can watch just about any time

It's like a fully realized cinematic place, even if the movie isn't particularly "good"
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:31 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Also if you have one of those fancy talking remotes, it is impossible to get it to understand Dune

When it started thinking I was saying the word junior I gave up
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:34 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


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