Dune

I went to see it last weekend with my nieces (17 and 14). Wasn't our original plan but I was off a week with the release of Ghostbusters and the rest of the film choices sucked. It was okay. I didn't hate it, but I didn't go all gaga. My nieces' verdict was "I feel like I need to watch it again to understand it." Like others have said, between all the whispering and made-up words, I couldn't keep some stuff straight. I will say, it had some pretty cool VFX in that they weren't anything crazy but were well done enough to not appear as though they were VFX (that scene with the three or four ornithopters flying in formation, which I had to remind myself that that was all CGI). My niece also laughed and said that that film must have been the easiest paycheck Zendaya ever collected. About 30 seconds of footage with her all backlit and a ton of lens flare that they replayed 15 different times throughout the movie, and then two or three lines at the very end.

NickD said:

 My niece also laughed and said that that film must have been the easiest paycheck Zendaya ever collected. About 30 seconds of footage with her all backlit and a ton of lens flare that they replayed 15 different times throughout the movie, and then two or three lines at the very end.

"She allegedly received a $300,000 payday for 4 days worth of shooting, according to unverified online reports."

I don't understand why so many science fiction stories fall back on ancient feudal systems of government. You would think that in the future something else would have evolved. Even Asimov's foundation starts out with cloned feudalism. The whole point of the genre is to predict what might actually happen in the future. A democracy where every citizen can use technology to vote on every issue they are interested in, or assign their vote to a proxy representative who thinks like they do. A dictatorship using the control of space travel and resources to enslave worlds. The use of eugenics to create a leadership class? What they have going on in The Expanse seems to be a better take on how governments may evolve in the future. The Atreides are just the Starks with spaceships instead of direwolfs. The Harkonnens, like the Lannisters are not only evil, but have their kinky perversions.  

Swordfighting and knife fighting in the far future? Do you even need an infantry consisting of Sardauker when the technology exists to destroy entire cities from orbit with a push of a button? Why bother training an army or cloning an army? Why would anything like a lightsaber exist in a world like that, unless it was some kind of futuristic sport. Why not just send some heavily armed space drones like Fred Saberhagan's berserkers out to kill your enemies. Let the machines fight.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

...Let the machines fight.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Do you want the literary answer or the world-logic answer?

The literary answer is that Dune isn't really Science Fiction. It's Science Fantasy, like Star Wars. It's hearkening back to fantasy and mythology to deal in archetypes that people react to on an emotional level. Except it's subverting those ideas and to show the dangers of mythologizing charismatic leaders. But setting it in the future instead of the past also matters from a literary perspective, because you're also edging on the genre of Dystopian Fiction.

The in-world logic: they don't use computers. At some point AI came up and tried to kill people. So no combat robots or targeting computers. They navigate through space using psychic powers to sort of fold space around motherships. The Spacers Guild controls those, and was in on the conspiracy to wipe out the Atreides. Shields make kinetic firearms ineffective in most circumstances, and have a feedback reaction with laser guns causing both the shield generator and laser to explode violently.

In reply to Beer Baron :

This is what I meant when I said the movie makes weird decisions about what to explain (Duncan locked the door) and what not to (a space-faring civilization doesn't use even firearms). 

I think is a little closer to the "hard" end of the sci-fi - sci-fantasy spectrum than Star Wars. They do talk about technology affecting people's lives in a somewhat more sophisticated and realistic way than Star Wars, which never really does it at all. 

Beer Baron said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Do you want the literary answer or the world-logic answer?

The literary answer is that Dune isn't really Science Fiction. It's Science Fantasy, like Star Wars. It's hearkening back to fantasy and mythology to deal in archetypes that people react to on an emotional level. Except it's subverting those ideas and to show the dangers of mythologizing charismatic leaders. But setting it in the future instead of the past also matters from a literary perspective, because you're also edging on the genre of Dystopian Fiction.

The in-world logic: they don't use computers. At some point AI came up and tried to kill people. So no combat robots or targeting computers. They navigate through space using psychic powers to sort of fold space around motherships. The Spacers Guild controls those, and was in on the conspiracy to wipe out the Atreides. Shields make kinetic firearms ineffective in most circumstances, and have a feedback reaction with laser guns causing both the shield generator and laser to explode violently.

I get the part about the Dune Universe banning computers. But they use Mentats as human computers and Guild Navigators to fold space and both of those activities are based on changing human biology using the spice. It is chemical technology of a sort. They also have the Ixians still being allowed to build machines on thier planet. And the Tlelaxu have a technology that mixes human biology with machinery in a way that their culture could be a horror movie on it's own.

Then there are the 'House Atomics'. Each feudal house has their own private stash of nuclear weapons. Instead of taking out the shield wall, why not just drop a nuke on the Emperor. He was stupid enough to move his entire court to Arrakis and make himself a target. Come to think of it, Why would the All Powerful Emperor of the Known Universe allow his enemies to stash nukes at all?

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Wait, computers banned???  Never saw that, and it makes no sense at all.  Especially with that electronic device that acts like a shield.

How in the universe do you have technology to travel through the galaxy (I'm assuming that it's located in just that) and the technology of computers don't exist?  Even mechanical computers pre-dates rockets.  They design those ships based on feelings?  

The random limit and application of tech makes no sense at all.  You can have an electronic device to save your life in an accident, but you can't have a machine that can do math?

Specific technology does not live in a vacuum, they pretty much all build on each other.

alfadriver said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Wait, computers banned???  Never saw that, and it makes no sense at all.  Especially with that electronic device that acts like a shield.

How in the universe do you have technology to travel through the galaxy (I'm assuming that it's located in just that) and the technology of computers don't exist?  Even mechanical computers pre-dates rockets.  They design those ships based on feelings?  

The random limit and application of tech makes no sense at all.  You can have an electronic device to save your life in an accident, but you can't have a machine that can do math?

Specific technology does not live in a vacuum, they pretty much all build on each other.

They trashed all artificial intelligence after the machines took over and then the humans had to rebel. It's all there in the intro to the David Lynch movie and in the books. Not the 2021 version. The Guild Navigators are human computers that run the starships. The Mentats are human computers that do everything else a computer is supposed to do. They both run on spice, as does the Bene Gesserit, a sort of a womens group that dabbles in eugenics. The spice only exists on Arrakis, a planet that is also inhabited by giant sandworms and a hostile native population. Keeping the spice production going requires all kinds of battles and political maneuvers, leading to the plots of a whole series of books, two movies and a TV series. Kind of like oil and the Middle East, only on a much larger scale.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

So it's a different take on the Matrix.  And Terminator.  

(although assuming that AI can't be taken out of computations is odd....)

alfadriver said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

So it's a different take on the Matrix.  And Terminator.  

(although assuming that AI can't be taken out of computations is odd....)

Dune was written in 1965. If anything, the Matrix and the Terminator borrowed from Dune, as did Star Wars and a lot of other science fiction stories and movies.