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Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

EL BROMANCE posted:

Ah see the problem is, scripts have dialogue in them.

Truly an unforced error.

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phasmid
Jan 16, 2015

Booty Shaker
SILENT MAJORITY
Thing is, I wouldn't want to include Prometheus at all. It's so far removed from the original movies I don't see why they didn't make it it's own thing (I know, yeah, brand recognition). But despite them using some of Giger's stuff - and a bit of Beksinski's imo - it still doesn't feel much like the other stories even though they put Weyland in as an anchor point.
Honestly, doing that whole "ancient aliens" thing is so schlocky to me. What's the point of all the cosmic dread, not knowing what's out in space when the movie goes "oh, look, they've been with us the whole time!" That makes the movie smaller and it gets close to being Star Wars where the galaxy is just a field of muppets to provide backdrop to the same twelve characters.

Basically the movie went from "what is out there?" to "why are we here?" which seems like a dumb pivot. Leave the existential stuff to von Trier, please.



e. Going to add that I didn't see anything after Prometheus so if the story somehow improved and did something surprising, well. I'd be surprised lol

phasmid fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Nov 10, 2020

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

phasmid posted:

Thing is, I wouldn't want to include Prometheus at all. It's so far removed from the original movies I don't see why they didn't make it it's own thing (I know, yeah, brand recognition).

It's effectively the third in a trilogy with Alien and Blade Runner.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Schwarzwald posted:

It's effectively the third in a trilogy with Alien and Blade Runner.

Right. Ridley Scott's aesthetic as a director is infinitely more interesting, and more cohesive, than any amount of shared universe nonsense.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Prometheus re-used the old concept art for the Harkonnen's planet from Jodorowsky's Dune.

Hashtag Banterzone
Dec 8, 2005


Lifetime Winner of the willkill4food Honorary Bad Posting Award in PWM
Since we are discussing other sci-fi movies, I was thinking the other day about the Matrix and trying to come up with a better reason for why the machines would need to keep humans around.

I know the original script had the machines using humans as processors in a type of beowulf cluster, but that seems a bit unrealistic for some reason.

I came up with the machines needing humans to fold space, which made me wish for an alternative timeline where the machines crushed the Butlerian Jihad

steinrokkan
Apr 2, 2011



Soiled Meat
Humans are the video games of the Matrix machine society.

phasmid
Jan 16, 2015

Booty Shaker
SILENT MAJORITY

Hashtag Banterzone posted:

I came up with the machines needing humans to fold space, which made me wish for an alternative timeline where the machines crushed the Butlerian Jihad

The Jihad was against "machine thinking", not robot armies.


e. vvv Yeah, the Animatrix is better than the Matrix, I agree.

phasmid fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Nov 11, 2020

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

The machines in The Matrix are three laws compliant and the system is the result of an extremely convoluted chain of logical leaps to punish humanity for attempting to genocide robots without actually breaking them.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

phasmid posted:

The Jihad was against "machine thinking", not robot armies.

One of the more interesting ideas in the Dune Encyclopedia was that the big failing of pre-Butlerian society was over-centralization. Human's had occupied an incredibly vast array of space, but were dependent on individual super computers (and communication with those super computers) to handle space travel. When the Jihad took them out, extraplanetary civilization collapsed.

It suggests a different interpretation of "machine thinking" and Leto's motives: concern of an over reliance on singular technologies and institutions which must eventually fail.

As for the Matrix, I think at some point you just have to accept that you're dealing with a metaphor for Gnosticism and that whatever good reason it would exist are secondary to that.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Nov 11, 2020

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

phasmid posted:

The Jihad was against "machine thinking", not robot armies.

In effect, technocrats.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:

The machines in The Matrix are three laws compliant and the system is the result of an extremely convoluted chain of logical leaps to punish humanity for attempting to genocide robots without actually breaking them.

This is what I think too. They even said in the first movie, the 1.0 version of the Matrix was an idyllic paradise but it ended up not working due to the lack of conflict and stimulus making brain activity too inactive to power stuff with.

phasmid
Jan 16, 2015

Booty Shaker
SILENT MAJORITY

Schwarzwald posted:

One of the more interesting ideas in the Dune Encyclopedia was that the big failing of pre-Butlerian society was over-centralization. Human's had occupied an incredibly vast array of space, but were dependent on individual super computers (and communication with those super computers) to handle space travel. When the Jihad took them out, extraplanetary civilization collapsed.

It suggests a different interpretation of "machine thinking" and Leto's motives: concern of an over reliance on singular technologies and institutions which must eventually fail.

Absolutely. I'm sure a lot of people would mistake it for primitivism, but he's just saying that eventually you'll have people who can't do anything without an app to help them. Kinda like that Asimov short story where everyone forgets how to do simple math.

A short while ago we were talking in the GBS Dune thread about Leto's rationale and aside from him wanting to keep people from backsliding into machine thinking there was also a danger over over-orderding society to the point where humans' ambitions would be eclipsed by the new machines they were building, the "trap of prescience".

david_a
Apr 24, 2010




Megamarm

phasmid posted:

A short while ago we were talking in the GBS Dune thread about Leto's rationale and aside from him wanting to keep people from backsliding into machine thinking there was also a danger over over-orderding society to the point where humans' ambitions would be eclipsed by the new machines they were building, the "trap of prescience".

It’s been a while since I read Foundation but I wonder if there are any parallels. The trilogy does predate Dune, so I wonder if it was a reaction to it at all.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
Yeah I always interpreted the machines taking over as less a Terminator thing and more what I guess today would be a "Your entire life is managed by Amazon" sort of a thing.

Kassad
Nov 12, 2005

It's about time.

david_a posted:

It’s been a while since I read Foundation but I wonder if there are any parallels. The trilogy does predate Dune, so I wonder if it was a reaction to it at all.

Not really in the Foundation trilogy (it's also been a while since I've read them but they don't feature robots or computers IIRC?), but there is something similar in novels like The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The space colonies are technologically advanced but it's implied that this results in being overly reliant on their robots and becoming stagnant as a result.

david_a
Apr 24, 2010




Megamarm

Kassad posted:

Not really in the Foundation trilogy (it's also been a while since I've read them but they don't feature robots or computers IIRC?), but there is something similar in novels like The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The space colonies are technologically advanced but it's implied that this results in being overly reliant on their robots and becoming stagnant as a result.

Foundation has “psychohistory” which is essentially a form of society-level prescience as a science. The later books seemed to imply that knowing the future was the same as shaping it if I remember right; the last couple were basically “everything that’s happened was actually this other, even more powerful being’s grand design.”

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
The Mule and the Foundation also have a somewhat similar dynamic to Paul and the Bene Gesserit, although the Mule is sterile, so he doesn't derail their plans quite as hard as Paul fathering Leto II did.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


This was brought up in the GBS Dune thread but it's incredibly funny that the top two Dune podcasts "accept" the loving dreadful son books including the stupid Terminator war prequels.

OctoberCountry
Oct 9, 2012
The what now?

Hashtag Banterzone
Dec 8, 2005


Lifetime Winner of the willkill4food Honorary Bad Posting Award in PWM

phasmid posted:

The Jihad was against "machine thinking", not robot armies.

I always imagined that as meaning humans fighting robots, even if those robots were controlled by other humans. I don't think Frank Herbert ever really said did he?

mennoknight
Nov 24, 2003

I WILL JUST EAT ONE MORE SANDWICH
OH MY HEAD EXPLORDED I'M JAY FATSTER
the last thing the world needs are dune podcasts imo

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


mennoknight posted:

the last thing the world needs are dune podcasts imo

I mean every subject is going to get one so it was hilarious finding out in the thread that the two biggest were run by poo poo fans.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

I will let the podcast flow over me and through me, and when the podcast is gone only I will remain.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

Hashtag Banterzone posted:

I always imagined that as meaning humans fighting robots, even if those robots were controlled by other humans. I don't think Frank Herbert ever really said did he?

The quote in the book is:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

I don't think the original books say anything about what happens between that moment and the rule 'don't make machines that can think like people you idiots' coming into force, but it fits the themes of the series more closely if the Jihad is about people who tried to stifle humanity's freedom in aid of some grand design rather than it being the Terminator Wars.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


It's obviously about how humanity became lazy and stagnant due to machines doing everything for us and it's wild the son and Kevin J. Anderson didn't get that. It's supposed to be a neo-luddite revolt.

Hashtag Banterzone
Dec 8, 2005


Lifetime Winner of the willkill4food Honorary Bad Posting Award in PWM

Alchenar posted:

The quote in the book is:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

I don't think the original books say anything about what happens between that moment and the rule 'don't make machines that can think like people you idiots' coming into force, but it fits the themes of the series more closely if the Jihad is about people who tried to stifle humanity's freedom in aid of some grand design rather than it being the Terminator Wars.

Yeah that quote always made me picture a Fremen-like insurrection against a ruling class that used machines to violently oppress the populace.

Groovelord Neato posted:

It's obviously about how humanity became lazy and stagnant due to machines doing everything for us and it's wild the son and Kevin J. Anderson didn't get that. It's supposed to be a neo-luddite revolt.


I don't think I like that interpretation, makes it sound like the Jihad was some sort of woke/free your mind/redpill movement.

Jewmanji
Dec 28, 2003

Hashtag Banterzone posted:

Yeah that quote always made me picture a Fremen-like insurrection against a ruling class that used machines to violently oppress the populace.



I don't think I like that interpretation, makes it sound like the Jihad was some sort of woke/free your mind/redpill movement.

That’s the whole point. The book came out in the 60s- it’s all about mind expansion. The mentats and Bene Gesserit and guild navigators arose due to the abandonment of AI, necessitating human computers.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

I don't think 'men tried to use machines to dominate others, it all got out of hand and the machines tried to take over' is inconsistent with the vision (really the main thing is that Herbert just wants to clear advanced computers and the implications out of his setting), but not having the Jihad be a struggle against stagnation and 'programming' of people really missed the point of what this story is about.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Alchenar posted:

The quote in the book is:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

I don't think the original books say anything about what happens between that moment and the rule 'don't make machines that can think like people you idiots' coming into force, but it fits the themes of the series more closely if the Jihad is about people who tried to stifle humanity's freedom in aid of some grand design rather than it being the Terminator Wars.

It's also important to note that a wide scale abandonment of thinking machines did not lead to freedom, but only to enslavement by men who had the infrastructure (ie: spice) to maintain interplanetary control in the absence of thinking machines. Likewise, the Jihad did nothing to end stagnation or human programming, with the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax both practice forms of human programming, and the Mentat effectively being purposely programmed humans produced to be bought by the aristocracy.

This ties into Leto covertly promoting the redevelopment of thinking machines. They were never the real problem.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 12, 2020

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

phasmid posted:

The Jihad was against "machine thinking", not robot armies.

it was literally a war against robots. As the appendix to Dune states, it was "the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots"(549). That's not to say it wasn't also a war to free humanity from stagnation and infantilization, but those happened because humanity had allowed itself to be enslaved by machines.

Siona's vision of Arafel is "the seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape ... while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer ... louder ... louder!" (God Emperor 348). She sees humanity's extinction at the hands of robots. The (well, really a) problem with Sandworms and Hunters isn't that KJA and Brian made the ultimate antagonists robots; it's that they personified those robots as hokey Saturday morning cartoon villains with recognizably human motives. They also wildly missed the point of the Honored Matres and Futars, that humanity had spread and changed in wild ways during the Scattering and had moved beyond the conflicts that defined the imperial core.

Schwarzwald posted:

It's also important to note that a wide scale abandonment of thinking machines did not lead to freedom, but only to enslavement by men who had the infrastructure (ie: spice) to maintain interplanetary control in the absence of thinking machines. Likewise, the Jihad did nothing to end stagnation or human programming, with the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax both practice forms of human programming, and the Mentat effectively being purposely programmed humans.

This is true. But it's also important to note that the powers that come to enslave humanity again are human powers derived from previously untapped human potentials, which is in keeping with both Herbert's interest in General Semantics and his belief that "superheroes are disastrous for mankind."

The Jihad leads to even more stagnation, which is one of the reasons why Paul steps off the Golden Path. He doesn't want to become the inhuman tyrant that the Golden Path needs to sustain it. Leto II, being already an inhuman abomination at least partially possessed by a pharaonic despot out of the mists of history, has not such qualms.

quote:

This is why Leto would covertly promote the redevelopment of thinking machines. They were never the real problem.

Leto covertly promotes the redevelopment of thinking machines for a few reasons. One, they'll never be a problem again after the evolution of Siona's gene. Two, their development coincides with the development of technologies he wants like the No Sphere and the device he uses to record his journals. Three, allowing Ix to develop them keeps the Ixians complacent. And four, he wants every option available to humans in the Scattering--he'll allow Ix to develop navigation computers so the Guild can't know or control all space travel, for example.

PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Nov 12, 2020

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

PeterWeller posted:

This is true. But it's also important to note that the powers that come to enslave humanity again are human powers derived from previously untapped human potentials,

That's a difference without a distinction. A nation ruling through its programmed robot armies and computer advisors and a great house ruling through its patriotic (or religiously indoctrinated!) armies and Mentat/Bene Gesserit/psychic advisors are the same. Likewise, compare Siona's vision with the descriptions of the Fremen in Paul's Jihad.

The point of the Butlerian Jihad as a device is to highlight how robotic the humans are.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Nov 12, 2020

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Schwarzwald posted:

That's a difference without a distinction. A nation ruling through its programmed robot armies and computer advisors and a great house ruling through its patriotic (or religiously indoctrinated!) armies and Mentat/Bene Gesserit/psychic advisors are the same. Likewise, compare Siona's vision with the descriptions of the Fremen in Paul's Jihad.

The whole point of the Butlerian Jihad as a device is to highlight how robotic the humans are.

To the people enslaved, sure. But in thematic terms, it's a huge distinction. In the former case, the ruling humans have surrendered their power to their machines. In the latter case, they have expanded their own powers. In the former case, the ruling humans are just humans with things. In the latter case, they are superhumans.

The descriptions of Siona's vision and the Jihad may be superficially similar, but that's the nature of all the large-scale "off-screen" violence in the series. It's clipped, gruesome, and terrifying. There is a very important distinction in how these two scenes are framed, though. Siona's vision is a vision of the extinction of humanity. The Jihad is a terrible and tragic reinvigoration of humanity. It's the beginning of a new chapter in human history, one that will ultimately be even more brutal and stagnant than any before, but also one that is deliberately so to ultimately free humanity from further species-wide stagnation and repression. The latter is just the end of human history.

The point of the Jihad along with all the other technological foibles of the setting, like the Holtzman effect, is to foreground that it is a science fiction series about human powers and possibilities (and more importantly, how they are abused). This is why it's all dialog, visions, and sword fights with just a scattering of big battles and crazy technology. Alcenar is essentially right when they say that the Jihad exists to wipe machines and computers out of the setting to make room for human computers and fishperson navigators.

You could certainly make a point that Dune shows humanity as robotic in the sense that humans can be "programmed." But taking that as the whole point of the Jihad or even a major point of the series misses the forest for the trees. Consider how that "programming" occurs: through demagoguery, propaganda, myths, and legends. All are distinctly human powers, and all are major anxieties in the series. And it's important to consider that Dune is very much a critique of and warning against these powers. Humans can be "programmed" in Dune, but they can also resist it. The series is telling you to be suspicious of these attempts to "program" you.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

PeterWeller posted:

To the people enslaved, sure. But in thematic terms, it's a huge distinction. In the former case, the ruling humans have surrendered their power to their machines. In the latter case, they have expanded their own powers. In the former case, the ruling humans are just humans with things. In the latter case, they are superhumans.

[...]

You could certainly make a point that Dune shows humanity as robotic in the sense that humans can be "programmed." But taking that as the whole point of the Jihad or even a major point of the series misses the forest for the trees. Consider how that "programming" occurs: through demagoguery, propaganda, myths, and legends. All are distinctly human powers, and all are major anxieties in the series. And it's important to consider that Dune is very much a critique of and warning against these powers. Humans can be "programmed" in Dune, but they can also resist it. The series is telling you to be suspicious of these attempts to "program" you.

Well, wait a minute. Is the difference between ruling through machines or ruling though superpowers a huge thematic distinction or is the similarity between the two a major point of the series?

I don't feel like it can be both.

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Schwarzwald posted:

Well, wait a minute. Is the difference between ruling through machines or ruling though superpowers a huge thematic distinction or is the similarity between the two a major point of the series?

I don't feel like it can be both.

I specifically said that the comparison between humans and machines in the sense that humans can be "programmed" is not a major point of the series. Hence the scare quotes. I was saying, sure you could read it that way, but I don't think that's the way you should read it. I then ran with the metaphor to point to how I think you should read it, that one needs to be skeptical of heroes, demagogues, propaganda and legends. That's not "programming"; that's persuasion. And even if you want to think of it in terms of "programming", the point would that humans aren't like computers because they have agency and can choose whether or not to follow it. Jessica has a son. Yueh's conditioning is broken. The Fremen are skeptical of Paul. Hayt doesn't kill Paul. Hwi doesn't betray Leto. Etc.

And humans having agency and choice is definitely an important point in Dune, but the novel doesn't use a comparison with machines to make that point. The Mother Superior asks Paul if he's a human or an animal, not if he's a human or a computer.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

For what it's worth, I think the primary thematic point of the Butlerian Jihad is that humanity rejects thinking machines because they make people unnecessary, not because humans were enslaved or they were trying to exterminate humanity. I think both are perfectly reasonable 'fictional histories' of events in the Universe, with 'machines decided we were unnecessary, tried to kill everyone' being my personal take.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


That's so lame though.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
The actual Luddites were, it's important to remember, more concerned with the rights of workers than with the evils of machinery- the machinery was being used to exploit them, was the problem. I can't imagine a revolt and crusade actually getting underway just because people get lazier, there has to be some kind of catalyst.

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Alchenar posted:

For what it's worth, I think the primary thematic point of the Butlerian Jihad is that humanity rejects thinking machines because they make people unnecessary, not because humans were enslaved or they were trying to exterminate humanity. I think both are perfectly reasonable 'fictional histories' of events in the Universe, with 'machines decided we were unnecessary, tried to kill everyone' being my personal take.

I think it's more the opposite, that, in keeping with Herbert's affinity for New Age mysticism in general and General Semantics in particular, humans can and should make machines unnecessary. It's open your third eye, tap into your untapped potentials, and all that jazz.

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Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

PeterWeller posted:

I specifically said that the comparison between humans and machines in the sense that humans can be "programmed" is not a major point of the series. Hence the scare quotes. I was saying, sure you could read it that way, but I don't think that's the way you should read it. I then ran with the metaphor to point to how I think you should read it, that one needs to be skeptical of heroes, demagogues, propaganda and legends. That's not "programming"; that's persuasion. And even if you want to think of it in terms of "programming", the point would that humans aren't like computers because they have agency and can choose whether or not to follow it. Jessica has a son. Yueh's conditioning is broken. The Fremen are skeptical of Paul. Hayt doesn't kill Paul. Hwi doesn't betray Leto. Etc.

And humans having agency and choice is definitely an important point in Dune, but the novel doesn't use a comparison with machines to make that point. The Mother Superior asks Paul if he's a human or an animal, not if he's a human or a computer.

It's a point of irony that the characters do not draw that connection. Most of the institutions in Dune are explicitly dominating, with state-sponsored terrorism, political assassination, and even explicit mind control all being relatively routine. But! At least they took care of that thinking machine problem some time back! otherwise humans might be enslaved! The Butlerian Jihad itself is a tool of human control, and by saying "one needs to be skeptical of heroes, demagogues, propaganda and legends" only to follow that up with "that's not 'programming;' that's persuasion," it to buy into the very propaganda the story wants you to be skeptical of.

Thinking machines and machine-thinking are bad, but Mentats and propaganda corps are good, how else would you run an empire/control the humans?

(Again, part of Leto 2's golden path involves overcoming the cultural fear of thinking machines and promoting their development. Thinking-machines were never the problem.)

So no, the Mother Superior wouldn't ask if Paul was a machine. Her ideological blindspots are such that she wouldn't think to make such a comparison, because if she could she'd need to ask hard questions of herself.

Note the Bene Gesserit's view of Jessica. She most strongly asserts her humanity when she places her love of Duke Leto over her Bene Gesserit conditioning, but the Bene Gesserit — despite professing a great love of humanness — celebrate Jessica for coming back into the fold in her later life. Humans do have agency and choice, and the Bene Gesserit ultimately view that as a problem. They want humans (including themselves!) to be as controllable as if they were machines, even if most would never phrase it in those terms. The ideal Bene Gesserit is as enslaved to their heterodoxy as much as the ideal non-Bene Gesserit is enslaved to them.

There's also a point of irony in the Gom Jabbar scene. In proving Paul "human," the Mother Superior places the Bene Gesserit in the role of the trapper. And in submitting to becoming the Kwisatz Haderach, Paul and Leto would go on to coopt and break the power of the Bene Gesserit just as they would every other prominent institution, removing a threat to human kind.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Nov 12, 2020

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