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drat, Hellboy got really weird later on.
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Nov 22, 2021 07:09
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:36 |
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Potential Patriach Paul... Patreides becomes... Mighty Muad'dib
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Nov 22, 2021 08:09
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Tarnop posted:If people can't get from the film that the emperor is supposed to be above inter-house feuds then I don't know what to say really. If the emperor could get directly involved with impunity then there would be no need to keep Sardaukar involvement a secret. The emperor's command to keep it secret is stated explicitly in the scene on Giedi Prime with the silence field. Does the film really need a scene explaining why he can't get involved, and why it doesn't matter that his power-play is obvious, or can the audience be trusted to infer that the tangle of laws, traditions and customs that have always defined human politics continue to define them in a future where we've reverted to feudalism? What I thought was really good about all that is using Charlotte Ramping for the scene on Giedi Prime. Using Mohiam for that conversation very effectively establishes that both the Emperor and the Bene Gesserit have an interest in the Atreides-Harkonnen feud, but for their own reasons have to keep their interest secret and that limits their ability to influence events. Also there is a scene explicitly explaining why the Emperor can't get directly involved, Paul explains it all when they're at the planetology lab with Kynes.
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Nov 22, 2021 10:30
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I wonder if the emperor is aware the Reverend Mother wanted Paul and Jessica spared. Probably not. It's funny to imagine that the opening scene from the 1984 movie where the guild guy says they want Paul killed also happened in this movie, and there's all this scheming and secret deal making going on regarding Paul specifically well before he's anybody of note
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Nov 22, 2021 13:32
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2house2fly posted:I wonder if the emperor is aware the Reverend Mother wanted Paul and Jessica spared. Probably not. I mean, "Son and heir to the house we're trying to destroy" is kind of a major note when you're dealing with political intrigue. At least they had the foresight to go "Wait, if we don't kill the son, he can come back later and revive House Atreides and we're back to where we started". I mean... could you just imagine if they didn't kill him and confirm his death, he might fall in with the locals, learn their ways, rise up as a leader among them and lead them in a violent war that results in them taking and holding the only source of
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Nov 22, 2021 14:17
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Alchenar posted:What I thought was really good about all that is using Charlotte Ramping for the scene on Giedi Prime. Using Mohiam for that conversation very effectively establishes that both the Emperor and the Bene Gesserit have an interest in the Atreides-Harkonnen feud, but for their own reasons have to keep their interest secret and that limits their ability to influence events. This scene? (I'm just copy pasting subtitles here) quote:Do you know what the great houses fear most, Dr. Kynes? There are definitely gaps in that explanation but I agree with the general sentiment that the film gives you enough information to fill the gaps with more than "schroedinger's idiot". I actually like the fact that the film never defines what the Landsraad is, because (a) that would be pretty tedious (b) it seems like everyone knows what it is, so you'd have to have one of those excruciating scenes where a character explains to another character something that they should both already know. It would be like a film set in contemporary times having two politicians explain to each other what the UN is. You understand just by how people talk about it that: - it is "of the great houses" - the Emperor's direct backing of House Harkonnen is something to which it would take exception - the Emperor has reason to fear it, or he wouldn't hide his involvement - it is instrumental in preventing "general warfare between the great houses and the Emperor" The film does a very good job of limiting direct exposition to things that Paul is only just learning about, and puts a lot of trust in its audience. It's good to see that the majority of people are willing to go with that approach, and of course there is a long history of the best sci fi leaving just enough for the viewer/reader to work out themselves to make them feel smart for getting it.
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Nov 22, 2021 15:24
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I would compare with the first Death Star scene in star wars: you learn there's something called an Emperor, an imperial senate, a rebellion that is gaining support, Regional Governers and Tarkin's plan. You don't understand how any of this actually works in detail and you don't need to, what matters is that you see the Imperial Officers reactions: they're worried about the rebellion, concerned that the Empire doesn't have the resources to maintain direct control of it's territory, not morally concerned about their weapon of mass destruction but are concerned that the plans might reveal a weakness.
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Nov 22, 2021 15:42
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I think that's partially why the movie did so well for how weird this is for a scifi film. It didn't, outside of a few DRUM SANDS, tediously explain every detail of the world through exposition dumps. Most of the information was visually communicated (the emperors power and majesty demonstrated through a single spacecraft and gigantic ramp) or slowly dripped out in hushed conversations throughout the entire movie if you paid attention. Nothing was focused on long enough to break the spell of the visuals, but it was there in the background informing the whole thing.Alchenar posted:I would compare with the first Death Star scene in star wars: you learn there's something called an Emperor, an imperial senate, a rebellion that is gaining support, Regional Governers and Tarkin's plan. You don't understand how any of this actually works in detail and you don't need to, what matters is that you see the Imperial Officers reactions: they're worried about the rebellion, concerned that the Empire doesn't have the resources to maintain direct control of it's territory, not morally concerned about their weapon of mass destruction but are concerned that the plans might reveal a weakness. I think comparing Dune to the best parts of the first Star Wars is pretty apt. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 15:45
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2house2fly posted:Paul trying to run away on clown sand, the honks are attracting the worms, he's scared but can't stop laughing The home release will have the cut Yackety Sand scene.
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Nov 22, 2021 16:16
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Famethrowa posted:I think that's partially why the movie did so well for how weird this is for a scifi film. It didn't, outside of a few DRUM SANDS, tediously explain every detail of the world through exposition dumps. Most of the information was visually communicated (the emperors power and majesty demonstrated through a single spacecraft and gigantic ramp) or slowly dripped out in hushed conversations throughout the entire movie if you paid attention. Nothing was focused on long enough to break the spell of the visuals, but it was there in the background informing the whole thing. That's definitely why it worked for me. I've never read the books, but clearly Dune is packed with weird sci-fi jargon and complex dynamics between various factions and it would be very easy to get bogged down in all that with unnecessary exposition. But the movie never does that because it trusts the audience to go along for the ride and pick up important details along the way as they appear.
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Nov 22, 2021 16:19
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Famethrowa posted:I think comparing Dune to the best parts of the first Star Wars is pretty apt. I love that scene for how effectively in 60 seconds it dumps on you everything you need to know to understand the context of the events of the film and the stakes for everyone involved.
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Nov 22, 2021 16:39
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*Paul takes a step to the sound of shattering glass and stops* “oh no...” *another step, more sounds of broken glass* “our desert...” *Paul begins to run, each footstep an explosion of shattered glass* “it’s broken...”
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Nov 22, 2021 17:04
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:*Paul takes a step to the sound of shattering glass and stops* someone’s been messing with house atomics in the desert again
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Nov 22, 2021 17:10
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sebmojo posted:The worm turns up but its incredibly tiny, and fremen start pouring out of it, this absurd quantity of fremen You know, from a conceptual point of view this isn't too far away from how Lynch portrayed the Fremen riding worms into battle. Also yesterday I was talking about DUNC with a friend yesterday and was talking as if he had read the books and was surprised when he said he hadn't because he found Dune too dense for him. I then realised why I loved the book so much and it was because of the density and lack of fish-out-of-water exposition dumps. You could inform yourself with the appendices and glossaries in the back but not all of that was necessary to follow the basic beats of the story. I like things that encourage you to do more research to immerse yourself in the new universe so you're on the same information level as the characters your following. Though having said that I wonder if that's just something for sci-fi because Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time do that and it took me close to a decade to finish Fellowship 
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Nov 22, 2021 17:42
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Tolkien is definitely dense, but he's also meandering, which I think is where some people stall out with him. You get entire chapters of characters just sitting around eating and singing songs(and the songs are often not in English), and he never just skips from point A to point B, it always takes forever to get wherever the characters are going.
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Nov 22, 2021 17:52
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Honestly, in the post-GRRM world that is an endlessly verbose series of needlessly loquacious expositions, Tolkien seems positively succinct these days...
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Nov 22, 2021 18:27
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The first half of fellowship is the worst offender since Tolkien didn't really know where he was going with the story until they get to Rivendell. Tolkien genuinely didn't know the plan until he wrote Elrond and Gandalf explaining it to the other characters. After that the pace picks up and maintains for the rest of the trilogy. Tolkien organized it into six books so really it's book one that meanders. To me that's part of the magic of Tolkien though. He had such an elaborate world built and yet he was unafraid to toss out ideas that came to him off the cuff and would never be explained because he himself did not know what they were. Despite having this elaborate legend Tolkien still has a sense of mystery and whimsy. The Lord of the Rings is a unique literary achievement on a level way beyond Dune. It's a fusion of fairy tale, Anglo Saxon epic, and eulogy for premodern Europe. I could talk about it forever. Tolkien is this unique figure because he grew up in the rapidly industrializing Edwardian period, personally participated in the death blow of old Europe, and is equipped to look back through 1000 years of medieval history and understand and express exactly what had been lost. There's a reason it has so many imitators and there's a reason that none of them recapture that magic.
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Nov 22, 2021 18:41
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The entirety of the Lord of the Rings is the same length as approximately one GoT book.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:00
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yeah, LOTR isn't a fantasy novel really. it's a work of literature by a linguist that happens to have fantastical elements. the derivatives that came after established the fantasy genre. I don't know that scifi has a similar progenitor like fantasy. I know the tropes got codified at some point, but nothing singular like LOTR. Dune has a pretty big influence on what came after, but it's just one of many.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:14
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Famethrowa posted:yeah, LOTR isn't a fantasy novel really. it's a work of literature by a linguist that happens to have fantastical elements. the derivatives that came after established the fantasy genre. I THINK HG Wells was the first author that wrote what we would recognize now as science fiction, but I could be horribly mistaken about that. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:19
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Unanswered questions generate interest.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:26
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I think some nerds consider Frankenstein to be that kind of prototype for sci-fi. idk
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Nov 22, 2021 19:27
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I think Verne is forty or so years before Wells. Though I doubt he's even close to the first
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Nov 22, 2021 19:28
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Do you even Lucian of Samosata, bro That aside I think frankenstein is self evidently sci fi and the earliest modern example.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:49
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Martman posted:I think some nerds consider Frankenstein to be that kind of prototype for sci-fi. idk There are better examples, such as The Legend of the Ages by Victor Hugo which are way more recognizably science fiction as it features a starship and Alexander Veltmans Predki Kalimerosa features time travel. EDIT: I think it might be useful to keep in mind that the biggest distinguishing feature between science fiction and fantasy is that in science fiction there's some element of science whereas fantasy can get away with just calling everything magic. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 19:56
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The political situation between the Houses and other power factions is something that's never made it into any adaptation, because it's 100% tell-don't-show. You either have to insert new scenes, or fill your movie with a bunch of dialogue or worse, narration. House Atreides is the leader of the "loyal opposition" to the Emperor. They're not a very rich and powerful House, but they've got an impeccable record of service to the Imperium and a small elite military, which should make them unassailable in every sense of the word. Everyone knows that by giving the Atreides the Arrakis fiefdom, he's challenging them to put up or shut up. Oh, you think the system is corrupt and unfair and I'm too greedy? Fine, show me how you can do it better. The other Houses probably see this as the beginning and the end of "the trap." It's a win-win situation for the Emperor: either the Atreides run Arrakis better and make everyone richer, or their failure silences the Emperor's critics in the Landsraad. After the attack, the other Great Houses are left to assume that the Baron took back Arrakis by infiltrating the Atreides to lower their defenses and spending decades of spice profits on a massive invasion force. Which is true, and perfectly legal. What they don't know is that the Emperor was in on it and the whole thing was a setup. It's important that they don't find out for two reasons. First, while rulers presiding over open warfare among their vassals is nothing new, this war threatens the galactic supply of space heroin. Two, if the Emperor can do it to the Atreides, he can do it to any other House. Famethrowa posted:I don't know that scifi has a similar progenitor like fantasy. I know the tropes got codified at some point, but nothing singular like LOTR. Dune has a pretty big influence on what came after, but it's just one of many.
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Nov 22, 2021 20:02
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david_a posted:someone’s been messing with house atomics in the desert again I love "house atomics". It says so much with so little.
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Nov 22, 2021 20:49
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Famethrowa posted:I don't know that scifi has a similar progenitor like fantasy. I know the tropes got codified at some point, but nothing singular like LOTR. Dune has a pretty big influence on what came after, but it's just one of many. Plato's Republic?
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Nov 22, 2021 21:06
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Arglebargle III posted:Plato's Republic? That, Utopia, Arabian Nights in some respects... It's essentially why I find scifi more compelling then fantasy, the influences come from all over rather then a singular work.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:20
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:I'm not sure I completely buy it, even if I see the point people are trying to make. Frankenstein discovers the secret of life through his study of chemistry, and uses that knowledge to animate the monster. That is distinctly an element of science. Unless I’m completely misunderstanding your point.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:31
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Aces High posted:You know, from a conceptual point of view this isn't too far away from how Lynch portrayed the Fremen riding worms into battle. Honestly there's a lot of explanation of things in the actual book, usually in the form of characters narrating the motives behind their own or others' actions in the moment. I thought it was also nice for DUNC to move away from Paul being a semi-incel wunderkind who everyone likes into a gifted but flawed individual. In DUNC he not only has premonitions of what will happen, but of possible futures, so for example he has foresight conversations with a person that he kills before having those conversations. Experiencing that would drive most people insane. He exists in and outside of time, and that is what makes him weird and special, not that he's read a lot of books and received all the best training and genomes.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:45
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Just noticed a little something when I rewatched it Saturday night: In the future Paul imagines where all the Power Rangers are raising their bloody knives to him on Caladan, isn't that Jamis standing behind him?
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Nov 22, 2021 22:07
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Halloween Jack posted:Just noticed a little something when I rewatched it Saturday night: In the future Paul imagines where all the Power Rangers are raising their bloody knives to him on Caladan, isn't that Jamis standing behind him? Yeah, in his visions, Jamis is his second, not Stilgar. It's a really nice little touch.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:13
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Honestly there's a lot of explanation of things in the actual book, usually in the form of characters narrating the motives behind their own or others' actions in the moment. Right but those moments make sense too, Rabban is a big ol' dum-dum and so the Baron has to spell everything out. Baron is also a big ham so he loves to pontificate
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Nov 22, 2021 23:03
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Tarnop posted:If people can't get from the film that the emperor is supposed to be above inter-house feuds then I don't know what to say really. If the emperor could get directly involved with impunity then there would be no need to keep Sardaukar involvement a secret. The emperor's command to keep it secret is stated explicitly in the scene on Giedi Prime with the silence field. Does the film really need a scene explaining why he can't get involved, and why it doesn't matter that his power-play is obvious, or can the audience be trusted to infer that the tangle of laws, traditions and customs that have always defined human politics continue to define them in a future where we've reverted to feudalism? I believe ej's point is that it IS obvious the emperor isn't supposed to do this, and also it's obvious that he did. if the plan was to keep it a secret, it was a terrible plan. the movie gives you no reason to think the emperor and to some degree, by association, the harkonnens, aren't really loving dumb. Unless the threat of all the other houses banding together ISN'T a serious one, in which case what the gently caress is even going on and maybe that's what's going on, but "a movie about morons doing politics" with 0 sense of humor isn't my idea of a good time
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Nov 22, 2021 23:14
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I would like to see Batista - Batista Bomb a sandworm. Can this happen? Who has Dennis' number? This needs to happen.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:14
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DeimosRising posted:I believe ej's point is that it IS obvious the emperor isn't supposed to do this, and also it's obvious that he did. if the plan was to keep it a secret, it was a terrible plan. the movie gives you no reason to think the emperor and to some degree, by association, the harkonnens, aren't really loving dumb. Unless the threat of all the other houses banding together ISN'T a serious one, in which case what the gently caress is even going on It's not about what they know, it's about what they can prove. Hence the importance of the testimony of a neutral observer (Kynes) and the "well actually" hoops the Harkonnens jump through to dispose of Paul and Jessica in case of interrogation by a Truthsayer, both explicitly mentioned in the film. These are savvy political players operating in a system held together by centuries of tradition, convention and laws filled with loopholes. It shouldn't be too surprising that humans continue to rely on those in a future where social structure has regressed to feudalism, or that doing well at politics involves knowing how to do exactly what you want while playing the "I'm not touching you" game with a legal system designed to favour those with money and military strength. There are plenty of real-world analogues to this, so I personally find it very believable. Dune is not set in an enlightened future.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:27
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Why would they need to prove anything? Prove it to who? There’s not some kind of judiciary body with powers over the emperor or checks and balances. The whole thing is that if the Houses think the emperor might use his powers to attack the aristocracy, he’d lose the support of the aristocracy. They don’t have to sue him to see the writing on the wall
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Nov 22, 2021 23:41
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They talk about testifying before the landsraad.
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Nov 23, 2021 00:09
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Ironically the KH is supposed to bring humanity into an enlightened future, and by book 6 he has, but in a way the Bene Gesserit would never expect or allow.
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Nov 23, 2021 00:43
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