The problem I have with this, is that it fucks over the metrics they use to judge how good content is. So for stuff that I really really like, but have nefariously acquired rather than paying for on a streaming site, I'll go to the service and actually watch it again on there so they can see that I watched it the whole way through.

Because I want them to make more stuff that I like.

 

I've not read Dune, unless you count the Wikipedia summaries. The movie seems like a very well done adaptation of what I imagine the book is like. Interesting aesthetic they went for with everything being fuckhuge and seemingly mostly empty, gives a strange impression that the world is barely populated. The movie was intriguing enough that I watched the whole thing, but I doubt I'll be rewatching it.

I assume the momentum of decades of presence in pop culture gives Paul some heft with fans, because he was an incredibly bland protagonist. I was strongly and unfavorably reminded of Rey from SW sequels. But maybe a protagonist who's supposed to be sci-fi Jesus is just doomed to be the perfect little Gary Stu.

 

Well yeah, he is a textbook Stu. But it's on purpose.

The Dune Saga is an exercise in subverting chosen one narratives. Basically "being the Chosen One is shit, will get you killed, will get everyone you care about killed."

Spoiler

Paul is given everything he needs to craft a perfect future, but he fails miserably, and his son Leto becomes the architect of humanity's golden age instead (and Leto only does so by becoming a tyrant God Emperor / giant human/sandworm hybrid whose daily existence is tragic misery).

 

Yeah, I thought it might be. Just not my cup of tea.

Kylo Ren was the best character in the prequels, don't @ me

 

Spoilers bro.

 

The two movies likely aren't going to delve into any of that content, all of which has been available for 40 years. But fine. Spoilered.

 

56 years for the book. 80s movie, and a 2000s tv mini -series. It’s time to stop living under that rock, Arth.

 

It's a new movie that's coming out in a few days. People have already stated in thread this will be their first time experiencing Dune.

It's not Star Wars. It's not Lord of the Rings. It's a good older book, but ultimately for a more niche audience. I know of it. I know people who know of it.

Maybe met like three people who have actually read it?

 

Guess my age is showing. To me it's like someone twenty years from now saying they've never read Harry Potter. I mean it just isn't clicking for me. To my generation, the one before and the one after, it's one of the top ten books that is always recommended if you are a fan of science fiction at all. Up there with the Foundation Trilogy, Ender's Game, Stranger in a Strange Land, Brave New World, Time Machine, 1984, etc. Some of those titles are dated and don't read as well today, but they are still recc'ed as being among the best in the genre.

Are these titles you've never read as well. I'm genuinely curious.

Someone's got to be reading them, since they've never left the shelves in bookstores. Titles come and go, but the big names always stay. The Dune series has always been one of them.

 

Foundation Trilogy: Heard of but never Read. And only familiar because of the tv show coming up.
Ender's Game: Read
Stranger in a Strange Land: never heard of.
Brave New World: Heard of but never read.
Time Machine: Read in school.
1984: Read in school.

When I talk Sci-fi with friends, it's most things like Altered Carbon, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Expanse, Mass Effect...

Might just be my social circle, but Sci-Fi Books aren't really a thing.

Dune is a book I see on the shelf but have never actually bothered to read.

 

I'm completely Okay with this.

 

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I'm apparently old. I doubt it's just your social circle. Books have gone to the wayside for entertainment purposes. You know, this so explains why fan fiction is the way it is, in every aspect.

 

I've never been a huge sci fi reader, though I've definitely read my fair share. Mainly stuck to fantasy.

I've never read any of the books you list here apart from Enders Game. Heard of Dune, Foundation and 1984, that's it.

Probably time to add them to the list heh.

 

I mean, in the genre of hard sci-fi, it kinda absolutely is the equivalent of those titles. Hard literary sci-fi may not currently be the hugely popular moneymaker it was back in the 70s/80s, but there was a time when Dune was the biggest literary property in the fiction market. I remember going to Borders back when I was just a wee kid, and literally the entire Sci-fi fantasy section (like 3 shelves max) was just Lord of the Rings + derivatives and Dune + derivatives.

I'm perfectly happy to spoiler it because I'm not an asshole, but do realize that asking for people to not spoil it is exactly like someone who's never read Fellowship asking others to not spoil whether or not Frodo makes it to Mt. Doom.

 

I'm going to have to turn my brain off for this, try to ignore my feelings for the series. It looks okay in the trailer, but I don't watch trailers for a reason...

Worst case I still have the games. A bit surprised they lifted a big set piece directly from Uncharted 3 (I thought they were trying to make a story set before the games, thus Holland and Wahlberg's ages).

 

This disappoints me as well, but to be fair, the plane scene is an awesome setpiece.

 

I really think you're overhyping it. Like I appreciate the spoiling but Dune is really known only to Sci-Fi Fantasy nerds nowadays. Lord of the Rings + Derivatives is known and beloved by non-nerds. That's the difference.

Our culture has hundreds of memes on LOTR, it was a cultural moment during the childhood of many. Dune? It was a book released before my dad was born and has barely been mentioned since.

Like I'm not saying it wasn't important, but to hype it on the Level of Lord of the Rings just isn't even close. LOTR is hyped to our cultural moment. Dune isn't. It's not even on the level of Terminator.

 

I'm telling you, man. The Dune books were just as popular as the LOTR books before the fantasy boom of the late 90s. Honestly, they were probably MORE popular among casual readers.

The difference is that LOTR had a mega hit movie franchise adaptation made with effort and love whereas the Dune adaptation was a godawful shitshow that killed any potential franchise development for 30 years.

 

You can't really overhype Dune's popularity. It was equal to LotR until Jackson's movies.

Who knows how it would turn out if Alejandro Jodorowsky managed to finish his adaptation in 1970s that he worked on with artists like Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí, Moebius, H. R. Giger and Pink Floyd though by many accounts it wouldn't be exactly faithful to the source material.

 

Totally fair. I wasn't alive until the 90s.

I'm just saying talking about it as if it is on the same cultural level of knowledge as LOTR or Star Wars isn't accurate. As you said, whatever show was there killed it's popularity.

You absolutely can when you talk about it as if spoilers are equivalent to "Luke, I am your Father" or "Snape dies" or "Frodo makes it to Mt. Doom."

They aren't equivalent. If I say "Paul Atreides" to a random person on the street, they might know who that is. If I say "Luke Skywalker" they're gonna know.

I'm not saying Dune is somehow an inferior story. I simply don't know. I'm just saying that, as of this cultural moment, you can't expect people to know the plot or characters.