As someone critical of Herbert’s writing, I didn’t have the high expectations that you did. Both parts of the film were visually stunning and they relied on that to carry it, along with hype and marketing. I maintain that most of the new fans haven’t actually bothered to read Herbert, why would they? The characters were also not as good as young reader-me found them. They all failed on the re-read and I couldn’t finish the book in any of my attempts in the last decade or so. I have rewatched the first part several times and I always stop once they end up in the desert because that’s where it becomes unbearably boring, even for Dune. As to what they did to the characters, I was unsurprised. They are pandering to their audience, making the characters “relatable” and avoiding issues with wrongthink.. Whiny, bitchy “I am woman hear me roar” Chani. Whatever with Paul. They are Hollywood. This is what they do.
Once upon a time, I loved Dune. Along with Lord of the Rings, it was a touchstone of my youth.
In my defense, I first encountered and read these when I was around nine years old, and I didn't know any better...
The thing with them now, upon re-read? You can see the framework the authors hung everything on, the assumptions, the BS. Both works are creatures of their times, and those times have passed. They are now interesting artifacts of their eras.
Dune is suffused with new-agey Campbellian psychic bullshit. Coupled with mystic reverence for "ecology", even though the author barely understood the idea behind it, and built himself a dreamworld that honestly just doesn't work. It's purest pseudoscientific twaddle, like Star Trek cant. Re-reading it, I'm looking for someone to start talking about reversing polarity on the lithium, or something...
It's not just the ridiculous world-building that passes for art, either. The projections Herbert made about where humanity is going are just ever-so-precious, and rooted in all the discontents of the 1950s and 1960s. A watershed empire? In SPACE!!!
Seriously? Could you not try to do a bit better, and attempt to project something that isn't templated in our deepest recorded histories? And, tell me... When the hell have those huge empires ever actually lasted and functioned at all well?
And, for the love of God, without computers? How the hell do you manage the minutiae of something that big with pencil, paper, and mere human mindpower? How does it not collapse under the weight of its own bureaucracy?
Herbert basically templated out what worked for Sargon the Great to interstellar scale, and I'm just not buying it. Can't buy it. There's too much missing from his world, never mind the magical qualities of SPICE!!! An anti-agathic that's also a psychotropic which allows real psychic powers to manifest? Suuuuuure... You betcha'. A compound that does a dozen different things, all totally unrelated. That's credible...
You put the whole package together, and it's a lovely conceit, but you have to turn your brain off to even begin to take it seriously. It's more a cultural artifact of the time, a reflection of the nuttiness that was the 1960s and its inhabitants than anything else. As a pop-culture phenomenon, it belongs up there with Lord of the Rings, and Stranger in a Strange Land.
All three of which are something of an embarrassment, these days. Of them, I think that only the obsessive-compulsiveness of Tolkien's world-building is going to last, and that's probably as more of a "Holy shit... Look at the effort this guy put into this..."
No matter how you look at it, these three "seminal" works of the 1960s are reflections of the era, and all include expressions of the periods obsessions and shibboleths. Tolkien was anti-industrial and progress, writing from a standpoint of "New Age of Man BAD, 'mmmkay?", deriding the fall of magic and authority. If you examine the meta-message of most of his work, we all ought to be immured in medieval primitivism, working the land for the local lord of the manor. I don't think Tolkien genuinely trusted "the common folk" very far; they were all to be managed by their betters, and were happier and better off when basically being run like farm animals. There's a certain class-based sensibility running through and suffusing his work that's only really apparent when you start looking at the underlying themes and assumptions.
You read Herbert, with the same eye for "What the hell does this author really believe...?", and you start noticing the same themes of atavistic primitivism. "Computers BAD; atavistic imperialism GOOD", and you're left wondering what sort of world actually exists inside his head. It's notable that Herbert was never actually a scientist or engineer; he was a journalist, a man without much in the way of technical knowledge or real problem-solving ability, just someone who grubbed around at the feet of men who did, and then mouthed the words he heard in their company, while really understanding nothing. I mean, for the love of God... Giant sandworms, swimming through stone, earth, and sand as though they were in water? Yeah? How's that going to work? What's the energy budget for a creature able to shrug its way through such things, and just what the hell are they eating to fuel all that in a desert?
I could buy any one of his conceits singly, but in retrospect, looking back at my childish self? I am really kinda disappointed that I didn't wall the book, and instead maintained it as a favorite for much of my younger life. I'm also going to be forever embarrassed that I recommended it to a friend in my thirties, a newly-immigrated arrival to both the US and English language, who enjoyed science fiction. She'd never heard of it, I recommended it, she tried reading it and couldn't finish the thing. Asking why, I then had to re-read it with an eye to trying to look at it as though it were a first read, and... Wow. I could see exactly what her objections to it were, and I had to wonder why I'd ever been so impressed with it in the first place.
As an artifact of the 1960s, it's worth a read. If you're checking off the then-current tropes and ideologies, well... Yeah. You can play a pretty good game of "Trope Bingo" with it, just like the other two books I mention.
Pretty much. My biggest problem with Dune and the others is that people tried to turn them into these hugely significant things, when the reality was that they were trite entertainments of their times.
You spend enough time listening to counterculture types droning onandonandonandon about how big a deal something is, only to later realize the true nature, you develop a certain amount of cynicism about the issue.
What's weirdly honest about Stranger in a Strange Land? Heinlein points it out through his character of Jubal Harshaw, who's almost a caricature of an author. Of all the candidates for various self-insert characters you might come up with Heinlein, I suspect that Harshaw was probably the closest to his own self-image, right down to the wish-fulfillment scantily-clad hot and cold running secretaries in the background around the pool...
You've come here and crapped all over the works of Herbert, Tolkien, and Heinlein.
Yes, you should feel bad.
A simple "I don't like Dune" was all you needed to say here, and then go on your way and enjoy the brain-dissolving tomes of Jemisin, Liu, and all the other Hugo Award-winning trash that seems to be right up your alley.
May 8Liked by Christopher R. DiNote, Richard Paolinelli
I'm so glad it's not just me - I was brutally disappointed by Dune 2, and I loved the first one. Let's not forget how many times they have to say fundamentalist in the movie. Dreadful script.
I'm a fan of the book but I mostly enjoyed the film. There were problems with it, definitely, but to me even completely changing Chani into an annoying whiney coed from Brown (and literally ending the film with her pouty face after her having a hissy fit) did not get in the way of enjoying it overall. I have been FAR more angry at other adaptations of books than I was at this one. Yes, the director changed the end to one far less satisfying, and sets up sequels I have no intention of seeing. The script was not up to snuff and, sadly, Charlton Heston-type acting was required for a movie of this epic scale but hardly any of the actors were up to the challenge. But I was far angrier at what Peter Jackson did to... well, almost everyone in the second and third LOTR films, and to the sad, dour mess Avengers Endgame made of the promise of a rousing and triumphant adventure made by the first film, and by dozens of other adaptations I could name, than I was of this one. Part One was great Part Two meh. Oh well.
This sadly diminished age of ours is simply not made for "rousing and triumphant". I rather doubt that any such works are ever going to be made during our era. Snarky and sarcastic tear-downs and deconstructions? That's us; the other just isn't possible. You have to have people that actually believe in the things you'd be "rousing and triumphant" over. We don't.
Now, if you want to see something that we're really good at? Just imagine a sarcastic and dark re-telling of the Lord of the Rings written and filmed from the same sort of standpoint that that counterpoint to the Wizard of Oz, Wicked was created from. That's something our period is really good at...
Uplifting and glorious? Not us, I fear. We're petty, sarcastic people who no longer believe in the myths supporting our culture.
As someone critical of Herbert’s writing, I didn’t have the high expectations that you did. Both parts of the film were visually stunning and they relied on that to carry it, along with hype and marketing. I maintain that most of the new fans haven’t actually bothered to read Herbert, why would they? The characters were also not as good as young reader-me found them. They all failed on the re-read and I couldn’t finish the book in any of my attempts in the last decade or so. I have rewatched the first part several times and I always stop once they end up in the desert because that’s where it becomes unbearably boring, even for Dune. As to what they did to the characters, I was unsurprised. They are pandering to their audience, making the characters “relatable” and avoiding issues with wrongthink.. Whiny, bitchy “I am woman hear me roar” Chani. Whatever with Paul. They are Hollywood. This is what they do.
Once upon a time, I loved Dune. Along with Lord of the Rings, it was a touchstone of my youth.
In my defense, I first encountered and read these when I was around nine years old, and I didn't know any better...
The thing with them now, upon re-read? You can see the framework the authors hung everything on, the assumptions, the BS. Both works are creatures of their times, and those times have passed. They are now interesting artifacts of their eras.
Dune is suffused with new-agey Campbellian psychic bullshit. Coupled with mystic reverence for "ecology", even though the author barely understood the idea behind it, and built himself a dreamworld that honestly just doesn't work. It's purest pseudoscientific twaddle, like Star Trek cant. Re-reading it, I'm looking for someone to start talking about reversing polarity on the lithium, or something...
It's not just the ridiculous world-building that passes for art, either. The projections Herbert made about where humanity is going are just ever-so-precious, and rooted in all the discontents of the 1950s and 1960s. A watershed empire? In SPACE!!!
Seriously? Could you not try to do a bit better, and attempt to project something that isn't templated in our deepest recorded histories? And, tell me... When the hell have those huge empires ever actually lasted and functioned at all well?
And, for the love of God, without computers? How the hell do you manage the minutiae of something that big with pencil, paper, and mere human mindpower? How does it not collapse under the weight of its own bureaucracy?
Herbert basically templated out what worked for Sargon the Great to interstellar scale, and I'm just not buying it. Can't buy it. There's too much missing from his world, never mind the magical qualities of SPICE!!! An anti-agathic that's also a psychotropic which allows real psychic powers to manifest? Suuuuuure... You betcha'. A compound that does a dozen different things, all totally unrelated. That's credible...
You put the whole package together, and it's a lovely conceit, but you have to turn your brain off to even begin to take it seriously. It's more a cultural artifact of the time, a reflection of the nuttiness that was the 1960s and its inhabitants than anything else. As a pop-culture phenomenon, it belongs up there with Lord of the Rings, and Stranger in a Strange Land.
All three of which are something of an embarrassment, these days. Of them, I think that only the obsessive-compulsiveness of Tolkien's world-building is going to last, and that's probably as more of a "Holy shit... Look at the effort this guy put into this..."
No matter how you look at it, these three "seminal" works of the 1960s are reflections of the era, and all include expressions of the periods obsessions and shibboleths. Tolkien was anti-industrial and progress, writing from a standpoint of "New Age of Man BAD, 'mmmkay?", deriding the fall of magic and authority. If you examine the meta-message of most of his work, we all ought to be immured in medieval primitivism, working the land for the local lord of the manor. I don't think Tolkien genuinely trusted "the common folk" very far; they were all to be managed by their betters, and were happier and better off when basically being run like farm animals. There's a certain class-based sensibility running through and suffusing his work that's only really apparent when you start looking at the underlying themes and assumptions.
You read Herbert, with the same eye for "What the hell does this author really believe...?", and you start noticing the same themes of atavistic primitivism. "Computers BAD; atavistic imperialism GOOD", and you're left wondering what sort of world actually exists inside his head. It's notable that Herbert was never actually a scientist or engineer; he was a journalist, a man without much in the way of technical knowledge or real problem-solving ability, just someone who grubbed around at the feet of men who did, and then mouthed the words he heard in their company, while really understanding nothing. I mean, for the love of God... Giant sandworms, swimming through stone, earth, and sand as though they were in water? Yeah? How's that going to work? What's the energy budget for a creature able to shrug its way through such things, and just what the hell are they eating to fuel all that in a desert?
I could buy any one of his conceits singly, but in retrospect, looking back at my childish self? I am really kinda disappointed that I didn't wall the book, and instead maintained it as a favorite for much of my younger life. I'm also going to be forever embarrassed that I recommended it to a friend in my thirties, a newly-immigrated arrival to both the US and English language, who enjoyed science fiction. She'd never heard of it, I recommended it, she tried reading it and couldn't finish the thing. Asking why, I then had to re-read it with an eye to trying to look at it as though it were a first read, and... Wow. I could see exactly what her objections to it were, and I had to wonder why I'd ever been so impressed with it in the first place.
As an artifact of the 1960s, it's worth a read. If you're checking off the then-current tropes and ideologies, well... Yeah. You can play a pretty good game of "Trope Bingo" with it, just like the other two books I mention.
I bet you're a real hoot at parties...
Pretty much. My biggest problem with Dune and the others is that people tried to turn them into these hugely significant things, when the reality was that they were trite entertainments of their times.
You spend enough time listening to counterculture types droning onandonandonandon about how big a deal something is, only to later realize the true nature, you develop a certain amount of cynicism about the issue.
What's weirdly honest about Stranger in a Strange Land? Heinlein points it out through his character of Jubal Harshaw, who's almost a caricature of an author. Of all the candidates for various self-insert characters you might come up with Heinlein, I suspect that Harshaw was probably the closest to his own self-image, right down to the wish-fulfillment scantily-clad hot and cold running secretaries in the background around the pool...
I can forgive him a lot, for that bit of honesty.
I stand corrected. You don't get invited to parties at all, do you?
Should I feel bad?
You've come here and crapped all over the works of Herbert, Tolkien, and Heinlein.
Yes, you should feel bad.
A simple "I don't like Dune" was all you needed to say here, and then go on your way and enjoy the brain-dissolving tomes of Jemisin, Liu, and all the other Hugo Award-winning trash that seems to be right up your alley.
I'm so glad it's not just me - I was brutally disappointed by Dune 2, and I loved the first one. Let's not forget how many times they have to say fundamentalist in the movie. Dreadful script.
I'm a fan of the book but I mostly enjoyed the film. There were problems with it, definitely, but to me even completely changing Chani into an annoying whiney coed from Brown (and literally ending the film with her pouty face after her having a hissy fit) did not get in the way of enjoying it overall. I have been FAR more angry at other adaptations of books than I was at this one. Yes, the director changed the end to one far less satisfying, and sets up sequels I have no intention of seeing. The script was not up to snuff and, sadly, Charlton Heston-type acting was required for a movie of this epic scale but hardly any of the actors were up to the challenge. But I was far angrier at what Peter Jackson did to... well, almost everyone in the second and third LOTR films, and to the sad, dour mess Avengers Endgame made of the promise of a rousing and triumphant adventure made by the first film, and by dozens of other adaptations I could name, than I was of this one. Part One was great Part Two meh. Oh well.
This sadly diminished age of ours is simply not made for "rousing and triumphant". I rather doubt that any such works are ever going to be made during our era. Snarky and sarcastic tear-downs and deconstructions? That's us; the other just isn't possible. You have to have people that actually believe in the things you'd be "rousing and triumphant" over. We don't.
Now, if you want to see something that we're really good at? Just imagine a sarcastic and dark re-telling of the Lord of the Rings written and filmed from the same sort of standpoint that that counterpoint to the Wizard of Oz, Wicked was created from. That's something our period is really good at...
Uplifting and glorious? Not us, I fear. We're petty, sarcastic people who no longer believe in the myths supporting our culture.
Herbert wrote a ton of books and stories besides "Dune". Why don't they adapt any of those? They might come up with something better than this.