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I mentioned going to Dune part 2 in the saloon and promised to make a post about it. Without spoiling the main events of the plot, I'm going to discuss what's so amazing about Dune. I'll focus on the books, since this is ~BooksAndArticles, but I'll also give my impressions of the adaptation.
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts about book and/or movie.

Dune (the book)

First off, Dune is one of my favorite books of all time. I'm an economist with a background in atmospheric science who loves sci-fi, so Dune is very much up my alley. I've read all of the Frank Herbert books, and I recommend all of them, but the first one is really special. It's worth noting that Star Wars was heavily influenced by Dune (to the point where I've heard Star Wars referred to as a knock-off).
Dune is a planet that is the sole producer of an extremely valuable commodity, "spice", that is basically a combination of spices and petroleum in the context of Earth history. So, think about a substantially more extreme version of the spice trade. The planet is incredibly inhospitable: hotter and drier than any desert on Earth, plus there are enormous carnivorous worms in the desert. The native inhabitants of the planet are ferocious desert warriors who are in perpetual conflict with the oligarchs attempting to harvest spice.
@r3drun3 made a post about the economics of Dune. The political setting of this universe is very detailed. There's an empire, but also great houses, trade guilds, and professional societies. Each of those are described in great detail, which makes the world incredibly immersive. There are a ton of dynamics in play all the time, but it's written so well as to not be confusing or hard to keep track of.
There are many themes being explored in Dune (understatement alert), so I'll just discuss a couple of my favorites. The most striking element of the book to me was how intricately detailed the native culture of Dune (the Fremen) is described. The society is fundamentally shaped around water scarcity and there are a wide array of cultural practices, beliefs, and technologies that exist to help them survive this place. There is also a religious belief system that has been externally curated and manipulated to make the Fremen receptive to a messiah that one of the secret societies is trying to create. It's a fascinating exploration of propaganda and myth making.
As a slight aside, I've been reading The Wheel of Time (review here) and there's a lot of overlap with Dune. One is sci-fi and the other is fantasy, but there are a ton of parallels.

Dune Parts 1 and 2 (the movies)

The two recent movies are fairly faithful to the book they are adapting, but they have radically pared down the content. The first book describes many characters in great detail, which would have been very difficult to cover in a movie. As a result, the movies are largely told from Paul Atreides' perspective and many of the things that would have been explained in the book are seen without exposition in the movies.
The director does a phenomenal job of showing many of the complex elements of the books without needing to spend precious screen time on exposition. Dune is also a very alien universe, despite being mostly about humanity. It takes place in the far distant future and the technologies are supposed to be simultaneously understandable in function and unfamiliar in form. This is executed beautifully on screen: everything is grand and distinctive and foreign.
The performances are overwhelmingly excellent, with just a couple of exceptions (Jason Momoa cough, Christopher Walken cough). Timothée Chalamet, in particular, has some incredible scenes in part 2.
37 sats \ 1 reply \ @Cowboy 5 Mar
Dune and Bitcoin😱🤯
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Dune 3 2028
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My dad loves Dune. I have tried multiple times to get into both the books and movies and had no luck.
Now everyone is talking about Dune and I feel like the poor kid that couldn't afford the brand new Iphone. Hard knock life.
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You're dad sounds like a cool interesting guy. Can we get him on here?
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81 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 4 Mar
He would love books and articles and music territories and probably use the sports territory to rant about the Blue Jays.
My dad is great. I was very lucky to have the parents I have.
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57 sats \ 0 replies \ @gmd 4 Mar
Those books took over my life for a short while as a kid. I think kids are reading less and less these days sadly my own attention span has been tiktok'd.
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I really enjoyed the first two books! I read the rest of the originals, but my enjoyment diminished with each successive book. I just wasn't interested in the characters and story like I was in the first two.
Dune (2021) ranks very high on my list of favorite movies, and I'm pretty excited about seeing part 2. I'm happy to see that reviews are good so far, and I didn't really mind the changes from the book in part 1. Plus, it's a pretty amazing movie for pure spectacle as well!
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I felt similarly about the sequels, although I did enjoy the one where those crazy witches returned.
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77 sats \ 1 reply \ @Atreus 4 Mar
THOU SHALT NOT MAKE A MACHINE IN THE LIKENESS OF A HUMAN MIND
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It's too bad that element isn't really elaborated in the movies. An anti-AI theme would be pretty timely, after all.
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57 sats \ 1 reply \ @Atreus 4 Mar
You sly dog, I was planning to make my own Dune post soon—also inspired by @r3drun3. 😅 Thankfully there's just so much to say that all of SN's Dune lovers can fit in. https://i.gyazo.com/f0329480d41762fa39c75d8e2ad72b15.jpg
Dune is just a fantastic and extremely relevant book series. My favorite thing about it, and I intend to go over this more in depth, is the focus on developing natural human faculties to their utmost. That's something to really think about as we increasingly enter our own machine age.
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That theme is so absent from the films that I hadn't even thought about it. It is a fascinating part of the books and I look forward to hearing your thoughts about it.
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That's a great take. It's very similar to my feelings about Captain Planet.
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Your PhD can’t be giving you that much of Permanent Head Damage if you can write so lucidly and compellingly and passionately 😝
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Great review. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I've heard about Dune for many years, but did not read the book until after I saw the part 1 movie, as the movie ended in a cliffhanger and I wanted to find out what happened after the ending of the part 1 movie.
I agree that the book does a much better job in character development (i.e. the chapter on Liet-Kynes alone in the desert, descriptions of Wellington Yueh's pain and struggles etc.), but the movie had its limitations, primarily time constraint, and I agree it did a good job retelling the story given the limitations. Also regarding the movie, has anyone noticed Hans Zimmer's music? That score Zimmer composed for Dune is fucking fire!
One aspect I really enjoyed from the book is the scarcity element and how scarcity shaped human action and even cultures. As well, all that human action due to scarcity shown in the book resonates extremely well in the real world. For example, the great houses were willing to wage war and kill for the control of spice. The scarcity of water on Dune makes water sacred and worshipped. Crying over someone's death is considered showing great honor and respect to the dead, because crying is shedding moisture. The moment Stilgar meets Leto and gives Leto the "gift of water" had put a big grin on my face, but also shows how culture is shaped by scarcity. Where something in one culture means respect but could mean insult in another culture.
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has anyone noticed Hans Zimmer's music?
You're in for a treat in part 2. This movie sounds amazing (except for a little bit of dialogue audio).
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Looking forward to see part 2. Time to force my wife to watch part 1 so we can go watch part 2 in the theaters.
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A favourite book and great review. I have even come to appreciate the extended David Lean film in recent years.
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I only read Dune after seeing the first movie. This rings true.
Star Wars was heavily influenced by Dune (to the point where I've heard Star Wars referred to as a knock-off).
I was kind of blown away when I realized how old the books were. If you dig the movies read the books too. Well worth it. I don't read very much non-fiction but Herbert's writing and world creation are excellent.
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Loved the book and really liked the first film -- probably not going to get to see the second for a bit, but am looking forward to it and haven't heard anything bad.
Herbert's sequels were less interesting. The stuff written after his death by his son and others is awful
Quick aside: Listening to the latest episode of Outside/In revealed that Herbert was inspired to write the book when he visited dunes in Oregon.
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Aw man, thanks for the forward! I'll try to read the post during lunch time and chime in my 2 sats. Getting distracted at work again and need to get back to focusing on work.
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