32
votes
I found Frank Herbert’s Dune script. It’s hard to imagine a weirder film version of Dune than the one David Lynch released in 1984, but Frank Herbert found a way. Dune: Part Two is better.
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- Title
- I Found Frank Herbert's 'Dune' Script. 'Dune: Part Two' Is Better
- Authors
- Max Evry, Dhruv Mehrotra, Louryn Strampe, Rhett Allain, Matt Kamen, Angela Watercutter, Jennifer M. Wood, Reece Rogers
- Published
- Mar 4 2024
- Word count
- 3506 words
I'm under the impression that it was, and hopefully my rambling thoughts help make the story more enjoyable (if only from a technical perspective):
Frank Herbert had a number of inspirations that fit into the story, which are enumerated on Wikipedia and I won't repeat them at length. They pretty well fit the themes of other sci-fi and fiction from the 50s and earlier.
Putting a lens on the environment was somewhat new, though, and in addition to the conservation themes, Dune also examines the utility of a region that humans (of the western culture) would normally consider to be lifeless and only exploitable for whatever natural resources lurked beneath. A place where even water is incredibly precious. The idea of a planet largely consumed by an ever-shifting dune sea, seemingly with a will of its own, is also just kinda cool. These ideas seem to be have lifted wholesale for that story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (along with, among other things, the central planet-city from Asimov's Foundation series).
But the thing that brings several of these ideas together in an exciting way for audiences in 1965 and onwards was the exotic aspect of the middle east. Not Lawrence of Arabia in yet-another-war-film, which had a US film adaptation in 1962 and was very famous in its own right. Nor in something related to the western side of the Crusades. But a holy war from a different perspective and, I think somewhat uniquely, not centering around western perspectives at all (even if the Harkonnens are the sorts of super-evil Romans that Caligula's detractors would've written).
Interestingly, the idea of "jihad" and that of a conquering caliphate seems to have been brought to western attention by the Germans during WW1. I've heard some historians credit the Germans with bringing it up when they were working towards a secret treaty with the Ottomans to come in on their side at the outset of the war. Wanting more support from the Muslim world bordering on Russia itself and Allied colonial possessions, they hoped that the Ottomans would want to rally the Muslims within the historical Ottoman Caliphate (seen on the right), and even Semitic peoples in general. That might sound familiar. Anyway, the Germans suggested that the Ottomans could fight to take back that territory if only they'd tie up the Russians (and then the British and French) and that they had a historical precedent as well as a religious precedent to do so. The Ottomans understood that having a 2- or 3-front war was a bad idea, and I'm under the impression that the empire didn't want to resurrect a caliphate themselves, which might involve ceding power to a quasi-religious institution and/or might not be centered in the Ottoman sphere of influence. The Ottoman sultan did declare a jihad on paper (which might not have held much weight to it since it wasn't coming from a religious leader), but from a layman's perspective it doesn't seem the put in much effort.
I think those things, combined with the aftermath of WW2 and a growing interest in the Jewish people, their history, and their culture (including its matrilineal nature), allowed Herbert to weave together something that in the 1960s really would've grabbed people. This time period also aligns with the liberalization and counter culture movements spreading across the middle east. The middle east was something foreign and unexplored, even as the far east was having its own moment within the western counter culture. Herbert seized on the tale of two peoples locked in combat against a common enemy and finding a chosen savior, guided by their mother's interests, to unite them. He added a layer of complexity in building a world within that otherwise inhospitable desert and within cultures foreign to the west and added a fresh twist on the terraforming and empire-led colonization that sci-fi readers had been reading about for decades. At its core the plot is not startlingly new, but I think the added layers made it pretty exciting given the context.
I was disappointed that there was not a part 1/ part 2 double feature to be had anywhere. So I rewatched part 1 at home then drove to the theater for part 2 immediately after.
One of things that I liked about DV's adaptation was that he really toned down the religious mysticism - I mean it's still there as manipulative force, but in other adaptations, I felt like there was this idea that maybe the Bene Gesserit had thought they would control and guide the prophecy and the profit, but that it got away from them. We also didn't get much resolution about the Qwisatz Haderach, so maybe we will see more in part three.
I thought the way they handled Jessica and Alia was brilliant, both in the way it shows Jessica's power as a BG and makes her less passive in the story, and how they have set things up for a really interesting adaptation of Dune Mssiah.
I was a little disappointed in the fight between Paul and Feyd Rautha. It coming down to a merely physical contest (rather than some treachery or lack thereof, depending on which version you are looking at) misses the point of showing the much greater power that Paul has come into, far beyond normal political intrigue. I suppose that is consistent with the way they made Paul more "human" in this version, but the whole point of the prescient trap is that he has moved beyond that.
As to how people think of the story, when I first read Dune in the 90s, as an American, I identified with the Atreides. As I have learned more about imperialism, I have come to see that
there are not really "good guys" and "bad guys", just different sides wanting power and control. I do think that is something that sets Dune apart from many other stories that follow the savior template.
"the Bene Gesserit had thought they would control and guide the prophecy and the profit" ... I like that typo
Hahaha couldn't have done it better if I'd tried.
Dune's strength is very much in its worldbuilding and not its plot. Paul and his white savior journey isn't why Dune has staying power, it's Arrakis itself, how much you learn about life on that planet and the culture of the Fremen. That's not to mention the rest of the worldbuilding for the universe at large, but Villeneueve wisely kept that to the bare essentials. We can explain mentats and why everyone even cares about the spice later.
Haven't seen the new movie yet, but regardless, Dune is a fantasy, no more true to life than Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
All of these high fantasy stories are about imagining what it would be like to have enormous amounts of power. If the author is good, they do it in a knowing, ironic way, pointing out that no, actually, having enormous amounts of power would be bad and cause lots of problems. They'll show how ordinary people suffer during large, dramatic events. But regardless, we're still reading them because a story about the problems of very powerful people is more fun than a story about people with no control over what happens to them.
(The cut-rate version of that is imagining what you'd do if you randomly got a lot of people's attention. Can you think of a better idea than promoting your Soundcloud?)
You could certainly say this about some high fantasy stories, but not all, and Lord of the Rings is absolutely not one of them.
Tolkien has interesting things to say about power, but this is still high fantasy. In Lord of the Rings, the main characters are all legendary figures. Having the entire world depend on two hobbits’ efforts is hardly realistic - you need an imaginary device of extremely concentrated power (the ring) for that to work. The whole situation is designed to make their story incredibly dramatic.
Someone could write a story about an ordinary farmer in Tolkien’s world who never goes on any adventures. There’s a coming-of-age story. They have children. They struggle to survive in adversity, like a bad harvest. Then there’s a plague and they die.
Or maybe a story about a slave of the Orcs who never escapes?
But what would be the fun in that? Sounds like a real downer.
(Note that I didn’t say that having a lot of power is good. Many high fantasy authors write about how their characters suffer extremely due to it. The suffering is dramatic.)
I don't particularly think that the hobbits in Lord of the Rings could be described as "having a lot of power", certainly not in the same sense as Paul Atreides or Luke Skywalker. I think it's fundamentally wrong to equate "having an important role to play in the grand scheme of things" with "being powerful" and I think the difference is one of the core themes of Lord of the Rings as a whole. The entire world depends on the two hobbits' efforts because of the consequences for their failure, not because they possess a powerful device (one which is rarely used by the hobbits and never to anything close to its full potential). The idea that Lord of the Rings is a power fantasy in the same way that Dune can be is at odds with the actual content of the work, imo.
I'll grant that It's not about power in quite the same way, but the plot still revolves around power. The hobbits find themselves surrounded by it, and not just as anonymous soldiers in an army. Most of the other characters are pretty powerful: lords, kings, wizards. There are powerful creatures and artifacts.
Oh the plot still absolutely revolves around power, power is a major theme that Lord of the Rings grapples with. However, your initial comment said the following:
I don't think that either of these sentences applies to Lord of the Rings well at all, precisely because of how Lord of the Rings handles power as a theme.
I still think it largely holds up. Lord of the Rings is a long story and much of it isn’t about the hobbits. It’s based on epic legends, which are all about leaders and heroes, not ordinary people. You can imagine being Gandalf or Aragorn, or any of the other powerful leaders, and role players often do. You can imagine being in a position to fight a battle or save the world. These aren’t the problems of ordinary people, who have no control over major events.
There is more to it than that, though. There’s a contrast between the hobbits and all the other characters in the story. Still, such contrasts are common. A hero’s journey often has characters start from humble beginnings.
Based on this comment I think this ultimately comes down to us disagreeing on what "power" means in this context, which is ultimately a semantic quibble.
Hard agree.
I'm just afraid that if Messiah ever gets adapted, Paul still gets the girl (even in the movie's situation) and then she dies in childbirth (or some other way, they could choose to omit the children part but still kill Chani).
I kind of want it to severely deviate from the book, and have Chani somehow punish Paul for his actions, not reluctantly agree to everything and then give him children until she dies.
I do trust Villeneuve to take the best parts of Messiah and scrap the rest, so I'm desperately hoping he gets the greenlight for it.
I think the contingent point on whether people see Paul as a hero or villain, depends on how we interpret Paul's vision of this narrow band of events he'll need to trigger to succeed after he has survived the water of life. Is he seeing the path that puts Dune back into the hands of the Fremen (which he seems to have a genuine care for in the movie)? Or does he just see the path that saves his own family?
In that he comes back to Dune and lives like a hermit in the later books, I do have to seriously entertain the former.
The end of Messiah
Paul never left Dune. He wandered off into the desert, and people assumed with his blindness and speaking of how he had reached the end of his path, that the desert took him. But he just lived out there, and was eventually captured and forced to see the future for a group. I'm getting a bit hazy on those details, as some time has passed since reading the series.My understanding of Paul post-water of life was that his life was no longer his own. He saw a path to victory, and your point of who's victory is interesting, and from then through the end of the film and even through Messiah, he's merely going through the motions. He's no longer free, but he's a puppet to an outcome he desires.
Although there are implications in Children of Dune
...that Paul saw the Golden Path but refused to take it himself, instead forcing Leto to do it. Which I guess further cements the notion that Paul was not to be thought of as a hero.Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/vVJxS