Slashdot Mirror
Children Of Dune Tonight
JQuazar writes "Time to get to that Tivo and select 'pick programs to record,' Children of Dune starts Sunday on the SciFi channel!" Waiting...patiently...
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
We're having Spice Beer, Slig (Tofu) dishes and Freman cakes (pumpkin pie). Tomorrow we're gonna have Sandtrout (belly tuna with a little blue dye) and Caladanian wine. Not sure about tuesday.
The only rule is: No Talking! and you have to have read the books... non believers can stay home!
SciFi is also replaying their original 3-part miniseries of Dune during the day today, so if you haven't had a chance to catch it, start the Tivo a bit earlier and snag it as well
Who's your Daddy? :P
Download it here.
... for the children of tivo ;-)
I think they're re-running Waterworld again soon...
IIRC, at the end of Dune 2, Paul had run away into the dessert leaving his children at the mercy of the Bene Gesserit etc. Lot of people were dissapointed with the fact that Paul turned out to be a sissy after all.
Now, Leto and Chani have grown up sharing every memory; The abomination has gripped St Alia-of-the- knife. Everything now hinges on the awesome sacrifice Leto has to make. (Some sacrifice: he covers himself with sandtrout and becomes a human-worm meld that lives a thousand years as the God-emperor.) Someone refresh my memory : What else happens?
most of God-emperor was totally over my head, but Heretics and Chapterhouse were amazing. And now to ask the perennial question: who were the old couple at the end of CH:D?
I have found a truly wonderful proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but unfortunately this sig is too small to contain it.
If it's as sucky as the first miniseries was, I won't feel bad about having missed it.
The movie, even in all its spectacular misery, was better than that compost heap of a miniseries. At least it got the characters right.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I dont have a Tivo, you insensitive cl..
Oh, wait... This is not a poll ? Never mind, move along, all you Tivos !
getSexySig();
Sad,
they can't even get the sequence of farscape episodes right if they show them at all. And even on pay tv they don't show them whole or regularily, it's about as random as you can get.
So this is the same Dune that Frank Herbert created. I haven't seen anything in film/video about that since the Sting movie with the sandworms that they later pinched in Star Wars.
I suppose we will get to see it when the graphic look as current as the iron on a string graphics that the original Star Trek had.
I'm disappointed and jealous
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Wrong. Second. I beat you by 2 minutes.
see subject line
SlashdotLemming says:
Hmmm, just more intellectually devoid crap for the masses. No wonder I haven't turned on my television for 12 years. Tripe tripe tripe.
Oh, wait, did you say SciFi channel and/or anime!?! Hell, I special ordered my TiVo already preprogrammed for this event baby!!
Save Farscape!!
It was actually the miniseries that got
the characters right, the movie got
them wrong.
Herbert really was hitting the crack pipe when Leto did the sandtrout thing.
Leto's sacrifice: to live thousands of years, seeing everyone he loved die, and to become the "greatest predator mankind has ever known". Because of Leto's oppression (and his ability to carry out the oppression over many lifetimes -- long term planning), there would be no more Emperors, and mankind would scatter farther than it would have normally.
Whatever the Bene Gesserit-cum-Honored Matres were running from, it was scary as hell. Leto saw it coming thousands of years beforehand.
I just wish Duncan Idaho hadn't been used all the way up to the end.
I was hoping Brian Herbert would carry on his Dad's legacy and publish what he could find about Dune after Chapterhouse, but after reading two of his three "prequel" books, I just want him to stop. A Dune concordance would be nice, though.
IIRC, at the end of Dune 2, Paul had run away into the dessert leaving his children at the mercy of the Bene Gesserit etc. Lot of people were dissapointed with the fact that Paul turned out to be a sissy after all.
.
I must protest!
Paul Maud'dib was living the Fremen way! If you're blind (as Paul was) you're a burden to your people and you go into the desert to die. It was either that or live in hypocrasy. I thought it was a shame at first, but in the end I decided it's better to burn out than to fade away. After all, Paul bailed as the series got lame . .
Like you said, the books got really freaky after the second one. God Emperor was just too weird for me, and I gave up on the last two because I thought the series was in a death spiral.
But if you reckon they were worth it, I may go back and give them a go. What does everyone else think?
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
- No TiVo...
- Dune boring...
- Have 6 year old son...
I'll be watching the inside of my eyelids when this is on anyway.--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
Uh, Duncan Idaho back from the dead as Hayt-Idaho?
There's a plot to kill Paul's children.
The sacrifice Leto makes is the one that Paul is unwilling to try for; that of using prescience to its logical end (the removal of all free will from the universe).
Basically, the question is, what happens if you know the future? It's an awesome power: Paul eventually blinds himself to take himself out of ruling Dune and the Empire. Leto, having both prescience and the ability to consult his dead ancestors through living memory, realises that humanity will always want to screw with things beyond their control. So by losing his humanity, gaining quasi-immortality, and using that in conjunction with his powers of prescience and living memory, he is able to control the universe as he sees fit. All of it is meant as an instruction not to do the same in succeeding generations: it's a lesson.
At the risk of oversimplifying massively to the point of losing the thread: Leto's life is meant as an answer to the question posed above, in other words --
When you gain prescience, you lose free will.
Which is why Leto has to live for 1600 years -- if he were to stay mortal, there would be nothing to ensure that his ideas, the stagnant culture he creates, and the ossified universe around Dune would last 50 years beyond his death, never mind over a thousand.
This is not to say that Herbert agreed with any of this himself, but he certainly wanted his characters to have these depths of concept.
Chapterhouse's old couple totally escapes me at the moment, so I can't answer that one.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Children of Dune is a sort of fusion between the books Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. And if you are lucky, will not happen nothing very new compared to the books (well, more than the residual effects of making from those 2 books 1 tv adaptation)
I prefer the descriptions of it from those who enjoy the taste.
jabs pencils into eyes to avoid
waterworld.
You can find the miniseries under "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". I took me a while to find it because I was looking under "Dune" or "Children".
Not showing on the UK scifi channel feed. Oh well least we have new futurama and Simpsons on Sky 1 tonight
Cheap UK and US VPS
... those of us who don't have tivo's but instead have set top boxes based on a c3 933 and a Radeon AIW? Oh and only get broadcast because we live in the (*#($@)#@*$ sticks.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
its people like you that reafirm that I am sane, at least as a populace percentile rating
"Waiting...patiently... "
Impatience is the mind killer...
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Heh, I've had it downloaded for a few days, Donkax has had it available (check previous days, I'd be surprised if it was still being seeded though). And the audio is encoded with ogg!! :)
I think they are worth it. I read them every five years or so. Some of the dialogue in the later books pisses me off, to be honest with you, but on the whole it's a rich universe to think about.
One thing I particularly like about it is that it's science fiction written with an emphasis on the psychological and philosophical, as opposed to the 'Hard SF' (technologically-based) and fantasy stuff (wizards, goblins, whatever, I couldn't give a fuck, really). There are themes in all 6 books that you don't really find in other science fiction, certainly not as developed anyways.
Tim O'Reilly in an interview with Herbert discovered that a lot of the first 3 books were meant as a riposte to Asimov's Foundation series -- there's a sense in Foundation that 'the wise men of science will save us', whereas Herbert felt quite strongly that trusting in any single group of people was a failure of intellect. (This has elements related to the Hard SF mentioned above, but I digress)
One thing I found interesting about the Bene Gesserit was that they were sketched initially as a female version of the Jesuits.
Enough of this. Read them, they're worth the effort. Really.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I saw a bunch of people in wierd uniforms handing out leaflets advertising this.
I think they worked for Sci-Fi
If I remember correctly, that old couple at the end of CH:D were "perfect" Face Dancers. That's why they wanted Duncan Idaho - with his repeated lives, reawakenings, and skills of the Honored Matres, he had eventually become the true Kwisatz Haderach
I wish they could show the movie without all those commercials and logos, now I will have to record it using my computer, cut the commercials, wipe out the logos and then burn it to one or two cds :(
I'd like to boycott Susan Sarandon films (and Sean Penn etc.) because of their political "diarrhea of the mouth". They're great at acting, but they sure do say some stupid stuff. And I'm even a liberal!
Maybe I can CinePaint Brittany Spears in for Susan Sarandon. I'm quite sure Brittany doesn't have *any* political convictions!
For the "in story" explanation, I think that's pretty much right. On top of that, I've read somewhere before that the old couple also represents Herbert himself and his wife. Supposedly the physical descriptions (including thier house) match. And if you re-read those sections with that in mind it takes on a whole new meaning. Basically, the author saying goodbye to his creation.
Since I have a super secret ability to see movies between the time they leave the theater and go to the video store, and since this movie about to go to TV was never in the theaters, I've already seen it.
First off, there are no real spoilers in this comment. Things like it's a 4.5 hour movie split into three 1.5 hour segments are fair game.
If you liked the first movie, you'll enjoy this one. This movie covers both the second and third books, of which I've heard bad things. If you like them just for entertainment then you'll do well. If you are a Dune fanatic, then whether you enjoy them or not depends on whether you enjoyed the books or not.
Technically they are well done. The effects are as well done as the first miniseries, and the acting is on par with the first. If anything lacks, I'd say it was due to the books they are following rather than any problems of the production. Since I haven't read the books I can't comment on how well they follow the plot, except to say that the summaries I've seen online match the movies.
All that said, I enjoyed spending a nice quiet evening with my wife watching it. It was a long evening (4.5 hours), but we were glued to the set, so we couldn't turn it off and continue it later. I'd hate to see it with commercials and with time in between. If you hate that to, then be aware that you video store will have it on its shelves on May 20th in DVD and VHS.
I'll reply to this post with a movie summary.
-Adam
Gonna be released on DVD around May I believe, ...although I'm sure a few of you who are alt.binaries adept already have the 5 disc svcd. :P
Weren't the old couple just a couple of "face dancers"? Why would it matter who they were?
I did find the ending to "Chapter House: Dune" rather anti-climatic, but maybe that's just me.
When it THAT going to be released?
I'm waiting impatiently for that one.
The Children of the Droids is supposed to be cool too, but we won't get to see that one until next year.
Basic plot summary (not too spoilerish): Paul has a fremen concubine and a wife (who is from another house). Paul and the fremen woman are trying to have kids, but find that they can't, so they use an ancient fremen fertility treatment which not only helps pregnency, but speeds it up and give the child born special abilities due to the spice.
Paul becomes blind due to a terrorist attack on a city he is visiting. The ancient fremen way has blind people go out into the desert to die, which is rather respectful since they don't demand the body water they carry at death. His sister reigns while his child is growing up. A fremen prophet rises up against alia (pauls reigning sister), saying that arakis is and should be a desert planet, rather than the green earth-like planet pauls and now his sister's reign has made it. The worms are dying because of this.
Real story (Big spoilers): Pauls public wife is giving his fremen concubine contraceptives. The are discovered, and decide to use the fremen method to overcome their effects. She has twins, a boy and a girl, and dies in childirth. During this time those who were instruction pauls wife to give the contraceptive launch another plan to prevent the birth or kill the children. They fail, but pauls wife dies due to the speed of the pregnancy and delivery. The children grow up under the care of pauls wife and sister (their aunt), as paul leaves for the desert due to his blindness. During the remainder of the movie paul lives as the prophet testifying against his own riegn and sister. Most of the other characters do not realize this, but suspect it so they don't have him assasinated as they would any other detractor.
The remainder covers the treachery of another house trying to disrupt the spice trade so they can gain additional power and control. This fails due in part to their own treachery, and in part to pauls mother. Sister alia becomes delusional and power hungry, and eventually kills herself. Pauls son becomes one with the worms, and thus endowed with power begins to bring down the house of paul atreides, bringing arrakis back to its desert self.
There's more, but I gotta go.
-Adam
But if you reckon they were worth it, I may go back and give them a go. What does everyone else think?
:-)
Spoiler Warning!
After Dune, just about everything is depressing. God Emperor of Dune was weird enough, but wait until you come to Heretics of Dune.
Herbert builds up a belief system, where he just shows everything that you knew and respected fade away. And things that you loved to despise, or did not quite like of, like say the BG, turn out to be almost the nice guys!
And then you will realize why Leto-II was good to the BG in the God Emperor series! He knew that the BG had a much much bigger role to play.
Now Dune:Chapterhouse. Thats another very very weird book. Its almost like telling you, everything you knew, or thought that you knew, is false. And you hardly got to see the tip of the iceberg.
He leaves it on a very weird note - either he was planning to write more or did not want to, or knew that he'd not live to write more. Coming to Marty and Daniel, read this article. The ending of the Dune series is just as weird as the ending to Asimov's foundation - just about anything could happen, and you're left with infinite possibilities, and infinite questions
So on the whole, the whole series has a little sad note, and a very weird feeling, but you come away satisfied, although with lots of questions!
Now my question is, what really happened to Ix? Because in House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, he discusses some very weird things about the Atreides and the Ix houses, and some weird characters and the like. Any ideas? I would also like to read more about the Butlerian Jihad, guess Brian is writing a book on that?
I'm still quite disappointed on the casting. I just can't accept Dune with so many blond actors! And they all look so plain, too. If there was one thing that Lynch's Dune got right was that all the actors had very powerful distinctive looks (and were great actors too). Much better than the team of teen bimbos on the miniseries... Disgusting...
Funny showd up under Children for me with a Direct TV series 2.
No sir I dont like it.
Umm, that's Leto and Ghanima. Named after the fremen word for spoil of war.
Too bad Susan Sarandon is in it.
I would have liked to have watched it.
And as far as them being intense fundementalists who stare off into the distance when talking to one another, give me break.
The original movie was far more inspired than this made for tv rubbish.
Last I heard, Brian Herbert is doing the prequel books to prepare for the book that Frank had notes on for after chapterhouse.
The prequel books were *ok*. I think only those interested in the dune storyline would really enjoy them. They were good enough to keep me reading, rather than some other series books that I ended up just discarding after reading half way through.
I thought the last two books in the series, heretics and chapterhouse were respectable. I wonder whether God Emperor and those will be made into miniseries or not. I am not sure whether GE would make a good miniseries, as its not exactly the most action packed in the world, but rather a bunch of mind games over and over. The last two would make good ones imho, going by what they did w/ children, which I think they did a great job. (saw it last week)
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
For those who think that the Dune books provided diminishing returns, there's at least one other geek-friendly choice for your viewing pleasure tonight. Game Show Network is airing "Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal", also at 9 ET. It's the story of Michael Larson, an out of work ice cream truck driver from Ohio, who managed to beat the system on a network game show. He realized that the "random" prize board actually followed a few basic patterns, including two spaces which would continually give him more spins on the board. He then memorized the patterns, got onto the show, and set the earnings record for TV gameshows before Millionare came on. It's a fun story. GSN is airing a documentary about his plan and both episodes of his original appearance tonight.
Dude! +5 Funny!!! Please mod this up. The fellow is a god of wordplay.
My wife doesn't get sci-fi, so I'm the big Dune fan in our house. Hopefully, they'll do a better job with COD than with Dune. Looking forward to it!!!!
One of the things of the DVD set you can buy (which is BTW really cheap I got 3 DVDs new for $15) is a 1 hour interview with a friend of Herbert who talked to him as Dune 1 was forming in Herbert's mind. O'Reilly is way off.
What's Dune? Seriously...
(better post this as an AC)
I've never read the series though I hav read tons of sci-fi books. I saw the origional movie before I joined the Navy out of HS and started reading Sci-Fi. This is still the first half of the Frank Herbert Dune timeline. Its looking like one or two more mini-series' are in order (God Emperor of Dune,Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune). Let's hope this series makes a bundle so they keep making them.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I don't want to miss Six Feet Under. Hopefully they'll show Children of Dune again.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
At the risk of sounding like a jerk (READ: Total Dune Geek), I think you mean Leto and Ghanima (or Ghani as they called her). Also, IIRC, Ghanima means "Spoils of war" to the Fremen.
Leto's "sacrifice" was to accept his Godhood in the way Paul could not accept the Golden Path. Basically, the Golden Path was meant to scatter human life away from the empire; to stir the pot for a while (roughly 3000 years), keeping our humanity.
3000 years after Children of Dune, God Emperor was deeply philosophical, and dealt with Leto's loss of humanity. The little action included a new, very unique ghola Duncan Idaho; a rebellious descendant of the Atreides, Siona; and Leto's "perfect woman" companion, Hwi Noree.
Fast forward another 1500 years (I think), to Heretics, an action packed book (as well as Chapterhouse), which deals with the conflict between the Bene Gesserit and the dangerous Honored Matres. One of Herbert's most interesting characters, Miles Teg, appears in this book.
Anyway, Chapterhouse continues this excellent story line to a final confrontation between the B.G. and the H.M. on Chapterhouse. I would highly recommend slugging through God Emporer to get to Heretics and Chapterhouse, which are both great books. The old couple at the end? I'm not really sure, but the way I originally read it was that it was some sort of "Horton Hears a Who" philosophy. (And then I read the book jacket and realized that it was most likely a tribute to Herbert's late wife, Bev, and was meant to show that life will go on in the universe.)
the first miniseries was AWFUL.
:-)
Every character was totally uninspiring and the acting was just... horrible (never to mention the odd accents getting in the way of everything).
Kyle MacLachlan can act the pants off this Alec Newman guy.
William Hurt is a normally a fine actor, but in the dune miniseries they had him as if he was permanently goosed up on nyquil or something.
Then the sets. Many of them were BLINDINGLY obviously sound stages, especially the desert scenes. It was very distracting.
The only thing distracting about the Lynch production was Duke Leto speaking into a socket wrench
As jumbled as the Lynch dune production was, and despite how much it deviated from the book, it was easily a million times more enjoyable than the miniseries production.
Given all that, I guess they can hardly do worse than the first miniseries. Nowhere to go but up...
DirectTivo's and stand alone tivo's get their program guide from different places. (Tribune for the stand alone, and from DirecTV for the DirectTivo's)
This is one movie I'll not bother with.
The Sci-Fi channels bastardization of Dune was terrible.
Paul Atriedes played as a whiney brat by Alec Newman made me want to hork something up. Duke Leto could have been played by a cardboard stand-up of William Hurt. The only decent acting was done by Saskia Reeves as Lady Jessica.
When David Lynch's 1984 movie version looks fantastic in comparison, you know that it's time to change the channel.
So no, I think I'll pass.
load "windows7"
fremen and highly melange addicted people have glow in the dark fluro-blue eyes? i always imagined that they would be full blue. yes i know full blue contacts wouldnt exactly work now :)
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Just so you know Susan Sarandon or Surandon (SS) is in it. In case you don't know she has this save Sadaam Hussein, or any other Stalin wanna be fixation. Sorta like the antidrug campaign, if I only do a little bit of drugs no one gets hurt ie if I watch only a few of SS movies, she only gets a little money to support mass murderers regardless of how many people they kill on a daily basis. I think there is a how many Sadaam killed counter website somewhere sorta like how much money Bill makes counter.
I think you would be better off reading the books like I have anyway.
If you don't care, do what you want.
I'm sorry, I want Farscape instead. I'm not interested in Sci-Fi's "quarterly event". Remember, that's part of the reason Sci-Fi cancelled Farscape, they were going away from series and moving towards Events. Of course, I now see ads for Tremors the TV Show (yeah, I know, the first movie was good), "analyze your dreams" crap and candid camera.
Catch Dune in repeats, if it's that important. But don't watch it this week.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
1) Lock humanity in stasis like a pressure cooker
2) Breed humans who are invisible to prescient power
3) Wait for explosion, which will spread prescience-invisible humanity far and wide, past the scope of the prophecy of extinction.
I was always impressed by the series for the sheer scope of imagination.
Kid Leto's business plan:
1. Wait while your whole family dies in "accidents" or is "posessed by ghosts".
2. Become one with worm
3. [...]
4. Prophet!
i preferred the movie as the mini series left out a lot of important stuff.
Then I picked up the new Dune prequals done and read the forwards. It seems that Frank Herbert planned to finish the book series after Chapterhouse in a stunning climax, neatly bringing together the Golden Path and the evolution of humanity, but he died before even starting the book.
For years, Brian (the son and co-author of the prequals) scoured his father's stuff looking for a manuscript, notes or anything that would hint to where his father was going. None were found until a few years ago.
It seems that Frank Herbert took quite a few notes and left some highlighted copies of the original series in a safe deposit box somewhere that nobody knew about.
The three prequals and the Butlerian Jihad history book were just "practice" to get into the feel of the Dune universe so that the authors could (finally!) complete the Dune series by using Frank Herbert's notes!
With any luck, we'll be finding out Real Soon Now if the old man and wonam are advanced humans or, as I think, Tlelaxu Face Dancers gone beyond what The Masters intended.
I can't wait...
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
This has bothered me as well. The Ixians don't play much of a role in the books until the God Emperor, and even then it's a tad confused: they provide the God Emperor with all his "forbidden" toys, yet also send people to attempt to kill Leto. It's almost as if Leto still holds dear the bonds forged in the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson books, yet the Ixians despise Leto because the don't understand the sacrifices he's made.
Actually, that should be "guess Brian has written a book on that.
I haven't read it yet, but from the reviews I've read, don't expect a book like anything else in the Dune seriese. It seems it is done very much like a history text.
On the plus side, it explains the founding of the Bene Geserit order as well as the formation of the Mentat and Suk orders. Should be interesting.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
If you live in Canada, the Space channel will be showing it on April 13:
FRANK HERBERT'S CHILDREN OF DUNE Coming to Space
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
What the hell is Tivo?
God Emperor was just too weird for me
God Emperor is a disgrace as a novel. It's not a story, it's a sermon from Mount Herbert. Every half-assed theory of human civilisation is trotted out by Leto II (aka Herbert's alter-ego and mouthpiece); all the characters and plot (such as it is) exist only to lead into another arse-numbing finger-wagging lecture from a blow-hard who had clearly begun to believe is own publicity. And to think I stuck it out all the way through... yuk.
That said, Susan Sarandon, as well as Martin Sheen, and Jeneane Garafolo (all pretty poor talent anyway) and as many others have been spotted, are not just protesting for war reasons but actually whoring themselves for the FAR LEFT. They aren't protesting war, they are protesting anything Bush is for. Call it conspiracy or call it insight; it may be possible that these efforts are being funded through covert channels.
It's funny, these actors that are war protesters are so contradictory. On the one hand they are war protesters and defend a country's or dictator's right to "boil in oil" anyone who protests anything state sponsored in that country. It's not FUD, it is truth. The actors also perpetuate some sort of weird whacky myth that this is over oil. They also say it's for political gain. While minutely true, I doubt Bush thinks this is gaining him votes or helping HIS Texas oil prices. Oil companies love for gas prices to be high and it's NOT hardly related to an iRaqi war. OPEC and oil producers around the world are fixing prices and blaming the excuse on the war and supply. It's the same as the stock market. Lows are being blamed on the war fears. The economy was tanking WAY before Sept 11th. And companies are ONLY now being shaken out. The economy will recover before the end of 2003 and THAT'S when the stock market will recover.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Willaim Hurt should have had his SAG card yanked for that performance. Honestly, he really phoned that one in.
But still, think about the production costs. Think about the blindingly huge concepts the books have to cover. With all of that in mind, you really get to the point that there are some real impossibilities with making these work IN ANY FASHION. I am impressed that they even try.
Yet they do. And although not perfect, they do in my estimation a bang up job. SO FOR THAT, I consider them a success.
That's peculiar because his kid says he found notes that would extend the story further (what becomes of the sandworms, Duncan, what the hell was chasing the Honored Matres, etc.) and that he's planning on pursuing that. For what it's worth, I think his kid's a much better storyteller than his father. His father painted a grand world, with great depth and well-developed characters with intricate plots, but I felt it got ruined whenever he tried to potificate (ie: Zensunni Wanderers and all their damned sayings). When he just got down to the story itself, with just a little backstory, it read much better. His kid seems to have the knack for just sticking to the story, and since his father already laid the groundwork, he really doesn't have much to do to keep the story going...
SO WHERE ARE THE SOUND GUNS AT IN THIS ONE?
That was the best part anyway.
(Dives into a bunker and holds his Jiffy-Pop Tin out the doorframe)
>Every character was totally uninspiring and the >acting was just... horrible (never to mention the >odd accents getting in the way of everything).
:-)
Yeah its irritating when people 10,000 years from
now don't speak amercan wff a midwestern twang.
You're an idiot.
>Kyle MacLachlan can act the pants off this Alec >Newman guy.
Hah, there acting is roughly equivalent, with
alec being slightly better. Both are good essentially.
But Alec could clearly kick Kyle's ass if I'm not
mistaken.
Again you're an idiot.
>William Hurt is a normally a fine actor, but in >the dune miniseries they had him as if he was >permanently goosed up on nyquil or something.
Actually there are plenty of really smart
people who have a subdued manner and who are
brilliant and compelling. Perhaps that was their
choice in the directing. I think it works.
>Then the sets. Many of them were BLINDINGLY >obviously sound stages, especially the desert >scenes. It was very distracting.
I've seen real life that felt like an unreal
soundstage(Andrews AFB airshow, the beach in
the morning), I think they did a reasonable job
and didn't squander all of their cash on efforts
like (we film on location in death valley), and
spent it instead on good effects and good actors
where it counted.
Also, have you ever been to a play???? Its called
using your im-ag-in-a-tion...
You are an unimaginative idiot..
>The only thing distracting about the Lynch >production was Duke Leto speaking into a socket >wrench
The ONLY thing???
How about disregarding every important aspect of
the book, and regarding and perverting every
unimportant aspect??
How about battle scenes that were so dark and
grainy it could have been anything from a
grateful dead show filmed at knee level to
the LA riots filmed at knee level.
How about weirding modules, WTF, where did this
stupid idea come from?? You have lasers, but
wait we have a sonic disrupter that amplifies
your voice. So now you have the destructive power
of a laser with shorter range and the requirement
that you damage your vocal cords. Stick to the
book fucknuts, why film a frank herbert novel
if you are going to inject lame hacknyed ideas?
I'll give you this occasionally that film produced
a cool image or too, about 10% of the time.
>As jumbled as the Lynch dune production was, and >despite how much it deviated from the book, it >was easily a million times more enjoyable than >the miniseries production.
I disagree emphatically, I wish the money could
have gone to sally struther's and save the children instead.
>Given all that, I guess they can hardly do worse >than the first miniseries. Nowhere to go but >up...
You opinion has been noted as a stupid opinion.
A heads up - the binaries groups have a DVD to VCD rip up and it's awesome quality.
Living in Canada where it is not slated for boradcast till next month - this will have to do.
The quality of the series is simply excellent. Susan Sarandon looks a little out of place though.
When I see people with such enthusiasm about TV, I get strongly discouraged about the prospects of the human race. So easily entertained. So easily manipulated. Like pawns eagerly waiting to be moved.
I believe most everyone has the potential for strong intellect but it requires one to realize their attention is a valuable resource that can be spent quickly in a world where mental cotten candy is cheap and available in bulk.
...wear your water suit.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
Mainly because the reviewer I saw had never read the books. He kept on referring to "Spice," capitalized as if the word was horribly over-emphasized and screamed. (Sorry, thinking of first Dune movie)...
Most of all, though, it annoys me that they seem to have converted all of the characters into extremely attractive 17-year-olds. Which is especially fretting, as the way I read it, Ghanima and Leto are only ~8-10 at the time Children of Dune occurs.
The first book of the "Legends of Dune" series has been released, called the "Butlerian Jihad." By Brian and Kevin J Anderson, both of whom wrote the Prequel to Dune (House *) books. There are going to be two more books in the Legends series, and I can't wait. Interesting stuff.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
To understand and enjoy the (original) miniseries, it is vital to understand one critical point.
It's not a movie. It's a filmed theature production with a few special effects.
Without that, you're doomed.
The performance of the Baron Harkonnen is most telling and what first twigged me to this; after the big space scene with the House Atreides moving off Caladan it looked like a movie, but as the planet Dune fades into the Baron's face, who is quite obviously delivering a soliloquy, I understood.
After that, the soundstages, the extreme lighting, a lot of other little things, it will all make sense. I also think that given the obvious budget constraints the hybridized approach allowed a superior product to be produced, vs. the cost of doing the whole thing as a movie. The cost of filming "on location" would have been truly prohibitive, and the project would simply never have been at all. Considering the IMHO fine quality of the final product, I think it's worthwhile.
I didn't find the acting flat, I found it appropriate for that environment.
I suspect the same will be true of the sequel, though as I can't get the Sci-Fi channel (sob!!!) I won't know. So watch it as a recorded theatrical production, not as a movie, and I think you'll see what I mean and enjoy it more.
The only thing that I really feel was sacrificed and I wish they had tried a bit harder ($$$) was they lost the feeling of being out on the Dunes. Even just one shot on location with a nice sweep away (my choice would have been as Paul and Jessica emerged from the ornithopter just prior to finding the Fremen) would have added a lot and I would have forgiven them the rest of the soundstage stuff. (Remember in Star Trek VI the huge pull-away done on location in Alaska? Effective, even though all the scenes on each side of that were soundstage.)
I agree, the movie was jumbled and hard to follow. That and way too dark.
The series worked for me, as long as I remembered this was a sci-fi made-for-tv-show. I think that following the book was a good thing, something that directors seem to have just realized recently.
btw, check out Children Of Dune on alt.binaries.multimedia.scifi
at 1.5 gigs its a bit hefty but good quality.
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
Funny,
I found God Emperor my favorite book. I have read the series 4 times now, and it still comes out on top!
Children Of Dune Tonight
Not in the UK it isn't, you insensitive clod!
I have read the series four times now, and God Emperor still comes out on top!
More like, re-release the Dune Encyclopedia. A very cool book that provided plenty of fodder for Traveller campaigns. Brian Herbert says it is not "canon," but his Daddy who created the series said it was in the foreword. No need for a concordance, just a re-release of this book. I could make big bucks on this book if I sold it on...umm...Yahoo Auctions...but I wouldn't. Much more interesting than some of the trash that has sprung up since Frank Herbert went off into the desert to become food for Shai'Hulud. ;-)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
6,000,000 viewers.
24 hours a day.
Sci-Fi Network has a posse.
Obey Hemos!
I for one won't be watching. I loved Dune, but won't be watching COD or any other movie that uses actors that are so anti-american.
And here is where you go to read O'reilly on Herbert
--- Nothing but Blood and Kosmos
Hasn't everyone already seen Children of Dune? It is old as hell. The warez version (dvd screener) has been around for almost 2 weeks.
I suggest watching this. It's good!
Dune 2 == Dune Messiah
Now, Leto and Chani have grown up sharing every memory
Chani is Paul's girl. Ghanima is Leto II's sister--both of whome are Paul and Chani's kids.
I've just started God Emperor, so can't add much more, sorry.
My understanding is that tonight's SciFi "Children of Dune" has a few good FX shots of Leto II as God Emperor...probably in the third night. I've been told, by those who certainly should know, that there are some simply breath taking shots to wait for.
The plot of God-emperor was inherent in the original plot of Dune. (I can't speak to the TV series. I heard about the atrocity of a movie, and assumed that a TV series would be even worse.)
... wrong.
Anyway... Dune was basically about ecology. Dune Messiah was about politics. Children of Dun was about duty. God Emperor was about evolution. Chapterhouse Dune was about death.
I don't have a one word summary for Heretics of Dune, but the one-word summaries are clearly too shallow anyway.
When evaluating any action taken by Paul, Ganima, or Leto II, one must always ask themselves what future are these people manuvering away from. (Not towards. One of Paul's early discoveries was that manuvering towards a future was a bad idea. The secret was to manuver away from the one's you don't want to encounter.)
Leto's "Golden Path" is called that as a reference to the Sun Kings. It is a particular kind of balenced madness, similar to multiple personalities taken to the limit, but in this case each of the personalities is a person who has lived. It is presented as an autocracy, but the ego is not in charge (i.e., Leto isn't the autocrat.) This is something that it's quite difficult to be consistent about, and to me it seems that he slips many times. It ends with all of the personalities that had been Leto spending an appearant eternity in a sensory deprivation condition. (This is a part of why he manuvered things so that 'Rakis was bombarded with atomic weapons until there was nothing left alive. That brought the eternity of sensory deprivation to an end, for most of him.)
In the series taken as a whole, the main theme is "don't be short sighted!". Of course, if Paul had been braver, then HE would have taken the Golden Path, and spared Leto. The alternative was the end of humanity. We aren't given any details of how this would have happened. But there are indications that Siona is the answer, and that without her the Bene Tlielaxu could have built killing machines (think Saberhagen's Berserkers) that would have ended up killing everything. But Siona is impossible to trace.
The prequels are atrocious. They aren't a part of the series, no matter what they claim. No Ships were not invented until towards the end of Leto's reign, and were one attempt to work around him. That failed. (He could see them.) This is an important element in the God Emperor. Siona was the answer that he invented, but he was continually pressing others to come up with answers that he couldn't forsee... probably because he hated the end that he could see he was headed for.
I'm skipping a lot, and trivializing an extremely deep work. And it's been about a year since I reread the series. But there's an immense depth and coherrence. You may not agree with all of his assumptions or conclusions (I think some of them are silly), but trivializing it is
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm just wondering... why would anyone risk watching a new series or serial on the SciFi channel?
They've proven that they can't be trusted to finish what they started. As a result, I don't trust them any more. How do you know that Children of Dune won't be cancelled just before the last episode? Or that any of their new series won't just be given the boot?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Yeah, yeah, film at 11.
Does anyone know when Space is going to air this in Canada?
Sorry, Sci-Fi channel. Don't mess with Alias. You just lose.
I made it to the last one (I think, a couple of them blur), and bar none, Herbert's staging of religion was the most interesting in sci-fi, at least to that scale. But eventually, I really only enjoyed reading the epigraphs, and lost interest in all the characters or stories...
And eventually, the story devolved into two hypersexed prosmicuous sex races breeding...
He also seemed to reintroduce jews as the only free standing group to survive millions of years of culture and history- which just didn't make sense. I don't recall them appearing before in the series, and coming out in the 5th or 6th was a bit of a shock.
Ah well. Can't get it all right.
God Emperor is written in a narrative style that is discursive and mystical so as to inculcate in the reader a suitable sensible of numinous approach towards the personailty of the character closest to the actual god of the fictional universe, ie the authoritative voice.
;)
The author *must* be as honest in his treatment of Leto, as Leto's outclassed courtiers. His creation is no good if it has already been tricked by a mere fallible human mind!
In that light we must not expect the author whilst he is drawing together the thematic threads of the entire work, to give away his purpose *too* easily...
Leto is an astounding portrait of human individual and societal psychology, drawn in strokes of ancestral myths of living deity (Leto == Ra
This serves as a perfect platform for the author's discourse on the nature and morality of
power, human isolation and the struggle between purpose and freedom, and much more.
It's well worth a second read, even if you have to read between the lines...
-Liam.
I am way excited and the countdown is going for children of dune.
But.
WHAT THE HELL did they do to riverworld? Has anyone bothered to read the synopsis of it? No richard burton, now everyone speaks the same language, etc. Total crap for anyone that has read the books.
The cool thing was that the primary character was burton BECAUSE he was a superior linguist and swordsman and explorer. I actually read a bio of him once I read these books because I couldn't believe that someone like him was legit.
In my own little misguided protest of Farscape and anything else I am pressently annoyed with (anti-american actors and such) I decided that I can have my cake and eat it too.
I downloaded the 5 disc SVCD set off of the newsgroups.
The quality of the SVCD is pretty good. There is this weird color dropout that happens once every disc that I don't understand. But if you ignore that the quality of the rip is very good.
But the show itself, wow. I am really engrossed. I remember being kind of dissapointed in the Dune miniseries in 2000. I came to the conclusion that while this is an outstanding series of books it just doesn't translate to film at all.
Well maybe that is true of Dune, but Children of Dune.
Definetly worth your time. I am enjoying it immensley.
Next stop, I need to learn to spell immensly.
Like any TRUE geek I already had a TiVo with a "wishlist season pass" for the keyword "DUNE", which causes it to record any show with the word "DUNE" in the title or description. :) So I had no need to set a recording up for tonight!
hard core geek-ware
Atrocity of a movie? In my humble opinion, (and humble it is for I only read the first book), the movie, although not very true to the feel of the book, is certainly a masterpiece in its own right.
Well that's odd then, because I looked up "Children of Dune" on my SA Series2, and I found it also. So the other guy's DirecTiVo and my standalone both found it under "Children of Dune". Wonder why you had trouble...
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
IIRC, at the end of Dune 2, Paul had run away into the dessert leaving his children at the mercy of the Bene Gesserit etc. Lot of people were dissapointed with the fact that Paul turned out to be a sissy after all.
he ran away into the dessert? hmmm, sounds delicious!
Well I will say this, it was definitely better than Taken.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
I quite like the Herbert film as well, especially the director's cut they play on SciFi sometimes. Wish they would release that as a DVD. There's about a half hour of additional footage that brings the whole movie together and makes it more accessible.
make up for bad acting??
poor casting, low budget, low rent.
Not impressed. The original is the ONLY Dune.
Accept no immitaions.
Sarandon should have stuck with the RHPS..
I've just read through the comments above, and nobody seems to be talking about what actually happened during this 2 hour crap fest.
If the first mini-series that the SciFi channel produced was of mediocre quality, at least they stuck to the plot. It was a reasonably faithful production of a long and complicated novel.
This new Children of Dune mini-series just rewrites Herbert every other scene. Things are out of context, people are added and subtracted, and Susan Sarandan as Princess Wensicia is suddenly the central plotter of a conspiracy that the Bene Geserit barely understands. (Uh... was she even in the first book? Or was it just that important to insert her because of her prominent billing in the credits.) There's a list a mile long of everything that's annoying about the show, and it's only 1/3 of the way through.
If you've never read the books it might have been enjoyable- I wouldn't know. But if you're familiar with the novels and you're a little geeky about them (and I assume that's a vast majority of slashdotters) you're going to hate this.
On the positive side- it looks cool. So it's got that going for it. Watch it for ten or 15 minutes and then go read the book.
Shhh! My sig fell asleep and I don't want to wake it.
I wish I had read this article before I began installing Gentoo on the only device I have with a TV tuner! Sigh... I guess there's always P2P. :-/
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
I just got done watching part 1 of this (part 2 is tomorrow). In summary, I was suprised by how good it was. Great story, good effects (not ILM quality but above the standard made-for-tv effects) and some excellent music (Gladiator style in some parts with the female singing).
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
There's something that seems to have been forgotten and left out of the TV series all together. Paul had always resented the path his mother had placed him on by using her Bene Gesseret influence to make him the Freman messiah. The only reason he fought the Harkonen and deposed the Emperor was to avenge his father. After that the Jihad got out of control and he saw that this would lead to his terriable purpose - to be the God Emperor. He allowed himself to be blinded (only physically) so that he would not be forced to take on the responsibility of becomming the God Emperor. What he couldn't know (because prescient beings interfer with each other's visions) was that this responsibility would fall unto his son. Later he even tried to bar Leto II from assuming this awesome power by preaching against all off worlders as the Prophet of Arakeen and having some sort of psychic/prescient battle with Leto II which he lost. Once Paul realized the terriable force Jessica had unleashed upon humanity by disobeying the Bene Gesseret directive to bear only women to the Atradies he became resolved to stop it so he started side stepping his destiny. But the God Emperor future had an inertia of its own and manifested itself in his son. If you remember he didn't even know he was going to have a son. All of Paul's visions showed his daughter being wed to House Corrino and ending the Jihad ... the God Emperor or Golden Path possible future hid itself from him until it was too late! It litterally blind sided him. Once Leto II was born Paul went blind (that is lost control of his prescience) and humanity was placed irreversably on the path he'd spent his entire life trying to avaoid.
From what I saw from the tv promos is that Leto is always shirtless... only white trash always go around shirtless so get ready for Cops: the Arrakis edition! He's even got the tattoos, just need to lose a few teeth and maybe slap chani around a bit.
any ideas why susan sarandon is in this movie? were they just trying to get a marquee name to pull in viewers or does she read the books? while her acting was pretty good it looked out of place next to some of the other acting that was of a lower caliber. i also think they went a little overboard on her costumes, perhaps trying to create something like queen amidala in star wars.
And channel nine repeatedly stuffs up sequencing of the sci fi it shows and I am not just talking about repeats. there was something on foxtel like scifi but they tend to show ten episodes of the same thing eg dr who or red dwarf on the same day, so you cannot get a regular fix. And there is no sign of Dune or Children of Dune on the TV here at all. I dunno why you mark something as informative as troll. I suppose I am going to have to make friends with someone who can online stream the show.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I have just read Dune and The Prophet and I am almost done with Children of Dune. I did this in anticipation of the new series. The first series, Dune, was great given budgets and all. Acting was not that great really (Irulan and the Baron were great ... and I think that's about it). Close to the book but for a purist there were parts where I cringed.
Children of Dune so far is dissapointing in regards to closeness to the book. Acting is just about as bad as the previous one. Again, given the budget it's actually good.
As far as those of you who didn't like the end of The Prophet and/or The God Emperor I think you just missed alot in those books or just plain did not understand everything in those books. It certainly did take me a while until I got it. Those books have great lessons to teach to those who listen. Many people miss those lessons and are confused by the books.
Flame away ... I don't really read Slashdot anymore, but I had to comment on this particular topic because it is so dear to me. As always, these are just my own personal opinions and if you don't like them ... well, I don't care.
Fourty-two!
Yeah, I admit it was a stationary sandworm, but definitely a sandworm. Jabba the Hut fed his bad debtors to it. Luke fed a number of Jabba supporters to it. I saw some more recently on a tv show like buffy or charmed and those ones could move through tarmac/bitumen. I'm sure they've been on the screen a lot more than the original Dune movie. They are cool monsters.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
What they say: What they mean:
A major technological breakthrough... Back to the drawing board.
Developed after years of research Discovered by pure accident.
Project behind original schedule due We're working on something else.
to unforseen difficulties
Designs are within allowable limits We made it, stretching a point or two.
Customer satisfaction is believed So far behind schedule that they'll be
assured grateful for anything at all.
Close project coordination We're gonna spread the blame, campers!
Test results were extremely gratifying It works, and boy, were we surprised!
The design will be finalized... We haven't started yet, but we've got
to say something.
The entire concept has been rejected The guy who designed it quit.
We're moving forward with a fresh We hired three new guys, and they're
approach kicking it around.
A number of different approaches... We don't know where we're going, but
we're moving.
Preliminary operational tests are Blew up when we turned it on.
inconclusive
Modifications are underway We're starting over.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...