The first trailer to Apple TV+'s series adaption of Isaac Asimov's Foundation is certainly gorgeous eye candy. It remains a mystery how they plan to adapt such an immense and complex space opera, but... fingers (toes and tentacles) remain crossed.
On Quinn's Ideas, he offers his reaction to the trailer and discusses both this series and the forthcoming Dune film.
Here's a decent little backgrounder on Foundation.
Image: YouTube Read the rest
36 years after the release of David Lynch's film adaptation of Dune, that famous flop is still finding new ways to surprise me. Like this Dune Activity Book — not to be confused with the Dune Coloring Book, or the Dune Color and Activity Book, all of which were apparently released in a failed attempt to market the film to kids.
Today, I'm particularly fascinated by this recipe for Dune "No-Bake Spice Cookies."
Anyone feel like making me some #Dune No-Bake Spice Cookies with me over Zoom? pic.twitter.com/NFDv3z4FYv
— Patrick Macias (@Patrick_Macias) June 19, 2020
Was melange supposed to taste like cinnamon and coconut? That doesn't strike me as a very exotic, out-of-this-world spice flavor. Was this supposed to tantalize children like a gateway drug to lead them towards the addictions of hallucinogenic-induced space navigation skills and telepathy? And why should the Kwisatz-Haderach need parental assistance to melt the butter in a saucepan? Children must not fear! Fear is the mindkiller!
Perhaps these cookies are the little death that brings total obliteration. Only one way to find out.
(If you want to get a closer look inside these weird childrens' books, check out this post from Coilhouse)
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These were made by artist Chezka Sunit. And as excited as I am about that new live-action Dune movie, I'm already craving an anime version using this artwork 'cause it's gorgeous.
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New shots from the set of Denis Villeneuve's forthcoming Dune movie depict the hardy Fremen, natives of the desert planet at the heart of the sprawling spice opera. Those gloves Chani is wearing are Oakley Factories [CHOAM referrer link] (or knockoffs thereof), available for fifty Imperial solaris or so.
Oakley Factory gloves [CHOAM] Read the rest
Vanity Fair posted a more detailed set of previews from Denis Villeneuve's forthcoming Dune movie. Here's Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) with his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). Read the rest
The logo for Denis Villeneuve's forthcoming Dune movie series was revealed at an event in France last night. It appears the movie's producers are rushing to remove it from the 'net, as photos of the logo are disappearing from popular Dune fan accounts with copyright enforcement notices left in their wake.
Wow - I've had the new Dune logo image removed due to a DMCA take down notice from Warner Bros!
— Dune-BehindTheScenes (@DuneInfo) January 29, 2020
But they can't get everything, and it's easy to find with a search.
Perhaps they know it's futile, and the aggressive enforcement is itself a publicity stunt. Dune's fandom is old and intense, and a rich thread in the cultural fabric of the internet generation thanks to the sprawling novels, the magnificent badness of the 1982 David Lynch movie, and a conversely excellent series of computer games based on Frank Herbert's lets-not-get-started-trying-to-summarize-it epic. So every element of the production receives an unusual level of attention from mainstream journalists.
The takedowns may be of a wire photo, too, and triggered by claims from a photo agency rather than the movie's producers. It seems unlikely, however, as Twitter user DuneInfo identifies Warner France as issuing a DMCA takedown notice that had led to their post of the logo going blank. The image in this post is cropped and perspective-corrected to show only the matter at hand: the logo and its backdrop.
The desert photo is by Leah Kennedy and appears to be exclusively available from her own website. Read the rest
Last-minute stocking stuffer! After many requests I have finally made the Choam-azon logo available on tees, mugs and housewares, with absolutely no-one's permission.
Celebrate the crushing monopoly on interstellar trade enjoyed by Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles with this handsome design evoking its distant origins on Old Earth. Shipped directly by Guild Heighliner to your sietch!
For those not in the know, it's a parody of the Amazon logo referring to CHOAM, the overwhelming retail cartel from the Dune universe. But of course, abominations that you are, you already knew that.
CHOAM logo parody merch [redbubble]
Dune's is the last remaining online fandom that remains pure, writes Sean T. Collins. Spectacular yet sprawling, wondrous yet wooden, prophetic yet problematic, it has everything -- and the best memes, too.
Dune references signal shared knowledge to those in the know, and that’s about it. Dune fandom is an un-fandom.
Part of my edit of Lynch's film remains live on YouTube. It's Dune with all the dialogue taken out:
Also:
— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) November 27, 2017
David Lynch's Dune, though unsuccessful in theaters, has gained a more positive reputation over the years for its spectacular visuals and memorable one-liners. But Denis Villeneuve, directing a new movie of Frank Herbert's SF classic, says he'll be taking pains not to let it influence his own vision.
From an interview with Yahoo:
“David Lynch did an adaptation in the ’80s that has some very strong qualities, I mean David Lynch is one of the best filmmakers alive, I have massive respect for him. But when I saw his adaptation I was impressed, but it was not what I had dreamed of, so I’m trying to make the adaptation of my dreams. ...
“It will not have any link with the David Lynch movie,” added Villeneuve, who said he fell in love with the classic novel when he was a teen. “I’m going back to the book, and going to the images that came out when I read it.”
This is certainly for the best. Lynch's Dune would have been more thoroughly forgotten but for a series of unambiguously excellent 1990s video games which were fastidiously imitative of his vision. Movies have some power to fix how people see a book, but media derived from movies has an uncanny power to set it in stone, shunting the source material a degree of separation away. I think those games are a big part of why younger Gen-Xers and Millenials appreciate Lynch's Dune, which is a bad film.
The blind spots of the 1982 movie's staging also correspond to things from the book that are most relevant and interesting now. Read the rest
That science-fiction extravaganza Dune allegorizes contemporary themes of imperialism, economic addiction to oil, and religious war is obvious. But it turns out that Frank Herbert's masterpiece owes much to one book in particular: Lesley Blanch's brilliant, half-forgotten Sabres of Paradise, about the warlords of the Caucasus, where Europe and Asia meet.
Read the restAnyone who has obsessed over the mythology of Dune will immediately recognize the language Herbert borrowed from Blanch’s work. Chakobsa, a Caucasian hunting language, becomes the language of a galactic diaspora in Herbert’s universe. Kanly, from a word for blood feud among the Islamic tribes of the Caucasus, signifies a vendetta between Dune’s great spacefaring dynasties. Kindjal, the personal weapon of the region’s Islamic warriors, becomes a knife favored by Herbert’s techno-aristocrats. As Blanch writes, “No Caucasian man was properly dressed without his kindjal.”
Herbert is ecumenical with his borrowing, lifting terminology and rituals from both sides of this obscure Central Asian conflict. When Paul Atreides, Dune’s youthful protagonist, is adopted by a desert tribe whose rituals and feuds bear a marked resemblance to the warrior culture of the Islamic Caucasus, he lives at the exotically named Sietch Tabr. Sietch and tabr are both words for camp borrowed from the Cossacks, the Czarist warrior caste who would become the great Christian antagonists of Shamyl’s Islamic holy warriors.
Herbert also lifted two of Dune’s most memorable lines directly from Blanch. While describing the Caucasians’ fondness for swordplay, Blanch writes, “To kill with the point lacked artistry.” In Dune, this becomes “[k]illing with the tip lacks artistry,” advice given to a young Paul Atreides by a loquacious weapons instructor.
David Lynch's 1982 Dune wasn't well-received at the time, but over the years has become a cult classic—perhaps even a good film. With a few nods to the lavish sets and striking set-pieces, Emily Asher-Perrin takes a weirding module to the latter claim: David Lynch’s Dune is What You Get When You Build a Science Fictional World With No Interest in Science Fiction.
Read the restAny attempt at cohesion on a more granular level, which is where worldbuilding is most essential in science fiction, is shrugged off in favor of another inexplicable style choice that brings a bit of form and zero function. With the exceptions of military collars and crests, there is nothing that communicates how these things and people connect—some have tried to christen it “noir-baroque” which is a cute thought, but it’s hard to believe that any detailed reasons for the aesthetics were considered beyond “this looks cool.”
Dune wants to be phantasmagorical and it wants to be offensive to your senses, and those things can work in cinema, as Lynch’s career communicates incredibly well. But this film does not carry off that off-kilter creepiness as anything more than a parlor trick. It fails to be authentic because these cues are not entrenched in the universe projected on screen. They are there to shock the viewer, to disgust them, but they don’t mean anything. The Guild member floating in its chamber of gas is strange and otherworldly and grotesque, but communicates nothing besides that. It is not integrated into its setting, its surroundings.
Hot off filming Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life to great acclaim and Blade Runner II, Denis Villeneuve is tackling the great white whale of screen science-fiction: Dune. Brian Herbert, son of author Frank Herbert, tweeted the news last night.
It's official -- Legendary Pictures has signed the very talented Denis Villeneuve to direct the exciting new DUNE series film project.
— Brian Herbert (@DuneAuthor) February 1, 2017
Back in late November, we’d reported on Legendary having secured the rights to the Dune series of novels from the Frank Herbert estate. The deal gives Legendary the option for both film and television rights worldwide. Brian’s tweet implies that Villeneuve will be attached to the film project, and we’ll keep an eye out for any news on around the TV front. It seems that studios are looking to go wider than a single format lately, with Lionsgate developing the Kingkiller Chronicles simultaneously for both TV and Film.
Dune was filmed twice, once as a stunning but mangled David Lynch epic and later as a low-budget TV miniseries. Fans have been eager for years to see the 1965 classic in theaters again, but various projects over the years have failed to enter production.
The story's complexity sank the 1982 version, but its incredible production design made it a cult favorite. Star Kyle McLachlan explains the plot succinctly in a tweet:
??✋????☀️????⏳??????????????〰?️⌛️??????????⚔? #dune https://t.co/bXwpdYC8jz
— Kyle MacLachlan (@Kyle_MacLachlan) August 16, 2016
For once I insist this single novel be turned into a screen trilogy. Read the rest
A kitten interpretation of the Bene Gesserit Litany of Fear, from the David Lynch movie masterpiece “Dune,” based on the great Frank Herbert science fiction novel. Read the rest
Hayley Ashburn narrates this short but intense film on fear, overlaid on heart-stopping footage of her highlining on a line 2800 meters up, between Italy's snow-dusted Torri del Vajolet in winter, the first person ever to do so. Recognize the quote? Read the rest
The movie Dune was spectacular but incomprehensible: a boiling-down of a huge science fiction epic into a couple of hours of action. Star Kyle McLachlan, however, can fit the whole thing into a tweet, using only emoji. The Tweeter must awaken!
??✋????☀️????⏳??????????????〰?️⌛️??????????⚔? #dune https://t.co/bXwpdYC8jz
— Kyle MacLachlan (@Kyle_MacLachlan) August 16, 2016
Sarah Sumeray's mum made these incredible hand-stitched scenes from Dune novels; Andy Baio adds that they're covers by legendary SF artist Bruce Pennington
@SummerRay Amazing work. Your mom rules! (FYI, all three are Bruce Pennington covers, but only two are from Dune.) pic.twitter.com/0ejcjFvV5W
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 3, 2016
The originals:
