[incog_nit0]

Noticed that Paul Atreides says 'There's a crusade coming' in the trailer. In the book they specifically use the word 'jihad' repeatedly and the book draws from a variety of influences in the Middle East. I hope they haven't toned things down too much for a modern audience. Part of what made the book so special was its vocabulary.

[pauladunesauce]

I can’t completely blame the writers. Since Dune was written, a few things such as 9/11 have happened. Radical Islamic terrorism was nowhere near what it ultimately became after the book for dune was released in 1965.

Prior to 9/11, I think the majority of the public probably had a very different association with the word “jihad.” It pretty much conjures the image of crazy bearded Muslims in Afghanistan strapping bombs to themselves and blowing things up.

That image simply does not describe precisely what happens in the book. I think the word “jihad” also creates a jarring interruption and a distraction also.

“What the hell, why is this white guy talking about jihad?” It feels like a non sequiter and a distraction. Do white people jihad things? What???

The media will jump on it and start calling this a racist tv show which perpetuates stereotypes. It’s also cultural appropriation by modern standards, which are crazy.

HBO has had a HUGE blowback to Game Of Thrones on this topic in a dozen ways. I think the blowback was so bad they changed their entire programming to be more diverse and inclusive (Watchmen, Lovecraft Etc). George Martin has been constantly pestered with questions from concerned audiences about white saviors and other such things.

Long story short, the term jihad is an unwelcome distraction, too loaded, opens HBO to criticism they don’t want and it doesn’t accurately describe precisely what happens in the book.

I think crusade is correct and doesn’t create this interruption.

[PeterStuer]

Try mentioning "crusade" in an online game when playing with Turks.

[spery]

Why would they get offended by it?

[PeterStuer]

From "Why Muslims See the Crusades So Differently from Christians" [1]

Are jihad and crusade related?

PC: There is a family resemblance because they share roots in monotheism, where God is a jealous God. And both Crusades and Jihad offered martyrdom to those who die. But while they look alike, they have some important differences. Crusades were directed at the liberation of sacred land considered rightfully Christian, whereas Jihad was about rescuing souls.

SM: I personally don’t find any structural difference between the two. Jihad has an Islamic concept: religiously sanctioned aggression. The Crusades were precisely that.

What was the impact of the Crusades in the Muslim world?

SM: The legacy of the Crusades in the Muslim world is that a lot of Muslims think of where they are today in terms of Western encroachment. For some, the Crusades are seen not just as a medieval threat, but as a present one—a perpetual Western attempt to undermine Islam. It could be physical colonialism or cultural colonialism.

[1] https://www.history.com/news/why-muslims-see-the-crusades-so...

[tilt_error]

Because: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doorknob_at_Hluboká_...

[dragonwriter]

“Crusade” and “jihad” (other than in the particular religion of origin) have pretty much identical denotation, connotation, and cultural baggage.

The idea that “jihad” has problems that “crusade” does not is pretty exactly the same problem that you point to HBO getting in trouble for in regard to Game of Thrones, so it is super ironic that you present the narrative you do as a defensive reaction to the blowback from GoT.

[valuearb]

That huge blowback helped make GOT the most popular cable show of all time. I’ll bet they’d love similar blowback over Dune.

[boxed]

Crusade conjures images of Knights in armor. Not really what happens in the book either.

Jihad is just as accurate as crusade imo.

[mariodiana]

A little less than 25 years ago I was in college and knew a young lady by the name Jihad. I wonder what she did.

[wojciii]

I had the impression that the Fremen were based on the middle Eastern stereotype male. This was a great use of the word Jihad to describe. The culture needed a focus point and the Atreides family provided one by manipulating their beliefs.

Jihad was also used to describe the past where thinking machines (AI) was destroyed in a tech smashing jihad which lead to the world of the books without AI.

While I liked the books 20 years ago .. I think that the previous Dune movies were really bad and I'm going to give the new movie a chance. Even without being true to the books and somewhat politically correct.

[rchase]

Nice catch. No judgment yet, but feels like bowdlerization to me.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowdlerize

[jhallenworld]

Perhaps saying that the Missionaria Protectiva is behind Christian instead of Islamic beliefs is more provocative..

But I agree with you about the vocabulary. I recommend George Alec Effinger's Marîd Audran series for more of this..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Gravity_Fails

[tstrimple]

> Effinger started work on a fourth Audran novel, Word of Night, but died before that work was completed.

I've had enough unfinished sci-fi epics for the year thank you.

[Balgair]

I thought the jihad that Paul fears is part of the 'great enemy' to humanity, not the fremen. The fear of that jihad/crusade/great-enemy is what gets Leto going on the Golden Path and the eventual scattering of mankind.

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/The_Golden_Path

[AndrewBissell]

Muad'Dib fears the jihad he himself would unleash on the universe, and can't find a way to stop without ceasing his own quest for power.

The 'great enemy' that Leto tries to forestall is sometimes called Kralizec and isn't necessarily explained in detail, although there are hints it would be some kind of Ixian hunter-killer assassination machines which run out of control, and hunt down all of humanity which is within view of prescient sight. Hence, the Scattering and Leto's breeding program to create humans invisible to prescience so that humanity could never again be vulnerable to extinction from any such threat.

[Balgair]

Oh, got it! There are multiple fears then.

[SigmundA]

I mean I get the debate going around about using "crusade" instead of "jihad" but straight from the books appendices:

>JIHAD: a religious crusade; fanatical crusade.

>JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt)—the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G.

[xiaolingxiao]

Yeah I caught that too. The whole book was a critique of colonialism, unsustainable capitalism, and deconstruction of the white savior complex. I hope he doesn’t shy away from these subjects.

[jariel]

My very first thought when they were doing this remake was literally that word.

There are times when words change for PC reasons, but this isn't one of them. 'Jihad' is a very potent word in the modern lexicon and it would just be unnecessarily out of bounds to use it. It would have the wrong context and be a huge distraction.

'Crusade' is fine, and not 'unPC' because it has Christian connotations, so few care, and creatively perfectly fine ... but I feel is actually a little hypocritical in a sense to use it, in lieu of 'Jihad'. But it's a hard word to replace.

Already, the culture wars are starting, with industry people on Twitter indicating this is a 'move about Middle Eastern culture with no Middle Eastern Actors' type thing, comparisons to 'God's of Egypt' - when of course, this is definitely not a movie about 'the Middle East' rather, that's only one of many cultural artifacts borrowed for the setting.

As for the trailer:

The music is absolutely terrible, it's going to ruin the film for me.

Otherwise, it looks 'contemporary' i.e. it will be 'good' but not 'timeless'. David Lynch's version was a 'flawed masterpiece' - the characters really embodied the 'realpolitik baroque noir' of the book. David Lynch used a lot of serious actors with stage backgrounds, who could also evoke and embody the very cold 'old world' callousness of the nobility. Jason Momoa does not.

In the trailer there are just too many standard Hollywood, familiar faces, Timothy Chatalet feels like a 'regular gen Z kid', relatable, but doesn't have the 'weight of the soul' on his mind.

The aesthetic is 'of the Villeneuve style' but it's definitely not exciting or novel, I feel Villeneuve & Co. have 'operationalized' their schtick and it lacks enthusiasm.

If we can judge from the trailer it will be 'passable' for most fans and regular people, but it won't be great at all.

I predict this will be about as good as his Blade Runner remake.

I am disappointed because there is huge opportunity for creative expansion - instead of 'standard remake for 2020' they could have actually tried some art.

[stevekemp]

> The music is absolutely terrible, it's going to ruin the film for me.

Music can be very polarizing, but once I recognized the Pink Floyd I thought it was a perfect track for the trailer.

[solipsism]

"flawed masterpiece"? Even David Lynch himself hates his Dune. This (God) emperor has no clothes.

[jariel]

The fact that people are still watching this movie 35 years later implies there is something very good about it.

Lynch distanced himself publicly from it, because it was an economic disaster bad on many levels, but I'll bet $100 that with some afterthought, people can recognize what is 'good' about it.

It's a genre defining feature, almost entirely unto it's own, the creative design was 'otherworldly' to the point it probably has not been matched in SciFi ever. Baron Harkonen's scene where he murders of his aid ... the scene where Paul sends his ultra-creepy sister Alia in, alone to 'face the emperor' and she murders Baron ... the representation of the Gild Navigators - just so well done.

Almost everyone but possibly Feyd (ie Sting) and maybe Duncan Idaho, maybe the Padishah Emperor was perfectly cast.

Lynch bit off more than he could chew, and there were too many characters in too little time.

You know when a creative representation just 'feels so right it's right'? For example with the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy? Frodo, Gandalf, the Elves - it was 'perfect' - it seemed to 'everyone' that 'this is right'.

I feel the creative direction with Lynch's Dune was that. Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam from Lynch? I think this image is etched into our minds as 'exactly what she is like'. Our comparisons in the future will be in reference to her.

There was a very interesting version by Jorodowsky that looked really fun, however, I feel it was way too corny, and would have ended up more like Barbarella [1].

For those interested: Jurodovsky's Dune [2].

The missing ingredient in everyone else's Dune is the acid! I would say to Villeneuve "Ok, now take what you have done, and remake it while you are on an acid trip". It's a psychedelic movie about transcendence, God, realpolitik etc.. Hardcore stuff.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarella_(film) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune

[kinghtown]

I’m also a huge fan of Lynch’s Dune. Lynch, I would say, probably hates the movie because of memories of industry drama and studio pressure- more to do with having had a bad experience than the movie being actually terrible. It also almost killed his career in a way. I wonder if he had a desire to work on more big budget films in the mainstream like Spielberg throughout his career and perhaps Dune was the film which ended those dreams. Guy has like three of four legit towering masterpieces (not including twin Peaks)so his career was great despite things but I do wonder what kinds of movies he’d have ended up making if Dune was a success or if he never made Dune after The (very nearly perfect film) Elephant Man.

High concept sci-fi is consistent box office poison and while this new version of Dune looks good, and I want to see it, I don’t think it will set the world on fire. It seems to feel like YA fiction more than I’d like it to be and borrows heavily, stylistically, from Lynch’s Dune but doesn’t seem to have the same design impact as the original. The YA tone in the trailer for me feels like studio meddling. But we’ll see how good the actual movie is. Blade Runner 2 was a fine film but not quite a home run and I expect the same from Dune.

[jariel]

Totally agree, and your point about 'budget and studio' I think hits at this.

This is a 'remake' of the 'everyone is doing remakes' theme, and it's designed to make money first.

There's so much money at stake, it's hard to tell who is pushing for what and how and it's really 'something else' to ask a Director (+ team, remember, he has his own 'team' for every flick) to 'risk everything' on some high concept stuff.

So we get Lynch translated into Avengers with some modern styling and that's that.

I'm hoping that a Billionaire Herbert fan will give a project like this to someone willing to make a go of it and 'let them lose' - or - more practically - after this film is a success (and it probably will be) - we'll get the Netflix series for the remaining books, made in the UK by people who know what they are doing and at least it will be 'good TV'.

[kinghtown]

When Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney he was talking about using to money to produce medium to high budget genre films with deep fine art sensibilities with almost zero meddling which is almost never what we get from Hollywood. Unfortunately that was like ten years ago and Lucas is like totally removed from the cultural zeitgeist.

Deal makers need to be forbidden from creative decisions. One of the major studios should consider adopting a Blumhouse business model where new talent are given a very small budget to prove themselves with zero restrictions or meddling and if they can turn a profit on the Low stakes film then they are promoted to a new budget tier using the previous films profits to bankroll the next film. I truly believe the cream would rise to the top under this model and a new golden era of groundbreaking pictures would occur. Or not, we’ll never know until someone tries. I’m really hoping Blumhouse keeps going in this direction and take bigger risks.

There’s no reason why Dune couldn’t make a great movie, or any other SF book classic but it seems like once SFX and money enter the picture you get deal makers injecting weird love triangles, buddy sidekicks, Rihanna songs, whatever it takes to ruin everything. Hollywood is also super arrogant about how they have mastered storytelling so whenever they adapt something good, like let’s say the Sandman comics, they need to “fix” everything to make it really good.

[JKCalhoun]

Thought Alan Smithee directed that "Dune". ;-)

(Seriously, Lynch "Alan Smitheed" it ... at least on the Blu Ray I recently rented.)

[craftinator]

It might be a fun project to go through the movie after its release and bleep out every politically charged word or phrase. I really do hate this reductionism.

[vb6sp6]

it might also be fun project to see the film first before getting "offended"