TL;DR, Er, I mean, TLOFR is asexual in the way of literature for children of the past. The romance is all mental. Dune has a sexual undertow that is downright Freudian. It really leaves a queasy feeling that doesn’t lend itself to High Pop. If you can’t imagine a Disney ride based on it then it probably is not going to become the sort of cultural touchstone that Rings has become. Safe and sane. You could, on the other hand, turn it into an experience tuned for an adult sensibility and be happy to be compared to Midnight Cowboy or Nashville.
Based on the price on Amazon, you could have gotten 4.5 Star Trek books for that. 
Of course, Dune has been ruined by sub-par sequels written by Kevin J Anderson, whereas Star Wars…oh.
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Ursula Le Guin describes Sparrowhawk (Ged) as having reddish-brown skin, the comparison being Native Americans. The Kargish are essentially white, the comparison being Europeans. Many of the inhabitants of the more northern island of the archipelago are lighter because they have distant Kargish ancestry, but darker than Kargs. People in the southern islands are darker, like Vetch, Ged’s best friend at the school on Roke Island, who is equivalent to black, but everyone has fairly straight hair. I don’t remember if there are any gingers, but if there were any in Earthsea, they would almost certainly be Kargs.
No catchphrases? Doesn’t everyone else say “Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there, staring out at you!”
mistersmith0123: thank you for the knowledge of the earthsea.
I ADORE LeGuin. (ALL HER WORK) I think I scared her @ an Iraq protest in Ptown some years ago, in person, when I tried to say HI! sigh.
I read ALL of the Sr. Herbert DUNE books (the end was Chapterhouse Dune?) while on a road trip from Oregon to Iowa and back…twas awesome! Also, 7-Up Gold was in flavor, and my one friend who could resonate also knew, the Spice! the Spice Melange!
It was awesome. 1989.
Graduation involves the Gom Jabbar. Or, wait, is it that they get to eat homemade gulab jamun? I always confuse those and, let me tell you, it’s really messed up some dinner parties.
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As luck would have it, I made a music track back in the days with Dune quotes;
https://myspace.com/alexanderjohannesen/music/song/dunish-50170155-54034565
I’m one of those who came to Dune through the original movie, and stayed to read the six book story over and over again, and there is so much more to this story than what people think. But I’ll pop you this one little hint. At the end of Dune (the first book) there is a report by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood on the whole Atreides debacle on Arrakis, and there is one word in there that is used to describe the situation. “Afflicted.” First you read the whole book one way, then, take that word into account, and read it again, but in a totally different way.
Happy hunting.
I gassed out around book three on my second pass. First pass was when I was 10, and I loved the first and was completely lost by the third. Apparently nothing changed over 20 years, though the second time I wasn’t lost so much as bored of it.
Sure, it’s got a lot written into it, but so do many, many much more enjoyable sf novels. And time is limited.
That said, the first book was stupendous.
as I was yawning my way through AVATAR I saw my hopes for a decent DUNE adaption melt into Unobtainium…
The characters in David Lynch’s ‘Dune’ scared the crap out of me. All of them. Some gave me nightmares. There wasn’t a single warm, fuzzy personality in the lot. Like Australia to the first time tourist, every little bit of that world seemed to be out to kill you. There was no safe quarter anywhere or with anyone, and that can be a little off-putting to a repeat audience. Who were we to root for with any enthusiasm? Paul Atreides? A spice addict with the power of a god. The Fremen as represented by Stilgar or Chani? There’s something a bit chilling about the idea of a people who have one final use for you after you’re dead, squeezing out every last drop of water to be added to the sietch reservoir.
So yeah, I’d still rather have a beer and a smoke with Gandalf over Thufir Hawat.
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I like Dune as it is right now. It’s common culture among sci-fi fans, nerds and geeks, but commoners simply have no idea what it is. Referring to Dune is like a secret handshake.
oops…can’t believe I mispelled that one.
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It would be sad to see Dune movie reduced to action drama scifi. On the other hand if it was as well made as Lotr and included at least one philosophical theme/thought from the books. It could even be something that could be interpreted as pro army (would probably be easiest to sell to the masses) like humans have to be hard to survive!
A movie about books four or five (after a successful trilogy)…
I admit I’ve only red books 1-5. I think 1-4 made great impact to my thinking and suddenly insectoid sexmachine humans. I think it worked okay but I just had to pause reading. Also, I loved the books so much I want to savour the finish.
I’d have a beer with Gurney Hallack any day. Admittedly, that preference may have something to do with a later character that the actor in the Lynch movie went on to portray. 
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[quote=“welcomeabored, post:91, topic:3956”]
I’d still rather have a beer and a smoke with Gandalf over Thufir Hawat.
[/quote]Or do shrooms with Radagast the Brown. Or a couple lines of coke with Saruman the White.
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I guess I live with Dune nerds or something. Get my friends together, add an intoxicating substance, and you are almost guaranteed a Dune reference or two.
And don’t forget the sandworm costume from Chuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoMXIHXNHQ
I freaking loved Ian McNeice in that. If you liked him as Churchill, you’ll love him as the Baron.
Some of the other casting was a bit off, and I know some people were turned off by the stage acting and theater-style sets, but I thought it was as close to perfect as we’d get with Dune. It sure as hell beat Lynch’s bizarre vision; the internal dialogue ended up being silly on screen, the wierding devices…WTF?
If Linda Hunt, Brad Dourif, Dean Stockwell, and Max von Sydow could have been in the miniseries, that would have been epic. Possibly John Rhys-Davies as well, since he did a decent job as Noree Moneo on Dune 2000.
You know, I thought of that a while back. Considering movie-making history of things like Lawrence of Arabia, Avatar, Dances with Wolves, etc., where the white dude comes in and leads the swarthy natives in some way, I don’t know why Paramount hasn’t gone through with making a big-budget version of Dune; iirc they have the rights and have made noises about making it. On the other hand, they’ll butcher it, so I’m glad they haven’t.
We adopted a kitty this year that has eyes almost that blue. We call him Usul.
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