Amusements 12/1/2000 • j********o@***.com 03/12/2000 04:30:030 UTC Re: The Dune Miniseries, starting this week on the Sciffy Channel. I have no interest in seeing it: in the words of "Animal House," "I find you rude, crude, and thoroughly unattractive." David Lynch was the perfect choice to direct the (previous) Dune movie, since the only attraction of the story is to aficionados of freakishness. There's a certain school of literary appreciation that says that great stories are to be endured, not enjoyed, but I don't swim in it. Like much of that era's SF, it was a reaction to the preceding era, challenging the entrenched notions of progressivity, enlightenment, yet essential sameness of the future, but that doesn't make it enjoyable reading, and that's the criteria of my school of literary appreciation. I did, however, enjoy the Dune Encyclopedia, since you get all the worldbook material about the Imperium, with a larger perspective than that unpleasant little rock, as well as interesting backstory about the cyborg Holtzman and his FTL technologies. Gorno • p*******x@****.com 05/12/2000 00:00:000 UTC One day in Teletubbyland, j********o@***.com (JohnGorno) said: >these guys have more or less omitted the shields and weirding modules, etc., to The weirding modules had SQUAT to do with the book. Nada. Rien. They ain't there. Dune: The film so bad even Linda Hunt couldn't improve it. -- 73 de Dave Weingart KA2ESK Consonance 2001! Urban Tapestry! mailto:p*******x@****.com Mike Stein! Oh, yeah, and some guy http://www.liii.com/~phydeaux named Dave Wein-something-or-other. ICQ 57055207 http://www.consonance.org • s******j@f****.**o.com 05/12/2000 02:30:41 UTC The SciFi channel version of DUNE was not bad at all, to judge from episode one. On 03 Dec 2000 04:30:09 GMT, JohnGorno wrote: >Re: The Dune Miniseries, starting this week on the Sciffy Channel. I have no >interest in seeing it: in the words of "Animal House," "I find you rude, >crude, and thoroughly unattractive." David Lynch was the perfect choice to >direct the (previous) Dune movie, since the only attraction of the story is to >aficionados of freakishness. There's a certain school of literary appreciation >that says that great stories are to be endured, not enjoyed, but I don't swim >in it. Like much of that era's SF, it was a reaction to the preceding era, >challenging the entrenched notions of progressivity, enlightenment, yet >essential sameness of the future, but that doesn't make it enjoyable reading, >and that's the criteria of my school of literary appreciation. I did, however, >enjoy the Dune Encyclopedia, since you get all the worldbook material about the >Imperium, with a larger perspective than that unpleasant little rock, as well >as interesting backstory about the cyborg Holtzman and his FTL technologies. >Gorno -- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ SeJ@ay-oh-el-dot-com ~ stefanj@eye-oh-dot-com http://www.io.com/~stefanj/ CHARGES APPLIED FOR UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL! • j********o@***.com 05/12/2000 05:26:42 UTC In article <2*************.*****.********1@n**-**.***l.com>, j********o@***.com (JohnGorno) writes: >Re: The Dune Miniseries, starting this week on the Sciffy Channel. I have >no interest in seeing it: in the words of "Animal House," "I find it rude, >crude, and thoroughly unattractive." David Lynch was the perfect choice to >direct the (previous) Dune movie, since the only attraction of the story is >to aficionados of freakishness. There's a certain school of literary >appreciation that says that great stories are to be endured, not enjoyed, but I don't swim >in it. Like much of that era's SF, it was a reaction to the preceding era, >challenging the entrenched notions of progressivity, enlightenment, yet >essential sameness of the future, but that doesn't make it enjoyable reading, >and that's the criteria of my school of literary appreciation. I did, >however, enjoy the Dune Encyclopedia, since you get all the worldbook material about the >Imperium, with a larger perspective than that unpleasant little rock, as well >as interesting backstory about the cyborg Holtzman and his FTL technologies. I was recruited to record it for my now cable-challenged brother. From what I watched, David Lynch did a better job! One can only do so many variations on Guild starships and Imperial dress, and although I welcome the omission of some of the creepier elements, Lynch put in the effort to cover all the bases, while these guys have more or less omitted the shields and weirding modules, etc., to concentrate on the story, which isn't all that interesting: it's also odd to see it on screen in a different version, with the same instant-cliche dialogue ("Tell me of your dreams, Mau'dib..."), somehow like a bible story or some other perennial. I particularly preferred Lynch's Guildsmen, and making Duncan Idaho a Scot is a huge mistake: Idaho is the token American, the sole representative of our way of thinking amongst all these creepy aristocrats, witches, and desert wierdos - his essential function is as THE American; pragmatic, able, light-hearted. My favorite scene in the whole trilogy is when he, untutored, lures and rides a sandworm into camp, and wonders why this was supposed to be a big deal: "It seems like any reasonably athletic man could do it..." I do want to give Herbert credit, not for daring to challenge the established assumptions of Golden Age SF (which is why he was so popular but probably NOT why he wrote), but for daring to write a story that is so unapproachable, even though it makes it a less satisfying story. The backstory is also quite well thought-out, if fanciful and contrived: his objective was a deeply alien society, and he succeeded at it. If anything, I would have prefered if he had not sought to rationalize things: aristocrats have always had deuling traditions - he didn't need to rationalize their customs by invoking these silly sheilds. We see in the later sequels that their civilization is based on a number of unstable customary unassumptions, which eventually fall apart: Emporer Leto eventually chokes off the spice supply too much, weakens the Guild and Bene Geserit too far, and the Imperium goes back to using supercomputers for interstellar navigation like normal people. I think Herbert would have been great fun to have at an all-night Forum bull session! I think the intended effect of Dune is better (and more compactly!) executed in "The Dosadi Experiment," which is worth reading. Gorno • Glen Colflesh 07/12/2000 00:00:000 UTC JohnGorno wrote: > In article <2*************.*****.********1@n**-**.***l.com>, j********o@***.com > (JohnGorno) writes: > >Re: The Dune Miniseries, starting this week on the Sciffy Channel. I have > >no interest in seeing it: in the words of "Animal House," "I find it rude, > >crude, and thoroughly unattractive." David Lynch was the perfect choice to > >direct the (previous) Dune movie, since the only attraction of the story is > >to aficionados of freakishness. There's a certain school of literary > >appreciation that says that great stories are to be endured, not enjoyed, but > I think Herbert would have been great fun to have at an all-night Forum bull > session! I think the intended effect of Dune is better (and more compactly!) > executed in "The Dosadi Experiment," which is worth reading. It felt like half the movie dialogue was missing. One didn't hear the personal insights and thoughts during character interactions. I kept expecting the Imperial Planetologist to say to himself "Is he the one?" or "I like this Duke". Instead there was a pause while the character was staring at the other character. So many important commentary was missing! It just seemed that the actors were lost in the screen writing like they didn't know how to perform in certain scenes. Also leaving out the weirding modules and personal shields was a tragedy. The explanation that personal shields attract and drive worms into a fighting frenzy seemed pretty lame. I would have loved to see a scene when somebody fires a laspistol at a personal shield then maybe a decree by the Freeman not to use the shields. My biggest beef against the series was how they perverted Paul and made him into a common terrorist. I really disliked how he ordered the Freeman to poison the Creators so spice production would eventually grind to a halt. "Give in to my demands or I'll blow everything up!" Sheesh! --Glen • p*******x@****.com 08/12/2000 13:41:44 UTC One day in Teletubbyland, Glen Colflesh <****@r******.*******s.edu> said: >Also leaving out the weirding modules and personal shields was a >tragedy. The >explanation that personal shields attract and drive worms into a >fighting frenzy >seemed pretty lame. I would have loved to see a scene when somebody >fires a >laspistol at a personal shield then maybe a decree by the Freeman not to >use the >shields. >My biggest beef against the series was how they perverted Paul and made him >into a common terrorist. I really disliked how he ordered the Freeman to poison >the Creators so spice production would eventually grind to a halt. "Give >in to >my demands or I'll blow everything up!" Sheesh! Ummm...Glen? You DID read the book, didn't you? Because A) there were no weirding modules in the book, B) the shields DID drive the worms to frenzy and C) Paul *did* threaten to kill off the worms (obNitpick: Makers, not Creators) and stop spice production by poisoning them with a vast quantity of Water of Life. *sigh* Read the frickin' book, people -- 73 de Dave Weingart KA2ESK Consonance 2001! Urban Tapestry! mailto:p*******x@****.com Mike Stein! Oh, yeah, and some guy http://www.liii.com/~phydeaux named Dave Wein-something-or-other. ICQ 57055207 http://www.consonance.org • j********o@***.com 17/12/2000 05:41:041 UTC Caught the end of an episode of "Sheep in the Big City" on the Cartoon Network. It's difficult to imagine anything approaching the innocent silliness of the Jay Ward cartoons (Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends), especially in a deliberate effort, but this would appear to come close. I wonder if the original title was "Sheep in the City?" Changed, perhaps, to avoid an indecent association with "Sex in the City?" Speaking of which, I once happened across the self-satire they produced for the MTV Movie Awards this year - a hilarious cross-over with "The Matrix!" Gorno December 17th already. Nineteen years already. As the zombies say, "Whaaat diiiifference does it maaake?"