Dune's Reputation


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leagued
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Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

A question to start: Has Dune been ruined?

Let me expand. Clearly everyone on this board has huge respect for Frank's work and to us his writings remain un-tarnished by what we unlovingly call fan-fiction or hack-fiction etc. My question is about the reputation of Dune outside such core groups.
Dune was published in the '60s, that puts it something like 3 generations back depending on how you number generations (roughly 20 years is what I've seen). So has the flooding of the market with shit had a negative impact on the respect Dune once carried? I mean, those books are right there on the bookshelves next to the Chronicle, often in bigger bolder colors and hardcover.
I don't think that Dune itself will ever be considered anything other than a masterpiece by the sci-fi community, but has the larger Duniverse, the Chronicle been negatively impacted? Is there any respect for the property of Dune as a whole, the fictional universe of Frank Herbert? Is that even an important aspect?
The Star Wars universe is massive and, if not respected on the literary scale (Though, dammit, Traitor is one deep book) its still respected for its breadth and creativity.
Lord of the Rings held true to its soul and made gobs of money through movies and merchandise that only led to more sales of Tolkien's books- and was probably responsible for us (or maybe just me) getting the opportunity to pick up new semi-finished copies of his other works (Children of Hurin).

A dozen years for now when the hack-work flood is long over will people still respect the potential of the Chronicle universe?
Will I ever get to see the kinds of expansions of it that I would love to see? A high-production value HBO-like series or a big-budget four-hour movie (I swear they used to make things like that and if they didn't then they should)? A respectful anthology by the best living sci-fi authors who were inspired by Dune telling short stories set within the Duniverse? A strategy game full of deceit and conniving, or just a re-release of the Avalon Hill boardgame so that I can finally play the damn thing?

I know that a lot of you probably don't want to see the same things that I would, and I respect that opinion- I wouldn't accept anything written now or added to be "cannon" but I do like the idea of great creators giving us new interpretations of the work, each one perhaps capturing a different aspect of Frank's work even if none can ever nail it all. But my concern is that the shitty McDune and the iron-fist KJA-only approach taken to the works has only ended up making Frank's Dune less cherished, less respected, and less popular than ever.

And, not to shift blame, but does our vitriol only scare off potential new Dune readers? I mean, who wants to get involved between two such hateful groups? We (and this is a 'we' directed at both sides of the fight) have gone so far as to adopt similar nomenclature as that used by religious extremists (Talifan, Orthodox Herbertarian), its definitely gotta be intimidating to newcomers.

Anyway, that's the question that has been on my mind quite a bit lately: Have BH/KJA diminished/tarnished/corrupted the property they claimed to be respecting? Not has their work been crap- it has- but has it had a permanent effect of degrading the respect for Frank's works?
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by lotek »

Good question but it would only be relevant if what the hack did was not complete and utter shite.
So I do believe in the long run people will remember Frank, because he was a literary genius.

LotR is our dream way of handling a legacy while opening it to a larger audience. (Star Wars, well, the hack's been there too and we all know what that means)


A respectful anthology by the best living sci-fi authors who were inspired by Dune telling short stories set within the Duniverse?
As long as the hack has brian and the hlp by the balls or whatever he's using this will never happen. tehkja don't like people with talent showing how shit he is.
And, not to shift blame, but does our vitriol only scare off potential new Dune readers? I mean, who wants to get involved between two such hateful groups? We (and this is a 'we' directed at both sides of the fight) have gone so far as to adopt similar nomenclature as that used by religious extremists (Talifan, Orthodox Herbertarian), its definitely gotta be intimidating to newcomers.
it's a legitimate interrogation, but most people who are not indifferent to literature quickly decide that there is no way they can condone such drivel. The others are just suck-ups, probably some wannabe writer hoping to get a boost (like tehkja is gonna help put more shit writers on the shit writers market)

And also, Talifan was coined by our good friend the hack, and that was probably the most creative he'd ever been (and it still showed how much of a douche he is, but that's too wide a problem to encompass in brackets).

Orthodox Herbertarians is of course a way to show we believe that our gospel is the one and only, but only a hack with no idea of anything beyond the blatantly obvious would not be able to get it(and I don't think it's that subtle compared to Dune related matters)
It makes perfect sense to use religious terms when you want to walk on Dune's sands.

But Dune also teaches the limits of religion, so to me it all makes perfect sense.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by inhuien »

Only time will answer this question, my tuppence is that very soon then fan fiction will not stoked due to lack demand while Frank Herbert's will.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by Naïve mind »

generation 1945 - 1960 Probably remembers Dune as a best-selling LitSF novel.
generation 1965 - 1975 probably remembers Dune as a cheesy sci-fi movie that wasn't as good as Star Wars.
generation 1975 - 1985 probably remembers Dune as a video game.
generation 1985 - 1995 may have been 'introduced' to Dune by the miniseries and Prequels.

The number of people who read novels will always be small in comparison to the number of people who watch movies, which is good news, because the prequels probably won't factor in to the equation, and bad news, because the boomers who rushed out to buy and read Dune cover to cover are outnumbered as well, and close to the age where they qualify for a senior discount at the theatre, anyway.

My most cynical prediction: if a Dune movie is made within the next three years, it'll have sound-based weaponry of some kind. Why? They were in the movie, and they were in the video games. Chaaaaak'sah!
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by SadisticCynic »

One thing: I think 'Talifan' was an invention of Karen Traviss, rather than KJA. It's too clever for him...
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by lotek »

SadisticCynic wrote:One thing: I think 'Talifan' was an invention of Karen Traviss, rather than KJA. It's too clever for him...
My bad.
It's like with trolls, I usually give them way too much credit thinking everyone can be redeemed.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by Nekhrun »

leagued wrote:And, not to shift blame, but does our vitriol only scare off potential new Dune readers? I mean, who wants to get involved between two such hateful groups? We (and this is a 'we' directed at both sides of the fight) have gone so far as to adopt similar nomenclature as that used by religious extremists (Talifan, Orthodox Herbertarian), its definitely gotta be intimidating to newcomers
I'm inclined to think that it does not scare off new readers. I doubt that someone would not read a Sci-Fi classic because of what they read online. If anything, they might start with Dune to see what all the fuss is about and avoid the books not by Frank.
leagued wrote:The Star Wars universe is massive and, if not respected on the literary scale (Though, dammit, Traitor is one deep book) its still respected for its breadth and creativity.
Also, Traitor was a great book.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

lotek wrote:Good question but it would only be relevant if what the hack did was not complete and utter shite.
So I do believe in the long run people will remember Frank, because he was a literary genius.

LotR is our dream way of handling a legacy while opening it to a larger audience. (Star Wars, well, the hack's been there too and we all know what that means)


A respectful anthology by the best living sci-fi authors who were inspired by Dune telling short stories set within the Duniverse?
As long as the hack has brian and the hlp by the balls or whatever he's using this will never happen. tehkja don't like people with talent showing how shit he is.
And, not to shift blame, but does our vitriol only scare off potential new Dune readers? I mean, who wants to get involved between two such hateful groups? We (and this is a 'we' directed at both sides of the fight) have gone so far as to adopt similar nomenclature as that used by religious extremists (Talifan, Orthodox Herbertarian), its definitely gotta be intimidating to newcomers.
it's a legitimate interrogation, but most people who are not indifferent to literature quickly decide that there is no way they can condone such drivel. The others are just suck-ups, probably some wannabe writer hoping to get a boost (like tehkja is gonna help put more shit writers on the shit writers market)

And also, Talifan was coined by our good friend the hack, and that was probably the most creative he'd ever been (and it still showed how much of a douche he is, but that's too wide a problem to encompass in brackets).

Orthodox Herbertarians is of course a way to show we believe that our gospel is the one and only, but only a hack with no idea of anything beyond the blatantly obvious would not be able to get it(and I don't think it's that subtle compared to Dune related matters)
It makes perfect sense to use religious terms when you want to walk on Dune's sands.

But Dune also teaches the limits of religion, so to me it all makes perfect sense.

I'm not disagreeing w/ the internal logic of using such terms, or the origin of any of the terms, nor even trying to put this in a Preek-OHer debate; in the way I'm looking at the problem I am grouping both into Dune-fans and People who have not read Dune. Perhaps I'm taking the analogy too far, but it seems to me that we have a debate not dissimilar to the sunni-shiite schism, and what outside gorup really wants to wade into that? I may be overdramatizing it, in fact I certainly am, but is expecting the outsiders to go read the origninal Dune amongst all the crap and fighting all that likely to pan out? How many western christians go and read to Koran to figure out the validty of the dispute?

And in response to another topic brought up: KJA did do harm to the SW universe, but I think it was very highly mitigated because he was never tthe sole voice of the SW Expanded Universe fiction; he wrote, what 5 books? Out of dozens? That variety helped protect the EU from the damage any one horrible book could do. Also, they had Zahn to bring it all back into a logical, consistent whole.

I may be in a minority here but I would like to see new Duniverse fiction and my hatred of tehe KJA/BH books are because they are just horrible. Given a good author(s) I would love to see new Dune- though I would prefer side-stories about new characters rather than a Dune 7, but I think the failures of the prequels/interquels has caused a massive amount of damage to the property value of Dune.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

This brought up a new idea... well, not new but..

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mor ... o?ref=live" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My thought is: What if we bought the rights to Dune from the HLP? What would that take? Could we host a kickstarter with the sole goal of tearing the property out of the hacks' hands? Or maybe just raise enough to bribe the HLP to hire a good author to undo KJA's work. Or to hire a team of vicious shark lawyers? Or just vicious sharks to sick on the hacks?
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by lotek »

leagued wrote:I'm not disagreeing w/ the internal logic of using such terms, or the origin of any of the terms, nor even trying to put this in a Preek-OHer debate; in the way I'm looking at the problem I am grouping both into Dune-fans and People who have not read Dune.

You are grouping who with what sorry? It is "grouping both into Dune-fans, or just grouping both into Dune, fans?

Perhaps I'm taking the analogy too far, but it seems to me that we have a debate not dissimilar to the sunni-shiite schism, and what outside gorup really wants to wade into that? I may be overdramatizing it, in fact I certainly am, but is expecting the outsiders to go read the origninal Dune amongst all the crap and fighting all that likely to pan out? How many western christians go and read to Koran to figure out the validty of the dispute?

the smart ones do ^^ But all in all I don't need to because we're not talking interpretation of a common source, we are talking of the desacration of ancient lore by some bumbling fool. The Sunni Shiite is like Protestants vs Catholics, as much as they'd like it there is not such a big difference between the two

And in response to another topic brought up: KJA did do harm to the SW universe, but I think it was very highly mitigated because he was never tthe sole voice of the SW Expanded Universe fiction; he wrote, what 5 books? Out of dozens? That variety helped protect the EU from the damage any one horrible book could do. Also, they had Zahn to bring it all back into a logical, consistent whole.
Not saying he ruined everything, but if you look at online reactions and reviews what you find it disbelief at so much incompetence, at best.
I may be in a minority here but I would like to see new Duniverse fiction and my hatred of tehe KJA/BH books are because they are just horrible. Given a good author(s) I would love to see new Dune- though I would prefer side-stories about new characters rather than a Dune 7, but I think the failures of the prequels/interquels has caused a massive amount of damage to the property value of Dune.
I'd rather have had nothing than what they puked up. They caused massive damage but its nature itself places it in a short timespan. Because in the end, they will just be considered a mistake, a cultural accident. It's localized and it needed lack of foreknowledge of the level of wild ass balls sucking to catch people off guard. As you can see, now even the preeqs are getting bored, so now the worm is out of the spice blow I truly think time will finish eroding whatever structure they tried to build on Dune's sands.
As for buying the rights to the HLP it does sound like a good idea, but I don't know if I have enough money for pizzas for Jabecca and Byron for more than a couple of weeks.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

lotek wrote:
leagued wrote:I'm not disagreeing w/ the internal logic of using such terms, or the origin of any of the terms, nor even trying to put this in a Preek-OHer debate; in the way I'm looking at the problem I am grouping both into Dune-fans and People who have not read Dune.

You are grouping who with what sorry? It is "grouping both into Dune-fans, or just grouping both into Dune, fans?

Oh god, you're right that is horribly worded. I meant to say that I was treating the problem with the following in mind:
[OH + Preeks] = [Dune Fans] =[Group A] and [Potential Dune fans who have not read any Dune materials] =[Group B] = [The outside world]. Make sense?


Perhaps I'm taking the analogy too far, but it seems to me that we have a debate not dissimilar to the sunni-shiite schism, and what outside gorup really wants to wade into that? I may be overdramatizing it, in fact I certainly am, but is expecting the outsiders to go read the origninal Dune amongst all the crap and fighting all that likely to pan out? How many western christians go and read to Koran to figure out the validty of the dispute?

the smart ones do ^^ But all in all I don't need to because we're not talking interpretation of a common source, we are talking of the desacration of ancient lore by some bumbling fool. The Sunni Shiite is like Protestants vs Catholics, as much as they'd like it there is not such a big difference between the two

If you explain our differences to someone who has never read Dune do you think they would find our differences to be smaller than those separating Protestants and Catholics? Maybe Christians to Jews is a better analogy in some ways, or Muslims to Jews/Christians- in both cases the former group acknowledges the holy books of the latter and vice versa. I think that trying to explain our differences of opinion to outsiders is difficult; its like when hard-core trekkies try to explain to me why they hate what JJ Abrams did. I'm not making light of our arguments with the other side, I'm just saying that I don't think the outside, potential readership sees the distinction between the two groups.
Would you like me to explain to you why Kal-El is a horribly inferior character in comparison to Kal-L? Or we could go into the arguments of the original Talifans about the # of clones in the Grand Army of the Republic. Or I could explain why Bill Callahan was the worst Huskers coach in modern memory.
I'm guessing at least one of those subjects doesn't matter at all to you and you'd be inclined to see people on either side of the argument as lumped into a single more broad category.


And in response to another topic brought up: KJA did do harm to the SW universe, but I think it was very highly mitigated because he was never tthe sole voice of the SW Expanded Universe fiction; he wrote, what 5 books? Out of dozens? That variety helped protect the EU from the damage any one horrible book could do. Also, they had Zahn to bring it all back into a logical, consistent whole.
Not saying he ruined everything, but if you look at online reactions and reviews what you find it disbelief at so much incompetence, at best.

Oh absolutely; and I'm among them 100%. Please, do not let anything that I've brought up here imply that I have anything but loathing for anything KJA has put out. But with KJA holding all the threads of the Dune property his damage to the property is magnified to a huge degree. My question is; will that damage be lasting?

I may be in a minority here but I would like to see new Duniverse fiction and my hatred of tehe KJA/BH books are because they are just horrible. Given a good author(s) I would love to see new Dune- though I would prefer side-stories about new characters rather than a Dune 7, but I think the failures of the prequels/interquels has caused a massive amount of damage to the property value of Dune.

I'd rather have had nothing than what they puked up. They caused massive damage but its nature itself places it in a short timespan. Because in the end, they will just be considered a mistake, a cultural accident. It's localized and it needed lack of foreknowledge of the level of wild ass balls sucking to catch people off guard. As you can see, now even the preeqs are getting bored, so now the worm is out of the spice blow I truly think time will finish eroding whatever structure they tried to build on Dune's sands.
I agree w/ your first statement and I very much hope that you are correct about the latter. I would love to see the McDune crap fall away in time and see a revival in the Chronicle's popularity and respect.
The 50th anniversary of Dune is coming up and while that would be a great time for the HLP to garner some goodwill- release a new hardback edition, maybe attach some of Frank's essays or something to make it worthwhile or, god help for even asking, the infamous notes. I'm sure they'll do something for it, but I'm terrified its just going to be whatever crap follows Mentats.
I intend to do a re-read myself and get drunk in his honor for my part.


As for buying the rights to the HLP it does sound like a good idea, but I don't know if I have enough money for pizzas for Jabecca and Byron for more than a couple of weeks.
That's what crowdsourcing is all about, right?
I'm tempted to start a "Let Dune Free!" kickstarter but my biggest fear would be meeting the goal and then not having any clue what to do and probably not having near enough money to accomplish anything of note. But I encourage everyone to help fund either the new Death Star or X-Wing squadron, depending on your POV.

Also, any chance of getting the 25k signatures required to have the White House take up the issue?
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by trang »

It will always be about the first book, Dune.

Frank wrote it, and no matter how many 'quels there are, it all goes back to the first.

The thousands of pages that the dipshits wrote don't stack up to one page of Dune. At worst is just confuse's potential new
readers. The best is to just have them read Dune, if they like it skip the junk, read the rest by Frank, and all will be well.

Any section of the Dune Encyclopedia is a better read than all the pages they wrote.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

trang wrote:It will always be about the first book, Dune.

Frank wrote it, and no matter how many 'quels there are, it all goes back to the first.

The thousands of pages that the dipshits wrote don't stack up to one page of Dune. At worst is just confuse's potential new
readers. The best is to just have them read Dune, if they like it skip the junk, read the rest by Frank, and all will be well.
Right, this is exactly what my expression of concern is trying to bring up. Its like they've grafted a bunch of modern, shoddy wings onto a cathedral- the real structure is still there, but its obscured.
The Lynch movie and the mini both drew new readers to Dune- I didn't read Dune until after I'd seen the movie on TV back in the day- but they also add their own layers of psuedo-Dune to the property that color how people see it. Same with LotR, that property has been indelibly colored by the movies- in the realm of pop culture the movies are probably more powerful than the book (far more people ahve seen it than ever read it).
Star Wars is no longer just three great movies; its an empire of products, each of which adds its own facade onto the massive edifice (mixed metaphor/call back to architectural metaphor). To some, me for instance, the movies aren't even the most important part anymore nor even the best- Traitor, the Thrawn Trilogy, the Clone Wars TV series are all as good in my eyes as any of the movies w/ the possible exception of TESB.

I have asked a lot of questions here and given shading of what I think, but I'd like to try and lay out the answer that I hold to:

I believe that McDune has caused, and has the potential to cause further, damage to the Dune property. Not that it can ever delude my enjoyment of the books Frank wrote, but they have harmed the property as a whole. There will be less chance of seeing new Dune adaptations in any medium. I think that KJA/BH/HLP are so insistent on proclaiming the McDune crap as being on a level w/ real Dune that they hinder further development deals (ie insisting on getting KJA/BH producer credits on movies, games, what have you or on comic book adaptations). As the FH books get older, there will be a dwindling fan base of them, both as a fraction of the general populace and as a fraction of "Dune" fans for the near future (ie over the next generation orso there will be a smaller amount of OH among self-proclaimed Dune fans- I believe this because I believe the readership of McDune skews younger and because the HLP will not promote new editions of Frank's works with the zeal that they put into pushing each new McDune). This implies that at a certain point the types of people trying to produce new Dune adaptations will be more likely to be people shaded twoard McDune- if not fans themselves than at least familiar w/ them and possibly of the opinion that McDune fans are the hard-core fan base that an adaptation should appeal to and therefore even more inclined to listen to teh adviceof the hacks and we will get, if anything, a new Dune movie/tv show/whatever taht pushes the KJA/BH agenda. To me this is far worse than a "loose" interpretaion by an outside party (ie I'd rather see Jodorowsky Dune than a KJA-friendly Dune; at least Jodorowksky's would be interesting).

That is my pessimistic near-term view.
Long-term I believe that KJA's awful works will be forgotten. His Star Wars novels are no longer read and are barely acknowledged w/in the Expanded Universe. They have been forgotten while the books by Zahn and the X-Wing series remain fan favorites. Dune itself will remain in print for as long as books remain in print; it will hold up along with things like LotR, Heinlein, and some of King's works or Jules Verne or Wells or Moby Dick. Fifty years from now there will no longer be a Preek-OH debate because there will not longer be preek books in print. The shoddily made wings of teh Herbert house will crumble and the original cathedral will stand unblemished amongst a pile of rubble. New readers will continue to find their way to Dune for its 50th, its 75th, its 100th anniversary. New movies/shows will be made based on teh original works, perhaps new books written (though I think this is less likely).

I believe that the golden age for Dune recognition will only come after KJA's works have fallen into dust and the longetivity of FH's original works has been proven.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by Naïve mind »

Speaking of anniversaries, the 50th will be in 2015. That's only two years from now.

You proposed doing a kickstarter to buy the rights from Brian Herbert, right? What could be done, which would be a little bit more subversive and less risky, would be to campaign for a 50th anniversary edition of Dune; ask the publishers to re-release it, promote it. Maybe Brian can write a new preface, or include some preliminary drafts, scans of notes in the author's own handwriting, etc.

It'd make good business sense to do this anyway, and it would be even sillier not to do this if a significant number of fans ask for it. But at the same time, it requires the publisher and stakeholders to celebrate and promote the Cathedral, as it was.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

Naïve mind wrote:Speaking of anniversaries, the 50th will be in 2015. That's only two years from now.

You proposed doing a kickstarter to buy the rights from Brian Herbert, right? What could be done, which would be a little bit more subversive and less risky, would be to campaign for a 50th anniversary edition of Dune; ask the publishers to re-release it, promote it. Maybe Brian can write a new preface, or include some preliminary drafts, scans of notes in the author's own handwriting, etc.

It'd make good business sense to do this anyway, and it would be even sillier not to do this if a significant number of fans ask for it. But at the same time, it requires the publisher and stakeholders to celebrate and promote the Cathedral, as it was.
I would love to see a new hardcover of Dune put out to celebrate the 50th anniversary. If the HLP isn't already planning to promote something like that then its sickening. And getting them to put in some author's material would make sense to help differentiate it from the previous editions; as would a new preface- though if they let KJA write such a preface I may break my book-burning ban.
So are you proposing a kickstarter to raise a bribe to get teh publisher to demand the HLP release FH's notes and such to add to the new edition?
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by lotek »

They will never do that.
And the hack will not accept anything that's better than what he does, which is basically that, anything.

Brian won't do anything either, he would already have acted if he cared at all and/or realized the shitstorm of bland he released.

The rest of the hlp doesn't count, who knows who they are and what they do apart from us?

And I doubt that even for the biggest amount of money they'd give Dune to the OH.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

lotek wrote:They will never do that.
And the hack will not accept anything that's better than what he does, which is basically that, anything.

Brian won't do anything either, he would already have acted if he cared at all and/or realized the shitstorm of bland he released.

The rest of the hlp doesn't count, who knows who they are and what they do apart from us?

And I doubt that even for the biggest amount of money they'd give Dune to the OH.
Oh, I don't know about that, I mean the biggest amount of money is pretty big. Now, the amounts of money that we could raise with an OH kickstarter? No, not a chance in hell.
Other than that, I agree w/ what you say entirely. But someday KJA's contract will lapse and w/ his dwindling sales and obstruction of further licensing deals (I'm fairly convinced that KJA is the reason the movie failed, if the rumors of him pushing for House Atreides to get made are true) there's a hope that the HLP will let him go. The property will lie dormant for awhile, McDune will go out of print and be forgotten except as a bad memory and real Dune will get new editions put out over and over again because it will continue to bring in a certain readership level pretty much forever. And, periodically, Hollywood or the games industry will remember it and bring it back to the forefront- or at least the solid mediumfront- of pop culture.
But right now, what Dune really needs if its gonna get pop culture exposure right now is a champion with clout. (For those who do not want to see anymore Dune adaptations, feel free to ignore this). It needs the kind of proselytizing that Deadpool is getting from Ryan Reynolds, that Zach Snyder brought to Watchmen, Robert Rodriguez to Sin City (when a guy is willing to burn the bridge to the Director's Guild to get the movie made the way he wanted, you know he cares). It needs to be the passion project of someone with serious weight to throw around. And who wouldn't want to see something like that? To see a Chris Nolan (picked because he could pretty much make any movie he wanted right now and call every shot) tell KJA to sit down and shut the fuck up because they're going to make a Frank Herbert Dune movie and no piece of shit hack is getting any credit or input about it.

God that would be great.
That's why I need a billion dollars. Yes I'd like to buy a nicer car and date supermodels three at a time... but I'd also really like to sit down at the table with the HLP and offer then whatever their price to fire KJA, downgrade McDune to "Inspired-by Dune" status, and throw piles of cash at Iain Banks and Gene Wolfe.
I mean, Lucas sold Star Wars for 4 billion; the media rights for Dune can't be even 1% as profitable, right?
Ahhh, power fantasies.
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lotek
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by lotek »

But right now, what Dune really needs if its gonna get pop culture exposure right now is a champion with clout. (For those who do not want to see anymore Dune adaptations, feel free to ignore this). It needs the kind of proselytizing that Deadpool is getting from Ryan Reynolds, that Zach Snyder brought to Watchmen, Robert Rodriguez to Sin City (when a guy is willing to burn the bridge to the Director's Guild to get the movie made the way he wanted, you know he cares). It needs to be the passion project of someone with serious weight to throw around.
You mean what Dune needs is a Hero ? ^^
"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall
into the hands of a Hero," his father said.
Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Well . . . let him.


I would have more someone like Peter Jackson sci-fi wise, I think I could accept the inevitable downplay of the philosophical and the untold if I could see the fan love through it.
Spice is the worm's gonads.
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Naïve mind
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by Naïve mind »

leagued wrote:So are you proposing a kickstarter to raise a bribe to get teh publisher to demand the HLP release FH's notes and such to add to the new edition?
Heh, alas, I suspect that such a thing would violate kickstarter's own rules. We have to convince the publisher that there is genuine, widespread interest that could be rekindled with an 'anniversary edition' of the original. A petition, perhaps, although web petitions are cheap to start and cheap to ignore.
Hopefully, it would sell, and well--perhaps giving the publisher cause to re-evaluate the added value of the prequels.

If we're a bit more ambitious, perhaps it would be possible to ask for a 50th anniversary 'story collection'--invite other sf authors to write their own take on Dune. I would definitely buy such a book, even if they were to fill it with nothing but prose penned by failed Star Wars tie-in writers, but I understand that story collections don't sell very well, generally speaking.

But again, imagine the conclusion a publisher might draw if it outsold the recent McDune novels ...
leagued wrote:But right now, what Dune really needs if its gonna get pop culture exposure right now is a champion with clout ...
Alas, Hollywood isn't in the business of taking gambles on movies to revive interest in novels. It's currently following the exact opposite pattern--it bases its movies on well-known, vibrant series solely to reduce the risk attached to the 100+ million dollar budgets.

Now, if Dune could be turned into a comic book series ... or a bunch of well-received 'graphical novels', for that matter, that would increase its pop culture exposure for a sum much less than 100 million dollars.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by leagued »

lotek wrote:
But right now, what Dune really needs if its gonna get pop culture exposure right now is a champion with clout. (For those who do not want to see anymore Dune adaptations, feel free to ignore this). It needs the kind of proselytizing that Deadpool is getting from Ryan Reynolds, that Zach Snyder brought to Watchmen, Robert Rodriguez to Sin City (when a guy is willing to burn the bridge to the Director's Guild to get the movie made the way he wanted, you know he cares). It needs to be the passion project of someone with serious weight to throw around.
You mean what Dune needs is a Hero ? ^^
"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall
into the hands of a Hero," his father said.
Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Well . . . let him.
Hoisted by Frank Herbert's own petard. Touche.
lotek wrote:
I would have more someone like Peter Jackson sci-fi wise, I think I could accept the inevitable downplay of the philosophical and the untold if I could see the fan love through it.
Jackson would probably be great; I picked names that came to mind for people pushing major passion projects to get them on-screen in a "truthful" format against varying degrees of opposition. What all of the above have brought (except Reynolds because his Deadpool has yet to see screen) is a huge amoung of "fandom" to the projects and admiration for the source material. This is not to say that I think any of them would be right for Dune itself, just that I would like to see a simlarly passionate director/producer willing ot fight the "mass-market" mentality.

Also, the comic book idea is one I would definitely support under the right circumstances. The Dark Tower GN's by Marvel have been spectacular. But I think it'd be a lot easier for KJA to force himself into that product; with horrible results.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by Nekhrun »

There is no way that the HLP is going to entertain any offers of purchase considering how they milk this cow.
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Re: Dune's Reputation

Post by ᴶᵛᵀᴬ »

Naïve mind wrote:Speaking of anniversaries, the 50th will be in 2015. That's only two years from now.
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      lotek
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      Re: Dune's Reputation

      Post by lotek »

      2015?

      Hopefully that meteor will stop missing and hitting Russia instead of Colorado, darn it.

      Is it because Russia is populated by bears on unicycles ?
      Spice is the worm's gonads.
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