Page 1 of 1

New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 09 Jun 2024 16:14
by MilesTeg4DaWin
Spoilers for both of the new Dune films by Villeneuve:

ok there's the spoiler warning
I really enjoyed both of the new Dune movies by Denis Villeneuve. And I know this is just nitpicking, and he could not show everything or the films would be 6 hours each, and he had to make choices for the movie so it wasn't over the top mind numbing CGI, but...

The new movies make the populations of the Dune Universe seem tiny. In Dune 1 it seemed like the city of Arakeen was guarded by a force of like, 10,000 Atreides soldiers. And the force that overtook them seemed very small.

In Dune part 2, it was said the Emperor brought his entire Sardaukar army to Arakeen to challenge Paul and the Fremen. But his force again, seemed very small. Maybe 400,000 troops on the ground, if that.

The original books say that the emperor's military power, his Sardaukar, equal the entire force of the entire Landsraad, i.e. all of the other family houses. This is the balance of power. But surely there are more than 100 other planets and Family houses. Maybe even 1000 if you count minor houses.

Long story short, the movies make it seem like these civilizations/worlds have very tiny armies. The real world USA military could have defeated the emperor's forces that landed on Arakeen.

The new films make it seem like this vast galactic civilization has a very tiny population. If all of the armies of the great houses/Lansraad equals what the Emperor brought to arakeen, that means each of those 100+ worlds has a standing army of like, five thousand troops?

Again, for movie/director reasons Denis had to scale it back a lot. But the books say the Emperor had a huge force that equals basically all of the other worlds combined....
if that's true, the other houses have very tiny forces. Maybe that's just how they roll 30K years into the future. Everyone else just has normal day jobs or lives artsy lives, and military recruitment is only like 0.005% of each world's population lol.
I really do love both of the films and bought both of them (1 on disc, 1 digital).

Re: New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 10 Jun 2024 07:17
by Cpt. Aramsham
This is generally in line with the book, where the fighting forces are not so very large.

The Harkonnen+Sardaukar attack consisted of somewhat more than 100 brigades=10 legions, two Sardaukar and eight Harkonnen. We're told a legion is about 30,000 troops, so we're talking slightly over 300,000 all told, with half that force attacking Arrakeen and the rest taking the other towns and strongholds.

This force was ten times as much as the highest range of Hawat's estimates ("For a full attack they'd expected no more than ten brigades"), and a force he considered absolutely staggering.

Earlier, Duke Leto thinks that with support from five batallions of Fremen plus the Atreides forces, they'll be able to beat back an attack of four or five batallions of Sardaukar. The size of a batallion is not given, but it's less than a brigade (3,000 troops), and in our world typically 300–1000 troops. This all suggests that the total Atreides force on Arrakis was only a few tens of thousand troops (maybe 20,000–30,000).

Towards the end of the book, the Emperor brings with him 5 legions of Sardaukar (150,000) when he comes to Arrakis, which is the force defeated by the Fremen. (Given the surprise nature of the attack, it's not clear whether all of them ever saw battle.) Though the book doesn't say this was all the Sardaukar armies.

Re: New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 10 Jun 2024 16:08
by MilesTeg4DaWin
thanks!

Re: New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 11 Jun 2024 13:10
by georgiedenbro
The problem with having armies that are too large in Dune is the expense of transporting them. Too many troops and it becomes impossible to deploy them anyhow. Better to have fewer, but more efficient, troops.

Re: New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 13 Jun 2024 02:58
by MilesTeg4DaWin
true but you'd think it would take more than 10k soldiers to conquer a galaxy lol
but i digress
love the original books by frank, read them all like 5x
love all the films even the lynch one

Re: New Dune Films make the population seem small (Spoilers)

Posted: 07 Jan 2025 13:28
by Freakzilla
The Honored Matres call the Old Empire the "million planets".