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There’s a lot of this with the film but people are taking this way too far. It’s one thing to like the new film, even to grumble about a few of the new things in Star Wars; but then there’s throwing shade at the original trilogy. Star Wars has a lot more, important IMO, influences than Dune and Dune isn’t an original idea anyway:

1) Star Wars owes a lot to the music and visuals of the film. These are for a lot of people what sells it. A Mandalorian is better than a Fremen because they look cooler not because of superficial trope checklist. The look of the ships, the score and these by definition don’t exist in the book; because it’s a book. Writing is important but Star Wars has only rarely been carried by its writing.

2) Star Wars owes a lot to Flash Gordon, WW2 movies like Dambusters or Battle of Britain, Samurai movies and this covers a lot of the combat we see such as X wings attacking the Death Star, Lightsaber fights as well as the intensely pulp nature of the setting. This is all really essential ingredients of Star Wars not present in Dune.

3) Star Wars moral message and the politics of George Lucas pushed could not be more emphatically against the moral message of Dune. You have a popular rebellion overthrow a clearly evil empire and the prequels are about the downfall of democracy. It’s a fairy tale in space.

4) Dune copied Issac Asimovs Foundation. If we’re going to dismiss the ideas or morals of the story and just say the works superstructure is important then Frank Herbert blatantly copied Foundation with the millennia old Galactic Empire falling into decay and the characters trying to fix humanities perceived decline.

5) Frank Herbert was not the first sci fi writer. H J Wells and others were writing commentary through the medium of science fiction decades before him. It is disingenuous to imply Dune was a start point for science fiction and its associated tropes.

6) The political message of Dune is not original. “Charismatic leaders should come with a warning label” has been said since at least Ancient Greek times. It’s where get the word Demagogue from.

7) Dune was clearly inspired by the film Lawrence of Arabia which came out a few years prior to the books release.

Basically what makes Star Wars so good is not what was taken from Dune and Dune isn't an original work anyway because there’s no such thing and Dune has very clear “influences”.

Did I miss a thread about Star Wars and Dune here? Who is this addressing?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Did I miss a thread about Star Wars and Dune here? Who is this addressing?

It's like part 27 of this dude's weird manifesto against Dune and Frank Herbert. Most of which can be boiled down to "I'm going to look at Dune in a very simplistic fashion and then complain about it being so simple."

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Did I miss a thread about Star Wars and Dune here? Who is this addressing?

The release of the new film has a lot of discussion about the legacy of Dune and amounts to saying Star Wars is Dune. I am posting here that’s not really the case. Nobody likes Star Wars because it starts on a Desert planet.


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 gorgon wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Did I miss a thread about Star Wars and Dune here? Who is this addressing?

It's like part 27 of this dude's weird manifesto against Dune and Frank Herbert. Most of which can be boiled down to "I'm going to look at Dune in a very simplistic fashion and then complain about it being so simple."

If I was looking at it simplistically I’d just call him a fascist. Man was as bad as Lovecraft.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Star Wars has a lot more, important IMO, influences than Dune and Dune isn’t an original idea anyway:.

Starwars is also not an original idea (in fact you even identify several of its sources later in your post)

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

1) Star Wars owes a lot to the music and visuals of the film. These are for a lot of people what sells it. A Mandalorian is better than a Fremen because they look cooler not because of superficial trope checklist. The look of the ships, the score and these by definition don’t exist in the book; because it’s a book. Writing is important but Star Wars has only rarely been carried by its writing.

This isn't really a statement of fact its more one of personal opinion when you're comparing Mandalorians to Fremen. Though I'd argue if you are looking at the original films then the Mandalorians don't even appear. You have one Bounty Hunter who honestly appears very little and has almost no backstory expansion in the first 3 films.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

2) Star Wars owes a lot to Flash Gordon, WW2 movies like Dambusters or Battle of Britain, Samurai movies and this covers a lot of the combat we see such as X wings attacking the Death Star, Lightsaber fights as well as the intensely pulp nature of the setting. This is all really essential ingredients of Star Wars not present in Dune.

This doesn't even make any sense. You're just listing influences on Starwars and not on Dune and then saying that because you know what influenced Starwars its better than Dune?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

3) Star Wars moral message and the politics of George Lucas pushed could not be more emphatically against the moral message of Dune. You have a popular rebellion overthrow a clearly evil empire and the prequels are about the downfall of democracy. It’s a fairy tale in space.

So? Again this isn't fact its just personal preference. You like one story more than the other.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

4) Dune copied Issac Asimovs Foundation. If we’re going to dismiss the ideas or morals of the story and just say the works superstructure is important then Frank Herbert blatantly copied Foundation with the millennia old Galactic Empire falling into decay and the characters trying to fix humanities perceived decline.

And Starwars has a whole page of things it was based on and inspired by, just the same as Dune
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues

In fact look at almost any film or book and you'll spot things that the author was directly inspired by as well as accidentally inspired by or where multiple creators of the same era were inspired by a similar experience or previous creation and created creations along similar lines of thought.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

6) The political message of Dune is not original. “Charismatic leaders should come with a warning label” has been said since at least Ancient Greek times. It’s where get the word Demagogue from.

Nor are any of the political messages of Starwars original.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

7) Dune was clearly inspired by the film Lawrence of Arabia which came out a few years prior to the books release.

So?
You identify several films earlier that you believe inspired Starwars



Ultimately you just seem to hate Dune because you do. That's fine, that's totally ok, however so far your justifications that you've presented are very odd because you say Dune is bad because X and then you say Starwars is good because X. You can't say Dune is bad because of the very same things that makes Starwars good.

I am saying those other influences on Star Wars are more important than Dune as an influence. If you Google or YouTube plenty of videos imply or state Dune as the primary influence for Star Wars. It’s not and it certainly isn’t why people liked Star Wars.

Well, yes, saying Dune is a copy of Star Wars is implicitly saying “you like Star Wars because of Dune and what it took”. I am saying that ain’t the case. Most of the comparisons are superficial things that don’t make the film. Yeah, there’s a giant worm in Empire Strikes Back. That’s a reference, not the film.

Because Dune is set on a pedestal. So of course I bring up Lawrence of Arabia coming out a few years prior and all the other stuff Dune copied. It’s not an original work and people imply or state that it is. Dune does make a claim to originality.

Yes, I don’t like the moral message of Dune and I don’t like what the author has to say. That colours my opinion of the work.

Wait. How is Frank “beware charismatic leaders” Herbert a fascist? And in what way is he comparable to Lovecraft? (Other than a weird fascination with bloodline eugenics?)


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Is anyone on this board saying Dune was the most important influence on Star Wars, or even in the top 3 influences? Who is comparing Star Wars and Dune on this board other than you?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Is anyone on this board saying Dune was the most important influence on Star Wars, or even in the top 3 influences? Who is comparing Star Wars and Dune on this board other than you?

Kids on Reddit? I don't know this seems like a reply to something that isn't here so its like half the conversation is missing the half we have sounds highly contrived to start with

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Wait. How is Frank “beware charismatic leaders” Herbert a fascist? And in what way is he comparable to Lovecraft? (Other than a weird fascination with bloodline eugenics?)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is anyone on this board saying Dune was the most important influence on Star Wars, or even in the top 3 influences? Who is comparing Star Wars and Dune on this board other than you?

Because he wrote that during the mid 60s.

The charismatic leaders he is implicitly referring to are JFK (who was pushing the US towards unravelling Jim Crow Segregation), Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, various anti colonial nationalists like Nasser, Che Guevara and Castro. Not Mussolini.

In the context of the mid 60s saying that you should beware charismatic leaders is incredibly reactionary.

Especially when several of the people on the above list were assassinated by, we’ll call them conservative, individuals fearful of the changes going on in the world and America at that time. It’s almost certainly aimed at the civil rights movement. He’s basically saying these people riling up folk on grievances are a threat to American democracy.

Also, an American Libertarian won’t mentally comprehend that there’s any comparison to be made between fascist European states and the US. It’s doublethink. So of course he can criticise fascism whilst at the same time implicitly advocating maintaining the status quo in America.




I mean, picking one at random on Google:

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-wars-movies-wouldnt-exist-without-dune/

Going to lock this one, nothing good will come from this.