Dune And Children Of Dune – Definitely Two For The Collection

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.

So I got these two films from Amazon – and wow! Talk about first-rate.

Bear in mind, that I’m not talking about David Lynch’s utter travesty from 1984. That one sucks like an Electro-Lux (note: don’t care if Herbert was involved in the production or not, so don’t bother).

I’m talking about this one. For one thing, I’m a bit of a bear about sticking to original story lines – the adage about ‘not broken, don’t fix’ may be a trifle cliché, but it stands the tests of time. And oh wow, these films are faithful to the original three novels, and still worth multiple watches.

I say three, because Children of Dune as well as the first Dune film also incorporate Dune Messiah, which was the bridge between books 1 and 3.

Obviously there is a lot of parallels between the Middle East and the planet Dune: the spice is clearly a variable subtext for oil (no spice, and the universe becomes crippled), the Fremen are obviously Arabs, but the analogies break down a bit, because I don’t see a lot of resemblance between Paul/Muad’Dib and Muhammad. There’s a few vocabulary parallels (jihad, maybe one or two others), and of course, it’s a desert planet. I suppose the Bene Gesserit could be an analogue for the Catholic Church, but again, the resemblances are barely superficial.

Anyways, I'll be watching this again sometime soon.