RadixJournal - Archeo-Futurist Messiah

00:00:00.000 Greg, John, welcome. Let's talk about Dune.

00:00:05.100 Thanks for having me on.

00:00:06.720 Yeah, thanks.

00:00:07.660 Sure. I know that you are both veterans of the Muhadib's Jihad, in which 60 billion people perished,

00:00:17.760 and the galaxy was unified under one true religion.

00:00:21.640 So I think you'll have a lot to say on this one.

00:00:24.140 Indeed, my eyes are blue.

00:00:26.660 Yeah, mine too.

00:00:27.800 Blue within blue.

00:00:28.560 Blue within blue.

00:00:31.300 Well, why don't we start out talking about our first impressions of Dune and also how we came to Dune.

00:00:42.480 And I'll mention before we say that, we're certainly going to talk about Frank Herbert's novel Dune,

00:00:50.280 but I think we might be looking at it through the lens of David Lynch's 1984 film, Dune, which is actually remembered as a kind of disaster.

00:01:04.360 But I certainly think this, and I think Greg and John agree, that it is kind of a flawed masterpiece.

00:01:12.800 And then I think it actually does get at the heart of the book, and I think it does represent the book well.

00:01:20.080 I don't think the definitive Dune has yet to be filmed, or maybe it can't be filmed, but I do think Lynch's movie is quite interesting.

00:01:30.880 But why don't we just talk a little bit about how we came to Dune, the book and some of the films.

00:01:38.500 So, Greg, you first.

00:01:41.260 What is your own personal history with this world?

00:01:45.560 Well, I was introduced to the first Dune novel by some of my older hippie cousins in Canada.

00:01:52.960 And they were really into it.

00:01:56.560 I think they were smoking a little too much spice, and they were sort of into living on communes and strumming guitars and stuff like that.

00:02:06.520 And so that's what they were responding to in it.

00:02:09.740 They were responding to the drug themes, the ecological themes, the anti-colonial themes in Dune.

00:02:17.680 And I read the book, and I was too young to really appreciate it, but I did enjoy it.

00:02:25.360 And when I saw the Lynch movie, I was very disappointed in it because it didn't accord with my vision of things.

00:02:33.380 And it made me realize, though, that reading the Herbert book imparted a very strong vision in my mind of how this all should be.

00:02:44.940 And it was one of the books that I had read that gave me the most specific and strong imaginative vision of its contents.

00:02:56.180 I think the only other author who I was reading at the time who really exceeded that was Ray Bradbury, who I think is probably the greatest science fiction stylist ever.

00:03:07.100 But anyway, I was very disappointed in the Lynch movie.

00:03:11.460 And it was only years later when I got a copy of it on VHS.

00:03:17.860 I think it was still VHS at the time.

00:03:20.740 I watched it again, and enough time had passed, and the strong impression of the novel had faded, and I could sort of see it for what it was.

00:03:31.100 And I really think it is a great, flawed film.

00:03:34.200 There's a long list of great, flawed films, and it's near the top in terms of greatness, I think.

00:03:39.620 I think it's interesting that Greg said that these hippies were into Dune, and that before we went on air, 0.87

00:03:49.140 we were talking about how this really is a profoundly reactionary novel, and it could only have been written by a reactionary anti-liberal.

00:03:58.020 But I think it's interesting how this appeals to both of these things, both of these people, and it really speaks to them.

00:04:06.460 It has a kind of psychedelic quality to it, you could say.

00:04:12.700 And it certainly has very strong ecological themes, and it certainly has anti-colonial themes of the Fremen as an oppressed, demeaned people that rises up and defeats the emperor.

00:04:26.540 But then at the same time, it also has these strong currents of a kind of fascist current, a very strong current of reviving the old world of feudalism.

00:04:40.140 So I think this speaks to the greatness of the novel, that it touches on all of these things that are kind of outside the contemporary American world.

00:04:52.380 It kind of brings us to different ways of being that might be considered right or left, but they're all outside of the liberal norm.

00:05:00.100 Yeah, I mean, Avila in Ride the Tiger, he has a chapter there on the hippies, because he was writing in the late 60s.

00:05:10.200 And he actually says that, oh, it's far, from a traditionalist point of view, it's far preferable to be a hippie than to be a bourgeois.

00:05:18.280 So, yeah, I mean, he's understood, he's like, well, even though they lack proper reference, I think is how he put it, they still intuitively grasp this need to kind of rebel against the modern world.

00:05:33.720 And I think that Dune, alongside Tolkien, was a big influence on, you know, the 60s generation.

00:05:43.520 It was published in 1965, the sequels came out in the late 60s, the second and third books.

00:05:49.800 It was very, very widely read by counterculture types in the United States and Europe.

00:05:55.200 And it had, it had a, it fit in with their revolt against the modern world, definitely, in the same way that Tolkien does.

00:06:06.760 And yet, at the same time, there's a profoundly reactionary dimension to both Tolkien and, I think, Herbert.

00:06:14.140 Yeah, without question.

00:06:15.340 Well, John, why don't you tell us, tell us a little bit about your own personal history with Dune.

00:06:20.020 Well, I saw it in 1985, shortly after it came out.

00:06:25.900 I think it came out in December of 84, just because as a kid, you know, I loved anything that was science fiction.

00:06:33.640 And I remember really not liking it at all.

00:06:38.300 I was only 11 years old at the time.

00:06:40.920 And, I mean, my taste at that time was, you know, Star Wars, Star Trek.

00:06:44.760 I had just gotten into 2001, and I couldn't really make sense of Dune.

00:06:50.440 Like, to me, it was like, but this is like some weird fantasy story.

00:06:53.600 It's not really science fiction.

00:06:55.260 Yeah.

00:06:55.420 And I just kind of dismissed it, and I never really thought about it again for many years after.

00:07:01.740 And then, when I was an undergrad, a friend of mine, who was really into the books, kept insisting that I read it.

00:07:08.500 And so, finally, I sat down, and I did, and, you know, enough years had gone by that I really just thought it was amazing and wonderful.

00:07:18.300 And, you know, even now, it's one of my favorite science fiction novels, definitely.

00:07:23.560 And then, shortly after I read the book, I re-watched the film.

00:07:27.440 And, at first, I kind of had the same reaction as Greg.

00:07:32.320 I was really disappointed in it.

00:07:34.440 I mean, especially having just read the book beforehand.

00:07:38.680 I mean, it leaves out so much.

00:07:40.720 I mean, I think only maybe 10% of the book is actually in the film.

00:07:44.880 Sure.

00:07:46.760 And so, I kind of laughed about it, and I didn't really like it.

00:07:52.700 And then, a couple of years went by, and I watched it again, and what I came to realize was that, well, as an adaptation of the book, I don't think it's very successful.

00:08:03.920 And I actually think if you haven't read the book first, it would be almost impossible to understand.

00:08:11.100 I say that both because of the experience I had with it as a kid, and also that's the response I've gotten from people I've shown it to who knew nothing about Doom before.

00:08:20.260 You know, they can't even understand what's going on because, you know, there's so much that Lynch tried to cover.

00:08:27.860 I mean, this dude was still very early in his career, and, you know, even he has admitted he probably wasn't fully prepared, you know, to do it at that stage.

00:08:36.860 But, yeah, in subsequent viewings, I came to realize, well, as an adaptation of the book, I don't think it's entirely successful.

00:08:45.100 But where it's brilliant to me is that it really does capture the vision of the book.

00:08:51.820 I mean, I think Lynch really did a good job of capturing the feel of the book and the look of the book the way I saw it in my mind.

00:08:59.160 And so in that sense, I think it's great.

00:09:04.060 And, you know, I've often said, you know, if I could, you know, pick a film that I would actually like our future to look like, it would probably be Lynch's Dune.

00:09:11.460 I mean, to me, it just embodies, you know, this sort of archaeofuturism, as Fahey would say, that we're after.

00:09:19.720 For the costumes alone, I want that to be our future.

00:09:22.340 Yes.

00:09:22.580 Well, it's really, I mean, I've watched it to, I've shown it to friends before who have no particular political inclinations.

00:09:32.400 And, you know, when the House Atreides soldiers on Dune first show up, there was like, oh, those are like Rommel's troops.

00:09:40.640 Like, I mean, they really do look like the Africa Corps or something.

00:09:45.480 Oh, yeah, I think Lynch is fine for that.

00:09:47.220 Yeah, as for me, I actually, I was one of those people that saw the movie first.

00:09:52.860 I did not read the book when I was a young adult.

00:09:57.780 I was, when I was a kid, I was hugely into Star Wars.

00:10:01.520 I actually had these, I was one of these kids that had the Star Wars toys before I even saw the film.

00:10:09.180 And I think I might have even like read a comic book or something.

00:10:12.060 But I got some of these toys for Christmas, and I was just playing with them.

00:10:16.680 And I, and then I certainly did eventually see the movies.

00:10:19.720 And, and then when they, when VHS came out, I'm sure I rewatched them a number of times.

00:10:25.000 But I think I also, you know, was like many people responded to that mythical quality of Star Wars.

00:10:32.580 And I think that quality is, is derived from Dune and Frank Herbert.

00:10:38.040 I think he really introduced that into the world.

00:10:41.300 And George Lucas was certainly, you know, as is deeply indebted to Herbert.

00:10:46.580 But I actually, I did not know anything about Dune.

00:10:49.540 And it was actually at a David Lynch film festival that I attended when I was at the University of Chicago in 2003.

00:10:59.220 And I had, and I am a David Lynch fan, and I had been for a number of years.

00:11:03.200 And, and I was kind of curious to see some of those things that I hadn't seen, like Eraserhead and things like that.

00:11:10.860 And at this film festival, I think I, I saw them all.

00:11:15.420 And at this festival, there was just a sense of whiplash where you went, you went from Eraserhead and then you had Dune.

00:11:22.580 And I, I probably like a lot of people, if you see this movie in 2014, say, it, it, it evokes laughter.

00:11:31.020 I mean, I remember in the theater where there are these, there was some point where Paul meets Chani.

00:11:39.680 And, and she says, tell me about your home world, Usul.

00:11:43.880 And then he thinks in his mind, tell me about your home world, Usul.

00:11:48.260 And it's just, it's very, it's like, they're not answering questions.

00:11:51.880 They're telepathically communicating.

00:11:53.680 It's very funny.

00:11:54.820 There, there are a lot of other things that were just a little bit silly, very 80s.

00:11:59.620 And, but at the same, so, you know, in a way you could, you could watch this movie and think it's so bad, it's good or whatever.

00:12:06.740 But even when I watched it, despite these problems and despite some problems that, in the special effects, I, I, just as a quick aside, I think some of the special effects are amazing.

00:12:18.420 I think the worms are really great.

00:12:20.780 Yeah.

00:12:21.180 And some of the ships in space look pretty clunky.

00:12:24.800 They look like toys hanging on invisible thread in a dark room.

00:12:29.080 And you can see, you can see the boxes around them.

00:12:32.120 Yeah.

00:12:33.060 So, you know, there's some real problems with the film.

00:12:36.380 I don't think anyone would deny that.

00:12:37.640 But even when I first saw it, and despite all these, you know, the, the kind of laughing at the picture that was occurring, I, I realized that there was something else going on.

00:12:47.260 And that it, that Herbert was giving us this vision that the future is the past, or the past is the future.

00:12:53.800 He was giving us this vision, a very anti-American, certainly anti-liberal vision, of the power of, of harnessing religion and the state.

00:13:03.840 And this messianic power, and some of these hints in the film that you, when you read about in, in some of the sequels, and you, you get hints of it in the book.

00:13:12.700 But that, you know, after, you know, after, after the end of the action of the, of the book, Paul will lead a jihad, I mentioned, in which they essentially take over the universe and, you know, destroy, you know, create one religion to rule them all and kill 60 billion in the process.

00:13:32.620 You know, I, I realized that there was something terrifying about this whole vision of Herbert, and I, and I, I mean that in a very profound and strong way, that there's a lot more to it.

00:13:44.860 So I, I did become a fan, and I've read the book, and I've also listened to a, a brilliant audio book version of it, which I will, which I'll, I'll put in the show notes, that I, it really is, this, this novel really, in a way, should be heard.

00:14:01.180 Um, and let me just jump into, I'll use that as a segue to jump into something, um, you know, a, a, a theme that I want to talk about, and I'll, I'll get both of your opinions on this.

00:14:12.860 But, uh, when I said that, the, the Dune is a, it's a work that almost deserves to be heard and not just read.

00:14:18.820 And what I mean by that is that there, there are all these different tonalities that occur throughout the book.

00:14:24.180 And, you know, you, you, you see, you, you can hear this in, in the different words and names that have, that have, that evoke different feelings and different times and places.

00:14:36.800 And, and, at, at some points, the, the language seems to evoke, uh, early modern English or middle English when you, you hear some of these lays that, uh, Gurney will sing to Paul.

00:14:50.000 Uh, you have Atreides evoking the Greeks and things like that.

00:14:55.020 And then you have all these other different valences, um, you know, needless to say, uh, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, uh, who of course is Paul's grandfather, which you've learned, uh, spoiler alert there.

00:15:07.900 But, uh, anyway, obviously he's evoking the East or Russia or maybe some kind of sadistic Stalinist, you know, world.

00:15:18.440 Um, and then you get to the, the Fremen and, and Dune, and you end up in this Middle Eastern world where they, they'll use words that have become familiar to, familiar, familiar to us now, like jihad. 0.62

00:15:30.120 Uh, but the Quizak Sadarak is Hebraic. 0.98

00:15:33.380 Um, uh, Muadib is, is obviously this, uh, Arabic resonance.

00:15:37.900 Uh, but, uh, I'll just go to Greg, you first.

00:15:41.360 What, what do you think about these, these different tonalities that, that Frank Herbert's using?

00:15:48.060 And, you know, what, what are the effects of these and, and, and why do you think he's, he's making these, these clear gestures to different times and places?

00:15:59.440 Well, I, I think that the, the first thing that we need to say, and I guess we've already said it beforehand, is that, you know,

00:16:07.440 no liberal could have written Dune.

00:16:10.220 Um, it's, it's, it's an anti-liberal book.

00:16:13.680 And it's very consistent with a lot of thought currents that have flowed into the new right.

00:16:19.260 Um, he, I, I, I'm, I, I'm not, I guess I'm not going to speak to so much to the different cultural references and things like that in there.

00:16:30.440 Um, except to say that the overall feel of it is, is that the only people in the universe who are really, um, players in this are white people.

00:16:40.000 I mean, ethnically, that seems to be the underlying assumption.

00:16:43.560 There's one little reference to somebody who has a hint of an epicanthic fold.

00:16:48.100 Uh, but, uh, otherwise, you know, everybody else seems to be Europaid.

00:16:53.920 Uh, there are no aliens with, uh, you know, beaks or, uh, trunks or, uh, extra tentacles or things like that.

00:17:01.720 It's just a, it's a human universe, um, with, uh, with people who all seem to be described, uh, and who feel spiritually to be quite European.

00:17:11.220 It's a very Eurocentric thing.

00:17:13.660 And that said, you know, there are different peoples, uh, in the, uh, in the cosmos.

00:17:18.100 And there are different fields to the planets because they've evolved, uh, for thousands of years in semi-isolation.

00:17:26.160 Because the thing about space travel is that things are very widely scattered.

00:17:29.880 And what that means, uh, is, and this is Herbert's thinking, you know, at the end of the Roman Empire, with the breakdown of central authority and communications, the roads stopped, you know, working and things like that.

00:17:43.440 They became too dangerous.

00:17:45.320 People had to be decentralized.

00:17:48.940 And so you had the roots of feudalism.

00:17:51.420 I mean, feudalism started really at the beginning of the fourth century.

00:17:56.560 Um, and, uh,

00:17:58.420 uh, especially in Western Europe.

00:18:01.420 And that

00:18:03.400 is consistent with space travel.

00:18:06.900 I mean, things are widely spread out.

00:18:08.880 And so he was picturing

00:18:10.320 that if we're going to be traveling

00:18:12.880 through space and colonizing space,

00:18:14.920 we're going to have

00:18:15.780 feudal and hierarchical forms of society.

00:18:18.840 And also, because space travel

00:18:20.760 takes time,

00:18:22.080 you're going to have to have people who think

00:18:24.480 and plan over great long spans of time.

00:18:28.280 And so you don't have, um,

00:18:31.500 democracy anymore,

00:18:32.680 because as we know,

00:18:34.080 that doesn't lead to any kind of long-term thinking.

00:18:37.000 Uh, so you have these, uh,

00:18:38.920 hereditary monarchies and aristocracies.

00:18:41.940 You have guilds.

00:18:44.480 And you have holy orders

00:18:46.100 of various sorts.

00:18:48.220 Uh, and all of these are features of medieval Europe.

00:18:51.020 Uh, and, uh,

00:18:51.980 I think that, you know,

00:18:53.540 he, he's, he's basically saying,

00:18:55.340 look, if man is going to go out into the cosmos,

00:18:57.560 uh, and if we're going to adapt

00:19:00.160 to space exploration

00:19:02.120 and colonization,

00:19:03.780 we're going to have to

00:19:05.400 recur to an older form of social organization.

00:19:08.820 It's not going to be

00:19:10.460 Star Trek-style liberalism.

00:19:13.120 It's going to be

00:19:14.260 a kind of updated feudalism.

00:19:17.780 And I, I think that's,

00:19:19.300 that's the thing that was,

00:19:20.340 that really struck me, uh, about it.

00:19:22.740 And so the, the plurality of different

00:19:25.380 cultures and voices and things like that

00:19:28.760 really does seem to be based on simply the fact that,

00:19:31.280 you know, separate evolution

00:19:33.820 has been taking place for thousands of years

00:19:36.820 on these planets,

00:19:37.560 which are only occasionally linked

00:19:39.280 because space travel is very expensive.

00:19:42.760 Um, you know,

00:19:44.100 the space travel is, is,

00:19:45.520 is described in the way that, you know,

00:19:47.480 the, the railroad monopolies

00:19:49.320 were described in 19th century America

00:19:51.420 where basically, you know,

00:19:54.120 every bit of profit,

00:19:57.120 you know, out of commerce

00:19:58.520 practically is, is just siphoned off

00:20:01.580 to the, to the, to the guilt

00:20:03.180 that, uh, makes it possible.

00:20:05.140 You know, and practically, uh, you know,

00:20:08.460 the, you know,

00:20:09.120 of course there's some profit left

00:20:11.140 to the, uh, to the buyers and sellers

00:20:13.040 or commerce would stop at all.

00:20:14.780 But it, it really does strike me as a,

00:20:17.200 as, as generally a universe

00:20:18.860 where people are isolated from one another.

00:20:21.640 Yeah.

00:20:22.960 And there's a line in the, in the novel

00:20:24.940 where he talks about the jihad

00:20:26.880 and he, he, he almost says

00:20:30.780 that there's like a biological force

00:20:33.300 that is behind this

00:20:35.820 and that biological force 0.95

00:20:37.980 is a desire to overcome

00:20:39.800 this isolation,

00:20:41.300 to overcome these, uh,

00:20:43.260 isolated pockets of genetic,

00:20:45.280 uh, you know, um,

00:20:47.860 diversity and to mix things up again.

00:20:51.300 Uh, he actually talks about it that way,

00:20:53.380 which is really kind of fascinating.

00:20:54.780 Yeah, it's a, it's a very, uh, Dionysian way.

00:20:58.020 I think he says that it's,

00:20:59.260 it's when Paul is about to, um,

00:21:01.840 fight Fade Rautha to the death.

00:21:04.220 And, uh, he, Paul talks about having

00:21:06.520 this bubbling up feeling

00:21:08.320 of race consciousness.

00:21:10.000 And that is of, of this, you know,

00:21:12.660 this, it's, it's the desire

00:21:15.280 that is the, the negative of the desire

00:21:17.040 to be one with your family

00:21:18.920 and to be rooted.

00:21:19.760 It's this desire to go out

00:21:21.360 and conquer and mix blood.

00:21:23.340 And, you know, that those

00:21:25.180 that are the most vigorous

00:21:26.340 will survive.

00:21:28.020 And, uh, and he describes that

00:21:29.960 as race consciousness immediately.

00:21:31.300 And, you know, of course,

00:21:32.240 immediately after the, uh,

00:21:33.980 the, the action of the book,

00:21:35.540 uh, the, the Fremen do essentially

00:21:38.280 conquer the universe

00:21:39.480 or pillage the universe.

00:21:41.460 Yeah. 0.96

00:21:41.820 And again, no white liberal

00:21:43.820 writes about race consciousness.

00:21:46.140 No.

00:21:46.560 It's simply not done.

00:21:47.920 And it's certainly not race mixing 0.81

00:21:51.780 in the way that liberals think of it,

00:21:53.640 which is about love, you know,

00:21:55.300 like, oh, how could you keep

00:21:56.500 these two good people apart?

00:21:58.560 You know?

00:21:58.800 No.

00:21:59.200 And, and it's not really race mixing

00:22:00.880 because, I mean, again,

00:22:02.060 everybody's sort of portrayed

00:22:03.340 as like Europa.

00:22:05.460 Yeah.

00:22:05.800 And, but they're, but they're,

00:22:06.900 they're separate nations

00:22:08.500 and pockets of European type

00:22:10.820 peoples scattered around the cosmos.

00:22:12.760 They're getting a little inbred,

00:22:14.720 perhaps.

00:22:15.180 They're getting a little stagnant.

00:22:17.420 Yeah.

00:22:17.700 And, uh, that's another thing

00:22:19.120 about Dune that's,

00:22:20.120 that's so interesting.

00:22:21.520 Herbert is thinking

00:22:22.300 and pondering, uh,

00:22:23.960 these great issues

00:22:25.780 of civilizational health

00:22:27.600 and decadence

00:22:28.340 on grand historic scales.

00:22:31.360 Yes.

00:22:31.920 Uh, it's, it's,

00:22:33.520 it's, it's really,

00:22:35.080 really absorbing

00:22:35.960 to, to, to sort of follow

00:22:38.680 where his mind goes on this.

00:22:40.140 He seems to believe

00:22:40.980 that history moves

00:22:41.820 in great cycles.

00:22:43.240 Mm-hmm.

00:22:43.560 Um, and, uh,

00:22:45.940 you know, you,

00:22:46.720 there's, there's a vital barbarism,

00:22:48.980 uh, that then becomes

00:22:50.620 more civilized

00:22:51.660 and decadent

00:22:52.520 and then brittle

00:22:53.840 and then the life force

00:22:56.160 wells up

00:22:57.060 and smashes

00:22:57.900 these brittle forms

00:22:59.220 to bits

00:22:59.860 and things start over again.

00:23:03.680 Yeah.

00:23:04.000 I mean, what, you know,

00:23:04.700 once the guild

00:23:05.580 and, and, and the,

00:23:06.800 the Bene Gesserit

00:23:07.800 become these,

00:23:08.460 you know, decadent,

00:23:09.480 the Bene Gesserit

00:23:10.220 become decadent witches

00:23:11.340 and the guild 0.99

00:23:12.160 are these stale people

00:23:13.100 and the, the empire 0.97

00:23:14.220 is corrupt,

00:23:15.160 you need these 0.99

00:23:16.240 barbarian Fremen 0.99

00:23:18.280 to come and smash 0.99

00:23:20.220 everything 0.51

00:23:20.620 and put it back

00:23:21.320 together again.

00:23:22.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:23.580 John, why don't you

00:23:24.320 talk a little bit

00:23:25.040 about the, the religious

00:23:26.720 aspect to this world?

00:23:28.320 Because I, I, just to kind

00:23:29.840 of set you up for that,

00:23:30.900 I mean, I,

00:23:31.560 what we were talking

00:23:32.580 about is that

00:23:33.220 this world of Dune

00:23:35.020 is the anti-Star Trek.

00:23:37.220 Uh, you know,

00:23:37.580 Yes, yes.

00:23:38.400 Roddenberry and all

00:23:39.340 these other people

00:23:40.400 who write these

00:23:42.280 Star Trek movies,

00:23:43.040 uh, you know,

00:23:44.420 the future is a kind

00:23:45.780 of quaint

00:23:46.820 multicultural

00:23:47.780 liberalism

00:23:49.000 where everyone's

00:23:50.400 united

00:23:50.860 and, in some

00:23:51.700 kind of united

00:23:52.500 nations

00:23:53.080 where we go

00:23:53.920 and explore

00:23:55.180 the galaxy

00:23:56.000 and all this

00:23:57.780 kind of stuff.

00:23:58.400 Uh, Dune...

00:23:59.780 For civil rights

00:24:00.520 and...

00:24:00.980 For civil, right.

00:24:02.700 I mean, not to,

00:24:03.380 not to get on a

00:24:04.060 Star Trek tangent,

00:24:05.020 but, you know,

00:24:05.460 there, there's this,

00:24:06.200 uh, you know,

00:24:06.980 the, the prime

00:24:07.540 directive of you

00:24:08.320 shouldn't, you know,

00:24:09.340 uh, intervene

00:24:10.720 in the development

00:24:11.900 of civilization,

00:24:12.580 but they always

00:24:13.460 break that in order

00:24:14.420 to keep civil,

00:24:15.680 backwards civilizations

00:24:16.900 to bring them

00:24:17.760 towards freedom

00:24:18.700 and liberty.

00:24:19.640 Oh, and when it's,

00:24:20.340 when it's convening

00:24:21.060 for the Federation.

00:24:22.280 Right.

00:24:22.740 Uh, if you really

00:24:23.960 look at, uh,

00:24:24.720 you know, Star Trek,

00:24:25.560 that's, you know,

00:24:26.220 they, they're always

00:24:26.660 willing to break it

00:24:27.400 when they need to,

00:24:28.120 which is, you know,

00:24:28.980 actually quite apropos

00:24:30.140 if it's supposed

00:24:30.780 to be America.

00:24:31.500 Uh, right.

00:24:33.800 Uh, yeah, no,

00:24:34.600 I, and I think it is,

00:24:35.380 there is a kind

00:24:36.260 of Americanism

00:24:37.020 to Star Trek

00:24:37.620 without question

00:24:38.260 and, and, and

00:24:39.000 certainly a liberalism.

00:24:40.720 Uh, but, but Dune,

00:24:42.620 it, it has this world

00:24:43.800 of, uh, religion

00:24:45.180 united to the state

00:24:46.460 of, uh, of the world

00:24:48.420 where, you know,

00:24:49.060 the Bene Gesserit

00:24:50.060 have this, uh, you know,

00:24:52.140 extreme power, uh,

00:24:54.180 that you can have

00:24:54.740 a Messiah again.

00:24:56.120 I mean, I, I'm,

00:24:57.300 all this stuff

00:24:58.060 really fascinates me.

00:24:59.240 Why don't you just

00:24:59.780 talk a little bit

00:25:00.360 about the, the religious

00:25:01.540 aspect of this, uh,

00:25:03.720 universe?

00:25:04.140 I'll, I'll definitely

00:25:05.960 do that.

00:25:06.500 I, I just wanted

00:25:07.160 to follow up first

00:25:08.100 with what you and Greg

00:25:09.320 were talking about.

00:25:10.080 And I thought Greg

00:25:10.620 had a, had a very good,

00:25:12.000 uh, point, uh, you know,

00:25:14.060 about the political

00:25:14.820 nature of Dune.

00:25:15.840 I mean, it's, Dune

00:25:17.640 is profoundly anti-democratic

00:25:19.580 as, as we've been saying.

00:25:20.800 And, and that's actually

00:25:21.660 a theme that's common

00:25:22.660 to almost all the best

00:25:25.160 science fiction, uh,

00:25:27.020 strangely.

00:25:27.760 Like it, uh, a lot

00:25:29.640 of literary critics

00:25:30.380 have noticed this,

00:25:31.300 which is, I think,

00:25:32.000 one of the reasons

00:25:32.600 why they're, they've

00:25:34.000 been reticent to sort

00:25:35.100 of admit science fiction

00:25:36.320 to the literary canon,

00:25:37.500 uh, is because if you

00:25:39.780 look, I mean, that the

00:25:40.700 themes of science fiction

00:25:41.980 in general, uh, always

00:25:43.960 tend to, uh, uh, you

00:25:46.320 know, there's very

00:25:46.840 thinly veiled racialism.

00:25:48.800 Uh, uh, there's always

00:25:50.320 critiques of democracy.

00:25:51.700 I mean, you can talk

00:25:52.800 about things in science

00:25:53.840 fiction that you, you

00:25:55.120 can't really talk about

00:25:56.300 in any other form of

00:25:57.520 literature anymore.

00:25:58.920 Uh, so yeah, I think

00:26:01.560 Herbert, you know, was

00:26:02.540 just, you know, in that

00:26:03.300 tradition, although he

00:26:04.060 did it extremely well

00:26:05.320 and he, you know,

00:26:06.240 clearly a lot of

00:26:06.880 meditation on politics

00:26:08.880 and history went into

00:26:10.600 the writing of Dune.

00:26:12.240 Uh, you know, like you

00:26:13.040 said, a war is, as a

00:26:14.720 renewing force and this

00:26:16.620 belief that, you know,

00:26:17.360 a strong ruler is, is

00:26:18.940 needed to sort of set

00:26:20.160 things right.

00:26:21.740 Uh, you know, I, I

00:26:22.920 think that's, uh, uh,

00:26:24.800 that's why it appeals to,

00:26:25.960 to people like us.

00:26:26.940 Uh, probably many of

00:26:28.900 the people listening to

00:26:29.780 this podcast, uh, as,

00:26:31.540 as for the, the

00:26:32.300 religious aspect, uh, I

00:26:34.840 mean, the, the most

00:26:35.660 clear influence, uh, is

00:26:39.060 from Islam and, uh, I've

00:26:41.340 looked into it a bit and

00:26:42.780 it's, it's specifically

00:26:43.840 Shia messianism. 0.97

00:26:46.160 Uh, and where this

00:26:48.620 probably comes from, uh,

00:26:50.140 is that Frank Herbert

00:26:51.080 himself, uh, before he,

00:26:53.080 uh, wrote Dune, he was a

00:26:54.740 geologist who worked, uh,

00:26:56.220 for the oil companies in

00:26:57.420 Saudi Arabia and

00:26:58.280 actually spent some time

00:26:59.660 there.

00:27:00.200 So I, I've never actually

00:27:01.860 been able to find any

00:27:03.120 actual biographical proof,

00:27:04.720 but it, it seems pretty

00:27:06.100 evident that he must've,

00:27:07.460 uh, you know, either

00:27:08.460 through people there or

00:27:09.600 through his reading, uh,

00:27:11.160 had some influence from

00:27:12.400 Shiaism. 0.94

00:27:13.780 Uh, and there's actually a

00:27:16.080 website.

00:27:16.500 I, I can't remember the

00:27:17.780 name of it now, but I'm

00:27:18.900 sure it wouldn't be hard

00:27:19.580 to find on Google, uh,

00:27:21.460 which details all the

00:27:22.860 references to, uh, Islamic,

00:27:25.180 uh, theology that are in

00:27:27.700 Dune.

00:27:27.960 And it's, it's quite

00:27:28.740 extensive.

00:27:29.280 It's more than just a few

00:27:30.460 things, uh, and to

00:27:33.080 Arabic in general.

00:27:34.200 So yeah, I, I, Herbert

00:27:36.160 must've been influenced by

00:27:37.420 that somehow.

00:27:38.660 Uh, you know, as, as for

00:27:40.760 why he would do that,

00:27:42.440 well, I should also

00:27:43.200 mention, I mean, it's not

00:27:44.060 just Islam.

00:27:44.800 I mean, there's also kind

00:27:46.480 of a Buddhist tone to some

00:27:48.660 of it more, more, not so

00:27:49.900 much among the Fremen,

00:27:51.020 but, uh, among the, uh,

00:27:54.100 Harkonnens and the 1.00

00:27:55.460 Atreides like that.

00:27:57.100 Uh, what's that line that

00:27:58.340 the, uh, the Mentats use 0.99

00:28:00.340 like, Oh, it's, it is

00:28:01.240 through my will alone that

00:28:02.360 I set my mind in motion.

00:28:04.000 Oh yeah.

00:28:04.340 Yeah.

00:28:04.680 And yeah, that, that's,

00:28:05.780 that all sounds more a

00:28:06.900 Buddhist or, or something 0.96

00:28:08.000 like that.

00:28:09.140 Uh, fear is the mind

00:28:10.800 killer.

00:28:11.280 I will let the fear pass 0.62

00:28:12.380 over me kind of.

00:28:13.560 Yeah.

00:28:14.060 Yeah.

00:28:14.240 Even more like, yeah.

00:28:16.080 Yeah.

00:28:16.500 Yeah.

00:28:16.700 So yeah, there's, I think

00:28:17.920 he's drawing on a number

00:28:19.140 of, of different sources.

00:28:20.940 Uh, but I, I think the

00:28:22.440 reason is because, uh,

00:28:24.360 well, obviously, I mean,

00:28:25.680 his references to Islam,

00:28:27.060 he was writing in the

00:28:27.740 sixties.

00:28:28.320 I mean, they didn't have

00:28:29.180 the political valence then

00:28:31.220 that they would have

00:28:31.900 today.

00:28:33.060 Uh, like I always, I

00:28:34.440 have to always suppress

00:28:36.220 the urge to kind of read

00:28:37.980 present, uh, events

00:28:40.240 backwards into the film

00:28:41.680 or the book because like

00:28:42.740 there's that, uh, line

00:28:44.180 in the film where they

00:28:45.280 sit when, uh, house

00:28:46.860 Atreides occupies 0.85

00:28:47.920 Dune and they say,

00:28:48.940 well, they knew that

00:28:49.580 the Harkonnen would 1.00

00:28:50.360 leave many suicide

00:28:51.280 troops behind.

00:28:53.120 And it's like, oh,

00:28:54.380 you know, that's, this

00:28:55.420 must be some sort of

00:28:56.140 allegory for what's

00:28:57.360 going on in the Middle 0.69

00:28:58.060 East.

00:28:58.340 But, you know,

00:28:58.780 obviously it couldn't

00:28:59.560 be, but, but I, I

00:29:02.260 think that the reason

00:29:03.760 why, uh, Herbert

00:29:05.680 perhaps drew on that

00:29:06.800 if he spent time in

00:29:07.740 Saudi Arabia was it 0.97

00:29:08.760 probably impressed him

00:29:09.800 that, uh, the, you

00:29:13.460 know, Islam, whatever

00:29:14.320 we think of it, I

00:29:15.220 mean, it has probably

00:29:16.800 more than any other

00:29:17.740 religion retained more 0.93

00:29:19.600 of its, uh, resistance

00:29:21.400 to modernity.

00:29:22.600 I mean, that, that

00:29:23.540 hasn't always necessarily

00:29:24.660 been a positive thing,

00:29:25.780 especially as far as our

00:29:27.040 civilization is concerned.

00:29:28.300 But I mean, Saudi 0.84

00:29:29.320 Arabia is a monarchy and

00:29:30.880 it, you know, has this

00:29:31.640 very strict theocracy and,

00:29:33.460 uh, you know, perhaps,

00:29:35.860 uh, that's why Herbert,

00:29:37.120 uh, felt that that was,

00:29:38.740 uh, a good source to

00:29:40.680 draw on for the

00:29:41.380 religion in his world.

00:29:42.560 I also, you know, we

00:29:43.680 talked about this before

00:29:44.620 we started recording,

00:29:45.900 but it, it's pretty

00:29:46.740 evident that he drew on,

00:29:48.300 uh, T.E.

00:29:49.360 Lawrence, uh, Lawrence

00:29:51.080 of Arabia.

00:29:52.240 Uh, I think, uh, you

00:29:53.240 could sort of read, uh,

00:29:55.000 this is like a science

00:29:55.940 fiction version of that

00:29:57.300 in some ways.

00:29:58.360 Yeah.

00:29:58.920 With Paul as T.E.

00:30:00.640 Lawrence who goes and,

00:30:01.880 you know, raises the

00:30:03.300 tribes up, uh, in the

00:30:05.020 desert to, uh, rebel

00:30:06.300 against the distant

00:30:07.460 emperor.

00:30:08.680 Yes.

00:30:09.240 So, yeah, very much

00:30:11.660 so.

00:30:12.060 And, and, you know,

00:30:12.880 as far, and of course

00:30:14.360 Islam, uh, at least in 0.97

00:30:16.540 its ideal form, you

00:30:17.640 know, is, is very, uh,

00:30:18.960 feudal in nature.

00:30:20.500 And, uh, there is an

00:30:22.280 interview.

00:30:22.640 I, I can't give a

00:30:23.660 source, uh, although I'm

00:30:25.400 sure I did read it from

00:30:26.700 him.

00:30:26.980 I read an interview with

00:30:28.000 Herbert where he was

00:30:28.780 asked about all these

00:30:29.760 feudal elements in

00:30:30.940 Dune.

00:30:31.860 And, uh, he replied

00:30:33.420 that, you know, he

00:30:34.440 actually believed

00:30:35.280 himself that feudalism

00:30:36.540 was the ideal way of

00:30:37.740 organizing human

00:30:38.680 society, uh, and

00:30:40.400 that he was convinced

00:30:41.320 that, uh, you know,

00:30:42.720 eventually we would go

00:30:43.640 back to that, uh, which

00:30:45.380 kind of reinforces, uh,

00:30:46.660 the point Greg was

00:30:47.480 making earlier, I

00:30:48.420 think.

00:30:49.260 Uh, but I'll go back

00:30:50.480 to that if we ever

00:30:52.000 leave our increasingly

00:30:53.380 befouled, uh, earthly

00:30:55.620 nest and go out into the

00:30:57.080 universe.

00:30:57.400 But, uh, you know, it

00:30:59.200 looks less and less

00:31:00.240 likely that we're going

00:31:01.060 to be conquering the

00:31:01.920 final frontier because

00:31:03.020 all of our, uh, resources

00:31:04.520 are going to providing

00:31:05.980 cell phones and

00:31:07.060 vaccinations for, uh, you

00:31:09.600 know, Epsilon 1.00

00:31:10.300 semi-morons, uh, who 1.00

00:31:12.260 are going to basically, 1.00

00:31:13.180 uh, you know, flood the

00:31:15.000 earth and foul our

00:31:15.920 nest.

00:31:16.280 And that'll be the end

00:31:17.300 of, uh, that'll be the

00:31:18.380 end of mankind's

00:31:19.460 Faustian aspirations.

00:31:21.400 Um, well, I mean, that'll

00:31:23.100 force us into feudalism

00:31:24.460 here.

00:31:25.340 Yeah.

00:31:25.920 Yeah.

00:31:26.320 Feudalism now.

00:31:27.840 Yeah.

00:31:28.520 Um, anyway, uh, you

00:31:30.880 know, on the religion

00:31:31.700 thing too, John, you

00:31:33.060 know, it's, it strikes

00:31:34.420 me that, um, he's

00:31:37.900 thinking of, of

00:31:38.800 religion in two ways.

00:31:39.920 He's thinking of

00:31:40.520 religion as a control 1.00

00:31:41.640 mechanism.

00:31:42.220 So the, there's a kind

00:31:43.720 of political religion

00:31:45.060 that, that is consciously

00:31:47.420 manipulated by the

00:31:48.720 Bene Gesserit.

00:31:49.980 Um, and then there's,

00:31:52.160 there's religion as the,

00:31:54.020 uh, fanatical messianic

00:31:56.420 destabilizing force that

00:31:58.380 can't be controlled.

00:31:59.260 And one of the things

00:32:01.380 in the, one of the, um,

00:32:03.840 that theme is, is

00:32:04.780 explored in one of the

00:32:05.800 appendices of Dune where,

00:32:07.660 where they talk about the

00:32:08.880 religion of the empire and

00:32:10.160 how at a certain point

00:32:11.320 after the great, uh,

00:32:13.800 upheaval, they decided to

00:32:15.900 create an ecumenical

00:32:17.080 religion.

00:32:17.580 Uh, and they, they, they

00:32:19.540 came together, all these

00:32:20.580 scholars to edit a Bible,

00:32:23.000 you know, to call the

00:32:23.800 orange Catholic Bible.

00:32:24.980 And I guess orange, it's

00:32:26.700 like the orange Protestant. 0.84

00:32:28.460 So orange and Catholic 0.97

00:32:30.120 together, it gives you a

00:32:31.100 sense of, you know,

00:32:32.580 ecumenicism and that this

00:32:34.400 process took many years.

00:32:35.680 And what they were trying

00:32:36.520 to do is they were, they

00:32:37.780 were working on the

00:32:38.580 assumption of the

00:32:39.220 transcendental unity of

00:32:40.620 religions.

00:32:41.600 But as this process of

00:32:43.180 editing the texts and

00:32:44.300 creating this, uh, unified

00:32:46.160 religion, uh, move forward

00:32:48.460 slowly over years, there

00:32:50.180 were all these, uh, anti

00:32:52.120 ecumenical, uh, riots and

00:32:55.020 disturbances as people who

00:32:57.040 resisted the idea of a, uh,

00:32:59.720 of, of giving up their

00:33:00.960 religion's claim to 0.53

00:33:02.340 exclusive truth, uh, you

00:33:04.740 know, were battling it

00:33:05.680 out.

00:33:06.100 And so it, it, it's, it's

00:33:08.160 an interesting theme, uh,

00:33:09.780 that, you know, I've been

00:33:10.920 sort of exploring with, uh,

00:33:12.680 reading and writing about

00:33:13.700 Jan Osman, uh, the

00:33:15.120 conflict between, uh, an

00:33:17.300 attempt to unify religions

00:33:19.940 in a syncretic way or a

00:33:22.640 traditionalist way versus

00:33:24.140 the, it's basically the

00:33:27.300 biblical religions claims

00:33:28.700 to be exclusively true.

00:33:30.600 Uh, and, and he's

00:33:31.620 exploring that too, which I

00:33:33.100 think is really interesting.

00:33:36.160 Yeah.

00:33:37.040 Without question.

00:33:37.900 What, what do you think

00:33:38.640 the Bene Gesserit, uh,

00:33:40.380 represent?

00:33:41.040 I mean, is, is that a

00:33:41.840 kind of, uh, is that a

00:33:45.100 kind of, uh, clericalism

00:33:46.960 gone wrong?

00:33:47.800 It's, it's a religion 0.60

00:33:48.920 without, without being

00:33:50.560 connected to the life force.

00:33:51.920 And instead just a

00:33:53.220 religion that is, is there

00:33:54.820 to kind of protect the, uh,

00:33:57.320 the members and, and kind

00:33:58.560 of scare people.

00:33:59.460 I, I think there's

00:34:00.000 actually one part where

00:34:01.080 the Bene Gesserit reserve

00:34:02.520 the right to, in order to

00:34:04.280 better rule planets, uh, to

00:34:06.960 create kind of myths that,

00:34:09.180 that, that scare the

00:34:11.640 inhabitants.

00:34:12.520 Well, they have something

00:34:13.300 called the Panoplia

00:34:14.400 Prophetica, which is this,

00:34:16.080 uh, uh, compilation of, uh,

00:34:19.300 of prophecies and stories.

00:34:21.140 They sow around the galaxy

00:34:23.620 to make people receptive

00:34:25.440 to the Bene Gesserit when

00:34:27.120 they show up.

00:34:27.840 Ah, this has been foretold.

00:34:29.760 And of course, you know,

00:34:31.200 Paul and Jessica benefit

00:34:32.900 from the, uh, the sowing of

00:34:35.360 these, uh, these prophecies

00:34:37.020 on Arrakis.

00:34:38.160 Right.

00:34:39.000 Um, the, the Bene Gesserit 0.82

00:34:41.260 is, is really not a religion.

00:34:43.160 They have a religious, uh,

00:34:45.380 organization.

00:34:45.960 They're organized like a

00:34:47.340 mystery cult or a religious

00:34:48.880 order, right?

00:34:50.480 Um, and yet their, their goal

00:34:53.380 is eugenics.

00:34:55.440 Yeah.

00:34:56.100 Right.

00:34:56.540 And the Bene Gesserit are, um, 0.96

00:35:00.280 are, is a sisterhood, uh, and

00:35:02.560 the sisters don't take vows of

00:35:05.100 celibacy.

00:35:05.800 Um, they are, uh, in fact, 1.00

00:35:09.080 they're kind of whores. 1.00

00:35:10.180 They, they go around and seduce, 1.00

00:35:12.020 uh, various, uh, aristocrats and 0.88

00:35:14.420 people who have valuable sperm,

00:35:16.200 uh, and, uh, um, make sure

00:35:19.560 that their bloodlines are

00:35:20.560 preserved and they christen

00:35:22.180 cross them.

00:35:22.960 They provide consorts to the 0.88

00:35:24.680 dukes and emperors, uh, and

00:35:27.240 their goal is to create, um, a

00:35:30.360 kind of super being with a,

00:35:31.720 which they call the Kwisatz

00:35:32.700 Haderach.

00:35:33.500 And it's very obscure really

00:35:35.700 in the book what the goal of

00:35:38.320 that is.

00:35:39.040 I mean, one of the things that

00:35:40.640 the Bene Gesserit have is they 0.99

00:35:42.720 have the, the, the, the

00:35:44.600 reverend mothers have the 0.74

00:35:45.840 memories of the previous

00:35:47.680 reverend mothers who come

00:35:48.860 before them.

00:35:49.680 Yeah.

00:35:50.160 Uh, but they don't seem to

00:35:51.240 enjoy the memories of the

00:35:53.100 male lines.

00:35:54.240 And I think the Kwisatz 1.00

00:35:55.720 Haderach will enjoy those male

00:35:58.180 memories, uh, as well.

00:36:00.620 Male ancestral memories, which

00:36:02.060 will, of course, enormously

00:36:03.260 expand his consciousness.

00:36:04.620 But also, he has some kind of

00:36:06.680 psychic prescient power that

00:36:09.340 the, um, that the, uh, the,

00:36:12.700 uh, the women lack, uh, again, 1.00

00:36:15.400 and there's, there's a strong

00:36:16.860 human biodiversity element

00:36:19.400 here, uh, specifically between

00:36:21.440 men and women.

00:36:22.300 He has strong biological

00:36:24.060 essentialist notions of

00:36:25.800 masculinity and femininity, uh,

00:36:28.400 and that he's, that he's, uh,

00:36:29.860 you know, embroidering with

00:36:31.100 these, uh, ideas of, of

00:36:33.380 ancestral memories and

00:36:34.760 prescience and things like

00:36:35.800 that.

00:36:36.020 But what the, but the, what

00:36:37.660 the Bene Gesserit are trying to

00:36:38.800 do is they're trying to control

00:36:39.820 things through breeding people,

00:36:42.060 uh, and they're trying to

00:36:43.860 breed a man who can 0.51

00:36:45.800 exercise prescient powers

00:36:48.600 into the future and

00:36:51.180 access male ancestral

00:36:54.740 memories, and he's a tool

00:36:57.260 for them to increase their

00:36:58.600 power.

00:36:59.040 What, what their ultimate

00:36:59.880 goals are is, is sort of a

00:37:01.540 mystery, uh, and, uh, you

00:37:04.820 know, of course, what happens

00:37:06.260 though, is the best laid

00:37:08.920 plans go astray because

00:37:11.240 Jessica decides to have a 0.99

00:37:13.240 son rather than a daughter,

00:37:14.700 and the son turns out to be

00:37:17.120 the, the man who can do

00:37:18.900 these things, but he's not

00:37:20.400 planned for, and he's not

00:37:21.800 under their control, and so

00:37:23.640 everything is upset.

00:37:25.080 And that's another factor that

00:37:26.460 I really like about the Dune

00:37:27.760 books, and it's very

00:37:28.680 systematic, and I really

00:37:30.060 noticed this when I was

00:37:31.040 rereading Dune.

00:37:33.200 Herbert is constantly, um,

00:37:36.260 you know, playing with the,

00:37:37.640 uh, the desire for

00:37:39.100 predictability and control,

00:37:40.580 which of course is at the

00:37:41.720 root of technology, but it's

00:37:43.880 also at the root of eugenics

00:37:45.440 and psychic training and

00:37:47.340 things like that, versus the

00:37:50.020 random, the unpredictable, the

00:37:53.660 things that upset that, uh, and,

00:37:56.220 uh, he, he doesn't think that

00:37:57.820 can be eliminated, and indeed

00:37:59.840 he doesn't want it to be

00:38:00.840 eliminated, and this is sort of a

00:38:02.320 Heideggerian thing in a way, um,

00:38:04.760 you know, Heideggerians like,

00:38:07.040 the event, right, the

00:38:09.020 contingency, uh, the, the

00:38:11.180 things that, um, uh, upset the

00:38:13.720 Gestelle, this, this, you

00:38:15.580 know, attempt to predict and

00:38:16.900 control, and when you get to

00:38:18.200 the fourth Dune book, the God

00:38:19.780 Emperor of Dune, which is a

00:38:21.060 really dreary and depressing

00:38:23.000 book, frankly, um, it becomes

00:38:26.180 clear that, uh, Paul's son,

00:38:28.020 Leto II, his entire purpose, uh,

00:38:31.740 over a period, a very long life

00:38:33.700 for more than 3,000 years, is

00:38:36.160 to breed a human being who can

00:38:40.880 no longer, who can no longer be

00:38:43.460 predicted by prescience, and

00:38:45.920 therefore can no longer be

00:38:47.240 controlled by people like the

00:38:49.360 Spacing Guild or the Bene 1.00

00:38:50.740 Gesserit, and, and that's a

00:38:52.620 really interesting project, I

00:38:54.140 mean, he's really on the side of

00:38:55.740 human freedom, uh, against, uh,

00:38:58.300 technology, and other kinds of

00:39:00.700 systems of control.

00:39:02.860 That's almost like Sieg 0.82

00:39:04.260 Creed in Wagner's Ring.

00:39:06.000 Yeah.

00:39:07.380 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:39:08.800 A being who, a being who even,

00:39:10.760 uh, the gods cannot control.

00:39:13.060 Yeah, right, who's now bound by

00:39:15.180 fate.

00:39:15.980 No, I, I think it's, it's

00:39:17.320 interesting of, of what gives

00:39:19.300 Paul his power, and I was just

00:39:21.440 thinking about this, is that they,

00:39:23.020 the Bene Gesserit were trying to

00:39:24.440 breed a Kwisak Sadarak as, as

00:39:27.220 basically their source of power,

00:39:28.760 because, you know, in this world

00:39:30.400 there's a, a tripartite, uh,

00:39:32.660 political structure where you

00:39:33.860 have the Bene Gesserit and the

00:39:35.720 guild who control space travel

00:39:37.780 and, uh, therefore are, you

00:39:39.300 know, obviously indispensable and

00:39:40.540 powerful, and then you have the,

00:39:41.880 the landswrought nobility of all

00:39:43.700 these noble houses, uh, under

00:39:46.060 their ruler, the emperor, and I,

00:39:48.180 I think the Bene Gesserit wants the 0.99

00:39:49.960 Kwisak Sadarak to be their, their

00:39:51.540 ace in the hole, um, but I think

00:39:53.780 what, what's interesting about it is

00:39:55.180 that he, he is a man, and

00:39:57.220 and Paul isn't just Paul, he's

00:40:00.140 Muad'Dib, and he actually takes

00:40:02.040 that name, I'm Paul Muad'Dib, and

00:40:03.800 he actually will speak of himself

00:40:05.680 in the third person, particularly in

00:40:07.500 that final, uh, uh, section of the

00:40:10.140 book, where he'll, he'll, he was

00:40:12.220 talking to the emperor, and he'll

00:40:13.100 like, well, Paul will guarantee your

00:40:14.880 safety, however, Muad'Dib might need 0.99

00:40:17.840 to slaughter you all, you know, in, in 0.99

00:40:19.800 some kind of thing, so he, he kind of 0.99

00:40:21.380 understands himself as having two

00:40:23.020 beings, and as being this synthesis

00:40:25.420 of, of, of opposition, of being a

00:40:28.440 synthesis of witchcraft on the one

00:40:30.540 hand, I mean, he's the, he's the one

00:40:31.720 man who can drink the water of life,

00:40:33.580 and has the power of the, the

00:40:35.320 Bene Gesserit, is as powerful as his

00:40:37.280 mother, uh, but at the same time, he has

00:40:39.740 to have the, the nobility of the duke,

00:40:41.760 and he fights Fade Rautha, uh, simply

00:40:44.960 as, as, as something that is not

00:40:46.760 really necessary for Muad'Dib, but is,

00:40:48.980 is part of his, his ducal person, and,

00:40:51.980 uh, and I, I just think, you know,

00:40:53.380 that's, that's kind of why Paul can be

00:40:55.700 so powerful, is that he combines these,

00:40:58.100 these different elements. There's the

00:40:59.420 Messiah to him, but then there's also

00:41:01.300 his father, and, and the, you know,

00:41:04.020 benign, though certainly ruthless, uh,

00:41:07.400 leader, and that, that you kind of need

00:41:10.040 both of those aspects, um, you know,

00:41:12.340 kind of existing in one person. Um, I,

00:41:16.340 I think another theme that I found

00:41:18.920 really interesting that, uh, I'll, I'll

00:41:21.580 mention to you both, you can pick up on

00:41:23.900 it, is, is Herbert's, I don't know the

00:41:27.760 right, the right way of describing it,

00:41:30.020 but Herbert's sense that you have to go

00:41:33.060 through something, and you can't fight it,

00:41:36.060 or you can't, or you can't go with it

00:41:38.440 as well. You have to go through it,

00:41:40.040 and kind of turn it on its head, and I

00:41:43.000 think this happens over and over again

00:41:44.700 in the film, or in the book, in the

00:41:46.880 film, through his plotting, and I was

00:41:49.100 thinking of, you know, you, Paul doesn't

00:41:51.960 just oppose the Bene Gesserit as, as

00:41:54.840 this, you know, powerful brood of 0.93

00:41:57.280 witches. He uses their power against

00:42:00.120 him, and, and at the end, he kind of,

00:42:02.160 he, you know, he says to the, when,

00:42:03.480 you know, the Reverend Mother, you know,

00:42:05.520 look at that place where you dare not

00:42:07.900 look, and you'll see me staring back at

00:42:09.700 you, and I think what that is, is that,

00:42:11.900 you know, he has, he's taken on their

00:42:14.300 power, and he is now more powerful than,

00:42:16.960 than they are, that they could imagine, and

00:42:18.560 he's staring back at them, and so he has

00:42:21.960 to kind of go through their power. He

00:42:23.820 can't just fight the Bene Gesserit. He's

00:42:25.640 got to become one of them, and you kind

00:42:28.040 of see this, you know, again and again.

00:42:29.840 There's this one scene in the, in the book

00:42:32.240 where Paul and, and, and, and Leto is

00:42:36.380 talking to Paul, you know, when Leto's

00:42:37.920 still alive, and, and Paul's a, kind of a

00:42:40.300 young man, and he's telling him that, oh,

00:42:43.340 you know, we, we're, we're now, you know,

00:42:45.360 operating the Chome Company on, on, on

00:42:48.120 Arrakis, so we'll be involved with the

00:42:50.000 Spice, and that they're, the Harkonnen, 1.00

00:42:52.260 they might be stockpiling Spice, so they

00:42:54.300 might want to sabotage our ventures, but

00:42:56.300 it can be very profitable to us, and so on

00:42:58.560 and so forth, and so it's, it's basically

00:43:00.440 this kind of Wall Street style, hedging

00:43:03.520 your bets of, you know, this is a really

00:43:06.080 important commodity, so maybe if it went

00:43:08.220 down, you could make money, or if it went

00:43:09.760 up, you could make money, blah, blah, blah,

00:43:10.940 and Paul just flips this totally on his

00:43:14.780 head, and he says, no, the power to

00:43:18.280 destroy a thing is the, is the, is the

00:43:21.040 person who controls a thing, and, and so

00:43:24.160 he, he basically, he doesn't play the

00:43:26.460 game of the guild, and the emperor, and

00:43:29.200 the Bene Gesserit, he flips over the

00:43:31.660 gaming table, and, you know, he says, I

00:43:34.240 will, you know, at the end of the book,

00:43:35.500 he says, I will destroy all Spice

00:43:37.760 production on Arrakis, which is the only 0.65

00:43:39.500 place where it is produced, I will destroy

00:43:41.360 it all, purely out of spite, or perhaps 0.97

00:43:44.700 ennui, you know, in the sense of, I'm

00:43:48.040 willing to go there, I'm willing to

00:43:49.840 destroy this whole world, this game, it's

00:43:52.140 kind of the difference of saying, like, do

00:43:54.020 you want to make a billion dollars in the

00:43:55.720 stock market, or do you want to create

00:43:57.660 some cataclysmic crash that makes, that

00:44:01.380 makes all stocks equal zero, and

00:44:03.440 therefore you powerful, it's, it's that

00:44:04.880 way of kind of, that going above

00:44:07.220 something, and I, I think you, you see

00:44:10.060 that throughout Frank Herbert's plotting,

00:44:12.600 and I think that's really brilliant, you

00:44:14.440 know, it's the idea of, you know, if

00:44:16.020 there's a, I, I think Romain Bernard

00:44:17.540 mentioned this metaphor, I really like it,

00:44:20.020 you know, is there a flood coming, well, do

00:44:21.860 you want to start futilely piling up

00:44:23.920 sandbags, or do you want to grab a

00:44:25.440 surfboard, survive, or, you know, this

00:44:28.020 kind of idea of going with something, and

00:44:30.480 turning it into something that it's not,

00:44:33.620 and I, I just think that's a, that's

00:44:36.780 really an amazing aspect of, of Frank

00:44:39.160 Herbert's plotting, and I think that, that

00:44:41.380 kind of raises the level of this book,

00:44:44.180 to something higher than, than, than just

00:44:46.500 a space epic, it, it, it brings it to

00:44:49.660 something more philosophical, and, and it

00:44:52.380 kind of allows us to, to look at the

00:44:55.240 world of Dune, and certainly our own

00:44:57.020 world, and, in a, in a different way.

00:45:01.320 I was just going to say, you know, like

00:45:02.800 we were discussing before we started

00:45:04.540 recording, about how you can see the

00:45:06.220 spice as so many different things, I

00:45:09.020 mean, you can see it as, as a substance

00:45:11.200 that, uh, uh, civilization has, you know,

00:45:14.800 become dependent on, uh, sort of like

00:45:17.540 oil is, you know, it's, it's a

00:45:18.960 psychedelic drug, uh, I mean, it, it has

00:45:22.120 so many different, uh, ways of looking

00:45:24.620 at it, I mean, it, it's a great symbol

00:45:26.400 that Herbert constructed, uh, although

00:45:30.740 along the lines of what you were saying,

00:45:32.060 though, I, I, something I remember from

00:45:33.300 the book, and my memory of it is, is

00:45:35.120 much hazier than the two of you, so, so

00:45:37.500 correct me if my, my impression is

00:45:38.920 wrong, but I, I remember that Paul keeps

00:45:42.040 having these visions in the book that

00:45:44.700 what he's doing on Arrakis is going to

00:45:49.580 lead to this sort of bloody, destructive

00:45:52.900 jihad of the, the Fremen through the

00:45:55.660 universe under the Atreides banner, and

00:45:58.460 he sort of, he realizes it's necessary, but

00:46:01.620 he's also kind of afraid of it, but isn't

00:46:03.720 there kind of this sense that what

00:46:05.840 happens in, in the first Dune book is

00:46:08.320 almost like predestined in a way that

00:46:10.480 he's just sort of following the script?

00:46:13.180 There, there are a lot of aspects

00:46:14.620 of it where he fears this notion of

00:46:16.620 what he's unleashing, um, but I think he

00:46:19.200 also thinks it has to be unleashed, and

00:46:21.100 it is unleashed.

00:46:22.720 Yeah, that's kind of, I'm constantly

00:46:24.500 peering down different pathways into the

00:46:26.860 future, trying to see ways of avoiding

00:46:28.880 this, and he doesn't see any way of

00:46:31.460 avoiding it.

00:46:32.780 Yeah.

00:46:33.080 Uh, it, it just seems, you know, it

00:46:35.060 seems like it's this force that cannot be

00:46:37.240 stopped, uh, and so, yeah, like, he gets, he

00:46:40.780 grabs his surfboard and rides it, uh, uh,

00:46:44.300 I think the, uh, there's a kind of

00:46:46.620 Hegelian master-slave dialectic going

00:46:48.960 on here in this sense that, um,

00:46:51.740 wealth and power and spice are the

00:46:55.840 control mechanisms of the system in the

00:46:58.620 universe, and everybody's dependent upon

00:47:02.800 it.

00:47:03.260 You know, all these great houses, they're,

00:47:05.520 they're extremely, um, feudal and

00:47:09.340 archaic in the sense that they practice,

00:47:11.540 you know, they're, they're, you know,

00:47:13.140 they're, they're highly macho, and they,

00:47:16.400 they fight with blades, and they have

00:47:18.440 codes of honor and codes of vendetta and

00:47:20.880 things like that, and yet they all get

00:47:23.200 together behind closed doors, and they

00:47:25.020 trade directorships and shares in the

00:47:27.140 Cho'am company that controls the spice,

00:47:30.820 that controls the universe, and so there's

00:47:33.200 this, there's, it's a kind of corruption,

00:47:35.380 right?

00:47:36.000 They're aristocrats in their, um, their

00:47:38.720 pretenses and their manners and their

00:47:40.740 oligarchs behind closed doors, and 0.81

00:47:43.540 they're all sort of controlled by this

00:47:46.340 oligarchical system, and the only way to

00:47:49.820 break out of the control of that

00:47:51.360 oligarchy, uh, is, is for Paul to say,

00:47:55.000 look, I'm not going to play your game.

00:47:57.360 I am willing to lose more than you, and

00:48:00.900 therefore I am the true free man and you

00:48:03.580 are the slaves.

00:48:04.180 I'm willing to forego spice entirely.

00:48:06.880 You can't do that.

00:48:08.780 You can't contemplate that, and therefore

00:48:11.660 you are the slaves, and I am the master.

00:48:15.620 And that's, that's really when he, um,

00:48:18.280 becomes the emperor in fact, if not in

00:48:21.060 form, right?

00:48:21.960 Or, you know, spiritually, if not

00:48:24.340 externally, because he is capable of

00:48:27.960 foregoing these things.

00:48:29.440 The guy who's willing to fight to the,

00:48:31.440 you know, to die over honor is the

00:48:34.500 master type.

00:48:35.660 The, the, the, the, the, the kind who's 0.96

00:48:37.880 not willing to die over honor is the

00:48:40.680 slave.

00:48:41.100 And in this case, the whole universe, the

00:48:43.580 whole, uh, system is, is very bourgeois

00:48:47.020 because they will, they will fight to the

00:48:49.500 death over petty things, but they will

00:48:51.320 not consider the possibility of doing

00:48:54.620 without the spice.

00:48:55.660 That's, that's like the, you know, it's,

00:48:57.760 it's one of the little, um, the little

00:49:01.040 mantras, the spice must flow, you know,

00:49:03.840 uh, and, uh, he's willing to cut off

00:49:06.760 the spice.

00:49:08.140 Yeah.

00:49:08.280 One of the things that influenced, uh,

00:49:10.180 Herbert's thinking was Carl Wittfogel's

00:49:12.360 book on Oriental despotism, uh, which, uh,

00:49:16.240 is a kind of Marxist book, uh, but it's a,

00:49:19.260 an anti-Soviet Marxist revisionist book

00:49:21.960 because he's trying to explain how

00:49:24.340 Marxism and the Soviet union, uh, became

00:49:27.280 this monstrously despotic system.

00:49:29.220 And he used it, it comes up with this

00:49:30.660 notion of, of, uh, hydraulic despotism

00:49:33.400 where, you know, if you control all the

00:49:36.260 resources and he's thinking of these, uh,

00:49:38.680 societies in the, the near East where

00:49:41.440 water could be controlled centrally and

00:49:44.280 therefore, uh, the guy who controls the

00:49:46.800 water and can cut, cut off the water, uh,

00:49:49.600 you know, becomes a despot.

00:49:51.620 Well, that's what Paul is becoming.

00:49:54.180 He's becoming the hydraulic despot, uh,

00:49:57.180 because he's willing to cut off, uh, the

00:50:00.220 spice and he's willing to cut off its

00:50:02.020 flow.

00:50:03.080 Uh, and so he, he, he, he thereby becomes

00:50:06.300 the guy who's most capable of ruling.

00:50:10.460 Yes.

00:50:11.080 What is the spice?

00:50:12.460 I mean, I, I think this, this interesting

00:50:13.980 question, um, because it, it is all these

00:50:17.480 different things and, and I think there's

00:50:19.180 clearly a metaphorical quality to it as

00:50:22.600 well.

00:50:22.920 I mean, cause it's, it has this

00:50:24.320 psychedelic quality.

00:50:26.340 It's a drug, uh, that perhaps could be

00:50:29.060 compared to LSD, uh, you know, more than

00:50:32.040 anything in, in its effect on people.

00:50:34.440 Uh, but it, but it's also a kind of poison

00:50:36.740 and a poison that even inspires mutation, uh,

00:50:40.000 not just of your eyes.

00:50:41.780 Uh, but, uh, I, I think in Lynch's film,

00:50:44.240 he takes us really far where the ultimate,

00:50:46.700 you know, high level guildsman is this big,

00:50:49.640 you know, brain jellyfish in a vat, which 0.87

00:50:53.820 is very, very scary.

00:50:55.260 Yeah.

00:50:55.420 That's going to be the great, great, great

00:50:57.560 grandchildren of all the junkies today,

00:50:59.580 perhaps.

00:51:00.380 Right.

00:51:03.480 So it has that.

00:51:05.380 Oh, go ahead.

00:51:06.980 Oh, I, I didn't mean to interrupt you,

00:51:08.660 Richard.

00:51:08.860 I was just going to relate that to, well,

00:51:11.580 if you had another point, go ahead and

00:51:12.920 finish it.

00:51:13.380 I was going to relate that to the role of

00:51:15.500 technology in the Dune universe.

00:51:17.260 But if you had to know, uh, let's talk

00:51:20.980 about spice first.

00:51:21.940 I would like to talk about technology

00:51:23.500 because I think that's very important,

00:51:24.940 but the, uh, so it, it has these

00:51:27.760 psychedelic qualities, these drug-like

00:51:29.500 qualities as a poison.

00:51:30.560 It will kind of, it will lead to your

00:51:31.840 mutation.

00:51:32.740 Uh, but then also with the guild itself,

00:51:35.180 this guild based on pure mathematics and,

00:51:38.360 and I, I guess, relativity, uh, but they

00:51:41.260 need it in order to fold space so that you

00:51:43.900 can travel without moving, you know, the

00:51:46.260 world of this and the world of Dune.

00:51:48.380 Um, but do you think this is also, I mean,

00:51:50.960 I, I, I think it's clear and particularly

00:51:53.760 with the idea of Dune as a desert planet

00:51:55.920 and, and all of these, uh, uh, Islamic 0.56

00:51:59.140 references that come throughout the book,

00:52:00.880 uh, that spice is at, at some level a

00:52:04.540 metaphor for oil.

00:52:06.100 And I think that in a way unlocks so much

00:52:09.440 about the book and, and its resonance for,

00:52:12.580 for us in the sense that, you know, so much

00:52:15.980 of what we do is simply impossible without

00:52:18.840 oil.

00:52:19.980 Um, you know, the, the population of the

00:52:22.420 earth would be a hundredth of what it is,

00:52:25.480 uh, without fossil fuels undergirding

00:52:29.020 agriculture, production, transportation, and so

00:52:32.680 on.

00:52:32.980 And all of the industries on top of that.

00:52:35.480 And it, and, and yet it comes out of this,

00:52:39.020 to a large extent, out of this region of the

00:52:41.560 world, uh, that at least in, in comparison

00:52:44.480 of modern America is, you know, shrouded in

00:52:46.500 mysticism and old religion.

00:52:47.920 It's a very dangerous region.

00:52:49.580 It's a region that has not benefited as, as

00:52:52.620 much as others from the productive capacity of

00:52:55.300 fossil fuels and so on and so forth.

00:52:57.620 Um, so.

00:52:58.380 That's why, and I was going to say in the

00:53:00.340 book, I mean, the Fremen are, the Fremen are

00:53:02.440 able to, uh, you know, and led by Paul are

00:53:05.620 able to bring, you know, the entire political

00:53:08.540 system to its knees, even though they have

00:53:10.420 hardly any weapons, because all they have to do

00:53:12.420 is halt the spice production.

00:53:14.240 Yeah, and, and, and one could do that as, as

00:53:16.160 well.

00:53:16.640 I mean, if, if one turned off the spigot of

00:53:19.600 oil, uh, you could bring, uh, certainly, you

00:53:23.580 know, even the American empire to its knees

00:53:25.580 immediately.

00:53:27.100 Um, so it, it's kind of a, it's a really

00:53:29.240 fascinating notion.

00:53:30.360 I think a very radical and very subversive

00:53:32.880 notion in a way that, that, uh, that

00:53:35.300 Herbert's putting forward.

00:53:36.700 It, it, it is this, you know, it's, it's a

00:53:39.060 vision of overturning, uh, contemporary

00:53:42.420 society.

00:53:44.260 Yeah, and, and quite prescient since, uh, I

00:53:47.120 mean, you know, the concept of peak oil, I

00:53:49.340 don't even think.

00:53:50.180 Yeah.

00:53:50.860 Had come, you know, had even been

00:53:52.440 theorized until the seventies.

00:53:54.840 So, you know, perhaps, uh, you know, Herbert's

00:53:57.180 experience with the oil industry gave him

00:53:59.160 some, some, you know, advanced insight into

00:54:02.440 that.

00:54:02.760 Well, you know, the, uh, there was that, uh,

00:54:05.640 Arab oil embargo in the early seventies and

00:54:08.480 it didn't really bring civilization to its

00:54:10.520 knees, but it did get the, get a, get a lot 0.94

00:54:12.960 of people's attention.

00:54:14.160 That is definitely, definitely true.

00:54:16.300 Because at the moment, like to go back to

00:54:17.900 the master slave dialectic, uh, you know,

00:54:20.520 the era of the Middle Eastern world, there,

00:54:22.540 they are not, they are not masters in the

00:54:24.740 sense that they are not willing to stare

00:54:26.800 death in the face.

00:54:28.180 They benefit from the, the, the oil must

00:54:30.680 flow and they benefit from it.

00:54:32.440 Indeed, a lot of these people have become

00:54:34.300 ridiculously wealthy through oil.

00:54:37.080 And so they're not willing to do what

00:54:39.780 Paul is willing.

00:54:40.880 Paul is willing to risk death and willing

00:54:43.600 to die.

00:54:44.940 And they're not, they want to, they, they

00:54:47.120 want to kind of remain, you know, piling

00:54:50.000 up gold coins in their cellar.

00:54:52.360 Yeah.

00:54:53.200 But it's a true revolutionary who would,

00:54:56.440 who would turn off the spigot, who would

00:54:58.680 just blow up all of the oil fields and

00:55:01.840 therefore just flip postmodern society on

00:55:05.080 its head and we would be in a different

00:55:07.120 universe immediately.

00:55:08.960 I'm of course not saying that I would

00:55:10.540 recommend doing this.

00:55:11.720 I'm just saying that, uh, Herbert is,

00:55:15.100 Herbert is, Herbert's getting at that

00:55:18.560 ultimate fragility of any kind of system

00:55:22.580 that even a system that seems, uh, to be

00:55:25.840 extremely powerful, wealth producing,

00:55:28.340 backed up by the military, totally stable,

00:55:31.140 so on and so forth, that there's this

00:55:33.280 little crack and it's facade.

00:55:35.000 And if you put pressure there, the whole

00:55:36.740 thing will explode.

00:55:37.660 And again, I, I just, you know, whatever

00:55:39.960 you think about that, and I'm, and I'm

00:55:41.700 not saying I would recommend it.

00:55:42.780 I'm sure that, you know, it would be

00:55:44.360 horrifying.

00:55:45.080 We wouldn't be talking on Skype right now

00:55:47.180 if someone did that, but it's just kind

00:55:49.320 of, it's a fascinating notion and, and a

00:55:51.420 really radical and subversive one.

00:55:53.600 Well, I, I would say that the spacing

00:55:55.480 guild in the world of Dune is more like

00:55:58.980 the oil states today.

00:56:01.620 Uh, cause you sort of, they have this

00:56:03.280 amazing gift of, you know, they take

00:56:05.300 the spice and then they can fold space

00:56:07.500 and so forth, but, you know, they're,

00:56:08.980 they're using it to make loads of money

00:56:10.900 and, you know, they want to have Paul

00:56:13.520 assassinated because, you know, they're

00:56:15.340 worried that their power is going to be

00:56:16.820 threatened.

00:56:18.200 Uh, so they're more like, you know,

00:56:19.920 what, uh, what you're describing is,

00:56:21.720 you know, the, the people who control

00:56:23.120 oil today.

00:56:24.760 Uh, whereas, you know, Paul is the true

00:56:26.800 revolutionary.

00:56:27.980 Yeah.

00:56:29.120 Yeah, definitely.

00:56:31.240 There's a, there's a, a real anti-colonial

00:56:34.240 dimension to the, um, to the Dune book

00:56:37.160 that really came out when I, I reread it

00:56:40.460 because, you know, there's, there's Dune

00:56:43.320 with its resources and there is this

00:56:46.900 extractive colonial presence, the Harkonnens 0.99

00:56:50.340 and then the Atreides come along.

00:56:51.820 Um, and they don't even know how many

00:56:56.320 Fremen there are on the planet.

00:56:58.220 They don't care, right?

00:57:00.060 They just don't care.

00:57:01.780 Um, you know, the, the lives and the

00:57:05.680 well-being of the people of the planet

00:57:07.380 mean absolutely nothing in the scheme of

00:57:10.200 things.

00:57:10.940 Uh, the, the planet is ruled by, uh,

00:57:15.240 satraps from the outside who are there 0.99

00:57:17.180 to extract resources.

00:57:18.760 And what do the Fremen want?

00:57:21.700 The Fremen want to change Arrakis.

00:57:25.200 They want, you know, they want to live in

00:57:27.400 a society where they don't have to, uh,

00:57:29.760 recycle their own sweat and urine

00:57:31.800 constantly.

00:57:32.760 They, they, uh, they want to, uh,

00:57:35.140 ecologically transform, uh, Arrakis

00:57:39.080 and make it into a better place to live.

00:57:41.320 And to do that, they need the, they need

00:57:44.360 to control its resources.

00:57:46.760 And that's just the classic story of the, uh,

00:57:51.240 you know, any kind of colonized society

00:57:53.440 where you've got this extractive colonial

00:57:55.840 third world economy in place that does 1.00

00:57:58.900 not benefit the people who actually live

00:58:01.720 there.

00:58:02.400 Yeah.

00:58:03.200 Oh, without question.

00:58:04.560 I think there's also, you know, another

00:58:06.200 question about this.

00:58:07.220 I mean, Muad'Dib, the, his name comes

00:58:09.660 from a little mouse that runs around on

00:58:13.100 the desert floor.

00:58:13.860 And there's a sense that if you transformed

00:58:16.220 Dune, uh, that Muad'Dib as, as the mouse 1.00

00:58:19.880 would, would disappear.

00:58:21.180 And, and there's, there's also this, um,

00:58:23.520 something that's very clear in, in this

00:58:25.660 book about how ecology, uh, forms mankind.

00:58:30.620 The environment creates, you know, it

00:58:33.680 influences genes, it influences culture,

00:58:35.780 it influences mentality.

00:58:37.340 And, you know, some of us don't like that

00:58:39.860 notion because we, we might associate it

00:58:41.660 with, um, you know, egalitarian

00:58:43.640 environmentalism, but, you know, without

00:58:45.680 question in Darwin, uh, it is not just a

00:58:48.520 nature versus nurture.

00:58:49.780 It is a nature inflecting, uh, uh, environment

00:58:54.900 inflecting nature, uh, you know, uh, dialectic

00:58:58.220 where, uh, the gene pool is plastic and it is

00:59:02.400 influenced by its environment.

00:59:04.080 And, uh, you see that certainly with the

00:59:06.000 Fremen and, and also with the Sardaukar who

00:59:08.000 are kind of like the, the SS of the

00:59:10.360 emperor and, uh, the, the secret to their

00:59:13.620 power is that they come from this, uh, you

00:59:16.340 know, planet similar to Dune.

00:59:19.120 Seleucus Secundus.

00:59:20.180 Seleucus Secundus.

00:59:20.620 SS for short.

00:59:23.060 He is thinking about the SS.

00:59:25.320 I don't, yeah, that was definitely not a

00:59:27.200 coincidence, yeah.

00:59:28.280 Seleucus Secundus, SS, they come from the

00:59:30.600 SS planet where it's, it's a harsh

00:59:32.400 environment and they become these fierce,

00:59:34.220 almost indomitable warriors and, uh, and,

00:59:38.220 and the Fremen, even though they might

00:59:39.840 want, uh, you know, a purely, a natural

00:59:42.940 desire to have bourgeois comfort, have a

00:59:46.320 little garden and not need to wear a

00:59:48.900 still suit and, uh, you know, when someone

00:59:51.260 dies, try to squeeze every last drop out

00:59:54.400 of their corpse, uh, you know, it's a

00:59:56.580 purely, purely natural desire.

00:59:58.720 Uh, but at the same time, the Fremen would

01:00:00.680 in a way disappear.

01:00:01.560 I mean, what gives them their power is

01:00:04.020 Dune.

01:00:05.340 Yeah.

01:00:05.660 And, uh.

01:00:05.940 And in the fourth book, um, you know,

01:00:08.200 the desert, uh, has, uh, has shrunk

01:00:11.340 dramatically.

01:00:11.980 There are no more sandworms.

01:00:13.960 And the Fremen live in little villages 1.00

01:00:15.860 and tend little gardens and they have

01:00:18.080 lost, um, they've lost who they were.

01:00:21.400 And, you know, there's a tremendously

01:00:24.720 strong Darwinist dimension of this and

01:00:27.660 social Darwinist dimension.

01:00:29.040 And it's explicit, right?

01:00:31.760 Uh, powerful, strong people are being

01:00:35.100 created by putting them in fierce

01:00:37.960 environments and culling the weak over

01:00:40.640 and over again.

01:00:41.660 That's how he talks, uh, in Dune.

01:00:44.580 Um, you know, again, no white liberal or

01:00:47.240 no liberal of any sort would ever write a

01:00:49.480 book with those dimensions to it without

01:00:51.620 bemoaning them as horrible.

01:00:53.960 Yeah.

01:00:54.140 And this gets back to a theme that we've

01:00:56.200 talked about in our three podcasts, which

01:00:57.920 is that sometimes when you make a comic

01:01:00.420 book movie or a sci-fi movie, you can

01:01:03.180 explore these themes that you could not

01:01:06.120 explore if you made a realistic film.

01:01:09.260 You know, if you, if, if you had a

01:01:11.000 realistic film or, or a, a nonfiction book

01:01:13.620 and you talk about culling the weak people

01:01:16.200 who consider you a monster, uh, but because

01:01:19.520 you put it, you know, 10,000 years in the

01:01:21.720 future, uh, you, you can actually explore

01:01:24.700 some of these things that kind of opens

01:01:26.240 up, uh, a, a doors for you to explore

01:01:29.140 these, these anti-liberal themes.

01:01:31.760 Um, why don't we talk a little bit, uh,

01:01:34.040 John, let's, um, let's go back before we,

01:01:36.600 uh, bring this conversation to a close.

01:01:38.280 Let's definitely bring up the, the theme

01:01:40.200 of technology.

01:01:41.700 And, uh, just to, to set you off.

01:01:44.620 I mean, I think one thing that's very

01:01:47.080 interesting about Dune is that unlike so

01:01:50.740 much of science fiction, there, the, the

01:01:54.380 absence of technology is most conspicuous,

01:01:58.340 uh, as opposed to, you know, cool little

01:02:01.580 techno gadgets or transporters or things

01:02:04.620 like this, uh, we actually have this

01:02:06.760 non-technological spiritual world in Dune.

01:02:12.080 Well, technology in Dune has been

01:02:15.720 integrated organically into the people,

01:02:19.320 which actually, I mean, I, I think

01:02:21.120 personally, I mean, I'm no expert in the

01:02:23.300 matter, but from the little bit of

01:02:24.480 understanding I have of these issues, I

01:02:26.320 imagine that if our, the Faustian

01:02:29.200 element of our civilization that Greg

01:02:31.120 mentioned earlier survives, that's

01:02:33.020 probably the way it's going to evolve is

01:02:35.520 that you were going to get away from

01:02:36.840 plastic and metal and, and, you know,

01:02:39.580 technology is going to become something

01:02:41.000 organic that's integrated into our, uh,

01:02:44.120 ourselves. Uh, and you, you see that, uh,

01:02:47.300 in Dune in the, the Mentats, which are

01:02:49.440 actually called the human computers, uh,

01:02:52.160 who I guess, uh, you know, when, when

01:02:53.980 they, they have a substance that they

01:02:55.800 take, which enables them to do what

01:02:58.180 computers would ordinarily only be able

01:03:00.580 to do. Um, and I, I think, uh, it's as

01:03:05.280 briefly mentioned in the film, but there's

01:03:06.980 more about it in the book. There's a

01:03:08.260 reference to what, is it the Butlerian

01:03:11.200 Jihad where they, you, you get the 0.99

01:03:13.600 impression they had sort of like a

01:03:15.040 Star Trek universe centuries earlier

01:03:17.740 and then something went wrong and the

01:03:19.940 machines rebelled and there was this

01:03:21.620 huge war, uh, and then, you know, the

01:03:24.780 humans thought, well, you know, we've 0.55

01:03:26.000 got to, we've got to figure out a

01:03:27.440 different way of doing technology.

01:03:28.940 Yeah, I, I think it was a, maybe even

01:03:31.240 a WALL-E universe or something that,

01:03:33.260 the, the machines were, were, were

01:03:35.760 taking, were, were essentially making

01:03:37.700 all decisions and human beings were,

01:03:40.460 were just, uh, big fat consuming blobs.

01:03:44.620 And, uh, there was this Butlerian Jihad, 0.69

01:03:47.340 uh, religious revolt against the

01:03:49.080 machines. And this, the, this, you know,

01:03:51.980 Luddite ism, uh, was actually in, in a

01:03:54.860 way greatly transformative in the sense

01:03:56.920 that it, we, we learned that we had to

01:03:59.900 become greater organic beings.

01:04:02.700 Right. They, they, it was a, specifically

01:04:05.940 a, a war against artificial intelligence

01:04:08.580 and, um, and therefore factors, things

01:04:13.120 that were done by thinking, uh, by

01:04:15.340 mechanical brains, which were banned

01:04:17.620 throughout the universe had to be taken

01:04:19.640 over by human brains. And so there was

01:04:21.760 an emphasis on, um, mental, human mental,

01:04:25.080 uh, training and, uh, physical training

01:04:28.300 to take up the slack, uh, of things that,

01:04:31.320 uh, were no longer doable by machines.

01:04:33.740 Yet there is technology. There are these

01:04:36.800 techno worlds, Ix and Richess, uh, are

01:04:39.740 mentioned, where machine civilization

01:04:42.460 still exists. And, um, you know, everyone

01:04:46.380 goes there, uh, when they need, uh, a little

01:04:50.000 techno wizardry. But generally in the

01:04:52.680 universe, uh, things are very strictly

01:04:54.780 governed by compacts and rules. Um, you

01:04:59.160 know, there's, there, there are rules

01:05:00.740 against atomic warfare. There are rules

01:05:03.380 against mechanical brains. Uh, these

01:05:06.380 things are enforced, uh, rigorously. Also

01:05:09.620 technologies seem to have evolved to the

01:05:12.280 point where they cancel each other out. So

01:05:14.580 they do have laser beams and things like

01:05:16.520 that, but they also have shields. And if

01:05:19.120 the two meet, uh, everybody gets blown up

01:05:21.720 in the vicinity. So basically they're just

01:05:24.400 discarded as, as useless. And so, um, you 0.72

01:05:28.000 have shields, uh, which means you can't

01:05:30.220 have projectile weapons. Uh, what

01:05:32.780 penetrates the shield? The slow blade,

01:05:35.640 right? And therefore they're back to

01:05:37.520 fighting with edged weapons, uh, because

01:05:39.980 technology has progressed to the point

01:05:42.380 where the techno weapons cancel each

01:05:44.440 other out. It's, it's kind of an

01:05:46.520 interesting vision of things.

01:05:49.080 Yeah. I think he was clearly trying to

01:05:51.820 bring, you know, bring the past is the

01:05:53.320 future and the future is the past. And,

01:05:54.920 you know, he, he tried to, he, he created

01:05:58.000 this technological world where you could

01:05:59.700 have fights to the death with a blade

01:06:02.140 again. I, I think, you know, this gets

01:06:03.720 back to that, our archaeo-futurist

01:06:05.960 aspect of Dune.

01:06:08.420 I also get the impression it was his idea

01:06:10.480 of like civilization after it's grown up,

01:06:12.840 you know, where we, you know, now we sort

01:06:14.740 of have the philosophy that, you know, just

01:06:16.960 because we can do something technologically,

01:06:19.420 we should, you know, whereas in Dune,

01:06:21.300 they've come to realize that, well, you

01:06:23.340 know, progress isn't good for its own

01:06:26.500 sake, you know, it should be controlled

01:06:28.020 and directed. You know, that was kind of

01:06:31.760 the impression I got from it.

01:06:33.320 I think you can see this in other works

01:06:35.220 of, of profound science fiction. I mean,

01:06:37.660 in 2001, I mean, remember it's, you know,

01:06:41.500 Bowman has to turn off his computer in

01:06:45.460 order to experience the spiritual

01:06:47.300 awakening. And, you know, I, I think,

01:06:50.080 you know, this great enlightenment of the

01:06:52.140 future is something beyond a mainframe

01:06:55.040 computer.

01:06:56.920 And Luke, Luke Skywalker has to turn his

01:06:59.080 off before he blows up the Death Star.

01:07:01.220 Yeah. Oh, right. I forgot about that.

01:07:04.020 Use the force, Luke.

01:07:06.980 Yeah.

01:07:08.740 Well, we should, we should do a Star Wars

01:07:10.600 podcast, actually. I know that's,

01:07:12.980 Star Wars is not, the universe is not as

01:07:15.920 great as, as the Dune universe, but I, I

01:07:18.480 think it probably would be worth talking

01:07:20.400 about that. Oh, sure.

01:07:22.700 Yeah. Yeah. Let's add it to the queue.

01:07:26.060 Well, should we cover, go ahead. Yeah.

01:07:29.580 Oh, I was just going to ask if you wanted

01:07:32.680 to talk about Dune within the context of

01:07:35.500 Lynch's career at all, but if you had

01:07:36.960 something else, Richard.

01:07:38.180 No, why don't we do that? Let's, let's

01:07:39.520 wrap up on that, that note. Talk a little

01:07:42.920 bit about that and of David Lynch's Dune.

01:07:45.460 Well, Dune, I mean, Lynch wasn't really

01:07:49.480 very well known when he made Dune. He,

01:07:52.600 besides his student films, he had only

01:07:56.140 made two feature films, Eraserhead, which

01:07:58.640 is an amazing film, but was really only

01:08:01.340 widely known on the art house circuit in

01:08:03.600 the 70s. And then he did The Elephant

01:08:06.440 Man. And then Dune came right after that.

01:08:10.020 And I read an interview with him where he

01:08:12.080 actually admitted that when they called

01:08:14.480 him up to ask if he wanted to do it, he

01:08:16.760 had thought that they had said June.

01:08:19.840 And he thought it was a woman's name.

01:08:22.040 And he was like, oh, a film about a woman.

01:08:23.680 That'll, that'll be great. And he'd never

01:08:25.340 heard of Dune before. So it was only later

01:08:28.200 that he realized what he'd gotten into.

01:08:30.360 And yeah, I mean, he's kind of, if you

01:08:32.800 look, I mean, it's, it's very unusual in

01:08:34.580 Dune's career in Dune, in Lynch's career

01:08:37.440 because, you know, usually his films are

01:08:40.640 very, uh, focused on a small set of

01:08:44.860 characters. They're very introspective and

01:08:47.660 psychological. There's a little of that in

01:08:50.020 Dune, but it's, it's, it's very much an

01:08:52.100 epic film. And, and, you know, perhaps

01:08:53.960 that's, that's why he's always been a

01:08:56.340 little bit embarrassed by it, I suspect,

01:08:58.040 because he, you know, he knows that it

01:08:59.580 kind of got away from him a little bit.

01:09:01.260 No, I, I agree. I mean, and I would say

01:09:03.680 that if you, if you just look at the two

01:09:05.580 films of, of how they hold up, I think

01:09:08.220 something like M the empire strikes

01:09:10.300 back, uh, holds up a little bit better

01:09:12.940 than Dune. I mean, unfortunately, there

01:09:14.740 are these aspects that evoke laughter,

01:09:17.580 you know, in Lynch's Dune. Uh, but at the

01:09:19.540 same time, I, I think I, I might weirdly

01:09:22.560 like the world of Dune more. And I think

01:09:25.400 there are also these interesting Lynch

01:09:27.000 isms in Dune. Uh, just, you know, one of

01:09:30.520 them is to try to, is, is, is, is

01:09:32.440 attempts to communicate visually, uh, through

01:09:35.280 you know, through these, these flashes

01:09:37.660 in, in Paul's imagination where you'll

01:09:40.540 see a Bene Gesserit witch, you'll see a 1.00

01:09:42.620 hand, you'll see the drop of water on

01:09:45.280 Dune and, and things like this. I, I, I

01:09:47.760 think, um, and then there are these, I

01:09:50.220 think there's the clear, what you could

01:09:51.660 call Union or Freudian elements, uh,

01:09:54.560 within Frank Herbert's Dune that, that, uh,

01:09:57.320 Lynch emphasizes as well. So I, I think in

01:10:00.360 a way Dune is a Lynch film and it's, it's

01:10:04.360 definitely part of his, it's not, uh, not

01:10:07.600 outside it.

01:10:08.420 As I was rereading the book, you know,

01:10:10.780 I've watched the film so many times, you

01:10:13.520 know, I, I basically know the script and,

01:10:15.900 and so I was reading through it and I

01:10:18.180 was underlining every line that Lynch

01:10:20.240 would use. Uh, and he really did a

01:10:23.700 brilliant job in taking the best lines

01:10:27.360 lines and taking conversations that

01:10:31.520 would take half a page and condensing

01:10:33.360 them without loss of meaning into two

01:10:36.420 or three essential lines. There's a

01:10:38.980 laconic quality to it that's really

01:10:40.860 superb. Uh, I, I think he really told the

01:10:44.780 story about as well on screen as it can

01:10:46.720 be told. Um, you know, the cast I think

01:10:50.820 is extremely good overall. Um, I think the,

01:10:54.540 the technological look really influenced

01:10:58.060 steampunk. Um, and, uh, I, and for, and

01:11:02.160 which is a good thing. Um, generally where

01:11:05.340 he departs from the novel, I think he

01:11:07.700 improves it. Uh, in the second novel, there

01:11:10.460 is an audience with a guild navigator that

01:11:12.680 doesn't take place in the first novel at

01:11:14.380 all, but that is such an interesting idea

01:11:17.260 visually that he had to, you know, kidnap

01:11:21.260 it and transport it into dune, but he uses

01:11:23.920 it to get some background story in there.

01:11:26.220 Yeah. Uh, that just has to be put in

01:11:28.420 there. Uh, you know, the, the, the novel

01:11:31.180 starts with, uh, the Reverend mother's

01:11:34.020 visit to, uh, Paul to test him. Uh, and you

01:11:37.480 don't know why this is happening. There

01:11:39.340 needs to be a little narration, a little

01:11:41.660 background. And I think he, he does a

01:11:43.620 really good job of getting that in. Um, I

01:11:46.580 think also the weirding way I think is

01:11:48.760 actually an improvement. Um, the weirding

01:11:50.760 modules, you know, yeah. He turns that into

01:11:53.140 like star Wars kind of stuff. I don't know

01:11:56.020 about that. Well, I think it's, no, we, uh,

01:11:59.340 we might disagree on this. I think it's

01:12:00.940 actually an improvement because, you know,

01:12:02.440 the weirding way is, you know, jujitsu or

01:12:05.060 something in, you know, in the novel. But

01:12:07.160 with, with, with, with Paul, he kind of

01:12:10.180 said, again, this is part of this, you

01:12:12.420 know, spiritual and, and, um, cognitive

01:12:15.380 enlightenment and expansion. And he says, you

01:12:17.940 know, certain thoughts have a certain

01:12:19.860 sound and it's just, uh, what is that

01:12:23.460 called? Synesthesia. I believe there's a,

01:12:25.240 there's a word that's, you know, where,

01:12:28.320 you know, the, the, you, you see a blue

01:12:30.100 note or something like that, you know, you

01:12:31.620 hear the color blue. Uh, but I think

01:12:34.660 there's something, there's something kind

01:12:36.200 of beautiful about the, that vision of

01:12:38.440 Paul. I think it was an improvement, the

01:12:40.820 weirding, and that, that is also something

01:12:42.620 that could really challenge, uh, the power of

01:12:45.720 the empire is to turn into explosion, but

01:12:52.060 you're doing it through your mind. I mean,

01:12:53.740 it's kind of, it's kind of amazing. And

01:12:56.300 then Paul, Paul discovers that his name is

01:12:58.920 a death word or. Yes. Yeah. Um, someone

01:13:03.700 says, what do you, but like the wall

01:13:05.880 explodes. I think the, the Lynch's vision of

01:13:10.740 the Baron Harkonnen is so outrageous and

01:13:13.740 so utterly loathsome that it, it, it really,

01:13:16.260 really is over the top, but still, I love

01:13:19.580 it. I mean, I, I, I'm glad that he did it. I

01:13:22.300 wouldn't change a bit of it. I think the

01:13:25.280 heart plug, which doesn't exist in the book

01:13:28.060 is one of the most utterly loathsome, uh,

01:13:31.840 you know, uh, gestures of totalitarian 0.97

01:13:35.260 power, you know, I'll just unplug you if I

01:13:37.720 don't like you. Uh, I mean, it's, it's, it's,

01:13:40.480 it's remarkable. Uh, it's really remarkable

01:13:42.800 his vision of things. You know, David Lynch

01:13:44.680 is a very dark person. Uh, you know, he 1.00

01:13:48.760 went to a place inside himself and brought

01:13:51.180 out the Baron with his running sores and,

01:13:54.620 uh, heart plugs and all this other stuff,

01:13:57.320 uh, that, that certainly it wasn't in Frank

01:14:00.260 Herbert. Um, the heart

01:14:03.640 Harkonnens are kind of normal in the 1.00

01:14:05.100 book. Yeah. Uh, and he's, he's a, he

01:14:07.940 engages in pedophilia, but 0.83

01:14:09.700 somewhat. Well, that's sort of treated as

01:14:11.680 normal. Uh, but here's the thing, the, the

01:14:15.460 Harkonnens in the, the book are, well,

01:14:19.540 especially the Baron, um, he's, he's this

01:14:22.700 Machiavellian plotter and, uh, utterly

01:14:25.220 subtle and psychologically insightful and

01:14:28.220 yet totally petty and bound by the

01:14:32.360 smallest of considerations, wealth and

01:14:34.640 revenge. And, um, the emperor, uh, you

01:14:38.680 know, when Duke Leto arrives on the

01:14:40.300 planet, he's a, he's a military man. He's

01:14:42.800 a leader. The heart of the, uh, Atreides

01:14:44.980 are all natural leaders of men, you

01:14:48.240 know, and they're gallant and they're

01:14:50.080 decent. And, um, when they arrive there,

01:14:53.660 they realize that the greater resource on

01:14:56.880 the planet may be the Fremen, uh, who are

01:14:59.680 these magnificent fighters. And, uh, when

01:15:04.280 the, when the emperor learns about the

01:15:06.280 Fremen, uh, he, he simply cannot believe

01:15:09.820 that the Baron Harkonnen could have

01:15:12.580 overlooked some, a treasure this great. And

01:15:16.100 he actually, in the, in the book, he

01:15:17.920 insists that the Baron must have been

01:15:19.940 plotting against him to raise an army of

01:15:22.240 Fremen. And, and the Baron is totally

01:15:25.160 oblivious to this dimension of things. He's,

01:15:27.800 he's a totally petty bourgeois and 0.98

01:15:30.840 ultimately a political figure. So he's,

01:15:34.280 he's kind of fascinating. He's a

01:15:35.840 sensualist, uh, and he's, and he's

01:15:38.120 totally blind to, um, the masculine, the

01:15:42.480 military, the, the, that whole dimension

01:15:45.120 of things that the Atreides are very

01:15:47.320 keyed into and that the emperor is very

01:15:49.800 keyed into. It's totally beyond the can

01:15:52.620 of, of, of Baron Harkonnen. Yeah. Oh yeah.

01:15:56.000 He thinks of just squeezing something

01:15:57.860 till the pipsqueak. He, you know, he,

01:15:59.960 he's not, he doesn't understand ruling

01:16:01.720 or, or being a leader or anything like

01:16:04.020 that. Um, there's also this, um, there's

01:16:06.500 an interesting film that, uh, uh, hopefully

01:16:09.940 we'll get on Netflix soon. I, I actually

01:16:13.380 found it on iTunes and I, I bet you could

01:16:15.880 get it in other means, but it's, uh,

01:16:17.780 Jurodowski's, uh, Dune.

01:16:20.380 Hodorowsky.

01:16:20.820 Jurodowski's Dune, excuse me. Um, which

01:16:23.300 Oh, that would have been amazing.

01:16:25.140 It's, it's, you know, it's a really, it's

01:16:27.360 a worthwhile documentary. If you have an

01:16:29.240 hour of your time and you kind of want

01:16:32.040 to think about one of the most interesting,

01:16:35.280 crazy films that was not made, it's really

01:16:38.560 worth your time. Uh, but, uh, but, but he

01:16:42.020 was a, a, a surrealist, um, uh, filmmaker. I

01:16:45.920 have to admit.

01:16:46.600 He still is.

01:16:47.560 He still is. Yes. I, I have to admit I've

01:16:49.680 not seen any of his, uh, films, but I'm, I,

01:16:53.160 at least from what I got, uh, the

01:16:55.140 impression, it was kind of like Louis

01:16:56.680 Buñuel on steroids and I am a Buñuel

01:16:59.700 or acid or acid.

01:17:01.320 Yeah.

01:17:02.240 That's pretty funny.

01:17:03.420 Well, El Topo is more like, uh, Clint

01:17:05.900 Eastwood on acid.

01:17:07.320 Yeah.

01:17:07.640 It's like a spaghetti.

01:17:08.900 It's a Western.

01:17:09.620 A psychedelic spaghetti Western. Yeah.

01:17:12.220 Yeah.

01:17:12.580 You know, we should do a Buñuel movie or

01:17:14.780 others, but, but anyway, I, I think what

01:17:16.500 this, this documentary puts forth is that

01:17:20.140 he came up with some of these, there's

01:17:22.960 this huge book that is his Dune book and

01:17:26.500 they, through a, uh, uh, what was his

01:17:29.520 name? Um, uh, the cartoonist, there's a

01:17:33.340 brilliant, uh,

01:17:34.600 Mubus.

01:17:35.400 Uh, yeah, Mubus, Mobius or Mubus.

01:17:38.180 Yeah.

01:17:38.380 They, uh, they basically create a kind of,

01:17:40.220 uh, a comic book, a, a really detailed

01:17:43.180 storyboard of the entire, of the entire

01:17:45.120 film that was never made.

01:17:46.780 And this film, the, the documentary puts

01:17:49.440 forth the notion that this storyboard

01:17:51.820 really influenced all of these science

01:17:54.760 fiction films, uh, later on.

01:17:57.640 And certainly including Star Wars, um,

01:18:00.820 but, uh, but.

01:18:02.500 Flash Gordon.

01:18:03.180 Flash Gordon.

01:18:03.760 It really did.

01:18:04.820 I mean, because he sent copies of this

01:18:06.820 book to all the major studios.

01:18:09.120 And obviously people were, and, and also

01:18:10.900 people who had, who were creatively

01:18:13.220 collaborating with him on his Dune

01:18:16.000 project, went out and worked on all

01:18:17.780 these movies.

01:18:18.640 Yeah.

01:18:18.940 Um, one thing that's not mentioned

01:18:20.620 though, is that there are a couple

01:18:21.920 things that, uh, are in the Lynch

01:18:23.780 Dune that come from the Hodorovsky 0.98

01:18:25.700 Dune.

01:18:26.380 One is when you get to Gidi Prime, the

01:18:28.360 Harkonnen planet, you see this big face

01:18:31.520 belching fumes, which is, uh, takes off

01:18:36.160 from the, the Harkonnen palace design that,

01:18:39.360 uh, Giger came up with.

01:18:40.820 Uh, and the other thing is, is that Dune

01:18:43.400 ends with a miracle in the, uh, in the

01:18:46.740 Lynch version.

01:18:47.620 It doesn't happen in the book.

01:18:49.720 Uh, and, uh, that miracle type ending,

01:18:53.000 which is different, uh, in, in

01:18:55.680 Hodorovsky's Dune, it was still something

01:18:58.240 that Hodorovsky came up with and, and

01:19:00.740 Lynch sort of takes up the idea that

01:19:02.620 we're going to end the movie with a

01:19:03.780 miracle.

01:19:04.560 So I, uh, I think that, yeah, it's,

01:19:06.840 it's tremendously influential.

01:19:08.100 I want Tashin to bring out a giant,

01:19:11.620 gorgeous coffee table version of

01:19:14.260 Hodorovsky's Dune book.

01:19:15.660 That's, that's a natural thing.

01:19:17.520 I have to, I have to get on, get onto

01:19:20.040 that, you know, say you must do this.

01:19:22.560 Surely there's some way of suggesting

01:19:24.380 it.

01:19:25.340 So, um, but yeah, one thing, another

01:19:28.020 thing in that film, I think, uh,

01:19:29.520 Hodorovsky made comic books with

01:19:32.020 Mubis afterward that utilized all of 0.97

01:19:34.580 these motifs and themes, uh, so in the

01:19:38.140 meta barons, it's in, uh, what's it

01:19:41.020 called?

01:19:41.300 The in call.

01:19:42.480 Yeah.

01:19:43.400 Um, so yeah, he, he didn't lose a lot

01:19:46.060 of this stuff.

01:19:46.560 A lot of it was re recycled.

01:19:48.320 And then Giger in a way took a lot of

01:19:50.500 his, uh, you know, aesthetic motifs

01:19:53.140 and, and, and those were used with

01:19:54.720 alien and, and all this in these other

01:19:57.300 films.

01:19:57.900 So, uh, yeah, alien, uh, alien was

01:20:01.180 co-authored by Dan O'Bannon who worked

01:20:04.820 with, um, um, Hodorovsky on the Dune

01:20:07.980 project.

01:20:08.860 And so he knew Giger from that.

01:20:11.940 Yeah.

01:20:12.120 And the person who introduced

01:20:14.080 Hodorovsky to Giger was none other than

01:20:17.620 Salvador Dali, uh, who was going to play

01:20:21.140 the emperor.

01:20:22.740 Uh, and, uh, that, that would have been

01:20:24.860 really something.

01:20:26.240 Yeah.

01:20:26.560 Yeah.

01:20:26.860 Wow.

01:20:27.120 So there's a very amusing stories about

01:20:31.780 the, uh, uh, about, you know, uh, how

01:20:34.820 they were going to deal with Dali.

01:20:36.360 Dali wanted to be the highest paid, uh,

01:20:38.540 film actor in the universe.

01:20:40.620 Uh, and so they came up with the idea

01:20:42.920 of paying him a hundred thousand dollars

01:20:44.520 a minute.

01:20:45.600 And, uh, the producer, um, Michelle

01:20:48.540 Sedue said, well, how many minutes are

01:20:50.680 we talking about?

01:20:51.460 And Hodorovsky said, eh, three minutes,

01:20:54.420 five minutes max.

01:20:57.120 But he would be the highest paid actor

01:20:59.100 of all time.

01:20:59.760 By the minute.

01:21:00.500 Yeah.

01:21:01.100 And, uh, he also wanted a burning giraffe

01:21:03.880 and then suddenly the film cuts to the

01:21:06.000 page of the storyboard and off the side

01:21:08.500 of the storyboard, there's a drawing of

01:21:10.180 a giraffe labeled a giraffe enters the

01:21:12.920 scene.

01:21:14.280 I lost it.

01:21:15.540 I just lost it.

01:21:16.520 That floored me.

01:21:18.000 Yeah.

01:21:18.140 So, uh, if Dali wants a burning giraffe,

01:21:21.060 we're going to deliver.

01:21:24.400 I'm going to have to find a copy of this

01:21:26.380 documentary.

01:21:27.120 Oh yeah.

01:21:27.920 It's really entertaining.

01:21:29.400 It's out on Blu-ray and DVD.

01:21:31.260 Yeah.

01:21:31.660 Yeah.

01:21:31.960 And you can get it on, I, I, I actually

01:21:33.580 downloaded it on iTunes.

01:21:34.660 So I assume that's widely available for

01:21:36.500 everyone.

01:21:37.000 So.

01:21:37.520 Oh, but I just wanted to say before we

01:21:39.760 wrap up, uh, you know, there was Lynch

01:21:42.100 was actually under contract, uh, to do, I

01:21:45.840 think it was three Dune movies.

01:21:48.160 Oh, really?

01:21:49.020 Uh, and of course the first one did so

01:21:51.120 badly at the box office that they just

01:21:53.120 canceled the whole thing.

01:21:54.260 But, uh, it is kind of interesting to

01:21:57.460 wonder, you know, what the, what the

01:21:59.080 other films would have been like, you

01:22:00.600 know, based on, I assume the second and

01:22:02.220 third books in the series is, I mean,

01:22:05.120 it's, I think it's actually probably good

01:22:06.860 that it did because he insisted that his

01:22:10.160 contract for Dune includes the right for

01:22:13.660 him to do a film basically about anything

01:22:15.940 he wanted, which became blue, blue velvet.

01:22:18.500 Uh, which, you know, is, you know, let's

01:22:21.460 face it.

01:22:21.860 It's a, it's a much better film.

01:22:24.120 And that's what, you know, the greatest,

01:22:25.700 you know, bequest to the De Laurentiis

01:22:27.920 family to world culture is producing blue

01:22:30.640 velvet, I think.

01:22:32.220 Um, now, um, it is interesting.

01:22:35.400 There is a sci-fi channel Dune, uh, and

01:22:37.980 then they did a sci-fi channel children of

01:22:40.300 Dune, which is basically the story of the

01:22:42.580 second and third books.

01:22:43.680 The sci-fi channel Dune is quite flawed.

01:22:46.740 Um, I don't recommend it to anybody who

01:22:49.860 isn't a total fanatic.

01:22:51.740 Um, it does have a couple little

01:22:53.460 improvements, uh, but overall it's, uh, it's,

01:22:56.440 it's a very flawed thing.

01:22:57.660 It's a little bit boring, don't you think?

01:22:59.580 It's a little bit boring and, um, it's,

01:23:02.040 it's a little bit badly acted in a lot of

01:23:04.660 places.

01:23:05.300 However, the sci-fi channel's children of

01:23:08.460 Dune is on a much higher level.

01:23:11.320 They have a much better cast.

01:23:13.060 It's much more, uh, snappily told, uh, it's

01:23:17.800 far more visually appealing.

01:23:20.100 Uh, it really is a very worthwhile sequel.

01:23:23.560 And so my, my recommendation is to watch

01:23:26.180 the Lynch Dune and then get the sci-fi

01:23:27.980 channel children of Dune, which includes

01:23:30.620 the stories of both, uh, Dune Messiah and

01:23:33.160 children of Dune, the second and third Dune

01:23:35.560 books.

01:23:36.160 Yeah.

01:23:37.040 No, I, I, I, you know, I have all these

01:23:39.520 fantasies of like, you know, putting, if I,

01:23:42.040 if I had all this capital and I could just

01:23:44.040 create all these movies, uh, it might be

01:23:46.580 interesting just to create a big definitive

01:23:49.320 Dune and you, you wouldn't be bound by all

01:23:52.040 the conventions of Hollywood like two hours.

01:23:54.440 Just, you know, give it to a real visionary

01:23:57.100 director and, and do it right.

01:23:59.660 Uh, who do you think, I mean, maybe, maybe

01:24:02.900 Lynch now that he's a, he's a much older

01:24:05.200 man, 30 years later, he should do a big, just

01:24:07.960 six hour film, the novel Dune.

01:24:11.160 Have either of you seen the, the uncut

01:24:13.660 Lynch actually insisted that his name be

01:24:16.460 taken off it.

01:24:17.440 So it's directed by Alan Smitty, which is

01:24:20.240 this name that they use in Hollywood when

01:24:22.060 the director doesn't want his name on

01:24:23.700 something.

01:24:23.900 He's Hollywood's most prolific director

01:24:26.700 it turns out.

01:24:27.660 And somebody, somebody really should do a

01:24:30.300 mock, uh, sort of auteur critical, uh, book

01:24:34.680 on, uh, the, the works of Alan Smitty.

01:24:37.360 Yeah.

01:24:37.560 At least one man, at least an IMDB page of

01:24:41.080 Alan Smitty through the century.

01:24:42.960 Yeah.

01:24:43.540 Well, have either of you seen that, that

01:24:46.080 version?

01:24:46.400 It's like six hours, I think.

01:24:48.220 No, it's not that long.

01:24:49.760 It just seems like it.

01:24:51.260 Yeah.

01:24:51.700 I mean, I, I think some part there, there's

01:24:54.480 some scenes that I, I think are, should

01:24:57.120 be added to, uh, uh, uh, like the ultimate

01:24:59.740 cut of Dune kind of like we did Blade

01:25:02.140 Runner that has like four or five versions

01:25:04.100 Dune could have that.

01:25:05.260 Like the, I think it is, I think it's

01:25:07.260 worthwhile knowing that the, the water of

01:25:09.880 life comes from the, the worm because

01:25:11.880 that's so important in the whole, uh, you

01:25:14.400 know, ecology of Dune and that's taken out

01:25:17.020 in the, in Lynch's, you know, theatrical

01:25:18.740 cut, but it's in the extended cut.

01:25:20.520 I think it should be added, but at the

01:25:22.280 same time, there's also this like 15

01:25:24.880 minute prologue that's about films of

01:25:28.420 like, you know, uh, colored pencil

01:25:31.460 drawings and they just basically explain

01:25:35.460 the world of Dune as if it were written

01:25:38.620 by Wikipedia or something.

01:25:40.100 I just thought it was terrible. 1.00

01:25:42.000 Basically they, they decided that morons 1.00

01:25:44.780 couldn't understand Dune. 1.00

01:25:46.000 So they needed a version that morons 1.00

01:25:48.580 could understand. 1.00

01:25:49.380 And unfortunately they got some morons 1.00

01:25:51.340 to do it. 1.00

01:25:52.740 Uh, and so, you know, they, they thought,

01:25:54.860 well, you know, we can't just have

01:25:56.140 somebody be on one planet, then another

01:25:57.900 planet.

01:25:58.260 We have to have a little ship.

01:25:59.820 And so they cut in like ships moving

01:26:01.980 around and it's the same thing, uh, over

01:26:04.420 and over again.

01:26:04.980 It just screams for mystery science

01:26:06.600 theater 3000.

01:26:07.940 Uh, that's what it turns into in my, my

01:26:11.380 living room when I try and show it, you

01:26:13.200 know?

01:26:13.680 Um, uh, but yeah, it, it is full of, uh,

01:26:16.680 of awful stuff.

01:26:17.660 The stuff on Kytane at the beginning,

01:26:20.380 there's extra stuff that was cut and I

01:26:22.940 really think Lynch was right to cut that.

01:26:25.960 I think, um, I came to appreciate him as

01:26:29.200 an editor tremendously.

01:26:30.900 There's some things on Caladan that I wish

01:26:33.640 were left in little tiny details, uh, that

01:26:37.260 didn't really interrupt the flow.

01:26:38.920 And then there's stuff on Arrakis that I

01:26:41.120 wish had been kept in.

01:26:42.160 And I kind of wish that Lynch would

01:26:43.860 revisit the thing.

01:26:44.960 I don't think he ever will.

01:26:46.000 I think he's got all kinds of bitter

01:26:47.380 feelings about it, but it would be

01:26:49.340 wonderful if Lynch would revisit the

01:26:50.900 thing, uh, do a definitive cut and, uh,

01:26:54.760 get some CGI people in there to clean

01:26:57.080 up some of those dreadful process shots

01:26:59.180 and, you know, really gloomy, uh, color

01:27:02.140 schemes and things like that, uh, because

01:27:04.220 it could look so much better.

01:27:05.580 Oh, I, I hope he doesn't bring CGI.

01:27:08.460 I just imagine these, these prequels to

01:27:11.300 Star Wars that, uh, we, I don't even

01:27:14.320 recognize that they exist.

01:27:16.040 They're non-canonical.

01:27:19.120 I think you should do an ultimate cut.

01:27:22.700 I like that idea of, of utilizing some

01:27:24.940 things and not being confined by the two

01:27:27.420 hour limit, you know, doing a two and a

01:27:28.980 half hour, but, but, um, making it

01:27:31.280 better.

01:27:31.500 But I, I think in some ways some of

01:27:33.140 that eighties quality kind of, I don't

01:27:35.780 know, I don't want to take that away.

01:27:36.960 That, that kind of makes it enduring.

01:27:39.320 I want to get rid of some of the bad

01:27:40.880 process shots and the weird wobbly, uh,

01:27:43.500 spaceships moving around and things like

01:27:45.460 that, that, that can go, you know, um,

01:27:48.420 the CGI people not only, uh, added some,

01:27:51.400 some unfortunate things to the, say the

01:27:53.600 Empire Strikes Back, but they also got

01:27:55.180 rid of the matte lines and things that

01:27:56.940 you could clearly see, you know, and that

01:27:59.360 kind of stuff had to go.

01:28:00.580 So I, I'm glad they, they cleaned up some

01:28:02.680 of the special effects.

01:28:04.140 Yeah.

01:28:05.860 Well, gentlemen, why don't we just put a

01:28:08.340 bookmark in this conversation and, um,

01:28:11.280 why don't, I think we should just revisit

01:28:12.820 all of this stuff, uh, later on.

01:28:14.860 And I think we probably should do a Star

01:28:16.520 Wars podcast.

01:28:17.960 I think that would be a lot of fun.

01:28:19.720 Uh, it would, uh, be a little bit of

01:28:21.540 nostalgia, but a little bit of philosophy

01:28:23.960 too thrown in there.

01:28:25.120 So, uh, let's, uh, let's definitely do

01:28:27.420 that in the future, but, um, first

01:28:29.240 off, John and Greg, uh, thank you both

01:28:31.800 for adding, uh, your perspectives and

01:28:34.120 insights.

01:28:34.480 And I, I hope to do this again soon.

01:28:37.100 Well, I, I really appreciate it.

01:28:38.780 And one little note, when we do the

01:28:40.520 Star Wars podcast, there's a great,

01:28:43.180 there's a great sound effect you can

01:28:44.860 use.

01:28:45.160 It sounds just like a lightsaber.

01:28:46.880 If you take an electric toothbrush and

01:28:49.060 turn it on near the microphone of your

01:28:51.020 telephone, uh, it sounds just like the

01:28:53.840 lightsaber, uh, activating.

01:28:56.560 So we'll have to work that in somehow, I

01:28:59.000 hope.

01:28:59.360 Yeah.

01:28:59.580 Or I could use my own lightsaber.

01:29:01.900 You could use your lightsaber.

01:29:03.180 Yeah.

01:29:04.440 Uh, I, I try not to bring it out on, you

01:29:07.020 know, let's try not to, you try not to

01:29:08.700 advertise that.

01:29:10.060 Right.

01:29:10.560 Unless I'm fighting someone to the

01:29:12.200 death.

01:29:12.880 Your gravitas is crashing right now,

01:29:15.380 Richard.

01:29:19.560 Anyway.

01:29:20.580 All right.

01:29:21.100 Thanks guys.

01:29:22.340 Thank you.

01:29:22.620 Thank you, Richard.

01:29:23.840 Thank you.

RadixJournal - August 15, 2014

Archeo-Futurist Messiah

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript