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Last week I went to see ‘DUNE’, the movie.

It’s the second big-screen attempt to make a movie of the book, if you don’t count the first ‘Star Wars’, that borrows shamelessly from Frank Herbert’s Si-Fi classic.

At one stage Frank Herbert (Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. 1920 –1986) was a favourite author of mine. I still have several of his books on my Si-Fi shelf. One of these, ‘The Godmakers’, is marked as purchased in New York in 1978. And the others are a bit older. So, I must have read them all around the time that my daughter, Emily, was born.

Dune was Herbert’s first successful novel, published in 1965, after six years development and many publisher rejections. With Dune’s slowly growing success (it’s now widely regarded as one of the best, and is certainly one of the best-selling, science fiction books of all time), he was able to continue to write and became quite prolific, writing five sequels: Dune Messiah (1969); Children of Dune (1976); God Emperor of Dune (1981); Heretics of Dune (1984); and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985); in addition to half a dozen other novels, curtailed by his early death.

After the first three Star Wars movies, I looked forward to David Lynch’s 1984 version of Dune. I saw it with a friend who’d not read the book and found it incomprehensible, repetitive, boring and gratuitously violent. I thought it covered the terrain but was a poorly cast sketch of the book. I found myself apologising for suggesting it.

I realised that Herbert’s imaginative themes and subtleties are hard to represent on screen. So, this time I was more cautious. Would Wendy similarly abuse me if I twisted her arm to see it? I went alone.

It turned out to be OK. But would I go and see it again, with Wendy this time?

Not unless, because of its accolades (DUNE has been nominated for many critical awards including: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Cinematography; Best Production Design; Best Editing; Best Costume Design; Best Hair and Makeup; Best Visual Effects; and Best Score), she suddenly wants to see it.

Compared to the David Lynch travesty, the story-telling is a lot better. And the characters are better cast and more accurately represented with: Josh Brolin; Javier Bardem; and Charlotte Rampling in supporting roles (no Sting this time).

Liet/ Keynes the planetologist has changed sex (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) but she’s suitably amazonian, so it works.

Before seeing the movie, I’d begun to read the book again and was surprised to recognise several passages used verbatim. Yet, as the story develops, the book becomes more and more internal, with long passages giving us the thoughts of the key protagonists; particularly Paul and his mother, Jessica. As a result, as it goes on, the movie begins to simplify and combine elements.

So, if you want the full story: drugs, sex and rolling sandworms, I’d advise reading the book - as is ever the case with movie adaptations.

Yet, you need only read the first half. Because that’s where the film ends. Paul and Jessica have just escaped to the desert.

David Lynch’s ultimate battle between good (the Atreides – Fremen) and evil (the Harkonnens) is in the distant future.

Wait for part two. Then Five sequels to go.

As critics complained, Lynch distilling the story to a fight between good and evil was already overly simplistic in 1978 (USA v USSR?). His writing makes it clear that Herbert was highly sceptical that he was living in the best of all possible worlds.

In the Dune universe, ‘good’ is a highly ambiguous concept. His characters are driven by a struggle for power and survival at all costs.

Can a movie, or two, (or more, in this franchise) ever capture the complexities of this tale?

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Travel

South Korea & China

March 2016

 

 

South Korea

 

 

I hadn't written up our trip to South Korea (in March 2016) but Google Pictures gratuitously put an album together from my Cloud library so I was motivated to add a few words and put it up on my Website.  Normally I would use selected images to illustrate observations about a place visited.  This is the other way about, with a lot of images that I may not have otherwise chosen.  It requires you to go to the link below if you want to see pictures. You may find some of the images interesting and want to by-pass others quickly. Your choice. In addition to the album, Google generated a short movie in an 8mm style - complete with dust flecks. You can see this by clicking the last frame, at the bottom of the album.

A few days in Seoul were followed by travels around the country, helpfully illustrated in the album by Google generated maps: a picture is worth a thousand words; ending back in Seoul before spending a few days in China on the way home to OZ. 

Read more: South Korea & China

Fiction, Recollections & News

Outcomes for girls and boys

 

 

A Radio National discussion (May 29 2015) stated that statistically girls outperform boys academically and referenced research suggesting that this has something to do with working parents:

Provocative new research suggests that the outcomes for girls and boys can be different when parents go back to work, in particular mothers.

The big question is WHY?

 

Read more: Outcomes for girls and boys

Opinions and Philosophy

Six degrees of separation, conspiracy and wealth

 

 

Sometimes things that seem quite different are, when looked at more closely, related. 

 

Read more: Six degrees of separation, conspiracy and wealth

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