Dune & Hollywood

[rsrguy]

Hoping this doesn't get parfed but here goes...
For you Dune and scifi aficionados, are you getting worn thin on the obvious pandering in the genre?

With regard to dune, I don't much care about what race/creed is used to depict the Keins role but I don't think a female was a good fit for the dune story.

In my world (reality) women are almost magically capable of taking on and overcoming tremendous obstacles, just not besting 230# male assaults... The propensity for this type of writing in film is ostensibly turning everything made these days into a comic story.

In the entire time I've been a scifi consumer it seemed like much effort was put into extreme adherence to detail and getting the physics correct(even making logical explanations to explain away the illogical). So, unless the story specifically states that a physically dominant female character is the result of genetic breeding or modification... I'm not buying it.

In the Dune saga, the Keins character has been fleshed out as an extreme survivalist.... Not exactly piles of non fiction female survival books out there... Also the freman society was written to be a patriarchy... Not likely they would accept a female as a prophet.. So, it's really hard to accept what the new film has done with their autistic license, may has well cast smurfette.

Woke culture tends to mythisize reality about everything from societal roles and sexual nonsense to the role of government. My guess for the cause? Probably too much fantasy, to much effort to warp reality to fit the cosplay mentality.

I'm up to my eyeballs with this physically dominant alfa female that's always portrayed as SOIR (the smartest in the room) that can kick everyone and things ass.... AND, also solve the most extreme physics challenges, whilst all the males are portrayed as beta red shirts. When in reality it takes a lifetime of training to be a combat specialist or an intellectual giant...

An example, Lex Friedman is an intellectual giant and a guy that is heavily into mma and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, he trains regularly. The reality is he's only really capable of competing on par with someone in his weight class. If I (currently 6'1" 270# & out of shape) were to bear hug and fall on him, he would break like a twig...
This is the perspective I see female combatants from.

That's why we used to see so much teamwork in film not so much anymore, strong female protagonist, dumb male narcissistic antagonist, hmm, let's go remake all the old Hollywood stock and a new pile of steaming $c#iedt! That's why I'm watching less and less cinema these days, the kungflu virus had nothing to do with it.

-G

[ckelly78z]

The woke culture has changed all the rules (and not the better) I'm not into SciFi at all, but every TV show in existence now has strong female characters, and bumbling cuckholed husbands who screw up everything. It's gotten to the point where the only thing I watch any longer are car shows, sports, and reality shows like "Gold Rush".

[flatbutt]

In the original books Chani, Lady Jessica, Princess Irulan and the Bene Gesserit were all powerful women. Chani in particular was a warrior woman. IDK what the new iteration of Keynes is but if the part is played by a woman then so be it. Yes physics would dictate a serious mis-match in a physical confrontation but it is ALL a work of fiction.

[PorscheGAL]

Originally Posted by rsrguy

With regard to dune, I don't much care about what race/creed is used to depict the Keins role but I don't think a female was a good fit for the dune story.


In the Dune saga, the Keins character has been fleshed out as an extreme survivalist.... Not exactly piles of non fiction female survival books out there... Also the freman society was written to be a patriarchy... Not likely they would accept a female as a prophet.. So, it's really hard to accept what the new film has done with their autistic license, may has well cast smurfette.


-G

I am by no means a Dune expert. I am currently reading through the first book for the first time. I reserve the right to change my opinion after actually seeing the film.

That said, I'm not against Kynes being a woman. Kynes is an advisor, scientist, and parent to Chani.

Although the book is written as the freman having a patriarchy, they do accept Jessica as a reverent mother so I disagree that they would not accept Kynes as a female.

[masraum]

That's been a theme on TV for years, primarily for comedic purposes (Simpsons, Family Guy and even the Honeymooners). Is it any worse than a smart husband with an idiot wife? It's not a "last 5 or 10 years thing." It's been going on for decades. How many kids would watch a show where the parents were smarter and had more experience and set appropriate boundaries? How many kids would watch a show where the kids were niave and greatly limited in what they could accomplish?

Isn't this sort of thing the reason that many, many movies are popular. The main character is someone that the target audience wants to be like, wants to fantasize about being like or can/wants to identify with. Jame Bond, license to kill, Bourne movies, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, , Rambo, Rocky, Fast and Furious, whatever, etc.... All of those movies are about either fantasy men or the .001% of men, and men love them because men want to imagine themselves like them. Those movies are still being made.

If a movie is targetted at kids, teens, girls, women, etc..., the movie is likely to put the target audience on the strong side so that they are superior to others which makes the target like the movie.

I'm not "woke" and I think most of the social justice stuff that's going on in the world is ridiculous, but I feel like when this subject comes up here, it's not because "every movie these days has an incompetent, impotent man and a super woman that saves the day" which is what is proposed. It's because not every movie has a man as the main super hero.

We still get plenty of badassed male characters, there are just more characters now that are female and badassed. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Is it unrealistic, sure, but so are the movies where the main character is a man. Right, one guy, with a rolled up magazine or bath towel just single handedly fought off two dozen killers with guns and knives and has barely broken a sweat.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

In the original books Chani, Lady Jessica, Princess Irulan and the Bene Gesserit were all powerful women. Chani in particular was a warrior woman. IDK what the new iteration of Keynes is but if the part is played by a woman then so be it. Yes physics would dictate a serious mis-match in a physical confrontation but it is ALL a work of fiction.

^This^

Is dune about humans or are they humanoid aliens? And if they're aliens, then who's to say that the women can't be badassed.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by PorscheGAL

I am by no means a Dune expert. I am currently reading through the first book for the first time. I reserve the right to change my opinion after actually seeing the film.

That said, I'm not against Kynes being a woman. Kynes is an advisor, scientist, and parent to Chani.

Although the book is written as the freman having a patriarchy, they do accept Jessica as a reverent mother so I disagree that they would not accept Kynes as a female.

Read house atraides first then tell me how you feel.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by masraum

We still get plenty of badassed male characters, there are just more characters now that are female and badassed. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Is it unrealistic, sure, but so are the movies where the main character is a man. Right, one guy, with a rolled up magazine or bath towel just single handedly fought off two dozen killers with guns and knives and has barely broken a sweat.

True, I've always been one to call bs on those story lines too. I suppose I have a more limited suspension of disbelief

the other factor is the audience, if only a small percentage of the prospective viewers are knowledgeable about the franchise then screw them and the original creators. Star Wars and what that idiot Kenedy did to it is a shining example of this.

When it comes to Hollywood their are too many cooks in the soop!

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

In the original books Chani, Lady Jessica, Princess Irulan and the Bene Gesserit were all powerful women. Chani in particular was a warrior woman. IDK what the new iteration of Keynes is but if the part is played by a woman then so be it. Yes physics would dictate a serious mis-match in a physical confrontation but it is ALL a work of fiction.

True, however I will say that the Bene Gesserit's main source of power was mental/psychic, not physical. There were combat skills that they used, but IIRC that was mostly limited to knife/swordplay, not straight up physical confrontations.

I'll wait to pass judgement until I've seen the movie, but the advantages that women had in the books do not translate well into (modern) film adaptations.

But I also agree with your thoughts WRT Dune being fictional. If they want to make Keynes female; whatever. Just make it logical.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by masraum

^This^

Is dune about humans or are they humanoid aliens? And if they're aliens, then who's to say that the women can't be badassed.

Dune is a tale of the Terran decendancy, expansion into the galaxy and the government that resulted from the butlerian jihad. Their are no humanoid characters. However certain houses have specialy developed abilities accomplished over eons of time.

The BG's are a great example, Herbert was quite progressive in that he melded characteristics of males into the strictly female order. However, they were never authored as physical powerhouses. They were written as sensual fabiinist-like black widows that used men for seed for their genetic breeding programs towards the goal of total dominance.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by BReif61

But I also agree with your thoughts WRT Dune being fictional. If they want to make Keynes female; whatever. Just make it logical.

Here's the rub, the Keins character joined the freman as a result of saving a small group of freman youth from a group of better armed harkonin soldiers(not something a female could have accomplished) this crated a water debt. Later he was almost assassinated, because of circumstances around the failed assassination attempt he became seen as a prophet. From then on he commanded the respect as well as the backbone (work) of the freman people. He even took a freman wife and had a child. His goal was the ultimate Terra forming of Dune... Also add to that, the emporer wouldn't have given that task to a female character. That's just the way Herbert wrote the dune universe. it's not me being chauvinistic.

Dune is an interesting saga in that their is quite a bit of what we would call progressivness to it, but Herbert still exhibited plenty of separation in the different character roles, both in governance and socially.

[Tervuren]

I don't think the difference is that stuff like this is a new idea.
The difference is that it's harder to find anything different promoted.

I'm a gamer not so much a movie or TV series kinda guy.
Character creator where one can play a game as male or female has been around a long time.
What I'm observing is that less mainstream games are taking the resources to craft different experiences.

It used to be worthwhile to play games like this multiple times and with different races or sexes.
Now it could be they are getting cheap, or in an effort to make a bigger game the details for replay ability get cast aside.

On top of this a lot of story telling in games and movies seems to have a fixed format that fails flat with me.
An obvious example would be the Lord of the Rings movies.
They took fixed characters changing their environment and re-wrote them to dynamic characters changing to the environment.

In the original LOTR Aragorn had a fixed purpose to be king of Gondor from before the book's time even started.
Each step he took was to bring that time and place to be.
It was fascinating to read his character revealed piece by piece.

In the movie version he shirked his place as king. Then had a "dynamic" moment of going into the kingdom of the dead.
It felt hollow throughout.

Then another matter is throwing out consistencies in fictional worldbuilding.
When this happens I "Drop" whichever content as official that I enjoyed less.
Leaving one set that fits with itself and doing my best to forget the rest ever exists.

[sc_rufctr]

Just sayin... But one of the most bad ass scifi characters ever was Sigourney Weaver, "Ripley" in Alien - 1979!
(Can you believe she's 71 now? )

Also Sylvia Hoeks as "Luv" in Blade Runner 2049 was friggin awesome!
She was a "Replicant" with enhanced capabilities so it was believable.

Something I heard recently from someone who shall not be named in O.T.
- "Everything woke turns to ****".

So is Dune doomed? I hope not...

[GH85Carrera]

I love science fiction and have all my life. It is tedious to see the pretty, five foot 2 inch tall 90 pound female whip professional bodyguards the size the Dewayne Johnson with a single punch to the jaw. The old Newton law of equal reactions is just ignored, and has been for many decades.

I suspect the reason that the husband is a total bumbling fool that can't do anything right is men are the only target that will not have protests. Like the super evil bad guys are still Nazis, because we can all hate Nazis and no one cares if a nazi protests. Like the evil bad guys can be East Germans or the Soviets.

Of course the vast majority of Hollywood movies are never even close to accurate to reality. A 5 minute bare knuckle fist fight will have at most a trickle of blood from the corner of the mouth or the nose. Never any sort of facial bruising or swelling that would make the charterer look bad. Anyone that has ever seen the reality of a fat lip or a black eye know how silly it is.

Sound engineers are the worst. Drive past any large truck and they ALL have the same sound of the two tone Doppler effect horn. Brakes always sequel when coming to a stop, and even on a dirt road tires sequel like an old bias ply tire on a hot day in a corner.

I have resigned to just ignore the fact that now days, most movies are going to have the female Rambo type they can suffer through any abuse, but then whip all the men in a room, but she will emerge looking pretty with lipstick, makeup and hair looking nice, and likely smelling like a rose.

I have little doubt we will see a full on female Rambo, James Bond, or a Rooster Cogburn movie. The female Terminator has been done several times.

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by rsrguy

Here's the rub, the Keins character joined the freman as a result of...

I understand what you're saying. But the fact of the matter here is that the adaptation of books to film always result in characters being combined and/or dropped. That's why I mentioned that I will wait to actually see the movie before getting upset, because the "film" Keynes may only have a passing commonality with the "book" Keynes.

Now, shall we discuss how we think the movie will handle the "white savior" aspect of Paul? Or how there were billions of people killed by a Jihad after the events of the first book? Both of those seem like third-rail topics in today's society.

[sc_rufctr]

I think the problem here is that people love movies... And when they start messing with us it soon becomes annoying.

As a kid I loved going to the movies. Not so much now.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Also Sylvia Hoeks as "Luv" in Blade Runner 2049 was friggin awesome!
She was a "Replicant" with enhanced capabilities so it was believable.

Agree, iirc Ripley did her thing with brains and force multipliers, so to me, in context, believable.

[rsrguy]

Originally Posted by BReif61

Now, shall we discuss how we think the movie will handle the "white savior" aspect of Paul? Or how there were billions of people killed by a Jihad after the events of the first book? Both of those seem like third-rail topics in today's society.

True, I can't think of a book Hollywood hasn't puked all over..
Paul really didn't pull it off though did he? His son went on and iirc that didn't end well either. So, no savior after all?

[Tervuren]

A great deal of the younger people I know have abandoned US entertainment that favors what you outline.
Instead seeking out Japanese entertainment that places great respect for parent's abilities within the storytelling.
At some point the young become physically stronger and quicker than their parent's; the parent's longer time to acquire wisdom is still respected.

I liked it the "Japanese" way myself.
The dumb parents in cartoons frustrated me.
Admittedly I had a dad that I looked up to.

Originally Posted by masraum

How many kids would watch a show where the parents were smarter and had more experience and set appropriate boundaries?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Of course the vast majority of Hollywood movies are never even close to accurate to reality.

Where's that shocked face emoji? I thought Hollywood produced documentaries.