Dune

About

Dune is a science-fiction novel series, first written by Frank Herbert, starting with the original novel Dune in 1965. Frank Herbert continued with his sequels in novels entitled Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), God Emperor of Dune (1981), Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985) ^[1]. Set in the distant future, the novel is centered around one family's stewardship over the harsh planet Arrakis and the confrontations surrounding the acquisition of the planet's valuable resource, spice or "melange," which gives users long life and enhanced mental capabilities.

History

In 1986, Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert's son) and coauthor Kevin J. Anderson continued the series with many prequels to original Dune franchise (dubbed "Expanded Dune" by fans)^[2].

Film Adaptations

In 1973, Chilean-French director, Alejandro Jodorowsky began his attempt of a Dune film which never made it to the production stage due to financial problems. His team included H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Jean Giraud and Dan O'Bannon, all of whom would later joining in making Alien (1979 film) and Frank Herbert himself ^[11].

In 1984, Dune directed by American David Lynch. The movie received mixed reviews. YouTuber bringbackthemusic uploaded the original trailer on July 19th, 2010 (shown below). In 2000, the SciFi channel also released a Dune TV Mini series.

In 2013, American director Frank Pavich made a documentary film titled Jodorowsky's Dune to explore the process of Jodorowsky's original attempt to make film adaptation of the novel (shown below). Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 98% "Certified Fresh" rating based on reviews from 108 critics ^[11].

In late 2018, Director Denis Villeneuve began working on a reboot of Dune. Warner Bros. and Legendary have scheduled the release for Nov. 20, 2020.

Reception

In 1966, Dune tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award ^[15] and won the inaugural Nebula Award^[16] for Best Novel. As of 2015, The first novel had sold over 20 million copies worldwide.^[17]

Impact

Dune spawned many game adaptation franchises, including strategy games such as Dune (1992), Dune II (1992), Dune 2000 (1998) and _ Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001). A 3D Adventure game (2001), Collectible card game (1997 shown below) and numerous board games were created. In 1979, the board game Alalon Hill's Dune was introduced which over 5,100 registered users on BoardGameGeek^[9].

Fallout has an in-game drug called "Mentat," which is a nod to the Mentats in Dune universe, who were humans trained to achieve superhuman analyzing and comprehension abilities, to make up for the banning of all computers and robots. The Fallout Wikia pages also notes "that the pills are colored red. Red-stained lips are a distinguishing characteristic of a Dune Mentat." – Fallout wikia's note ^[5].

2021 Film Adaptation

Dune, titled onscreen as Dune: Part One, is a 2021 film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. The film follows the journey of Paul Atreides, the young heir of House Atreides, during a conflict over the desert planet Arrakis. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac and Zendaya.

Fandom

In June 17, 2016, a Twitter page @dunedecide^[12] created a parody presidential campaign using a #feeltheflow (parodying Bernie Sanders' #feelthebern) for the @atreides2016 account and #MakeArrakisGreatAgain (parodying MAGA) for @harkonnen2016. The intention of the tweets so far were to help funding their kickstarter project about 2016 election parody comic, with the hypothetical background of Dune universe and characters ^[14].

Related Memes

He Who Controls the Spice Controls the Universe

"He Who Controls the Spice Controls the Universe" is a catchphrase from the 1984 Lynch film adaptation which has spawned numerous parodies. On September 15th, 2015, a parody was uploaded to imgur reading "He who controls the pumpkin spice controls the white girls" which substitutes Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte for spice.

"I controls the spice I controls the universe"is an Advice Animal version (shown below).

Joined the Cast of Dune

Joined the Cast of Dune refers to jokes about the star-studded cast of Denis Villenvue's remake of the science fiction film Dune. As multiple major casting announcements were released over the course of several weeks in the beginning of 2019, Twitter users began to joke about humorous further additions to the cast.

On January 29th, Variety^[18] reported that Oscar Isaac was in talks to join the cast of Dune. The following day, they reported that actress Zendaya was in talks to join as well.^[19] That day, January 30th, saw the first parodies about the multiple major casting announcements for the film. That day, Twitter user @AdamWhite^[20] joked that he'd been cast in Dune as a sandworm (shown below).

On February 1st, Twitter user @sethjdickinson tweeted "everyone has been cast in dune. all of us. tomorrow we board the heighliner for arrakis," gaining over 60 likes^[21] (shown below, left). After Variety^[22] reported Josh Brolin was cast in the film on February 13th, jokes about the growing cast of the film grew much more popular on Twitter. On February 14th, Twitter user @stevensantos^[23] tweeted "If you’re reading this tweet, you just got cast in DUNE.", gaining over 2,800 retweets and 17,000 likes (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References