Lynch Ideas Frank Herbert Incorporated into Dune

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
739
1,668
About a year ago, I reread Frank Herbert’s Dune books after seeing the Villeneuve movie. Although I never got around to posting it, I made note of some points where the final two books written before Herbert’s death—Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)—adopt elements from Lynch’s film into the canon of the books. Herbert was on record as really liking Lynch’s film, aside from the awful ending which totally undermines the point of the book. On the off-chance that this is interesting to someone besides me, here are the points where I noticed Herbert taking a cue from Lynch.

“Stages” of Guild Navigators
The concept of a “third-stage” Navigator is not present anywhere in the earlier books, and seems to have been a Lynch invention. Herbert adopted this in Heretics, referring to a “third-stage Guild steersman.”

Folding Space
In the early books, the Navigators’ power is simply a high degree of prescience due to their excessive spice use. Previously, although interstellar travel at light speed was possible, it inevitably resulted in fatal collisions with moons, planets, space debris, etc., because no pilot could react quickly enough at such high speeds. The Navigators were a game-changer because they could see all these obstacles way in advance and chart the ship around them. Lynch seems to have invented the rather cool idea that they can actually “fold space,” and Herbert followed suit and retconned this as the Navigators’ power beginning with Heretics.

Description/Appearance of the Navigator
When a Navigator appeared in Dune: Messiah, he was described as an “elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands - a fish in a strange sea.” This description was the jumping-off point for Lynch, but clearly he and Carlo Rambaldi went in a different direction. In Chapterhouse, Herbert has amended his description to echo the portrayal in the film, referring to “the Navigator’s tiny v of a mouth and the ugly flap of nose. Mouth and nose appeared small on a Navigator’s gigantic face with its pulsing temples.”

Giedi Prime
In the first Dune book, the loose description of the Harkonnens’ home world is a fairly generic medieval type of thing. Beginning with Heretics, the planet is repeatedly described as having oil soaked into the ground even 5000 years after the Harkonnens abandoned it, reflecting the industrial feel of Lynch’s interpretation. Moreover, the lengthy description of the capital, Barony, in Heretics, clearly owes a great deal to Lynch’s depiction: “It had relied exclusively on suspensor guide-beams for transport of people and material—all of them high up. No ground-level openings. … The plan translated physically into a city that used every possible square meter of vertical and horizontal space for things other than movement of goods and humans. The guide-beam openings required only enough head room and elbow room for the universal transport pods. … Suspensor tracks shot through it like worm holes—straight, curved, flipping off at oblique angles…up, down, sideways. Except for the rectangular absolute imposed by Harkonnen whim, Barony was built to a particular population-design criterion: maximum stuffing with minimum expenditure of materials.”
 
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lost-on-the-highway

Sparkwood & 21
Oct 27, 2023
7
18
literally about to begin my re-read of all six books, and I never noticed this the first time around! The later books are really underappreciated imo, Heretics is probably one of my favourites of the series aside from the original, and it's cool to see how much weirder/trippier they get. Will definitely keep a closer eye out for details this time around!
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
literally about to begin my re-read of all six books, and I never noticed this the first time around! The later books are really underappreciated imo, Heretics is probably one of my favourites of the series aside from the original, and it's cool to see how much weirder/trippier they get. Will definitely keep a closer eye out for details this time around!
Yes, the only problem with Frank Herbert's Dune series was the iffy Chapterhouse, written without Beverly Herbert's input. It was a bit all over the place and you could tell the author wasn't at his best psychologically or physically. The sequel, prequel and interquel books by Herbert Jr and Kevin J Anderson... horrible.

There's a myth that the later Frank Herbert books are poor. They're great. God Emperor is really deep and any attempt to film what is, in essence, a dive into the thought processes of a god would be almost impossible. We'd end up with Duncan vs Leto and little more. Heretics is wonderful. It's sad that Chapterhouse doesn't live up to Heretics' promise and that there are no more (proper) follow ups.
 

lost-on-the-highway

Sparkwood & 21
Oct 27, 2023
7
18
Yes, the only problem with Frank Herbert's Dune series was the iffy Chapterhouse, written without Beverly Herbert's input. It was a bit all over the place and you could tell the author wasn't at his best psychologically or physically. The sequel, prequel and interquel books by Herbert Jr and Kevin J Anderson... horrible.

There's a myth that the later Frank Herbert books are poor. They're great. God Emperor is really deep and any attempt to film what is, in essence, a dive into the thought processes of a god would be almost impossible. We'd end up with Duncan vs Leto and little more. Heretics is wonderful. It's sad that Chapterhouse doesn't live up to Heretics' promise and that there are no more (proper) follow ups.
Agreed. Chapterhouse felt so underwhelming after Heretics and I couldn't figure out why. It was fine I suppose, but as the grand finale to something so massive as the Dune series, it didn't really do the trick for me. Maybe this was because there was supposed to be a seventh book that Herbert didn't finish that would have tied things up, but as it stands, I honestly just want to know what happens with Sheeana and the sandworm in that escape craft.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
739
1,668
Sheeana’s character and the relative lack of payoff is odd. There’s all this build-up where Dar is referring to Sheeana as the next logical step from Muad’Dib and the Tyrant, and is horrified by her, but nothing Sheeana actually has planned seems to support that. I guess this would have paid off in the seventh book we sadly never got, but as things stand, it feels rather strange and I’m not sure what Herbert was getting at.

And the “imprinting”/awakening of the Miles Teg ghola is easily the most icky, disturbing scene in the series. I feel gross reading it, and that’s rare for me.

But I do have to acknowledge Chapterhouse for being absolutely batshit crazy, maybe upping the ante even more on Heretics in that regard. There’s some wild stuff in there that I love. And it actually has a proper climax, unlike Heretics which just sort of fizzles out (Herbert was historically not great at endings). And I love Daniel and Marty. Despite the frustrating lack of explanation (or perhaps because of it, and the ability to dream up my own backstory), I really enjoy those two. (Yes, I know the explanation Brian Herbert invented for them, and I choose to ignore it because it’s stupid.)
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
Agreed. Chapterhouse felt so underwhelming after Heretics and I couldn't figure out why. It was fine I suppose, but as the grand finale to something so massive as the Dune series, it didn't really do the trick for me. Maybe this was because there was supposed to be a seventh book that Herbert didn't finish that would have tied things up, but as it stands, I honestly just want to know what happens with Sheeana and the sandworm in that escape craft.
Beverly was Frank's editor, muse, and sounding board. Much of the Bene Gesserit philosophy and culture came from Beverly. She died before Chapterhouse came out and you can feel there's something missing. The plotting is flabby compared with all the others. It's noticeably less well written. Sadly, Frank's seeding of future stories comes to nought. I suspect he might have been a bit like Joss Whedon, in that Joss would litter Buffy, Firefly and Angel with opaque references that could be built on later without actually necessarily knowing what they meant at the time of writing.

Sheeana’s character and the relative lack of payoff is odd. There’s all this build-up where Dar is referring to Sheeana as the next logical step from Muad’Dib and the Tyrant, and is horrified by her, but nothing Sheeana actually has planned seems to support that. I guess this would have paid off in the seventh book we sadly never got, but as things stand, it feels rather strange and I’m not sure what Herbert was getting at.
As I say above, I think Frank Herbert seeded ideas without thinking through what they meant until later. I don't believe Frank left an old computer disc with the plot of the seventh novel sketched out. That wasn't how he worked.

And the “imprinting”/awakening of the Miles Teg ghola is easily the most icky, disturbing scene in the series. I feel gross reading it, and that’s rare for me.
I often wondered how such a scene would be handled on screen. I imagined hard cutting as the scene got going to the adult actor of Teg yelling 'Imprinter!' before jumping back to the child Teg. It was yet another scene that made me feel Beverly's absence. The awakening of Duncan in Heretics was far more interesting, psychologically and it would have been more interesting having Duncan confronting Teg in the same way Teg had confronted Duncan.

But I do have to acknowledge Chapterhouse for being absolutely batshit crazy, maybe upping the ante even more on Heretics in that regard. There’s some wild stuff in there that I love. And it actually has a proper climax, unlike Heretics which just sort of fizzles out (Herbert was historically not great at endings).
Yes, I've never been so absorbed by cultures derived from humans' as I have been with Dune. They're more alien than a lot of extraterrestrial, different species races created in science fiction.

And I love Daniel and Marty. Despite the frustrating lack of explanation (or perhaps because of it, and the ability to dream up my own backstory), I really enjoy those two.
The names are the thing I find most jarring. I find the idea that they might be some super-advanced, hyper-evolved face dancers intriguing. Using such colloquial 20th century names is what pulls me out of the story somewhat.

(Yes, I know the explanation Brian Herbert invented for them, and I choose to ignore it because it’s stupid.)
Everything Kevin J Anderson (who I suspect did most of the work) and Brian Herbert 'invented' was stupid. It's clear they hadn't even read the books properly, given the endless contradictions. One of their 'interquel' novels essentially stated that everything Frank wrote was in-universe propaganda and thus if Anderson and Herbert Jr contradict Frank Herbert, their (appalling) writing takes precedence.

The Anderson-Herbert Jr books are poorly written, which is the worst sin. The writing has none of Frank's sophistication, no subtext, no deeply-thought-out philosophical underpinnings. It's like an over-enthusiastic 14-year-old who got a very average mark in English classes got to write the books. The dialogue is trite and childish, the names straight out of an online Star Wars names generator, the boring action scenes essentially 'pew-pew!' third rate Star Wars fanfic battle scenes. Frank, significantly, had a level of sophistication where he rarely wrote action scenes in the later books: people would charge into battle at the end of a chapter, then we'd pick up in the aftermath, often to devastating effect. The Anderson-Herbert Jr books feel like cynical, money-grabbing exercises to milk everything possible from an IP. Essentially, they're third rate tie-in novels, which is unsurprising, given Anderson's background in writing tie-in novels to TV shows and movies.

Really, the Dune series deserved the 'Christopher Tolkien' treatment. Allegedly, Frank's materials were left to rot in a garage for 15 years before Anderson and Herbert Jr decided to write new books. I took a look on Amazon recently and was surprised to see they're still churning them out. They never really merit any mention anywhere and no one ever really discusses them, yet they're loaded with five-star reviews. If you look into it more deeply, you find the authors have a system on their website where they offer 'rewards' to people for positive online reviews, so the whole thing feels like a gangster-ish con trick.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
739
1,668
Everything Kevin J Anderson (who I suspect did most of the work) and Brian Herbert 'invented' was stupid. It's clear they hadn't even read the books properly, given the endless contradictions. One of their 'interquel' novels essentially stated that everything Frank wrote was in-universe propaganda and thus if Anderson and Herbert Jr contradict Frank Herbert, their (appalling) writing takes precedence.

The Anderson-Herbert Jr books are poorly written, which is the worst sin. The writing has none of Frank's sophistication, no subtext, no deeply-thought-out philosophical underpinnings. It's like an over-enthusiastic 14-year-old who got a very average mark in English classes got to write the books. The dialogue is trite and childish, the names straight out of an online Star Wars names generator, the boring action scenes essentially 'pew-pew!' third rate Star Wars fanfic battle scenes. Frank, significantly, had a level of sophistication where he rarely wrote action scenes in the later books: people would charge into battle at the end of a chapter, then we'd pick up in the aftermath, often to devastating effect. The Anderson-Herbert Jr books feel like cynical, money-grabbing exercises to milk everything possible from an IP. Essentially, they're third rate tie-in novels, which is unsurprising, given Anderson's background in writing tie-in novels to TV shows and movies.

Really, the Dune series deserved the 'Christopher Tolkien' treatment. Allegedly, Frank's materials were left to rot in a garage for 15 years before Anderson and Herbert Jr decided to write new books. I took a look on Amazon recently and was surprised to see they're still churning them out. They never really merit any mention anywhere and no one ever really discusses them, yet they're loaded with five-star reviews. If you look into it more deeply, you find the authors have a system on their website where they offer 'rewards' to people for positive online reviews, so the whole thing feels like a gangster-ish con trick.
I haven't read any of the KJA/Brian Herbert books. I read the synopses of Books 7 and 8 on Wikipedia out of curiosity to see how they concluded the story, and by the end of just reading that, I felt like I'd lost more brain cells than a week of binge drinking. I somehow doubt that Frank's plan (if he had one at all) was to bring literally every character back to life as a ghola. Folks in my building will leave books and magazines in the laundry room as a sort of literary exchange program, and a year or two ago I did see one of the KJA/BH books sitting there, so I paged through it while sudsing my duds. The writing was indeed abysmal, and it involved Paul going to Ix even though the first Dune book says he has never left Caladan. I'm sometimes on the Dune subreddit and I've read some stuff on there about the prequel/interquel/sequel books as well, and anything I read about them is just baffling and infuriating.

It is really confusing how literally no one seems to like these books, and yet there are so many of them. The fact that they keep getting published must mean someone is buying them!
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
I haven't read any of the KJA/Brian Herbert books. I read the synopses of Books 7 and 8 on Wikipedia out of curiosity to see how they concluded the story, and by the end of just reading that, I felt like I'd lost more brain cells than a week of binge drinking. I somehow doubt that Frank's plan (if he had one at all) was to bring literally every character back to life as a ghola.
Chapter House mentioned the cells of the various past characters being kept in a phial. Again, it was a bit of Frank seeding things for possible use later. I did think that maybe Paul would return to face the consequences of his choices in the past, but not literally everyone.

Folks in my building will leave books and magazines in the laundry room as a sort of literary exchange program, and a year or two ago I did see one of the KJA/BH books sitting there, so I paged through it while sudsing my duds. The writing was indeed abysmal, and it involved Paul going to Ix even though the first Dune book says he has never left Caladan. I'm sometimes on the Dune subreddit and I've read some stuff on there about the prequel/interquel/sequel books as well, and anything I read about them is just baffling and infuriating.
It's worse than that: the third prequel novel involves a big storyline about Paul being born on Kaitain when the first page of the original novel states that Paul was born on Caladan! Hence the later retcon that Frank's books' continuity doesn't count. I made it through four of the Anderson-Herbert Jr books something like 20 years ago and I never want to go near them again. That they even exist makes me irritable.

It is really confusing how literally no one seems to like these books, and yet there are so many of them. The fact that they keep getting published must mean someone is buying them!
Allegedly both writers are members of a certain religious cult founded by another science fiction writer and these books are bought in bulk by that organisation. Members considering going apostate are perhaps forced to read them as punishment! :D
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
739
1,668
Chapter House mentioned the cells of the various past characters being kept in a phial. Again, it was a bit of Frank seeding things for possible use later. I did think that maybe Paul would return to face the consequences of his choices in the past, but not literally everyone.
Yeah, I remember that. I always wondered what the plan was there. But the idea of reviving the whole original cast is so dumb, and goes against everything that Frank did with the first five books. He refused to ever settle on a status quo, which would have made writing the series way easier (and probably more profitable, if he'd just tried to keep repeating the formula of the first book, the most commercially logical thing to do). Instead, each book jumped forward in time, moved in new directions stylistically, introduced new characters and ideas and locations and power dynamics. The idea of just bringing back Paul and Jessica and the Baron and Stilgar etc. for fan service is everything that the series was absolutely NOT about.
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
Yeah, I remember that. I always wondered what the plan was there. But the idea of reviving the whole original cast is so dumb, and goes against everything that Frank did with the first five books. He refused to ever settle on a status quo, which would have made writing the series way easier (and probably more profitable, if he'd just tried to keep repeating the formula of the first book, the most commercially logical thing to do). Instead, each book jumped forward in time, moved in new directions stylistically, introduced new characters and ideas and locations and power dynamics. The idea of just bringing back Paul and Jessica and the Baron and Stilgar etc. for fan service is everything that the series was absolutely NOT about.
Yes, even if you accept that the civilisations of the future shown in Dune are beyond our wildest imaginings, how on Earth would Paul Atreides be the right person to deal with a situation beyond his wildest imaginings, given he's five thousand years into his own future? Most people - including leaders - from 1923 or even 1973 would be utterly out of their depth if thrown into the present day! The present world is beyond my what I conceived of in the 1980s. Maybe I should resurrect Homer to deal with the present economic crises and Agamemnon to deal with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East! I'm also sure Gilgamesh and Enkidu would also have plenty of insight into drone warfare and satellite-guided long-range missiles!! :D

I imagined Paul Atreides perhaps returning in a final book to see the civilisation he created thousands of years earlier by choosing the Golden Path. There would be something karmic about that and it would wrap up the series in poetic fashion, stranding Paul in an utterly alien civilisation with Duncan now a stranger and in effectively his superior, for whom the name 'Atreides' is a curse. After all, Paul has access to vast numbers of other people's past lives, while Duncan has effectively lived and died for five thousand years as a consequence of the Atreides.
 
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