Dune By: Frank Herbert For my book project I chose to compare and contrast the book Dune and the movie "Dune." The book was written in 1965 and, together with the five following books in the series, is considered by many to be the best Sci-Fi adventure of all time. The movie was released in theaters in 1985; it wasn't exactly a huge success but it didn't bomb either. The book takes place in the year 10,191. Most of the story takes place on the desolate desert planet of Arrakis, also known as Dune. The setting at the beginning of the book is as follows: The known universe is ruled by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam the IV. He is Emperor because he is the majority share holder in CHOAM, the one and only inter-global company. The Spacing Guild is the only provider of space travel. The Guild uses the spice melange to prolong their lives and it gives them the ability to fold space, or travel without moving. The Bene Gesserit is a group of women who have trained their awareness to the most acute sensitivity possible. The Bene Gesserit witches have been manipulating blood lines in for thousands of years in the search for the "Kwisatz Haderach," the Universe's super-being. The Landsraad is an alliance of all the major houses in the universe that makes it possible for them to stand up to the Emperor. Behind the entire political scene is the spice, melange, the poison that gives life. The spice allows the mutated Guild steersmen to see the future and decide which path is the correct one when traveling through space; without the spice space travel would be impossible. The spice prolongs life and is what gives the Bene Gesserit witches their truthsay, that is the ability to tell when someone is lying and to tell what the truth is in that lie. And the one thing that gives the spice the ability to create such a political hotbed is that it only exists on one planet, Arrakis. Before I talk about the differences between the book and the movie I would like to outline the basic story. The Great Houses Atreides and Harkonnen have been feuding for nearly one-hundred years. The Emperor has learned that House Atreides has created an army trained within a hair of the efficiency of the Emperor's army. Therefore, he has sided with the Harkonnens thinking that through them he can destroy the Atreides without upsetting the Landsraad. The Emperor's plan is this, he will ask Duke Leto Atreides, the leader of House Atreides, to exchange his current fife of the planet Caladan for the Harkonnen's fife of Arrakis. The Atreides know this is supposed to be a trap but they won't turn it down because of the tremendous wealth available to them if they can survive and control the spice. Because the spice can only be found on Arrakis and it is so dangerous to mine it there it is extremely costly. The Duke's heir is the Lady Jessica's and his son, Paul Atreides. Paul is fifteen at the time of the crossing to Arrakis. Just before leaving for Arrakis, he is tested by the Bene Gesseritt Reverend Mother Gauis Helen Mohiam with the Gom Jabbar. The Gom Jabbar is what the Bene Gesseritt use to determine whether or not a person's body has the capability of overpowering instinct with mental prowess. To administer the test Paul places his right hand into a box held by the Reverend Mother. She then quickly places a needle by his neck. This needle has the Gom Jabbar poison that kills in an instant. Slowly his hand begins to feel and itching, then pain, as the pain becomes greater and greater it begins to feel as if the flesh was dropping off his hand. In the end he keeps his hand in the box long enough to survive. The test shows whether or not you mind has the power to overcome instincts. Arrakis is also known as Dune because it is basically one huge desert. Never one drop of moisture falls on Arrakis ever. Once on Arrakis the local people, the Fremen, learn that there is a Bene Gesserit amongst them, in the form of the Duke's concubine, the Lady Jessica. On Arrakis the Atreides meets the Planetologist Liet Kynes. From Kynes they learn that it is possible to turn the desolate deserts of Arrakis into a paradise. The entire Harkonnen plan revolved around getting a trader deep inside the Atreides. The made Doctor Yueh the trader by kidnapping his wife and telling him that if he does as they say he can join his wife. Doctor Yueh, sabotages the shield generators and administers an anesthetic to the Duke and his family. When the Harkonnens attack the battle is quick and decisive but the trader provides an escape for Jessica and Paul. Jessica and Paul are taken onto an ornithopter, an aircraft capable of hovering, and taken to the desert where it is intended that they be left to a sandworm. They discover that Doctor Yueh has left a frimkit with two liters of water and stillsuits. A stillsuit is basically a body fluid recovery suit that can cut your water loss to under a thimbleful. The suit covers the whole body from head to toe except the hands. You breathe in through a mouthpiece that filters out sand and out through a nose piece that picks up any moisture in your breath. Over all of this you wear a Jubba cloak that can keep you cool even in the hottest temperatures. After grabbing the frimkit, they run outside to see one of the family's fighters, Duncan Idaho, and the sympathizing planetologist, Liet Kynes, waiting for them with another ornithopter. They get away and go to one of the imperial testing stations scattered across Arrakis. Here the Imperial troops, called Sardaukar, catch up with them and they are forced to flee. Duncan is killed covering Paul and Jessica's retreat to another waiting ornithopter. In order to elude their pursuers Paul and Jessica fly their 'thopter into a Coriolis Storm. A Coriolis Storm is a storm that's winds have been amplified by the rotation of the planet. A Coriolis Storm's winds can reach 700 kilometers per hour. It said that an Arrakeen storm can take a body and grind away every last piece, including the bones, until nothing is left. They barely make it out of the storm alive and their 'thopter was mortally damaged. They are forced to crash land on the sand and run to the safety of rock fearing that they might bring a worm. After this the two are forced to go two miles across the sand to reach the next outcropping of rock. They barely make without being eaten by a worm, but at the last second somewhere else someone starts a thumper drawing away the worm. On this next rock outcropping they are captured by a band of fremen on there way back to their sietch, or home. The fremen intend to kill Paul and Jessica and take their water so Jessica is forced to use the "Voice," a Bene Gesserit ability that allows a member of the sisterhood to control a person by using the correct sounds in saying something, to grab hold of there leader and put him in a death grip. The fremen says, "If you will teach us this weirding way of battle we will gladly take you into our tribe." Now Paul learns that Jessica has been carrying his baby sister in her womb. When the band gets back to the sietch Paul is named Usul, as his sietch name, and Paul Maud'dib to every one else. Once they got back to the Jessica was informed that their Reverend Mother was to old and that she was to become the new Reverend Mother. She did this by taking the Water of Life, the water that a sandworm drowned in water gives off at death, and transmuting it inside your body. However the old Reverend Mother does not know that Jessica is bearing a child so when she takes the Water of Life the baby is affected the same way the mother is and has all the memories of all the Reverend Mothers before her. Once Paul gets to the sietch he meets Chani, Liet Kynes' daughter, whom he falls in love with and later she becomes his wife in all but name. Over the next two years the fremen, lead by Maud'dib, bring spice production to a halt on Arrakis. They do this by rocketing the harvesters and killing as many Harkonnens as humanly possible. As spice production stops all eyes turn on Arrakis and the Emperor himself is forced, by the guild, to remedy the problem. The fremen are ready to be lead, but before Paul Maud'dib can lead them he must first accomplish the thing that all fremen men must do to become men. He must ride Shai-hulud as a leader of men. Sandworms, a.k.a. Shai-hulud a.k.a. Makers, are giant worms found only on Arrakis. These giant beasts can be 500 meters long and rove the open desert protecting the rich spice sands. Any regular vibration on the sand will attract a worm, so fremen try to imitate the sound that shuffling sand makes; walking step, slip, slip, step, step, step and so on in an irregular patternless walk. The fremen ride the giant worms using "Thumpers" to attract them and "Maker Hooks" to open up one of the many ridges along the worm's skin. Once they have planted a "Maker Hook" into an arch the worm will rotate the exposed section of his skin to the top to protect it from sand blowing into the vitals below the skin. With a "Maker Hook" in a sandworm would not even consider diving below the sand and a good sized worm can be ridden for a hundred miles. Worms eat the sand plankton that inhabits the sand near the spice, that is why they protect the spice. Maud'dib survives this ordeal easily and is now ready to lead the fremen. Before he can attack the emperor he knows he must take the water of life so that he can see the future more clearly and predict the best plan of battle. After taking the Water of life Maud'dib falls into a deep trance which only Chani can bring him out of after two weeks. To attack Maud'dib blows a hole using atomics in the protective rock barrier around the capital city of Arrakeen known as the shield wall. This allows the huge Coriolis Storm that is brewing to penetrate in and take out all of the house shields etc. He also needs this hole so that the sandworm riders can easily get in and attack. The attack is a complete success with the Emperor and his court easily taken captive. Just before the attack begins Maud'dib's sister Alia is brought before the Emperor who then learns who Maud'dib really is. When the Emperor and his entourage retreat back into their ship, Alia kills the Baron with a her Gom Jabbar needle. In the end Maud'dib is forced to fight the one Harkonnen left alive, Feyd-Rautha the Baron's nephew and the na-Baron, or heir to the Baronship. He barely wins the fight because Rautha uses a poisoned blade in the fight. In the very end Maud'dib forces the Emperor to marry his daughter Irulan to him with the dowry of all of his CHOAM holdings, making him Emperor. The book and the movie had basically the same thing happen, with one major difference. The major difference was that in the movie the fremen used a thing called a weirding module, which the Atreides brought to them, in the place of rockets, stunners, etc. Overall they can be considered very different but it just depend on how you imagined everything when reading and what the producer imagined, also you have to take into effect that these were 1985 special effects, that really didn't look very good at all. I read the book first so I wrote down all the differences I saw in the movie, here they are. Towards the beginning you actually see one of the guild steersman talking with the Emperor. There are these things called glow globes that are basically just floating lights, in the movie I thought they were way messed up looking like birds. The personal shields don't look very real, although this may be because of the graphics available, and it doesn't seem like the sword play is very realistic. In the movie I thought the Baron was made into to much of a psycho and the suspensor field that is used in the movie to make him float is nothing like the way I imagined it. In the movie they elaborate a lot more on space travel, showing how it's done and calling it folding space. The ornithopters were nothing like the way I imagined them, they are portrayed here as kind of space ships while I thought of them as part helicopter part airplane. They have Duncan Idaho die in the first castle which means the whole scene with Liet Kynes and Duncan never happens and they never get a second 'thopter which, of course, means they never fly through the Coriolis Storm. In the book a ton of pages is dedicated to talking about Paul Maud'dib's prescience while it is never really talked about in the movie. In the movie the kill Liet Kynes but never say why. The stillsuits in the movie are missing the mouthpiece, hood and white Jubba Cloak. I think that the Harkonnen home world of Giedi Prime is mad to be much to dark in the movie. In the movie the water of life sequence is way, way, way different than in the book. In the movie they only mention the sietch that Paul was first in and leave out all the others. A Coriolis Storm is a storm that's winds have been amplified by the rotation of the planet. A Coriolis Storm's winds can reach 700 kilometers per hour. It said that an Arrakeen storm can take a body and grind away every last piece, including the bones, until nothing is left.