New Dune Prequel 'Dune: Prophecy' Premieres on HBO and Max (sfchronicle.com) 19
A new six-episode Dune series premiers tonight on HBO and Max — a prequel to the Denis Villeneuve-directed Dune movies set 10,000 years before the birth f Paul Atreides. The Hollywood Reporter writes that it "draws on source material from the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the origin of the Dune universe."
Cord-cutters can stream Dune: Prophecy online without cable on Max, with subscriptions starting at $9.99 per month through both Prime Video and the Max website directly. Amazon offers a seven-day free trial to the Max channel. Those who want to watch Dune: Prophecy online without a traditional cable service can also get Max as an add-on to existing streaming services, including Hulu and DirecTV Stream.
The San Francisco Chronicle describes the series as "">all palace intrigues, agonizing deaths and magical mind games." Taking a further cue from the network's top-rated Game of Thrones, this show indulges more sex and nudity than the Dune movies allow. It could be argued that elements like this introduce a liveliness often missing from the portentous big-screen behemoths, marking an improvement. Another fun touch here: Many characters are constantly baked.
Set a millennium before Frank Herbert's novels and the films' events, and a century after humans overthrew their "thinking machine" overlords, the psychoactive "Spice" from the desert planet Arrakis is already the most valued substance in the universe. It's not only vital for spaceship navigation and to expand the mental powers of sorceressy sisterhoods like the Bene Gesserit, it's the club drug of choice for younger members of the galaxy-ruling Great Houses. As ever with "Dune" business, control of the Spice trade fuels much of the conflict and character motivations.
Of which there are just enough to keep things interesting without becoming confusing... While the show can't match the outsize visual scope of Denis Villeneuve's films, it does pleasingly approximate those vast alien landscapes, Brutalist edifices and high-ceilinged chambers on a TV budget. For those who find Villeneuve's formal gigantism oppressive, the series' more human scale might be another welcome change of pace... There may not be an original thought in this "Dune" product's Spice-soaked head, but it is one professionally put-together piece of this sort of entertainment.
"Tasked with making more material with less money and time, Prophecy cannot hope to equal Villeneuve's aesthetic accomplishments," writes Variety. "But at its best, the show does justice to the intricate politics and ethical debates that form a cornerstone of Frank Herbert's fictional universe... The primary Dune plot finds many echoes throughout Prophecy..."
On the other hand, Vulture argues the six-episode series is "stuck in prequel quicksand," even calling it "an act of cowardice and abdication of creativity" (while also noting moments where it "feels like it's stretching itself to be something other than what we expect..."
The San Francisco Chronicle describes the series as "">all palace intrigues, agonizing deaths and magical mind games." Taking a further cue from the network's top-rated Game of Thrones, this show indulges more sex and nudity than the Dune movies allow. It could be argued that elements like this introduce a liveliness often missing from the portentous big-screen behemoths, marking an improvement. Another fun touch here: Many characters are constantly baked.
Set a millennium before Frank Herbert's novels and the films' events, and a century after humans overthrew their "thinking machine" overlords, the psychoactive "Spice" from the desert planet Arrakis is already the most valued substance in the universe. It's not only vital for spaceship navigation and to expand the mental powers of sorceressy sisterhoods like the Bene Gesserit, it's the club drug of choice for younger members of the galaxy-ruling Great Houses. As ever with "Dune" business, control of the Spice trade fuels much of the conflict and character motivations.
Of which there are just enough to keep things interesting without becoming confusing... While the show can't match the outsize visual scope of Denis Villeneuve's films, it does pleasingly approximate those vast alien landscapes, Brutalist edifices and high-ceilinged chambers on a TV budget. For those who find Villeneuve's formal gigantism oppressive, the series' more human scale might be another welcome change of pace... There may not be an original thought in this "Dune" product's Spice-soaked head, but it is one professionally put-together piece of this sort of entertainment.
"Tasked with making more material with less money and time, Prophecy cannot hope to equal Villeneuve's aesthetic accomplishments," writes Variety. "But at its best, the show does justice to the intricate politics and ethical debates that form a cornerstone of Frank Herbert's fictional universe... The primary Dune plot finds many echoes throughout Prophecy..."
On the other hand, Vulture argues the six-episode series is "stuck in prequel quicksand," even calling it "an act of cowardice and abdication of creativity" (while also noting moments where it "feels like it's stretching itself to be something other than what we expect..."
Read the books! (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Sure, except that most of the Dune books are terrible.
The first is passable if you're stuck on a desert island with nothing else to do, the second is borderline trash, the rest is complete garbage.
You'll be better off buying Feynman's lectures for this money and reading that instead.
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I would suggest "Surely you're joking Mr Feynman" for those on here allergic to math, though.
When you're all out of ideas, it's naked time! (Score:2)
Taking a further cue from the network's top-rated Game of Thrones, this show indulges more sex and nudity than the Dune movies allow. It could be argued that elements like this introduce a liveliness often missing from the portentous big-screen behemoths, marking an improvement.
Nah, turning your show into softcore hetero porn is usually a harbinger of bad writing.
Re: When you're all out of ideas, it's naked time! (Score:3)
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Duncan's numerous Ghola would agree.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, turning your show into softcore hetero porn is usually a harbinger of bad writing.
Is the writing in gay porn significantly better than in hetero porn? Do the pizza delivery men give Oscar worthy performances prior to banging the home owner or something?
So much time and nothing changed? (Score:2)
In 10,0000 years there is no difference in weapons, ships, or capabilities? Really?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Wish it was then at least explained. 10k years is more than human civilization existed on earth.
I find it extremely farfetched that nothing would advance at all in 10000 years.
Or so people think. (Score:2)
There's that Graham Hancock dude who is a recurrent guest with Joe Rogan.
Re:So much time and nothing changed? (Score:4, Informative)
I find it extremely farfetched that nothing would advance at all in 10000 years
I don't. If you consider actual Chinese history, with the resources, civilization, scholarship and technology they had >3000 years ago, we should have fully populated the moon, Mars and the asteroid belts by now. But we haven't, and it's down to how people behave in response to how they're governed.
In the Dune universe, everything is deliberately limited by culture and governance to a sort of hyper advanced steampunk, and interstellar space travel is almost entirely controlled by a monopoly.
Everything, that is, except the Thinking Machines, that have no such self inflicted limits, and ultimately recover from the Butlerian Jihad and expand to, again, challenge humans.
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Wish it was then at least explained. 10k years is more than human civilization existed on earth.
I find it extremely farfetched that nothing would advance at all in 10000 years.
Many machines on Ix.
Brian Herbert (Score:3, Funny)
prequel = obvious cash grab (Score:3, Interesting)
No thanks.
Like Frank Zappa's album: We're only in it for the Money.