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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-26 10:57:55 +0000 UTC]

If I don't recall wrong, Arrakis is a lot ruddier in the books than in most visual media. Happens when your atmosphere is totally shot but still there.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-26 21:48:00 +0000 UTC]

Never read any of the books, only saw the movie.  A fellow I once worked with had read the book, and said that the fighting was more frequent and hand to hand.

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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-26 22:46:21 +0000 UTC]

Very much so. By his own admission Lynch couldn't make any sense of the "desert kung fu" as he called it, so he invented the whole Atreides association with sonic weapons just to have something to work with.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-27 01:21:36 +0000 UTC]

My workmate said that they were very adapt at using the blade, so most of the fighting was at close range.

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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-27 09:12:23 +0000 UTC]

Fencing and knife fighting are very important in the story, yes.

The film glosses over it, but the very existence of personal shields changes everything. It means you can no longer count on firearms to do the trick, and energy weapons explode (with a few kilotons of force) when shot through a shield. So part of it is cultural, but fencing is a technically vital soldier's skill as well.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-27 16:00:29 +0000 UTC]

Sounds like its part of the empirical culture, as honorable personal combat settles affronts made.

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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-27 16:15:58 +0000 UTC]

Well... yes and no. The book go into more detail than the film on the important of ritual combat (though it doesn't hold a candle to the guilty pleasure of Sting kicking MacLachlan in the family atomics), but it also goes into a lot more detail on assassination. And some of the methods are pretty bizarre.
This is a setting devised before nanotechnology came into sci-fi vogue, but after the Atreides takeover Arrakeen is decontaminated for "microdots", among other things. You get a lot of attack vectors when human computers are the norm.
Then in the second book, when all subtleties have failed, a motley crew of assassins attempt to do Paul in by simply blowing a hole straight into the core of Arrakis with a ridiculously powerful nuke.

In the game of political assassination, everybody in Dune accept the same rule: All other rules are forbidden.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-27 20:17:49 +0000 UTC]

My coworker said that the first book was very long as the fights were more widespread and often.

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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-27 20:25:52 +0000 UTC]

Indeed. It's a minor plot point how the Fremen initially find Paul particularly cruel since he has no idea how to end a fight quickly. For him there's decorum and fancy footwork and all - they just aim for the vitals and get the body recycled as quickly as possible.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-27 20:58:11 +0000 UTC]

The difference between cinematic kung fu and the real deal in actual combat.

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Tinselfire In reply to cullyferg2010 [2020-03-27 21:05:49 +0000 UTC]

Not necessarily in this case. The Fremen approach is equally ritualistic from their perspective. Just like everything else in their culture, combat is... well, I think "austere" is the right word.

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cullyferg2010 In reply to Tinselfire [2020-03-27 21:24:20 +0000 UTC]

Understood.

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