Back during Gulf War I, I remember watching the David Lynch movie Dune, and thinking it odd how many similarities there were:
as an opponent, an Emperor named “Shaddam”
War in the Desert
War in which control a commodity needed for transportation played a pivotal role
Those night-vision scenes that looked so much like the real thing (only in orange instead of green)
Discussion of the use of atomic weapons during the war.
Paul’s speech that “A Storm is coming – our storm!” (Did the namers of “Desert Storm” read Dune?)
It’s weird that the SciFi channel should be running their adaptation of Children of Dune at just this time. The War in the Desert thing, the Arabic-inspired names and situations, the fight over control of Spice, all make it seem eerily timely.
And I can’t help thinking what, if anything, people outside the US are making of all this.
We have dynasties of leaders (on BOTH sides, no less!), Some higher-up regulatory committe (U.N./Spacing Guild) A land thats been changing hands and fought over for centuries/millenia…
Lets just hope Saddamn doesn’t use his trump card- Sandworms! :eek:
Since “Dune” is a work of fiction, created on purpose by an author who knew what he was doing, I’d hardly call it “eerie.” All the things you mention are pretty standard facets of any Middle-Eastern war.
From this site:
cad.cjb.uni.cc/dl/school/Senior%20Paper%20-%20Main%20Paper.doc
Dune bears many allusions to the real world, circa 1965. CHOAM, the spice processing corporation in Dune holds an analog to OPEC in the real world in a sense that CHOAM controls the distribution of spice. The scarcity of water in Dune is likened to the scarcity of oil in the United States (Herbert and O’Reilly 98). Spice itself is comparable to oil in the mid-east – most governments need it but a regulating body holds a tight grip on it. Arrakis of Dune holds its analog with Iraq. In fact, some pronunciations of Arrakis sound indisputably similar to the oil-rich Iraq (Writers 371).
that’s what strruck me as eerie. The Spice/Oil parallel is obvious and intended, as are the Arabic influences, but the above stuff couldn’t have been predicted.
Don’t know about “Saddam” versus “Shaddam,” but night-vision devices were first-used in WWII, (scroll down) and were certainly used in small quantities by advanced militaries all over the world at the time Herbert wrote “Dune.” He didn’t predict them; they already existed.
As for the use of the “storm,” analogy, this is not as big an accident as it seems. This analogy is quite common in religious texts that originate in the Middle East, which includes the Koran, the Bible, and the Talmud. “Desert Storm,” was most likely chosen as a term that would resonate wtih the greatest number of people, since much of the American population is familiar with Biblical imagery. Much of the Middle Eastern population would’ve understood the term’s connotation in the same way, from reading the Koran.
Since Frank Herbert studied ME cultures (read this essay) it is not surprising that he used the same analogy, in the same way. He was drawing on the same tradition.
Of course, it’s also possible (though less likely) that whoever thought up “Desert Storm” was a Frank Herbert fan.
You are a literal-minded sort. I didn’t say that Herbert predicted the use of night vision. In fact, IIRC, it’s not in the book at all. I was referring to the way the images in the movie looked very similar to the striking images that showed up on network TV the first night. And I still think that that’s not something obvious and inevitable. Nor is the choice of “Storm,” to describe a sweeping military campaign – they could’ve chosen “Whirlwind” or “Hawk” or something else equally common to the Middle East.
**Bush
Bush Messiah
Children of Bush** (The girls are released upon the helpless Republican Guard)
Sorry, I had forgotten in the OP you referred to the movie, not the book. But still, there is a perfectly plausible explanation.
The U.S. Army was using essentially the same night-vision devices in Desert Storm it had used in the early 80s, when “Dune” was made. So the resemblance between the images in both cases could hardly be a coincidence. The makers of the film could not have “predicted” the appearance of things through a night vision device, if such a device already existed at the time and produced images identical to that which they are credited with predicting!
Obviously, the F/X people for the movie had seen the real night vision devices in use at the time, and simply copied the look of the image they produced. There is nothing remarkable about that.
And as for your counter examples of “Whirlwind” and “hawk,” well, “storm” is a much more general word than whirlwind, and therefore more easily translated and understood. And keep in mind, the title “Desert Storm” was as much for the American public and media to toss around as anyone else. It’s really quite and ingenious phrase: two words that connote a place and and violent action, but which also translate cleanly into the same meaning inalmost every language, especially Arabic and English.
And as for “Hawk,” large swaths of the Middle East are trackless desert, including most of the Arabian peninsula and Iraq. There are no hawks there, making use of the term nonsensical.
You really don’t seem to get this. I’m not saying that Herbert or the conceptualists on Lynch’s movie predicted developments in a way that turns SF people into prophets – good SF doesn’t invariably work that way. I have no doubt that they knew about night-vision goggles. Multichannel plate technology is old stuff by now.
I’m saying that it’s odd how just these particular elements that characterized the Gulf War also made their way into the film. It could’ve been the case for a movie set in contemporary times, too – the thing that amazes me is the number of items and imagery. Before Desert Storm, the image of night-vision attacks was not a common one, and wasn’t associated with any other war or action.
Your arguments about Whirlwind vs. Storm don’t hold water either (to chaotically mix a metaphor) – my point is that one source or the other could have used one term and the other could’ve used the other (as in James Clavell’s Whirlwind). They didn’t.
So what’s the coincidence involved with night vision goggles? That both the story and history used them? Yeah, and they also both used guns and soldiers. That’s hardly a surprise; you’d expect any military which had them to use them. That the imagery looked the same? Insofar as they both looked like scenery through night vision goggles. I mean, it’s not like Hollywood didn’t know what night vision looked like. And “storm” was hardly a major image throughout Dune. There probably were a couple of references to whirlwinds and hawks, as well, and if Desert Storm had been named Desert Hawk, we’d notice those instead.
Long live the fighters!
Operational Plan: Deep beneath the shifting sands of Iraq glide the gargantuan sandworms which protect the spice that so compels the great houses of the landsraad to battle for control of the Gulf region. Without this life-prolonging substance all travel throughout the world would grind to a halt and whichever nation controls the spice so controls the universe! For the good of the United States the spice must flow, and so Emperor George W. Bush the second has provided fifty legions of his Sardaukar terror troops to occupy the spice rich Iraqi capital of Irraqeen. Bush and his generals have dismissed the threat of various nomadic tribesmen spotted by mercenaries in the deep desert and know that if they destroy Seitch Baghdad that all resistance in the region will collapse. No expense will be spared in ensuring the security of International spice mining operations and if necessary the Emperor is prepared to authorize a campaign of genocide; the extermination of all life in the Gulf region.
Possible Threats: The Emperor may have dismissed the nomadic tribes of so-called “Fremen” in the region as little more than a nuisance, but many military analysts predict their numbers to be much greater than those recorded in a cursory Imperial census. A few CIA reports circulating even hint that these desert dwellers are capable of riding on sandworms, which they refer to as “The Maker”. If the Fremen opposition were to materialize in large numbers and mounted on the backs of those creatures they might seriously disrupt spicing in the region. While the Emperor arrogantly believes that his forces can shelter behind the massive rock of the Shield Wall it is rumored that a rogue house might provide the Fremen with atomics. With such terrible weapons, or possibly through the interaction of a las gun and a Holtzman shield, the Fremen could blast a hole in the Shield Wall and they and their hideous sandworms could annihilate the Emperor’s forces. If the International Auto Industry Guild feels that the flow of spice for their SUVs is in danger of being cut off they will force the Emperor to concede defeat and deal instead with the Fremen.
Estimated Casualties: Imperial strategists estimate minimal casualties among the Sardaukar troops and allied forces of Baron Tony Blair and House United Kingdom. However, many independent observers suspect that tens of thousands of Sardaukar and all of the forces of House United Kingdom could be neutralized in a protracted campaign of guerilla warfare.
Just a tangential nitpick about the quoted author’s understanding of the novel (I agree with the general assumption that Dune is partially an allegory of Mideast politics): CHOAM doesn’t control spice, it controls trade of manufactured goods. For millenia prior to the novel and until its climax, spice is controlled by whichever house in charge of Arrakis, under the grace of the Emperor. CHOAM concerns may be involved in retailing the spice, but that’s all.
It would be scary except that the fremen had advantages the iraqis don’t. The absence of firearms+shields to make their knifefighting skills advantagous, for one.
Herbert is definatly making a statement about imperialism. His mystical, fictional substance (spice) could have taken any name, but no matter what era you are in, there is one commodity valued above all others. Idivdually these commodies are just items, but control over its trade can create empiors, olive oil, spices, suger, and today petrol.
It would be odd except that Frank Herbert probably wrote Dune as an allegory on the Middle East.
Arakis=Middle East
Spice=Oil
House Attraidies=Western nations
House Harkonan=Soviets (remember Dune was written a while ago)
Fremen=All the middle easteners running around the desert
Spacing Guild=Big Oil/corporations
Benehana Sisters (or whatever they are called)=Western religeon
and the rest he threw in to make it more interesting.
