Back in November 2008, concept artist Jock mentioned in an interview that he was working on some art for a film called Dune directed by Peter Berg.  That particular project died a death with Berg’s departure and new director Pierre Morel’s decision to start again from the ground up. Jock is currently working on art for Berg’s forthcoming Battleship adaptation (yes) and Judge Dredd.

The pictures are not detailed working drawings, they are rough initial concepts and colour studies. Pictures like The Fremen Caves, Sardaukar Attack and even Spice Mining, suggest a mood for a scene – the art is a starting point without too many details to tie things up later on.

The Caladan image is more illustrative. Caladan is in many ways the opposite of Arrakis, so it makes sense that the opposite of a world without water, is a water-world – which is what we see here. My one criticism of this approach is that it Frank Herbert doesn’t mention the seas of Caladan in the first part of Dune, instead he speaks about “orchards” and “green farmlands”, this foreshadows the greening of the desert and the importance of plant-life.

Of the  twelve images, perhaps the most interesting ones are the six sandworm pictures. The approach is pretty unorthodox – they are not neat tube-shaped creatures, these are weird malformed beasts, with giant mandible-flippers to propel themselves through the sand.  The Newborn Worm does look like a cross between a chest-burster and a tumour and the others seem to carry on the Alien influence mixed with varying degrees of mutated random. The energy in these sketches is undeniable, however they all lack any real sense of scale and it’s difficult to imagine how they would translate into believable mile-long beasts.

But… the Long Shot (posted above) of an adult specimen makes me think that they might just have managed to pull it off. The weight and mass of these huge worms as a monsters is something that neither Lynch or the miniseries managed completely successfully.

The pictures are well worth a look and can be found on Jock’s site here:

http://www.4twenty.co.uk/movies/dune/

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Hairy Ticks of Dune, in conjunction with Jacurutu, is proud to announce the Dune Fan Fiction Contest. This contest, as an unofficial, unauthorized and completely fan-organized event, is dedicated to honoring and exploring the legacy of Frank Herbert as represented by his Dune books and stories.

http://www.hairyticksofdune.net/fanficcon/

There are no prizes (unless you count immortality) but the contest is open to everyone and should provide some excellent reading material. The minimum length is just 500 words, which is sod all – so no excuses.

Full details can be found at http://www.hairyticksofdune.net/fanficcon/

Dune (1984)

Top of the list is the font used for David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune. The font is an alternate version of Albertus . I’m not sure exactly what version it is but, the D is extended, the U has lost it’s stem and middle prong of the E is been different.

Nu-Dune (1999-2008)

The font used on the US editions of the nu-dune books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson up until 2008 is Benguiat. It is stretched vertically, but other-wise unaltered.

Nu-Dune (2009-present)

The font used on Nu-Dune books and re-prints post Winds of Dune, is a slightly modified version of Priori Serif – the N is simply the U rotated 180 degrees. Also on the US editions, the top-right serif on the U is removed.

Other Dune Fonts

These three fonts were created by Mike Lee and Josh Dixon in 1998. Fremen was based on John Quijada’s work in the Dune Encyclopedia, while Galach and Guild were both based on the text seen in the 1984 Dune movie.

Hope that helps.

	Shield
	Harvester
	Jihad ‘Thopter
	Landsraad “Diplomacy”
	Wormsign
	Appreciation for Kevin J. Anderson
	Affection for the dictahiker.

Enjoy.

–DuneFish

Producers from Paramount Pictures were in town last week scouting locations for a remake of the sci-fi cult classic Dune; the producers are choosing between London, Prague and Montreal.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Road+Montreal/3064801/story.html

Producers Richard P. Rubinstein, Michael D. Messina and John Harrison were all involved in the 2000 Dune Miniseries and it’s 2003 sequel Children of Dune (Harrison actually wrote both and directed the first) – the miniseries were both filmed at Barrandov Studios in Prague, so could they be contemplating going back for a third time? Mostly, Prague is cheap… however it is also a long way away from Hollywood.

Montreal is more convenient travel-wise, and would also be fairly economical – a lot of US TV (Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, et al)  gets filmed in Canada for that reason, although most is centred around the Vancouver area. I can’t imagine Montreal has the infrastructure necessary to deal with a film of this size.

London is the least economically sound of the three. It is however a hub for big films – Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia were all filmed there last year.  It’s a world-beating base of operations that the other two can’t hope to compete with.

It’s also worth noting that while Prince of Persia was largely shot on sets and against green-screens in the UK, exteriors were also shot on location in the deserts Morocco. So don’t rule out the possibility of real sand just because the suggested locations don’t sound particularity Duney

With the budget as high as it is (reported to be $175 million) I reckon the smart money is on London, although with the previous (positive) experiences we can’t rule out Prague just yet.

Chase Palmer has been hired to work on the “Dune” script for director Pierre Morel at Paramount.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iafcbd501634f9b08c5681a71710c4ee8

So who is this guy and what has he done? … Funny you should ask…

Shock and Awe from Miky Wolf on Vimeo.

NEO-NOIR from Chase Palmer on Vimeo.

Two very different offerings. We shall see…

(Thanks to Jacurutu’s inhuien for the Vimeo links!)

Morel: Let me assure you, I’m not going to transform Dune into an action crazy movie. It’s not the point. I was a fan of the book from the start, I read the book when I was 14-15 maybe, and I’ve been reading it over and over and over. I’m a huge fan of the original material, I don’t want to ge away from that, I want to be very very true to the original novel.

It’s very challenging, it’s very complex. A lot of what is going on in the book is happening people’s minds, which is tough to show. It has lots of layers – politics and lots of interaction between different things… It’s a challenging thing, because it’s very rich, the original book is so rich. You cannot condense it to a 90 minute move, it has to like 2-and-a-half hours at least, and still there you have… it’s compact.

But we can make it. I think the technology now allows us to do much more than David could do in 84.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62758

The Dune content begins around 14 minutes in. Again, encouraging.

Morel: “We’re starting from scratch. Peter had an approach which was not mine at all, and we’re starting over again. I don’t think we’re going to keep any elements of the Peter Berg script. It was good, actually. It was interesting. It was just not our vision.“

“Dune is such a huge, huge project… it’s challenging, it’s long-term — we’re only starting. We have to rewrite the script, we have to develop a whole universe. It’s going to be a long thing, so who knows. But I’m passionate about Dune so I’d love to do it next.”

[Regarding internal monologues] “That’s one of the challenges, yes – everything that is in Paul’s head, we’ll have to show it on screen and find the right approach to make it visually interesting. But I think the technology we have now allows us much more than we could do before, so we’ll see.”

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/106/1065212p1.html

The mention of the Internal monologue problem so early on is interesting… and encouraging.

Feb 2010 – From Paris with Love Director Pierre Morel Dishes on Dune (Tribeca Film)

Tribeca Film’s Jenni Miller: Do you plan to infuse it with some action?
Morel: “I don’t know. It’s all about—I’m a huge Dune fan, a reader, like for 30 years; I read it when I was a teenager. I’ve read it 10 times maybe, so I want to stay true to the book. Saying that, I also think that there’s a lot of scenes that are not described in the books—it’s just mentioned, like the bad guys attacking something—and it might make sense to include those in the movie, not just by mentioning it but showing them, and that would maybe [call for] some action scenes, yes. It’s not about action. It’s not the point. It’s not about [making] an action movie. It’s just doing Dune. It’s like a huge universe thing, and there’s such a fanbase, like guys who have been reading that forever—you can’t mess with that.”

http://www.tribecafilm.com/news-features/blog/Director_Pierre_Morel_Dishes_on_Dune.html

(Emphasis mine). This is the single most encouraging thing I’ve posted here so far.  Against my better judgement… I like this director.

The studio has hired Taken helmer Pierre Morel to oversee the movie. Paramount is currently looking for a new writer to incorporate Morel’s vision of the project into the original draft by Quantum of Solace scribe Josh Zetumer.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/01/04/dune-remake/

It took them long enough . Morel, like Berg, is very much an action director with only a handful of films behind him. I wonder who exactly is pushing the film in this direction? The producers are the same ones who gave us the longer, more literary and perhaps ‘pedestrian’ miniseries – Does Paramount want another Transformers or Star Trek? They definitely brought in some cash – are they the template?

Jan 2010 – ‘Dune’ Adaptation Will Be ‘Very Respectful To The Original Novel,’ Pierre Morel Says (MTV Movie Blog)

Morel: “I’ve been a fan of that book – because I will not refer to the movie – I’ve been a fan of the book since I was a teenager.“

“I’m trying to be very respectful to the original novel, but it’s a challenge; there’s a lot of expectation, all the readers will be waiting for me with their shotguns. All the non-readers will also be waiting for us, because it’s such a complex, rich novel and you have to make it accessible to those who have not read the book. So, it’s a tough challenge but I’m very excited about that.”

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/01/11/exclusive-dune-adaptation-will-be-very-respectful-to-the-original-novel-pierre-morel-says/

So far so good. Faithful might have a more positive choice of words, but with the amount of cash being poured into this and failure of the 1984 film we should expect a certain amount of adaptation. The film industry, especially the blockbuster end of things, doesn’t like risks.

Jan 2010 – ‘Dune’ Director Explains Plans For ‘Faster’ Movie, Better Representations Of Clothes And Tech (MTV Movie Blog)

Morel: “[David Lynch's 1984 movie] was interesting, but not what we [fans] expected. And I thought I’d give it a chance, try to do this, make it faster and more modern. I think that now, in 2010, we have the technology to achieve much more than David could do twenty-five years ago. I think it will be cool to try something different.”

[Elaborating on his plan for the  concept design] “We’ll try to figure out what things may look like 10,000 years from now; it’s all about reconfiguring the entire universe. Everything is going to be very different than [it is] now, and we know from the book that there’s no more computers, no thinking machines. So a lot of the technology is going to be different. We’ll be working with design concepts, futurists and scientists who will give us a vision of how technology may evolve with certain conditions. That might lead us to another vision of the future – it’s not David Lynch’s vision, it’s not ours either, but in-between.”

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/01/13/exclusive-dune-director-explains-plans-for-faster-movie-better-representations-of-clothes-and-tech/

Faster… yes they are still going down the action route. Faithful and action packed. Should be interesting.

Now, where he goes next is weird. I get that he’s trying to distance himself from Lynch’s Dune – it failed and is a bit of a joke really. But, the visual design was one of the things it did right. Dune is a feudal society, so the design takes cues from Renaissance (feudal ) Italy – it’s a visual cue, a piece of shorthand that allows the director to convey and reinforce the feudalism without having to spell it out. Dune should be a unique vision of a distant future, but modern isn’t really a vibe I get from Dune.

But on a certain level he is saying the right things again – the technology we use to design our objects and buildings influences how they look. Architectural modelmakers influenced how buildings looked when they started to use laser-cut perspex. So it follows that in Dune things won’t look like they’ve been designed in the computer. How that tallies with modern… who knows.

This is the third version of this listing, the updates are relatively minor.

Discussion

Dedicated Dune forums and discussion boards.

Jacurutu: The Cast Out – The de-facto home of the Orthodox Herbertarian Jihad – A large active membership of well-informed fans of the Classic Dune series. Prequel fans are welcome, but will have to fight their ground and support their arguments with FH quotes!

Fed2k – Game centric Dune discussion and related resources such as FAQs, patches and more.

De Dune à Rakis – French Dune Forum.

Dune Novels.com – The ‘official’ forum. Great for fans of the new Dune books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, less great for critical thinking – you will get banned!

Boards with Dune content

Worm’s SciFi Haven – General scifi with a good few Dune fans.

The (Almost) Undeleted – General scifi with a dedicated Dune section and an excellent bibliography of Frank Herbert secondary sources.

KJA Special Forces – A secret invitation only haven for fans of Kevin J. Anderson’s work.

Other (less active) Dune boards

Sietch Tabr – Limited membership/activity. Has some promise as a Jacurutu/DN middle road, but never really seemed to get off the ground. Has an attached Dune Wiki site.

Alt.Fan.Dune – Ancient but quiet. Home of the the Dune FAQ (always handy) and digging deep with unearth some gems from the likes of the late Dr. McNelly.

The Landsraad – Used to be an major site before it was migrated to Multiply.

Dune Blogs

Hairy Ticks of Dune – Unrelenting stream of bile focussed on the new Dune books and their author.

Kevin J. Anderson’s Blog – The author of the new Dune books.

Resources

The Dune Encyclopedia at thedune.ru – Download Dr. Willis E. McNelly’s legendary Dune Encyclopedia (*in English) in a fully searchable PDF format. Well worth a look.

Dr. Willis E. McNelly: Dune Encyclopedia and Beyond – The late doctor’s official site.

Frank Herbert: The Works – Bob R. Bogle’s indepth look at all things FH (well worth a look)

Frank Herbert – Tim O’Reilly’s 1977 biography of Frank Herbert. Now out-of-print, but still available online. This contains some incredible FH quotes and should be considered a must-read.

Dune – Behind the Scenes – Heaps of info on David Lynch’s 1984 film as well as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ill fated attempt.

Collectors of Dune – Complete listings for everything Dune related that you might be able to find on eBay.

OrthodoxHerbertarian.ttf – The Dune Font – My own recreation of the font used on classic US Ace editions of the Dune Chronicles and other FH books.

Usul’s Homepage – Probably the original Dune site. It hasn’t been updated for years, but it still has some incredible resources including Dune 7 fan-fiction and a very handy pronunciation guide featuring Frank Herbert himself. Well worth a look.

The Dune Wiki – Semi-abandoned, but still alive Wikia wiki dedicated to Dune. Covers both Original Dune and Nu-dune as well as Dune in other media.

Cave of Birds – Excellent resource for quotes from most FH novels.

Dune Index – Book covers, collectors and more.

Other Dune Sites

I, Scytale – Fanfiction

Arrakis Awakening – There is a long history of fan-made Dune RPGs played on forums. Some, like the incredibly long-running Dune PBEM concentrate on managing your own Great House and the intrigues of Landsraad politics. Others, such as Arrakis Awakening, take a more narrative approach, with players controlling individual characters from the chronicles.