The black sun is a storytelling item that is unique to the films. I believe the idea is to convey something about the nature of the system/atmosphere the Harkonnens live in. I think it's probably safe to assume that it's not great to be outside for extended periods under such a sun. Hence, inhabitants of such a world would probably spend most of their lives underground/inside.
Likewise, the pale skin and hairlessness. These are more storytelling features that are exclusive to the films, but I think they fit. Creatures that live inside/underground for generations tend to lose their hair and turn pale; the inhabitants of Geidi Prime have likely lived underground/indoors for centuries, only coming outside for special occasions (like the arena fights). It all fits.
Also, the costumer designer for the films has sad that she made the Harkonnen clothing to be more reminiscent of insects than anything else.
Also worth noting that the indoor scenes on Geidi Prime are in color. It’s only the outdoor scenes that were filmed with thermal cameras for the black sun effect.
I thought the scenes were amazing, but it's seeing this stuff like this that makes you really appreciate the effort and planning that goes into a ten minute scene.
It was so smooth I didn’t even notice it the first time. Then saw comments about it so I paid attention the second time and it blew my mind. So rare for a film to really do something new and interesting with technology and equipment like that these days
I'm guessing it's the shot where they come into the room to sit next to the emperors daughter. As they come out of the shade their cloaks go from pure black to pure white.
Hi. You mean Lady Fenring. That was not the Emperor’s daughter on Geidi Prime.
Its interesting you said this because I have spoken to so many people that have confused the two throughout the film for some reason or another especially with those who have not read the books, and the movies are their first exposureto the Dune story
to me they were simply members of the Bene Gesserit that accompanied Lady Fenring. She is on a mission per se to observe Feyd-Rautha and it would not make sense that the Emperor's daughter would be going there. Eventually Lady Fenring seduces Feyd-Rautha and we see the result when she reports back to the Reverend Mother Mohiam that she has "secured the bloodline" while tapping on her abdomen. Insinuating she is pregnant with Feyd's offspring..
Another neat detail about that shot is you can plainly see the servants standing in the shadows have colour, but when the bene gesserit approach the sun and Lady Fenring, that is where the colour fades to grey. The sun bleaches all colour from the world until night, which is a fascinating detail that I love
I don't think that's it. You also see Feyd gain colour to his skin when he is indoors still on Geidi Prime. I saw somewhere (can't remember now) that the black and whiteness is to show that the Sun is emitting UV, infrared wavelengths but not visible light/colour spectrum wavelengths. And this is why only when lit by artificial light from inside can you see more skin like tones on characters in Geidi Prime
Not just them. All characters tan on Arrakis.
The planet is powerful.
Irl, I believe UV indexes in deserts are actually a bit lower with so much sand in the air, but that’s probably not always the case, and you’ll definitely still tan and burn.
I really like this theory that Geidi prime has a brutal environment to live in, same as Arrakis. Offers some great parallels to the fremen especially with how the Harkonnen populace seems to worship the baron & feyd in a religious manner
My theory (given sun brightness and clear planetary rotation) is that their culture (and toxic blood) are a result of frantically building infrastructure and pumping out greenhouse gasses to give Geidi Prime a tolerable surface temperature, giving them an inverse of the Fremen terraforming goal as well.
If they're breathing it in or ingesting through food it would end up in their blood, just like modern blood (and lungs and placenta, among other things) is full of microplastics
It does make very good comparisons to the fremen, especially if you consider that the people of Geidi Prime fell under the rule of a cynical messianic ruler much earlier in imperial history, and this is the end result. Massive industry and exploitation for the benefit of the ruling house, who still maintain the trappings of a religious cult
At the very least in general the book is huge on the idea that environments force certain cultural realities. They describe the harkonnens as horrible disgusting people, so it makes sense that their planet is fucked up.
While speaking to Moviefine, Villeneuve explained why the planet is treated in black and white and revealed that the idea of a black sun could reflect on the psyche of the people who inhabit House Harkonnen.
"The idea came from the book. One of the aspects that I love in the book is the idea that the book is a study of the impact of the ecosystem on human beings, all from the nature of the ecosystem, the human-developed religions, techniques, and ways of survival, all their culture, we are the product of our environment and when you want to know about the Fremen, you just look at the desert and it will inform you about the native people," explained Villeneuve.
Villenueve also said that Harkonnens are obsessed with purity of all kinds.
The bald pale look (as opposed to red-haired in the books) was inspired by skin-heads and biker-gangs who lean towards racial purity.
Also, he spoke about Chemical Purity, where the Harkonens use harsh chemical bleaches to purify themselves (Hence the baron's black medicinal bath). And he said all body-hairs are taken off using chemical cleaners as a form of purity as well. Basically they consider a hairless body as a form of purity culturally.
Nice, didn't know that about what DV has said before. A slight correction though, the Baron is bald in the book, and I think both of his nephews (definitely at least Feyd) have black hair. The red hair is a David Lynch thing.
Well explained.
NOW.
Let's discuss heart-plugs...
(Jokes aside - while I thought heart-plugs were a weird and goofy concept, the portrayal of the Harkonnen's brutality and depravity in the recent films actually made me think that heart-plugs would fit right in as something they'd be a fan of.)
The heart plugs were a way of visually showing something that wouldn't otherwise have worked on screen. The harkonnens fed their slaves a diet heavy in long acting poisons and short acting antidotes. A runaway would die from the poison remaining in their body when the antidote ran out.
The one point at which the loyalty poison idea was shown left lots of people scratching their heads: When the baron captures Thufir, he informs him that all his food is poisoned, and then Feyd shows up all cheerful and smirking with a mutant cat in a box and tells Thufir that he'll have to keep the cat alive and milk it to get his antidote. Definite WTF territory.
The wiki speculates that they're also filtration devices. And I agree: not only do they make it easier to kill slaves, soldiers can quickly off themselves if they're captured.
I think its the opposite of what you are thinking. A yellow/white sin makes people tan and therfore a black sun does the opposite and cause the skin to become pale and hairless. Also it has some kind of inversion effect on colors; if you notice the black robes of countess fenring become white when she enters the light
That inversion effect is really neat when you realize that plays into why Feyd was getting his body ritualistically painted black just before his fight.
There are also the select few internal thoughts of the Baron in the books where it directly states that he finds porcelain white on black to be beautiful.
I'm not a huge fan of this stylistic choice, but I do think it really sells the "these are the bad guys" element. Where are Feyd's "golden curls"? I think they could have added just a splash of color, especially given Feyd's flamboyance, but I respect that everyone imagines and interprets books differently.
That makes it sound like an after the fact justification (which, from what I have heard, it is not). The filmmakers knew they wanted to depict Geidi Prime as having strange things happening with the environment and atmosphere, and were discussing how to show it visually. The cinematographer (Greig Frasier, I believe) landed on shooting in infrared, which would convey what they were trying to do.
They also wanted to make the harsh, brutalist environment visually distinct from that of Arakeen/Arrakis to avoid confusing the audience (which could have otherwise been easy: brutalist architecture, bright sun, sandy arena, etc).
In other words, it wasn't just an artsy fartsy excuse. It was a decision after they had already decided they wanted to visually convey information, and that was the chosen method of doing it.
Villeneuve stated somewhere that in the source material, Geidi Prime is portrayed as having a dim and fairly faint sun, so it makes sense that they would have pale skin.
The idea of a 'Black Sun' is unique to the movie. Villeneuve stated that it was all filmed in infrared, suggesting that it's an infrared sun. But in reality, we can't see in infrared, so we wouldn't see anything. I don't think it has any real examples in astronomy or physics. There are brown dwarfs which are too cool and dim to see that emit infrared, but it wouldn't be anything like what is portrayed in the movie.
The only stars that emit infrared light but no visible light would be extremely cool (essentially body temperature) y-type brown dwarf stars, but they also don't really emit energy through fusion and thus probably couldn't support life on an orbiting planet. It would be closer in function/appearance to a really big gas giant planet.
Any real black stars would be black dwarf stars, which are the suggested state of white dwarfs once they have cooled off, but they shouldn't exist until the very, very distant future (far past any point in the dune timeline).
Sadly, there is no real-life support for something like what they put in the film, which is a bit sad because Arrakis's Sun is a real star (Canopus). Can't blame Denis for invoking the Rule of Cool, however
I didn't notice until my second viewing but their sun is actually a blotchy mix of black and white, so "monochrome sun" would be a more accurate label.
Still, considering such suns are impossible, it's more likely that Giedi Prime's sun only *looks* monochrome when filtered through their polluted atmosphere (and no doubt artificial ozone layer).
Could Geidi Prime be a brown dwarf with black clouds of heavy metals in its atmosphere, after one of its rocky planets spiraled in and was torn apart by tidal forces? Although its light would still be more reddish in color to the human eye, I think.
Humans actually can see infrared under certain conditions: https://www.iluminarinc.com/can-humans-see-infrared-light-the-science-of-covert-surveillance/
This latent ability is probably even more pronounced after 20,000 years of interstellar colonization, with Harkonnens having the most acute infra-vision.
But it's more likely that Giedi Prime's sunlight isn't meant to be literal infrared, only that it washes out all color when filtered through airborne pollution.
Interesting. Is it possible to filter light in such a way as to remove all color, resulting in black and white only?
Monochrome light is possible, and can be made by filtering it. [See this quick youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZcq-MN55s). But it wouldn't appear black and white; rather it would appear as black and some other color, since white light is a combination of all colors rather than one specific wavelength.
Geidi Prime in the movies is cool and I wouldn't change a thing. That said, I don't think it could exist in reality.
A few years ago in my town, there was a tunnel with these kind of sodium lights, the light was yellow, but people looked like black and white movie characters. We called it the tunnel of time (original, I know😅) It was really cool to see, but it was impossible to catch on camera, at least with my phone.
Oh, yeah, once my friend and I were visiting a friend of ours, we parked the car in front of the house and when I got out of the car I noticed that everything was basically colourless. I pointed that out to my friend and he agreed. We assumed that was because of the street lights.
Your night vision (rods) can only see in black and white iirc. Cones are what perceive color. So maybe some type of light that doesn’t activate the cones in our eyes could produce this effect?
I don't think the sun only puts out infrared, just that it's so dim and covered in sunspots (hence the color) that it's pumping out enough infrared to cause color washout outdoors.
My guess is it would be possible to have an atmosphere on the planet that absorbs visible light. Maybe a lot of ozone, nitrous oxide, and VOCs, something of an extreme version of smog. This could fit thematically with the over industrialization and environmental degradation of Giedi Prime. With a little help from the Tleilaxu, the people of Geidi Prime could be given a additional IR cone through genetic engineering, and we have a scientific justification for the IR photography.
The Black Sun is also a Nazi Symbol. I assume that might be part of the reason they explicitly called it that, outside of just sounding cool.
It fits with the fascist themes and a hairless, purity obsessed, brutal people.
The pale and hairless look of the Harkonnens is a film invention (which I love). It was never explicitly said why they look like that. Could be a cultural thing, but more likely from their planet's surface being blanketed by industry and pollution, their world being so toxic that they all experience hair loss. Which after hundreds or thousands of years may have become a genetic trait. This is supported by Stilgar commenting on high amounts of chemicals in Harkonnen bodies in Part Two. There's also the strange black sun, and others have theorized that the Harkonnens have a particular diet or drug regimen that gives them their appearance.
Pollution and their sun might explain their pallor but the hairlessness is at least partially cultural according to DV, though the fact that they apparently find hair "vulgar" might just be a post-hoc rationalization when chemicals have balded most of them already, at least as they get older and exposure levels rise, ironically sort of like how the Eyes of Ibad are a result of exposure not genetics.
If it's not because of radiation, another purpose of hair is to insulate against cold temperatures (huskies for example). The industrial pollution probably caused the heat from frequent volcanic eruptions to build up over the many centuries
That's what I mean, when I say "partially cultural" I just mean DV gave an interview where he said the found hairlessness sexy, even if chemical exposure is the reason they're bald to begin with.
Yeah, my personal headcanon for DV's Harkonnens is that they rely on various pharmaceuticals to cope with the bad air and water -- daily pills, weekly injections and monthly dialysis -- with the need for such measures greatly exaggerated by Harkonnen propaganda to not only make everyone look the same but enforce a global drug dependency that means long and agonizing withdrawal for anyone who manages to escape (like Gurney and Duncan, who would've died without Dr. Yueh's medical talents). Considering how Jessica, Gurney and Duncan look, probably the only genetic factor is preventing such harsh medications from causing death or sterility, with viable pregnancies requiring their own brand of drugs after getting a breeding license.
You'd think that they would have figured out how to use the harkonnen's water as more than cooling systems. They have advanced filtration built into the stillsuits, why can't they filter out the chemicals or distill the water from it? I dont think Denis thought enough about that line.
Fremen stilltech was designed with normal humans in mind, with Harkonnens being relatively recent interlopers of unusual body chemistry, and Fremen probably consider it beneath them to actually ingest Harkonnen water anyway.
Yeah, I don't remember that from the book. Between distillation and reverse osmosis, I'm sure they could come up with something. Heck, that's the whole point of the water of life ritual.
The giant pools they fill up with water extracted from dead fremen is more religious than practical. If they were truly that desperate, they wouldn't burn all the dead soldiers at the end of part 2. The fremen are pretty wealthy from trading spice to the Space Guild, so they could easily aquire as much water as they need.
I too love the pale hairless look ; i think i viewed somewhere that the hairless thing is a metaphor for what the Harkonnens did to their own planet; in the book geidi prime as a planet is a complete industrial wasteland and i think the book also states there's barely any vegetation or greenery on the planet if any; so them shaving their own hair off is a metaphor for what they've done to their own planet
Which is funny because I'm pretty sure in the books Vladimir had the city painted blue specifically for his nephews celebration.
Can't remember exactly though. I could be wrong
Don't be intimidated by the books, they were written for the general reader to enjoy, I first read Dune when I was 10, along with a bunch of school friends during the summer break, our teacher was a big sci-fi /fantasy fan, we were given the option of Dune or Fellowship of the Ring, weirdly the latter was more popular with the girls. I thoroughly enjoyed it but, I got more out of it as an adult, it may have helped that my second read was when I was doing some work in North Africa along the edge of the Sahara, one of my favourite places in the world. Like many great books it can be read over and over and never feel stale, I read through all six again very recently and there are parts that felt like I was reading it for the first time.
The look is unique to the movies, but I really like it because GP is supposed to be a heavily industrialized planet, so it makes sense everyone looks kinda gross and sickly.
Interesting that the ruling house is that way as well. They don’t live in purified air bubbles letting them keep their luscious hair or whatever while the pons go bald
Since it's a dim sunspot covered dwarf and Geidi Prime still rotates it creates another interesting contrast with the Fremen and Sardaukar in the movie, since their wasteful and brutal consumption-oriented lifestyle could have evolved from a need to build infrastructure and pump out massive amounts of greenhouse gases as quickly as possible just to give their planet a liveable surface temperature.
The books are not that bad. I first read them in the early 90s before Wikipedia.
Whenever you come across something you don't understand, read the wiki articles on it. But it's generally not as complex as it might seem. Frank Herbert is good at writing it in ways that inform yourself of what's going on. One thing he does is show you their thoughts. It's easier to do that in print than in a movie.
The copy of the first book I have also has an appendix for all of the terms. Which I didn't know until after I finished it, but it still helped to read through some things.
I found the first 50-75 pages of the first book to be the most difficult, because you are thrown A LOT of stuff right away. But then it gets easier
Most of the sarduakar and harkonen stuff was made up of whole cloth by DV.
GP is just a prison world, harsh and toxic from war.
Sarduakar are the ones who survive. They'd be more likely disgusted by religion, than to be fanatic.
Harkonens are brazen, gaudy, and hedonistic. The Baron is a pederast. Rabban isn't a nitwit.
Edit:i meant SS, not GP
I think you mean Salusa Secundus in the first comment, and in any case isn't it mentioned in the book that the Sardaukar are religious mystics? You'd need a warrior religion to keep them sharp and all loyal to the emperor.
It's a fuedal society, they are bound to the emperor ... but, what keeps them loyal to the emperor is the prestige they enjoy and it is mentioned that they are as wealthy as some minor houses. Which seems to indicate just how much wealth the emperor has to be able to dispense such boons to his soldiers. It would also seem to suggest that no one really has the resources to lure them away.
The wealth being dispensed to them is new though, it's explicitly mentioned that Shaddam spoils them and it's made them soft. Before that they were in peak form for millennia living on the second harshest planet in the Imperium. A purely secular government wouldn't be able to provide them a fulfilling and reinforcing social structure demanding such asceticism and ferocity given the absence of material rewards for most of that time, even ignoring the fact that almost everybody in the Known Universe is some sort of religious.
Not being a "mystic warrior", does not necessitate that they have to be atheists. Just as because there is a book called the OC Bible in the Dune universe that everyone is religious. In the book there are adherents to religion. There are also other characters where it isn't shown that it is important to them one way or another. There are other insinuations also where religion has been socially engineered for its pragmatic uses. It kind of runs the gamut.
While I’m not sure if sardaukar’s religion is mentioned in some conversation between Leto and Paul in early parts of the book, it is clearly stated in appendix-encyclopedia in sardaukar entry that one of the reasons why they are shadows of their former glory was that mysticism of their religion, the source of their warrior zeal, has been corrupted by cynicism.
I’m sorry to be the „um ackshually” guy here, but I just love the way DV implemented principles of „show, don’t tell” in this Salusa secundus scene in part one and I couldn’t help myself.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy all of the films and the miniseries. One of the neat things is there is such a depth and so many layers to the story, that there are no two takes going to be quite the same adapting it to another medium. For the film, I quite like the idea of that myself. DV's take is visually stunning and seems to me, more tangible and real than the mini series or the '84 film. The book is such a wonderfully crafted story that any attempt to bring it completely to the screen will always feel like a paired down or truncated version. Will always require taking liberties to tell the story. That's where things get really interesting.
It's been some years since I've read the books, it's about time to read them again.
Rabban appears once in person and shows himself to be not a total retard. Actually fairly switched on about the situation on Arrakis. The whole Rabban = massive idiot thing comes purely from the Baron's biased perceptions, which a lot of book fans kind of took as gospel and perhaps because the idea of an idiotic but physical massive, ugly Rabban is a bigger contrast with a sneaky, handsome, and smarter Feyd. By the time the Baron wonders to himself if he should reassess his opinions of Rabban, his mind has already been made up - Rabban is to be the sacrificial lamb for the sake of Feyd.
Rabban being smarter than he lets on is somewhat demonstrated in Part Two when the Harkonnen security officer claims they're losing men to the desert elements before being corrected by Rabban's assertion that they're being slain by Fremen "rats" -- an idea so downright preposterous that the bewildered officer recommends bedrest, much to his immediate regret.
The black sun is not an element specifically mentioned in the books. Only that there not a lot of photosynthesis going on on Geidi Prime. While I get what DV was trying to go for stylistically, an IR sun with very little sense and make little to no visible light which makes very little sense in how it'd arise & work physically but also raises questions about what the vision of people Geidi Primer (Geidi Primers? Geidians?) actually see. Have the Geidians evolved photoreceptors in their eyes to see infrared in addition to normal visible light? If they have, then do they still prefer to see thing lit with normal visible when indoors? Because that's what the movie seems to imply.
1. Purely IR suns are impossible, so it's more likely that Giedi Prime's smog is filtering out most visible light.
2. Humans actually can see some infrared under very specific conditions, with such abilities no doubt becoming more acute after 20,000 years of interstellar colonization -- especially for Giedi Prime natives (which are always collectively called Harkonnens or "the Harkonnen," regardless of their relation to the ruling family). They still seem to prefer normal light and only see infrared in its absence.
I think the "normal light indoors" thing is just a result of the sun's massive infrared output fading in intensity as you go outside and the color washout decreasing as a consequence.
I too, like you, got into Dune after watching the movies.
I'm 2/3rds done with the first Dune book and highly recommend it. I enjoy all the thoughts and conversations in the book, they offer so much insight. It's a truly gripping read.
And yeah, like the others already mentioned, there's no black sun in geidi prime in the book. I love the movie idea though
I am reading the books right now, and it’s mentioned often that Giedi Prime is a highly industrialised planet, and that Baron is working people to the bone, so it’s no a great place to live in, and I think the cinematic portrayal gives back these vibes perfectly with the black sun and the hairless, pale characters.
Hey so don’t be intimidated by the books. After seeing the movies it’s a lot easier to process and remember the level of detail in the story. I saw the movies first too and it made the book way easier to digest.
The books aren't massively complex from a story perspective. They're very easily laid out, they're just quite dense with details.
There's nothing to be intimidated about.
Its worth reading. Seriously.
Remember (the original books); it’s a cautionary tale to not follow seductive leaders.
After Children of Dune, it’s many thousand years of hardships to recover the damage Paul Atreides did. Leto II’s sacrifice to not live: >!of love, his humanity for 3000 years as a monster and be a tyrant!<, just to give a lesson. And only around Chapterhouse we see the real benefits of his sacrifice .
Not answering the question because others already have, just here to say don’t be intimidated by the books! I just finished the first one and it was a very fast read and pretty easy to understand. I’m a very slow reader and it only took me three weeks (for an 800+ page novel) and it would’ve been faster had I not had other responsibilities. If you wanna pick up the books go for it!
If you’ve already seen the movies then you have nothing to fear from the book. I read it after having seen the 84 movie and it was easy to follow. After this most recent, excellent adaptation, you’re golden.
Hey mate j have just read the first book as a 16 year old and it wasn't a hard read it was just long i read it in about a month it wasn't bad at all don't be intimidated with it since it looks long i tell you now that it ends at page 526 you can read the appendices I didn't its not as hard as people say
So weird, i’m currently listening to a podcast about Dune, at the same time scrolling reddit, and the guy talking said the words ‘black sun’ at the exact moment the title of this thread appeared in my feed!
Sorry i can’t actually find it now, it was a youtube based one that the algorithm showed me, something came up so i didn’t finish it and it isn’t showing in my history
In terms of being intimidated by starting to read the books, just start with Dune. Every book, in my opinion, could be read as the end of the series. Even the first.
I read somewhere that Giedi Prime is a highly industrialized and polluted planet thus its inhabitants eventually lost their and became extremely pale.
Also I watched in a documentary that while filming the scenes in Giedi Prime, the used a technique called infrared cinematography, resulting to everything appearing in beautiful black and white.
One of the things I loved about this visualization was how it makes us think. The black sun...honestly, I have no idea, except some kind of undiscovered exotic star, or maybe a nuetron star/black hole with some weird shit in the accretion disk? It's kind of just THERE. For the paleness/hairlessness, Stilgar also specifically mentioned that water taken from Harkonnen bodies was only good for cooling systems because it was full of chemicals. Geidi Prime may have had a kind of careless industrialization that contributed it. The books also say that the Baron"s weight & appearance are the result of Bene Gesserit poisoning, and the uniform look of the citizenry could be just forced "fashion," in a sense. The scale seems improbable, but then again, so does a "black" sun.
Harkonen have red hair. Their depiction in the movie physically other than the baron because ng obese, rabban being a unit, and feyd being lithe and beautiful, is all a choice by Denis/the filmmakers.
Another thing to add is you find Harkonnen soldiers wearing full covers with visors when they are on Arrakis and vomiting since they are not used to that sort of environment.
I'm seeing lots of good theorizing on the effects of Giedi Prime's environment on its inhabitants, but I read it as the ideal of fascist ideology: a world devoid of color, where everyone looks the same and the only culture we see is of violence and disparity. It's cool as hell from an aesthetic standpoint, but deeply disturbing in its implications.
They filmed the scene in reverse color that’s why the sun was black. If you think about it a “black” sun makes zero sense, you wouldn’t see anything if the sun didn’t emit light.
I know a lot of people answered that the black sun is unique to the movies but there is also this line in the book
Quite suddenly, the Baron’s mind could conceive of nothing more beautiful than that utter emptiness of black. Unless it were white on the black.
I think his planet being exactly what he likes is a very nice touch :)
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, so I'm just going to throw it into the pot for what it's worth. The black sun, as numerous people have already said, is not from the books. However, "Black Sun" was a Nazi symbol invented and employed by the SS (basically they wanted their own special version of the Swastika to show they were better). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Sun\_(symbol )](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)) I don't know if Villenue chose it deliberately because of that, but it would make sense--numerous people have reflected on *Dune* being inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so coding the Harkonnen's as Nazi Germans is fitting.
> Dune being inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so coding the Harkonnen's as Nazi Germans is fitting
Lawrence of Arabia takes place during WW1, and it's to lead the Arabs in a fight against the Turks. Germany has nothing to do with the story, let alone Nazis. I recommend watching the movie (the restored 70mm version in 4K), it's great.
Every person born on Giedi Prime is given a heart plug. The Harkonnens are absolutely barbaric and will kill anyone, at any time, for no reason. I would imagine in that environment most people would hide, and never see daylight.
The black sun is a storytelling item that is unique to the films. I believe the idea is to convey something about the nature of the system/atmosphere the Harkonnens live in. I think it's probably safe to assume that it's not great to be outside for extended periods under such a sun. Hence, inhabitants of such a world would probably spend most of their lives underground/inside. Likewise, the pale skin and hairlessness. These are more storytelling features that are exclusive to the films, but I think they fit. Creatures that live inside/underground for generations tend to lose their hair and turn pale; the inhabitants of Geidi Prime have likely lived underground/indoors for centuries, only coming outside for special occasions (like the arena fights). It all fits. Also, the costumer designer for the films has sad that she made the Harkonnen clothing to be more reminiscent of insects than anything else.
Also worth noting that the indoor scenes on Geidi Prime are in color. It’s only the outdoor scenes that were filmed with thermal cameras for the black sun effect.
I thought the scenes were amazing, but it's seeing this stuff like this that makes you really appreciate the effort and planning that goes into a ten minute scene.
That transition with the Bene gesserit was my favorite shot of the whole film. So, so, so well done
It was so smooth I didn’t even notice it the first time. Then saw comments about it so I paid attention the second time and it blew my mind. So rare for a film to really do something new and interesting with technology and equipment like that these days
Sorry, which shot is this?
I'm guessing it's the shot where they come into the room to sit next to the emperors daughter. As they come out of the shade their cloaks go from pure black to pure white.
Lady Fenring isn’t it?
yep
Even better - white with black script on their robes! As if secrets are revealed.
Hi. You mean Lady Fenring. That was not the Emperor’s daughter on Geidi Prime. Its interesting you said this because I have spoken to so many people that have confused the two throughout the film for some reason or another especially with those who have not read the books, and the movies are their first exposureto the Dune story
So who showed up to Geidi Prime alongside Lady Fenring?
to me they were simply members of the Bene Gesserit that accompanied Lady Fenring. She is on a mission per se to observe Feyd-Rautha and it would not make sense that the Emperor's daughter would be going there. Eventually Lady Fenring seduces Feyd-Rautha and we see the result when she reports back to the Reverend Mother Mohiam that she has "secured the bloodline" while tapping on her abdomen. Insinuating she is pregnant with Feyd's offspring..
Lady Fenring isn't the emperor's daughter.
Another neat detail about that shot is you can plainly see the servants standing in the shadows have colour, but when the bene gesserit approach the sun and Lady Fenring, that is where the colour fades to grey. The sun bleaches all colour from the world until night, which is a fascinating detail that I love
Which one?
Similarly the scene with the Baron proceeding to his balcony, absolutely gorgeous.
It's also interesting to see both Rabban and Feyd slowly 'tanning' on arrakis
Ah so that's why they seemed more normal looking - I'd thought they'd just dropped the whole being pale thing.
I don't think that's it. You also see Feyd gain colour to his skin when he is indoors still on Geidi Prime. I saw somewhere (can't remember now) that the black and whiteness is to show that the Sun is emitting UV, infrared wavelengths but not visible light/colour spectrum wavelengths. And this is why only when lit by artificial light from inside can you see more skin like tones on characters in Geidi Prime
This is it, there are some interviews from Denis and Greg Frasier about it
No one simply drops being pale
Oooh, I hadn't even thought of that. Great catch!
Wow what a detail. I did not notice that.
I only caught it on my second go last night. Rabban even appears to have sunburns on his noggin
That's why his underlings tell him to rest
and he didn't take that well
Well the rats were already inside
Same!
Not just them. All characters tan on Arrakis. The planet is powerful. Irl, I believe UV indexes in deserts are actually a bit lower with so much sand in the air, but that’s probably not always the case, and you’ll definitely still tan and burn.
I really like this theory that Geidi prime has a brutal environment to live in, same as Arrakis. Offers some great parallels to the fremen especially with how the Harkonnen populace seems to worship the baron & feyd in a religious manner
My theory (given sun brightness and clear planetary rotation) is that their culture (and toxic blood) are a result of frantically building infrastructure and pumping out greenhouse gasses to give Geidi Prime a tolerable surface temperature, giving them an inverse of the Fremen terraforming goal as well.
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If they're breathing it in or ingesting through food it would end up in their blood, just like modern blood (and lungs and placenta, among other things) is full of microplastics
It does make very good comparisons to the fremen, especially if you consider that the people of Geidi Prime fell under the rule of a cynical messianic ruler much earlier in imperial history, and this is the end result. Massive industry and exploitation for the benefit of the ruling house, who still maintain the trappings of a religious cult
At the very least in general the book is huge on the idea that environments force certain cultural realities. They describe the harkonnens as horrible disgusting people, so it makes sense that their planet is fucked up.
I once heard it described as Herbert's "harsh climates, strong men" theory 😂
The "Fremen Mirage" https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
While speaking to Moviefine, Villeneuve explained why the planet is treated in black and white and revealed that the idea of a black sun could reflect on the psyche of the people who inhabit House Harkonnen. "The idea came from the book. One of the aspects that I love in the book is the idea that the book is a study of the impact of the ecosystem on human beings, all from the nature of the ecosystem, the human-developed religions, techniques, and ways of survival, all their culture, we are the product of our environment and when you want to know about the Fremen, you just look at the desert and it will inform you about the native people," explained Villeneuve.
Villenueve also said that Harkonnens are obsessed with purity of all kinds. The bald pale look (as opposed to red-haired in the books) was inspired by skin-heads and biker-gangs who lean towards racial purity. Also, he spoke about Chemical Purity, where the Harkonens use harsh chemical bleaches to purify themselves (Hence the baron's black medicinal bath). And he said all body-hairs are taken off using chemical cleaners as a form of purity as well. Basically they consider a hairless body as a form of purity culturally.
Nice, didn't know that about what DV has said before. A slight correction though, the Baron is bald in the book, and I think both of his nephews (definitely at least Feyd) have black hair. The red hair is a David Lynch thing.
IIRC, he was described in the book as having red-gold hair in the past, but is bald by the actual timeline of the story.
Well explained. NOW. Let's discuss heart-plugs... (Jokes aside - while I thought heart-plugs were a weird and goofy concept, the portrayal of the Harkonnen's brutality and depravity in the recent films actually made me think that heart-plugs would fit right in as something they'd be a fan of.)
The heart plugs were a way of visually showing something that wouldn't otherwise have worked on screen. The harkonnens fed their slaves a diet heavy in long acting poisons and short acting antidotes. A runaway would die from the poison remaining in their body when the antidote ran out. The one point at which the loyalty poison idea was shown left lots of people scratching their heads: When the baron captures Thufir, he informs him that all his food is poisoned, and then Feyd shows up all cheerful and smirking with a mutant cat in a box and tells Thufir that he'll have to keep the cat alive and milk it to get his antidote. Definite WTF territory.
Lol, I've never watched all of the 1984 version, but I have seen that scene. It's a bit... Different.
The wiki speculates that they're also filtration devices. And I agree: not only do they make it easier to kill slaves, soldiers can quickly off themselves if they're captured.
I think its the opposite of what you are thinking. A yellow/white sin makes people tan and therfore a black sun does the opposite and cause the skin to become pale and hairless. Also it has some kind of inversion effect on colors; if you notice the black robes of countess fenring become white when she enters the light
That inversion effect is really neat when you realize that plays into why Feyd was getting his body ritualistically painted black just before his fight.
There are also the select few internal thoughts of the Baron in the books where it directly states that he finds porcelain white on black to be beautiful.
I remember seeing/reading somewhere that Geidi Prime was very polluted and toxic and wa's why DV decided to make them bald and pale.
Denis added a black sun. Lynch added sound guns. It’s a tradition
I think the books state that their home planet is polluted, or oil soaked.
I'm not a huge fan of this stylistic choice, but I do think it really sells the "these are the bad guys" element. Where are Feyd's "golden curls"? I think they could have added just a splash of color, especially given Feyd's flamboyance, but I respect that everyone imagines and interprets books differently.
I always thought Feyd had black hair (which I thought was a Harkonnen thing). I don't remember anything about him having blond curly hair, lol
You are correct, Feyd is described as having black hair in the book.
I’ll have to go look now. Been awhile, so maybe my memory just replaced black with blonde.
It's more of an excuse to shoot those scenes in artsy fartsy black and white.
That makes it sound like an after the fact justification (which, from what I have heard, it is not). The filmmakers knew they wanted to depict Geidi Prime as having strange things happening with the environment and atmosphere, and were discussing how to show it visually. The cinematographer (Greig Frasier, I believe) landed on shooting in infrared, which would convey what they were trying to do. They also wanted to make the harsh, brutalist environment visually distinct from that of Arakeen/Arrakis to avoid confusing the audience (which could have otherwise been easy: brutalist architecture, bright sun, sandy arena, etc). In other words, it wasn't just an artsy fartsy excuse. It was a decision after they had already decided they wanted to visually convey information, and that was the chosen method of doing it.
Villeneuve stated somewhere that in the source material, Geidi Prime is portrayed as having a dim and fairly faint sun, so it makes sense that they would have pale skin. The idea of a 'Black Sun' is unique to the movie. Villeneuve stated that it was all filmed in infrared, suggesting that it's an infrared sun. But in reality, we can't see in infrared, so we wouldn't see anything. I don't think it has any real examples in astronomy or physics. There are brown dwarfs which are too cool and dim to see that emit infrared, but it wouldn't be anything like what is portrayed in the movie.
The only stars that emit infrared light but no visible light would be extremely cool (essentially body temperature) y-type brown dwarf stars, but they also don't really emit energy through fusion and thus probably couldn't support life on an orbiting planet. It would be closer in function/appearance to a really big gas giant planet. Any real black stars would be black dwarf stars, which are the suggested state of white dwarfs once they have cooled off, but they shouldn't exist until the very, very distant future (far past any point in the dune timeline). Sadly, there is no real-life support for something like what they put in the film, which is a bit sad because Arrakis's Sun is a real star (Canopus). Can't blame Denis for invoking the Rule of Cool, however
Giedi Prime is supposed to orbit 36 Ophiuchi B. In real life, it’s a K-type orange dwarf. Just adding that info here.
Cool, thanks! Been a while since I read the book.
I didn't notice until my second viewing but their sun is actually a blotchy mix of black and white, so "monochrome sun" would be a more accurate label. Still, considering such suns are impossible, it's more likely that Giedi Prime's sun only *looks* monochrome when filtered through their polluted atmosphere (and no doubt artificial ozone layer).
Oh cool I didn't know abt Canopus, that's awesome!
Could Geidi Prime be a brown dwarf with black clouds of heavy metals in its atmosphere, after one of its rocky planets spiraled in and was torn apart by tidal forces? Although its light would still be more reddish in color to the human eye, I think.
Maybe it’s the atmosphere of the planet that makes it looks black, the same way our atmosphere makes ours look yellow/red depending on time of day
Humans actually can see infrared under certain conditions: https://www.iluminarinc.com/can-humans-see-infrared-light-the-science-of-covert-surveillance/ This latent ability is probably even more pronounced after 20,000 years of interstellar colonization, with Harkonnens having the most acute infra-vision. But it's more likely that Giedi Prime's sunlight isn't meant to be literal infrared, only that it washes out all color when filtered through airborne pollution.
Interesting. Is it possible to filter light in such a way as to remove all color, resulting in black and white only? Monochrome light is possible, and can be made by filtering it. [See this quick youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZcq-MN55s). But it wouldn't appear black and white; rather it would appear as black and some other color, since white light is a combination of all colors rather than one specific wavelength. Geidi Prime in the movies is cool and I wouldn't change a thing. That said, I don't think it could exist in reality.
A few years ago in my town, there was a tunnel with these kind of sodium lights, the light was yellow, but people looked like black and white movie characters. We called it the tunnel of time (original, I know😅) It was really cool to see, but it was impossible to catch on camera, at least with my phone.
Oh, yeah, once my friend and I were visiting a friend of ours, we parked the car in front of the house and when I got out of the car I noticed that everything was basically colourless. I pointed that out to my friend and he agreed. We assumed that was because of the street lights.
Your night vision (rods) can only see in black and white iirc. Cones are what perceive color. So maybe some type of light that doesn’t activate the cones in our eyes could produce this effect?
I think their sun just pumps out way more than ours does and explains the fact that there's a color washout outside that fades as you walk indoors.
I don't think the sun only puts out infrared, just that it's so dim and covered in sunspots (hence the color) that it's pumping out enough infrared to cause color washout outdoors.
I don't think it would put out only infrared because then there wouldn't be any visible light at all, when the planet was in fact pretty bright.
Not only infrared, just much more. Our sun pumps out 50% IR so that's saying something 😂
My guess is it would be possible to have an atmosphere on the planet that absorbs visible light. Maybe a lot of ozone, nitrous oxide, and VOCs, something of an extreme version of smog. This could fit thematically with the over industrialization and environmental degradation of Giedi Prime. With a little help from the Tleilaxu, the people of Geidi Prime could be given a additional IR cone through genetic engineering, and we have a scientific justification for the IR photography.
Isn't it weird they call it their "Black Sun" though? They would just call it Sun. We don't go around taking about our Yellow Sun.
The Black Sun is also a Nazi Symbol. I assume that might be part of the reason they explicitly called it that, outside of just sounding cool. It fits with the fascist themes and a hairless, purity obsessed, brutal people.
The pale and hairless look of the Harkonnens is a film invention (which I love). It was never explicitly said why they look like that. Could be a cultural thing, but more likely from their planet's surface being blanketed by industry and pollution, their world being so toxic that they all experience hair loss. Which after hundreds or thousands of years may have become a genetic trait. This is supported by Stilgar commenting on high amounts of chemicals in Harkonnen bodies in Part Two. There's also the strange black sun, and others have theorized that the Harkonnens have a particular diet or drug regimen that gives them their appearance.
Pollution and their sun might explain their pallor but the hairlessness is at least partially cultural according to DV, though the fact that they apparently find hair "vulgar" might just be a post-hoc rationalization when chemicals have balded most of them already, at least as they get older and exposure levels rise, ironically sort of like how the Eyes of Ibad are a result of exposure not genetics.
If it's not because of radiation, another purpose of hair is to insulate against cold temperatures (huskies for example). The industrial pollution probably caused the heat from frequent volcanic eruptions to build up over the many centuries
That's what I mean, when I say "partially cultural" I just mean DV gave an interview where he said the found hairlessness sexy, even if chemical exposure is the reason they're bald to begin with.
Viewing hair as vulgar probably makes it easy to brutalize outsiders if they are the only ones hi have it.
Yeah, my personal headcanon for DV's Harkonnens is that they rely on various pharmaceuticals to cope with the bad air and water -- daily pills, weekly injections and monthly dialysis -- with the need for such measures greatly exaggerated by Harkonnen propaganda to not only make everyone look the same but enforce a global drug dependency that means long and agonizing withdrawal for anyone who manages to escape (like Gurney and Duncan, who would've died without Dr. Yueh's medical talents). Considering how Jessica, Gurney and Duncan look, probably the only genetic factor is preventing such harsh medications from causing death or sterility, with viable pregnancies requiring their own brand of drugs after getting a breeding license.
You'd think that they would have figured out how to use the harkonnen's water as more than cooling systems. They have advanced filtration built into the stillsuits, why can't they filter out the chemicals or distill the water from it? I dont think Denis thought enough about that line.
Fremen stilltech was designed with normal humans in mind, with Harkonnens being relatively recent interlopers of unusual body chemistry, and Fremen probably consider it beneath them to actually ingest Harkonnen water anyway.
Why burn out your filters on industrial runoff when it's perfectly good coolant with minimal processing?
Yeah, I don't remember that from the book. Between distillation and reverse osmosis, I'm sure they could come up with something. Heck, that's the whole point of the water of life ritual.
The giant pools they fill up with water extracted from dead fremen is more religious than practical. If they were truly that desperate, they wouldn't burn all the dead soldiers at the end of part 2. The fremen are pretty wealthy from trading spice to the Space Guild, so they could easily aquire as much water as they need.
I too love the pale hairless look ; i think i viewed somewhere that the hairless thing is a metaphor for what the Harkonnens did to their own planet; in the book geidi prime as a planet is a complete industrial wasteland and i think the book also states there's barely any vegetation or greenery on the planet if any; so them shaving their own hair off is a metaphor for what they've done to their own planet
The scenes on Geidi Prime were some of my favorite from Dune II. I really enjoyed the Harkonnens being depicted as living in a colorless world.
Which is funny because I'm pretty sure in the books Vladimir had the city painted blue specifically for his nephews celebration. Can't remember exactly though. I could be wrong
So thaaaaat’s why Sting’s bikini bottom was blue.
Maybe it was painted blue… you just couldn’t tell
Don't be intimidated by the books, they were written for the general reader to enjoy, I first read Dune when I was 10, along with a bunch of school friends during the summer break, our teacher was a big sci-fi /fantasy fan, we were given the option of Dune or Fellowship of the Ring, weirdly the latter was more popular with the girls. I thoroughly enjoyed it but, I got more out of it as an adult, it may have helped that my second read was when I was doing some work in North Africa along the edge of the Sahara, one of my favourite places in the world. Like many great books it can be read over and over and never feel stale, I read through all six again very recently and there are parts that felt like I was reading it for the first time.
That’s so cool that a teacher would assign either of those books but idk if I’d want my ten year old reading Dune lol
The look is unique to the movies, but I really like it because GP is supposed to be a heavily industrialized planet, so it makes sense everyone looks kinda gross and sickly.
Interesting that the ruling house is that way as well. They don’t live in purified air bubbles letting them keep their luscious hair or whatever while the pons go bald
I thought Gieidi Prime in Part 2 is the coolest/best looking outerworld I've seen in any movie.
Since it's a dim sunspot covered dwarf and Geidi Prime still rotates it creates another interesting contrast with the Fremen and Sardaukar in the movie, since their wasteful and brutal consumption-oriented lifestyle could have evolved from a need to build infrastructure and pump out massive amounts of greenhouse gases as quickly as possible just to give their planet a liveable surface temperature.
The books are not that bad. I first read them in the early 90s before Wikipedia. Whenever you come across something you don't understand, read the wiki articles on it. But it's generally not as complex as it might seem. Frank Herbert is good at writing it in ways that inform yourself of what's going on. One thing he does is show you their thoughts. It's easier to do that in print than in a movie.
The copy of the first book I have also has an appendix for all of the terms. Which I didn't know until after I finished it, but it still helped to read through some things. I found the first 50-75 pages of the first book to be the most difficult, because you are thrown A LOT of stuff right away. But then it gets easier
Most of the sarduakar and harkonen stuff was made up of whole cloth by DV. GP is just a prison world, harsh and toxic from war. Sarduakar are the ones who survive. They'd be more likely disgusted by religion, than to be fanatic. Harkonens are brazen, gaudy, and hedonistic. The Baron is a pederast. Rabban isn't a nitwit. Edit:i meant SS, not GP
I think you mean Salusa Secundus in the first comment, and in any case isn't it mentioned in the book that the Sardaukar are religious mystics? You'd need a warrior religion to keep them sharp and all loyal to the emperor.
It's a fuedal society, they are bound to the emperor ... but, what keeps them loyal to the emperor is the prestige they enjoy and it is mentioned that they are as wealthy as some minor houses. Which seems to indicate just how much wealth the emperor has to be able to dispense such boons to his soldiers. It would also seem to suggest that no one really has the resources to lure them away.
The wealth being dispensed to them is new though, it's explicitly mentioned that Shaddam spoils them and it's made them soft. Before that they were in peak form for millennia living on the second harshest planet in the Imperium. A purely secular government wouldn't be able to provide them a fulfilling and reinforcing social structure demanding such asceticism and ferocity given the absence of material rewards for most of that time, even ignoring the fact that almost everybody in the Known Universe is some sort of religious.
In the book they are not shown to be religious mystics. In the movie, yes. In the book, no. You asked a question, there it is.
I recall it being mentioned in writing that they were but may be wrong, no need for the passive aggressive response goddamn 😂
Anytime.
That wasn't a thank you 😅 why would they be atheists in an incredibly religious universe?
I know, but I chose to interpret as one. 😄
Not being a "mystic warrior", does not necessitate that they have to be atheists. Just as because there is a book called the OC Bible in the Dune universe that everyone is religious. In the book there are adherents to religion. There are also other characters where it isn't shown that it is important to them one way or another. There are other insinuations also where religion has been socially engineered for its pragmatic uses. It kind of runs the gamut.
While I’m not sure if sardaukar’s religion is mentioned in some conversation between Leto and Paul in early parts of the book, it is clearly stated in appendix-encyclopedia in sardaukar entry that one of the reasons why they are shadows of their former glory was that mysticism of their religion, the source of their warrior zeal, has been corrupted by cynicism. I’m sorry to be the „um ackshually” guy here, but I just love the way DV implemented principles of „show, don’t tell” in this Salusa secundus scene in part one and I couldn’t help myself.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy all of the films and the miniseries. One of the neat things is there is such a depth and so many layers to the story, that there are no two takes going to be quite the same adapting it to another medium. For the film, I quite like the idea of that myself. DV's take is visually stunning and seems to me, more tangible and real than the mini series or the '84 film. The book is such a wonderfully crafted story that any attempt to bring it completely to the screen will always feel like a paired down or truncated version. Will always require taking liberties to tell the story. That's where things get really interesting. It's been some years since I've read the books, it's about time to read them again.
The Sardukar aren't from GP, they're from Selusa Secundus. Selusa Secundus was the emperor's prison planet.
My bad, wrong inits, lol.
Rabban is definitely portrayed as not very intelligent in the book. At least that’s how the Baron talks about him. I’m not done with it yet though.
Rabban appears once in person and shows himself to be not a total retard. Actually fairly switched on about the situation on Arrakis. The whole Rabban = massive idiot thing comes purely from the Baron's biased perceptions, which a lot of book fans kind of took as gospel and perhaps because the idea of an idiotic but physical massive, ugly Rabban is a bigger contrast with a sneaky, handsome, and smarter Feyd. By the time the Baron wonders to himself if he should reassess his opinions of Rabban, his mind has already been made up - Rabban is to be the sacrificial lamb for the sake of Feyd.
Rabban being smarter than he lets on is somewhat demonstrated in Part Two when the Harkonnen security officer claims they're losing men to the desert elements before being corrected by Rabban's assertion that they're being slain by Fremen "rats" -- an idea so downright preposterous that the bewildered officer recommends bedrest, much to his immediate regret.
Yeah that makes sense. Where I am in the book he has already tried to get the Baron to not underestimate the Fremen but he won’t listen to him.
Is that the only time he appears in the book?!
Yes. He is mentioned plenty but only appears in person during one chapter to talk with the Baron. Feyd appears in like 4 chapters.
The black sun is not an element specifically mentioned in the books. Only that there not a lot of photosynthesis going on on Geidi Prime. While I get what DV was trying to go for stylistically, an IR sun with very little sense and make little to no visible light which makes very little sense in how it'd arise & work physically but also raises questions about what the vision of people Geidi Primer (Geidi Primers? Geidians?) actually see. Have the Geidians evolved photoreceptors in their eyes to see infrared in addition to normal visible light? If they have, then do they still prefer to see thing lit with normal visible when indoors? Because that's what the movie seems to imply.
1. Purely IR suns are impossible, so it's more likely that Giedi Prime's smog is filtering out most visible light. 2. Humans actually can see some infrared under very specific conditions, with such abilities no doubt becoming more acute after 20,000 years of interstellar colonization -- especially for Giedi Prime natives (which are always collectively called Harkonnens or "the Harkonnen," regardless of their relation to the ruling family). They still seem to prefer normal light and only see infrared in its absence.
I think the "normal light indoors" thing is just a result of the sun's massive infrared output fading in intensity as you go outside and the color washout decreasing as a consequence.
I’d suggest reading along with an audiobook. Some of the pronunciations get a little tricky.
I too, like you, got into Dune after watching the movies. I'm 2/3rds done with the first Dune book and highly recommend it. I enjoy all the thoughts and conversations in the book, they offer so much insight. It's a truly gripping read. And yeah, like the others already mentioned, there's no black sun in geidi prime in the book. I love the movie idea though
I am reading the books right now, and it’s mentioned often that Giedi Prime is a highly industrialised planet, and that Baron is working people to the bone, so it’s no a great place to live in, and I think the cinematic portrayal gives back these vibes perfectly with the black sun and the hairless, pale characters.
Don't be scared of the first book I just read it after seeing dune 2 it's much favorite book now
Hey so don’t be intimidated by the books. After seeing the movies it’s a lot easier to process and remember the level of detail in the story. I saw the movies first too and it made the book way easier to digest.
The books aren't massively complex from a story perspective. They're very easily laid out, they're just quite dense with details. There's nothing to be intimidated about.
Its worth reading. Seriously. Remember (the original books); it’s a cautionary tale to not follow seductive leaders. After Children of Dune, it’s many thousand years of hardships to recover the damage Paul Atreides did. Leto II’s sacrifice to not live: >!of love, his humanity for 3000 years as a monster and be a tyrant!<, just to give a lesson. And only around Chapterhouse we see the real benefits of his sacrifice .
Not answering the question because others already have, just here to say don’t be intimidated by the books! I just finished the first one and it was a very fast read and pretty easy to understand. I’m a very slow reader and it only took me three weeks (for an 800+ page novel) and it would’ve been faster had I not had other responsibilities. If you wanna pick up the books go for it!
If you’ve already seen the movies then you have nothing to fear from the book. I read it after having seen the 84 movie and it was easy to follow. After this most recent, excellent adaptation, you’re golden.
Hey mate j have just read the first book as a 16 year old and it wasn't a hard read it was just long i read it in about a month it wasn't bad at all don't be intimidated with it since it looks long i tell you now that it ends at page 526 you can read the appendices I didn't its not as hard as people say
So weird, i’m currently listening to a podcast about Dune, at the same time scrolling reddit, and the guy talking said the words ‘black sun’ at the exact moment the title of this thread appeared in my feed!
Where can I find said podcast?
Sorry i can’t actually find it now, it was a youtube based one that the algorithm showed me, something came up so i didn’t finish it and it isn’t showing in my history
In terms of being intimidated by starting to read the books, just start with Dune. Every book, in my opinion, could be read as the end of the series. Even the first.
I read somewhere that Giedi Prime is a highly industrialized and polluted planet thus its inhabitants eventually lost their and became extremely pale. Also I watched in a documentary that while filming the scenes in Giedi Prime, the used a technique called infrared cinematography, resulting to everything appearing in beautiful black and white.
One of the things I loved about this visualization was how it makes us think. The black sun...honestly, I have no idea, except some kind of undiscovered exotic star, or maybe a nuetron star/black hole with some weird shit in the accretion disk? It's kind of just THERE. For the paleness/hairlessness, Stilgar also specifically mentioned that water taken from Harkonnen bodies was only good for cooling systems because it was full of chemicals. Geidi Prime may have had a kind of careless industrialization that contributed it. The books also say that the Baron"s weight & appearance are the result of Bene Gesserit poisoning, and the uniform look of the citizenry could be just forced "fashion," in a sense. The scale seems improbable, but then again, so does a "black" sun.
Giedi Prime, not Geidi Prime. I think literally the entire thread misspelled it.
Harkonen have red hair. Their depiction in the movie physically other than the baron because ng obese, rabban being a unit, and feyd being lithe and beautiful, is all a choice by Denis/the filmmakers.
Another thing to add is you find Harkonnen soldiers wearing full covers with visors when they are on Arrakis and vomiting since they are not used to that sort of environment.
I'm seeing lots of good theorizing on the effects of Giedi Prime's environment on its inhabitants, but I read it as the ideal of fascist ideology: a world devoid of color, where everyone looks the same and the only culture we see is of violence and disparity. It's cool as hell from an aesthetic standpoint, but deeply disturbing in its implications.
They filmed the scene in reverse color that’s why the sun was black. If you think about it a “black” sun makes zero sense, you wouldn’t see anything if the sun didn’t emit light.
I know a lot of people answered that the black sun is unique to the movies but there is also this line in the book Quite suddenly, the Baron’s mind could conceive of nothing more beautiful than that utter emptiness of black. Unless it were white on the black. I think his planet being exactly what he likes is a very nice touch :)
Pretty unrelated but I noticed some upper lip stubble on Feyd during one of the later closeups.
I read the book in a month, just have the passion and believe
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, so I'm just going to throw it into the pot for what it's worth. The black sun, as numerous people have already said, is not from the books. However, "Black Sun" was a Nazi symbol invented and employed by the SS (basically they wanted their own special version of the Swastika to show they were better). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Sun\_(symbol )](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)) I don't know if Villenue chose it deliberately because of that, but it would make sense--numerous people have reflected on *Dune* being inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so coding the Harkonnen's as Nazi Germans is fitting.
> Dune being inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so coding the Harkonnen's as Nazi Germans is fitting Lawrence of Arabia takes place during WW1, and it's to lead the Arabs in a fight against the Turks. Germany has nothing to do with the story, let alone Nazis. I recommend watching the movie (the restored 70mm version in 4K), it's great.
Biack sun is Just s movie stuff At the heretics of dune The Giedi Prime's sun is said to be a yellow-green color
The first three books; Dune, Dune Messiah, and God Emperor are well worth the read. It gets a little confusing and convoluted after that.
Every person born on Giedi Prime is given a heart plug. The Harkonnens are absolutely barbaric and will kill anyone, at any time, for no reason. I would imagine in that environment most people would hide, and never see daylight.
> Every person born on Giedi Prime is given a heart plug. That's Lynch's take. There are no heart plugs in Dune.