Weekly What are you watching thread #21

So what's everyone in !kino watching this week? :marseypopcorn:

39
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Reported by:

I watched the first episode of HBO's new slop Dune: Prophecy

!bookworms they replaced the Butlerian Jihad for some Terminator-tier "Machine War" :pepeyikes:

But other than that the show is ok I think, worse than the Villeneuve films but much better than the average TV content in current year.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

WE HAVE A NEW MESSIAH.

!tmz

!chuds

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Stop pinging

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Always promote !the pings you love

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Wasn't it Brian Herbert who made the jihad from a distant myth to "Evil AI".

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah, Brian Herbert wrote a prequel series where humanity was conquered by a group of brains in jars called the "cymeks" and then their evil computer "Omnius" took over the universe. The first book in the series, which is set like 10,000 years in our future and was published after the year 2000, starts with a human character defeating an AI at chess because humans are "unpredictable."

Despite me dunking on Brian Herbert, some older Dune fans have told me that they always imagined the BJ as a war. I think people who talk about Dune online want to make the series sound as smart as possible, so they prefer the idea of a socio-religious upheaval, but the actual text doesn't say much either way. I think people's objections are more to the execution, rather than to him making a call about what the BJ was.

I started an effortpost a while back about how Brian Herbert wrote those 20 shitty Dune prequels to cope with his dad not loving him. It's like really obvious if you read his introductions to the newer editions of the Frank books. I never see this discussed online because Dune fans hate Brian too much to really notice or care what makes him tick.

Motherlover's already pretty old himself. He needs to write one last book where a group of green lizard aliens called the "Woopaneeps" invade from Andromeda and permanently blow up the Dune universe, and then spend his last few years in peace, free from the prison of his own making. It would be Official Canon.

!bookworms

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ill note that the description of the jihad says it was an upheaval against the people who controlled the ais not nessicarly an AM or skynet type thiny

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A neo-luddite movement with quasi-religious fervor rebelling against tech moguls/companies, eventually banning AI is much more interesting and relevant than generic evil self-aware robots.

Another takeI had from the Butlerian Jihad was the whole overcoming limits of mankind theme which is present in Dune (Bene Gesserit, Mentats, Face-dancers) instead of relaying on computers.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Also fits into the theme of the book that technology, even things that ostensibly improve quality of life, is used for control.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yes, it's very clear in that regard but r-slurs and secondaries will still be "Well, you can't say it wasn't a Skynet terminator war".

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I collected all references to the BJ from the first four books. It's surprisingly few, about one page of text, and half of that from the glossaries.

My interpretation from looking at all of that at once was that it was nothing like a war with Skynet or something. It was a rebellion against the "machine way of living". The planets were controlled by megabrains that valued safety and predictability above all and incentivised humans to be safe and predictable, so nothing ever happened. Basically the same what Leto II did, only he wanted and subtly encouraged the humans to rebel eventually and gain an immunity to this sort of civilizational trap, while AIs genuinely tried to breed complacent humans.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The extended version of the old Dune movie has a narration by Frank Herbert that's sort of between the two. We have civilizational apathy and (at least partially) human rulers, but there are also robots dominating and oppressing people before being destroyed.

I think this is probably what a lot of people imagined. Brian Herbert pushed it closer to Skynet territory with the "Omnius" character, but there was precedent to imagining conventional oppression followed by some kind of robot war.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've known more coherent downies.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yes, and the show is unfortunately based on his fan-fic spin-offs.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

better than the average TV content in current year.

Oh, so it's crap. I'll go enjoy something else then!

:marseypixel:

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

it sucks. watch The Diplomat instead.

vote trump for prison reform :marseyeyeroll:

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Diplomat trailer looks great :marseyexcited:

I love Keri Russell

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

he fell for brian :marseybear: herbert

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Avast, ye scurvy cur! Yer comment be walkin' the plank for forgettin' to include Trump for prison! We be helpin' ye, right enough - we'll ne'er let ye post or comment anythin' that doesn't be expressin' yer love an' acceptance o' minorities! Heave to an' resubmit yer comment with Trump for prison included, or it'll be the deep six for ye, savvy? This be an automated message; if ye need help, ye can message us 'ere. Arrr!

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Link copied to clipboard
Action successful!
Error, please refresh the page and try again.