I have no opinion on the Star Wars/Dune debate but that is one fantastic comment. Kudos to the author, brought me quite a smile.
Had me in the first half ngl
I got slightly heated myself...
My friend, who has never watched Star Trek, was convinced it was Star Wars ripoff.
My personal faves are the claims that the cybermen are ripping off the borg and that Pratchett's Unseen University is a hogwarts copy.
And Battle Royale totally ripped off Hunger Games
Star Wars is a ripoff of some international (Italian? Japanese? I don't know) movie.
Hidden Fortress by Akira Kurosawa. It’s still enjoyable today IMO, and you can really see how some of the characters are a direct line to Star Wars characters.
Now this information makes "Star Wars Visions: Ronin" look like the the "back to the roots" material.
It also partially explains the Western feeling to Star Wars. Lots of Kurisawa films were made into Westerns.
Seven Samurai became the Magnificent Seven (and Bug's Life!). Yojimbo and Sanjuro became A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More.
If you watch enough old scifi and adventure movies, you'll learn to welcome the "so that's where Lucas took that idea from" feeling as an old friend. He lifted a lot.
Well, you know the old adage: "Good artists copy, great artists steal"
I also remember many designs and visual concepts were also based on a French scify graphic novel.
Star Wars is the plot of Hidden Fortress, in a universe similar to Dune, in the style of Flash Gordon, but with genius special effects and Jaws level care for every aspect of the production of the film itself.
The music tends to be left off lists like this but without that fabulous score and the genius of John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra, Star Wars would not have had the same emotional impact.
Lol the real plagiarism is GW / Warhammer 40k ripping off Dune
And literally everything else and cramming it into one universe
Also big numbers = epic as a guiding light
Though you could do an identical meme with Games Workshop and Blizzard. There were so many people back in the day that didn't know Warhammer 40k had been around for over a decade when StarCraft released.
And then the same thing happened again when Dawn of War was released.
To be fair, the original warcraft was supposed to be an rts using the Warhammer IP.
Not only Dune. GW ripped off so many franchises it made my head spin when I finally read the Foundation series by Asimov. Let’s just say the Mechanicum wasn’t an original idea.
Wow. A legit /MurderedByWords. Very rare even on reddit.
Now tell us how Lord of the Rings ripped off Star Wars, so that your journey to the dark side will be complete...
If you create a story, any story, and it’s in space then it’s a complete 100% rip off of Star Wars.
You might want to consider looking up "Jodorowsky's Dune" for a bit more insight into how... huh... let's say "influenced" Star Wars (and others for that matter) was by Dune overall.
When I said my biggest problem with the story was the same problem I had with Star Wars, royalty starting wars. My buddy who likes both said they were "Space Operas". I think that's the perfect way to describe them and how they are similar.
—Wait till they find out about Rebel Moon and how it was churned out with the specific intent of creating a space-franchise to capitalise on.
I would say Dune (at least the first book before it goes really fucking weird) has a sort of anti-colonial, indigenous(ish) peoples under occupation themes that Star Wars just isn't interested in exploring. With Star Wars it's basically just "There's an evil empire, okay that's enough, let's go" vibes to OG Star Wars. Like you don't have to pay attention to the political background blurb at the beginning that serves as pasting a veneer of political intrigue at all and the story basically makes sense. It's a War story, whether or not a Monarchy is involved barely matters. It could be "Ambassador Leia" and "President Palpatine" and basically nothing would functionally change. Empire requires no monarchs to function.
Dune does come across as "The Indigenous peoples of Dune hadn't a hope until this one random outsider self insert character showed up and joined their cause and was amazing at everything and was lifted up as saviour because vague prophecy seeded by generations of matriarchal Jedi (Bene Gesserit) manipulation reasons..." It's sympathetic to indigenous peoples in a vaguely problematic for a host of familiar reasons kind of way. Like the world building is great and all but I feel like you could swap Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreidies and end up with a generally better story on both counts.
I somewhat agree. The theme of indigenous-ness is critical and is nicely explored in Dune while Star Wars may have too grand stakes and had to simplify the fight to Good (value lives and give freedom) vs Evil (power for me is yummy).
It sounds like you've also read the next few books..
As you probably know, Dune was made to subvert the Chosen One trope. He's "self insert" with all the magical powers and strength and intelligence and prophecy but even that couldn't help him be a "Good" guy because of his perverted intentions (avenge his family and gain power to do what's "right"). Even the movie starts off with the good guys in White and bad guys in Black. Then things get Grayer as time passes.
But don't think you could swap the protagonists. Luke and Paul are completely different characters. But you've raised a fun hypothetical! Let's see...
Luke would be less ambitious than Paul. There were a few moment where both characters had the choice to go to the 'dark' side. Luke rejected the main? call (killing his father), Paul accepted the main call (during his first duel). Assuming both have equal strength and plot armor.. If you gave Luke the same Power as Paul (foresight), would Luke just choose to die than subject the indigenous people to centuries of war? Or do as Paul did and in his way, try "free" the indigenous people?
I still think that absolute power would corrupt absolutely and Luke would probably turn into Palpatine (as Paul and and [mild spoiler] God Emperor did) if his family was directly slaughtered in front of him and he was a little more emotional. We see some of that when Luke decided to leave training with Yoda and go save his precious ones. Foresight is an anxiety inducing power... If he could see into the future, would he have stayed and allow a few sacrifices for the Greater Good? We don't know.. but that same emotional reasoning would probably indicate Luke would probably do the same as Paul and sacrifice future lives for the Now.
It would also depend on what stage of his character arc Luke was plucked from and replaced with Paul. I might even argue that Paul(/or swapped Luke) never even had free will and was just doing things because his mother chose emotion over duty and kicked off this saga.
Happy to be corrected! This was fun.
Doesn't the story portray Paul Atreidies' messianic rise as a bad, albeit opportunistic move? I only watched the new films, but it did not feel like we were supposed to think it was a good thing.
"Space opera" has been a term in science fiction since at least the 1940s. Flash Gordon, John Carter, and Buck Rogers all fought Emperors.
Does anyone have an analysis comparing the Fremen of Frank Herbert's Dune to the the Aiel of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time?
I'm 9 books into WoT right now (its good shit) and the overlap between the Dune series is pretty interesting to say the least. Rand -> Paul, Aes Sedai -> Benne Gesserit, Aiel -> Fremen, I mean there's a dozen more comparisons I could make too. The lack of Turbo Pussies and chair dogs is a let down though.
Google Gemini will regurgitate this one day.
Star wars was about how space fascisim is bad. Dune is the same but about the Space Holy Roman/Ottoman Empire.
I don't know anything about Dune, does it have Magic (the Force)?
No. But it has drugs that make you accurately predict the near and far future. And turn you into an immortal worm eventually.
Not immortal, just long-lived and thick skinned
It definitely has aspects that could be considered magic, but I wouldn't necessarily compare them to the Force.
Some aspects of it. "The voice" is basically jedi mind tricks. People that are attuned also get visions/senses of foreboding about the future. There's no telekinetic stuff as far as I know.
