Attempt at changing your mind:
It’s not desert solarpunk because solarpunk implies a hopefulness for the future that does not exist in Dune.
Dune and Dune Messiah are tragic cautionary tales which warn against religion and the great man myth. It is supposed to warn the reader that religions take a life of their own and become a tiger that you can grab by the tail, but can never let go of.
On top of that it’s talking about oil as spice. If anything: it’s diesel punk just with an abstraction around the diesel.
The fremen meticulously conserved and saved water to one day turn the planet into a habital environment. That’s pretty hopeful, I think. Frank didn’t really mature that arc of the story and instead focused, like you said, on religious fanaticism and dogma.
Not sure how to do spoilers so I stay vague l:
Herbert picked up the water topic in later books and showed what happened to the Fremen as well.
I agree that it was hope that was very clearly - in the beginning.
Haven’t read the books, but isn’t Paul/Leto II taking the golden path ironically an implied long-term hope for humanity? >!Since it’s understood humanity will die out otherwise.!<
Leto’s golden path involves everyone breaking their dependency on spice (oil) and the only way he’s able to achieve this is through a brutal dictatorship.
Possibly if humanity had better self control and wasn’t constantly fighting for control of the spice (oil) then the hopeful future could be achieved without needing to remove everyone’s freedom and stifle innovation.
spicepunk sounds like a kickass genre
Water was a scarce resource and probably doesn’t count as renewable. There wasn’t much need for solar power since it seems they had better energy sources. Spice was mined and used without consideration for its replenishment.
Herbert was vague about some of the technology used, that I know of. Water collection was kinda the biggest thing.
While the Fremen respected the desert and lived in it, I don’t think it really has a comparison to a solarpunk society. Fremen only learned efficient ways to survive, IMHO. By that, I mean they learned ways not to get eaten or get extremely dehydrated. It’s a bit more of “living on the edge” with scarce resources.
The fremen are a lot more involved with spice than you think, I’m assuming you’ve only read the first 2 books given your thoughts?
I only remember the first two books, so that would explain where my knowledge faulters.
Could spice be the renewable resource that I am not giving enough credit? I know a little more, but I risk spoiling things since there is probably a new wave of Dune fans after the last movie.
Tap for spoiler
Fremens control the water that the sandtrout use to become worms who release the spice. There was enough water on arrakis to terraform it after all.
Hopefully tag worked right and people enter at own peril.
Ok, it was all about the fish. The last bit I completely forgot. (The spoiler tag worked.)
It’s easy to forget, I don’t think they brought up much about liet-kynes actual fremen role in the movie did they?
A small refresher on them will help everything slide back into line maybe. Movie goers maybe don’t google their role to avoid further story spoilers.
The one thing that disappointed me was the lack of the conservatory during the movies.
Odd, key details were left out or just not explained, for sure. There was a ton of lore you would just need to know before watching the movie to understand all of what you were watching.
Weirding modules are at the top of that list. Either didn’t go into depth in the movie and I completely missed them, or they were just cut completely. Of all Dune lore, those were always super odd to me and didn’t even fit in the original movie from years ago.
I watched the new movie, got into sci-fi books a little later and read the entire Dune series (rewatched the movie after the first book for fresh comparison). There was a lot the was kinda glossed over, but the main theme of fremen and why the water was kinda devoid.
Thats not ringing any bells so I googled it, seems to be a movie replacement for the prana-bindu wierding, so makes sense for it to seem odd. I’ve never watched it, before my time… haha I’ve been meaning to though.
Weirding modules
iirc, they’re a conceit of the 1984 Lynch dune, and while cool, aren’t in any of the books.
I still have the first book basically memorized from my youth, kinda.
Not a spoiler, but if you saw the second movie, I am curious: Were the worm scales backwards in the movie? I am fairly sure that there was a better mechanism that the Fremen used to lift them up, starting with a specialized pole to pry up the first scale to stabilize the worm before “steering control” hooks were set. (That has been bugging me since I was at the theater.)
Still waiting to watch it, but I’m drawing a blank on how it was explained in book one. I’ll have to look I up, but I believe the rings were forward facing and the hooks opened them up and the friction of the sand is what causing them to roll over and be able to steer.
It was done solo iirc and they just threw their hooks into the rings to open it while running parallel to it. Then it became a team thing? That where I’m blanking.
Due to ecological collapse from terraforming, all the sandworms die off and this makes Leto II take over as a tyrant for 3500 years. Although this was necesarry for golden path. And planet turns back to desert and gets blown up