Denis Villeneuve's Dune

The word "jihad" is literally just the Islamic version of a Crusade. I fail to see any issue in calling it one word or another. We don't even know the context of the line, maybe they'll actually use the term "jihad" in conversation.

Also I don't give a shit about some nobody thinking "Oh this will be so much better if it were focused on women instead."

No it wouldn't, that's actual virtue signalling and will accomplish nothing especially when it flies in the face of the book's canon. Plus the women in the book are just as important as the men in many ways, particular with the Fremen.

And as for the Spacing Guild I don't think they appear at all in the start of the book, and I just read the first 100 or so pages today. The journey to Arrakis from Caladan isn't even depicted.

Edited by theLibrarian on Sep 10th 2020 at 11:05:18 AM

Thanks for confirming. It's been decades since I read Dune.

Yeah, depicting the journey was an addition of the miniseries. An addition I liked, mind, but skipping the journey is far from the end of the world.

Dune's gender politics have always been a bit weird because of the way power is split between genders in this universe. There is a lot to say on the matter, but the short version is that flipping any of the main characters would basically require rewriting the entire universe. Liet-Kynes is pretty much the only character they could have flipped (and maybe Duncan Idaho) without major changes.

Admittedly, it’s been a long time since I read Dune, but I remember enjoying it greatly, and finding the 1984 film incomprehensible. I’m actually kind of curious to see how The Weirding Way is portrayed, particularly after Lynch bungled it.

Never trust a trailer, of course, but it is looking pretty cool, and there were scenes and dialogue lifted directly from the book. In fact, the only thing that seemed a little out of place was the troops drifting down to land, although that could be done with the suspensor technology in the books. I like the cast, they are talented people. I thought Arrival was great - good real science fiction in a film, rather than just an action movie with sci fi trappings (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I do like something a little more cerebral from time to time). I haven't seen the Blade Runner sequel so I can't comment on that one.

I've read the first book maybe half a dozen times and through the first 4 at least twice.

Just because Jihad and Crusade mean the same thing doesn't mean they have the same connotations. Jihad is explicitly Muslim, while Crusade is explicitly Christian.

The word "jihad" appears frequently in the Qur'an. Sometimes it refers to a military struggle against the enemies of Islam - essentially equivalent to "crusade" - but often it denotes a more personal struggle to follow the commandments of Allah. Given the modern-day usage of the term by radical terrorists and the fact that it is often used in a different sense in the Qur'an, changing "jihad" to "crusade" in the movie is something I don't have a problem with. The word "crusade" doesn't appear in the Bible at all. It didn't appear in the English language until the 18th century, hundreds of years after the actual crusades.

What were they called back then?

It wasn't called anything. There was no such thing, because Islam hadn't formed yet.

It was more generally called "fighting the godless heathens". Or rather, the heathens with too many gods.

...The First Crusade started well after Islam had been formed.

Many, many years.

The question was if the word crusade appeared in the Bible. As the Bible was written centuries before the start of Islam or the first crusade, obviously the word could not be in the bible, at least not in that meaning.

Yes, but I think the question was "what were the Crusades called at the time?"

At the time they were referred to as iter, "journey", and peregrinatio, "pilgrimage"

to quote the other wiki

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:01:38 AM

Ohh I see. They were called holy wars, I think.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 11th 2020 at 4:02:59 PM

They started being called "crusades" in French around the 12th century. English didn't co-op the term from French until the 18th century.

So Richard the Lionhearted, the most famous English crusader, would have never actually called himself a crusader or referred to what he was doing as a crusade, at least not in English.

Edited by Bense on Sep 11th 2020 at 8:14:33 AM

edit: cant read

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:03:28 AM

If I remember correctly, they called it a pilgrimage at first because they basically thought they'd be waltzing in and taking over Jerusalem in no time at all, and that the Muslims would just surrender on sight.

And oh boy were they wrong...

The crusaders knew there would be fighting, they just felt they had a righteous cause and would be supported by God. While it took about four years Jerusalem was taken in the First Crusade.

The original batch of Crusader commanders were, for lack of a better word batshit insane (And this isn't even a modern view, even at the time people were remarking that the crusaders were... not all there)

And that's without going into the People's crusade. A bunch of commoners who decided to go on a racist and Antisemitism trip crusade attacking several of their own allied cities on the way to the middle east.

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:23:13 AM

Plus the Children’s Crusade, where thousands of children tried to take over the Holy Land. That also unfortunately ended in tragedy.

But yeah the First Crusade was a shitshow that essentially was won by luck because none of the Christian commanders knew what the terrain and stuff would be like.

The Children's crusade is much later (300 years), and may also have been slightly apocryphal for other "Commoner's crusade"

By most account Richard the Lionhearted only spoke French and Occitan. He'd not have referred to himself as anything in English as he didn't speak it. He was born in England, but spent most of his early life in France and Spain. And French was the court language in England.

This is all fascinating, but not exactly relevant.

If the filmmakers want to use the word "crusade" instead of "jihad" to avoid unfortunate implications for Western audiences, I won't object.

I'm pleased to see that the stillsuits have full face masks in many scenes, even if the actors aren't wearing them.

Yep. You can't have your highly paid actors hide their faces from the audience unless absolutely necessary. It's a rule of film-making that justifies overriding realism.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:30:48 AM

Well, that, and faceless suits walking around being harder to identify.

I'd say it is an acceptable break from reality in most circumstances.