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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34985 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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So could your question be rephrased as "why do Dune-licensed games have more impactful/genre-defining mechanics than LotR-licensed games"?

No, because I wanted a more universal examination. People just got really attached to the Lord of the Rings and Dune game comparison. Even the licensing aspect was less about importance for the principle and more about trying to head off nerdy arguments about what counts as influenced by these books. (E.G. how much inspiration does Star Wars take from Dune?)

I mean, if comparing Dune II to War in Middle Earth is a particularly useful comparison for insights, sure, compare away. But I was hoping for universalizable principles here, not just comparisons of these two franchises.

E.G. how much inspiration does Star Wars take from Dune?

None. They both take inspiration from the same well, but Star Wars is much more open about the roots in the Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Star Wars starts off with "desert planet" but then leaves that behind for the basic "rayguns and rockets" plot (and none the worse for it).

Dune is Morocco IN SPAAAACE and the Fremen are Berbers IN SPAAACE and he is a lot more pretentious than Lucas about it all. Both of them are planetary fantasies, but Herbert is all "deep environmentalism philosophy man" and Lucas was "and then pow! zap! space battles! stormtroopers! smugglers in starships! the good guys win!" so he's a lot more fun.

They both take inspiration from the same well, but Star Wars is much more open about the roots in the Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers

It also lifts a lot of plot and characterization from a specific Kurosawa movie. Mostly changed for the better but the parallel is very transparent.

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