I saw the film quite a few years ago when I was an undergrad, and so sadly can't remember if I thought that was true.
Paul Atreides is IMO a terrible example of a 2 dimentional overpowerd character. =(
Although he's not as bad as Pham Nuwen in the Vernor Vinge books. (Vinge's work is so cool in other ways though that he can be entirely forgiven for Pham). Actually many of his characters are overpowered. It seems to be something that goes with sci-fi. Why is this I wonder?
I have read the book, watched the David Lynch film (which is probably the one you saw), and at the weekend I watched the 3 film mini-series with the Marquis. Paul Atreides is definitely a very powerful character, but if that's what Frank Herbert wanted to get out of it, that seems fair enough. I didn't think Paul was particularly two dimensional, though. I found him annoying, yes, but not flat.
With the William Hurt mini-series, the thing that really impressed me was that I found Paul more sympathetic -- certainly at the start.
But then with Dune, all my favourite characters copped it in rapid succession anyway. :-)
Vernor Vinge has one of the all time fun alien species, including the wonderfully named Peregrine Wickwackrum. But Pham is incredibly irritating. In fact though I enjoyed "A fire upon the deep", by and large all the parts that weren't about the cool aliens were rather dull. I never bothered reading any more Vernor Vinge, because I was told to expect more Pham without any more of the fun alien species... The Tine are right up there with the hani and the atevi as my favourite aliens.
I would give A Deepness in the Sky a go. I didn't like the spiders as much as the Tines - but Viala liked them very much. There is more Pham, true, but there's also a lot of wonderful cool ideas in the book - including one of my all time favourites: "focus". Focus is a drug that basically makes people pathologically monomainiac - they focus on working on one obsession and lose all interest in other functioning and any of their previous relationships. When given to someone that's already talented at something, Focus makes them a genius programmer, translater or whatever, but they have to be fed and looked after by other staff as they won't do it for themselves. The book raises the interesting issue that whilst focus is a form of slavery, those under the influence of it feel very fullfilled.
Of course, "focus" is a very interesting exaggeration of RL geekish tendences. (And I would say therefore a neuroscientifically plausable drug! :eek).
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Paul Atreides is IMO a terrible example of a 2 dimentional overpowerd character. =(
Although he's not as bad as Pham Nuwen in the Vernor Vinge books. (Vinge's work is so cool in other ways though that he can be entirely forgiven for Pham). Actually many of his characters are overpowered. It seems to be something that goes with sci-fi. Why is this I wonder?
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With the William Hurt mini-series, the thing that really impressed me was that I found Paul more sympathetic -- certainly at the start.
But then with Dune, all my favourite characters copped it in rapid succession anyway. :-)
Never read Vernor Vinge.
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Of course, "focus" is a very interesting exaggeration of RL geekish tendences. (And I would say therefore a neuroscientifically plausable drug! :eek).
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I wanted pink trainers. I really liked them too, and I was quite upset that they turned out not to fit. :-(
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I want pink trainers too :-(
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Some of all those pick trainers I tried might fit you, twinny!
N.
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