DUNE is a book written by Frank Herbert which had a few sequels and got adapted a few times. It’s considered by some to be the cornerstone of sci-fi.^A)

I’ve only seen the (new) films, so this article will be focused around that. Unfortunately, the only Dune book I own is God Emperor of Dune…which isn’t really the first book.

I think this film takes itself too seriously and comes off as boring/pretentious at times. Though this might actually make it match Frank Herbert’s vision…as he also comes off as pretentious to me.

The visuals are pretty sweat though. My biggest issue is that there isn’t more Lady Jessica in the movie, because she’s kinda hot.

I watched half of it but since it was so long I stopped. I never really got to finishing it because I found it a bit boring. Though I do plan to finish it.

There are two aspects to Dune that I think are actually really cool…with the rest sort of being meh. These will not be surprising to people who like Dune or to those who know me thru the wiki.

I think the Bene Gesserit are pretty cool…though not just because they’re women. I actually didn’t think much of them before I learned that they have total control of their own bodies…and suddenly: I’m intrigued.

The Bene Gesserit are an order of sexy nuns, basically. They operate a millennia-old eugenics program to birth the Übermensch. This being the Dune universe, Bene Gesserit undergo training which leads to some pretty incredible abilities, mostly related to having a full control of the body.
This means that they can pick the gender of their next baby at conception and are technically immune to poisons, since they can identify the poison while it’s inside them and produce an antidote. They also possess mind control powers via The Voice and can tell if you’re lying or not.

And, proving that Frank Herbert totally isn’t a pervert who wrote fetish material into his books they are also very sexy and know a lot of sexual techniques. Though that’s kinda redundant information, since they have total control of their bodies…who knows what they could do in the bedroom?

They operate within a pretty strict hierarchy and are cynical missionaries. They secretly control the galaxy from the shadows (while claiming to be pro-Emperor) and go planet to planet planting false prophecies and beliefs among the locals, to make them easy to manipulate if a Bene Gesserit appears among them.

I would also make the argument that the Bene Gesserit are the only faction that line up with Dune’s theme of “improve the human, don’t become dependent on other things” because…well, while the Reverend Mothers are dependent on Spice…most Bene Gesserit are not. Most of their abilities seem to be ‘natural’ human abilities that theoretically any human can learn.
And most of these abilities really do make Bene Gesserit self-reliant in a way that the other major Dune worldbuilding things don’t.

I think the concept of the Mentat is stupid and practically stupid as well.

Yeah, I find the Sandworm to be really interesting. Though I probably won’t elaborate for a while.

Buddislam could not exist.

What I mean by that is that Islam is a strict monotheistic religion. What that means is that it effectively rejects monotheism as a concept.
Most religions – though mainly polytheistic ones – are fine with syncretizing with other faiths. However, Islam is allergic to basically all forms of Syncretism.^B)
Keep in mind that while Christianity (for example) doesn’t really care what you call God as long as you acknowledge he’s supreme…Islam cares a lot about the fact he’s called Allah. I mean “There Is No God but Allah.” Though the other part of Islam that prevents syncretism is the Quran. Muslims believe that the Quran is without fault and has all (or most of) the truth needed to understand…everything. So the idea of incorporating other beliefs is alien to Islam.
In practice, this manifests as Islam rejecting any form of syncretism. They won’t accept relating Allah to other gods, they won’t accept merging traditions together (because only the Quran and Hadiths matter), they won’t accept incorporating/assimilating because that would implicitly suggest that those other gods exist and, as has been established, there is only Allah.
In fact, I didn’t realize this until I looked it up recently, but associating Allah with any other being is considered a serious sin – shirk – and, thus, I think that any kind of syncretism is automatically bad in Islam.

This means that, in practice, Buddislam cannot exist: Buddhism is fine with melding with Islam, but Islam is not.
It’s possible that Buddislam could exist if we assume that it merged with some completely distinct offshoot of Islam (but then it wouldn’t be called ‘Islam’). Or if Islam adopted some Buddhist beliefs, which is still unlikely due to the Quran being absolute.

• Once I think of what to put here, I’ll put it here.