Dune References in (Un)Popular Media

[MrFlibble]

If I remember correctly in Dune there's the "red duke" referring to Leto and the Atreides' heraldic symbol, the red hawk. The Harkonnen Baron isn't attributed any color, but the Harkonnen flag seems to have blue in it (again, if I remember correctly). This would be why in Cryo's Dune the Harkonnens were blue and the Atreides were red.

There is one instance in the book when Yueh calls the Baron "the black Baron" in his thoughts:

"Do not worry for us, Wellington," Jessica said. "The problem's ours, not yours."

She thinks I worry for her! He blinked back tears. And I do, of course. But I must stand before that black Baron with his deed accomplished, and take my one chance to strike him where he is weakest--in his gloating moment!

There is a historical person who was called "The Black Baron", Pyotr Vrangel, however I'm not sure if FH wished to make this reference or this is plain coincidence (the latter might be more probable, as there is practically nothing similar between Vrangel and the Baron).

Westwood switched the colors as a refference to the the Harkonnen being the USSR and the Atreides being the "west" (again, my personal idea).

This is probably more of a colour coded for your convenience trope, with red meaning danger without any Communist (or Republican ;)) connotations. Also red and blue are typical colours used on military/historical maps to denote troop movements.

Blue as the "west" was only first used in Red Alert, much later than Dune II.

[Davidu]

Very much possible with the colors :)

 

Pyotr Vrangel (Peter von Wrangel) was one tall dude. Those pictures from wikipedia surely show one tall and slender man, far from the obese shape of baron Harkonnen.

[MrFlibble]

There's this not very well known DOS arena FPS called XS, and the depictions of energy shields the character use in the intro conematic is very similar to how shields are depicted in David Lynch's Dune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL4bRVDYf8Q#t=180

[MrFlibble]

Here's a nice pic:

(A Fallout Tactics screenshot from this review.)

[X3M]

I always love it when they say that. It normally is just a title.

 

A soundtrack of a game:

It was clearly their intention to refer to Dune. But that game has notching to do with Dune at all?

 

So, how about an album then?

Nope, the rest of that album has notching to do with dune either?

There are some more albums with the name, but that is about it.

[Nyerguds]

To be fair, the references to the Litany of Fear could very well get their own thread. You find those everywhere :P

[arnoldo]

http://jacarutu.com/

[X3M]

Don't know if anyone watches South Park.

In episode 1613, the Pilgrim Commander says: "He who controls the stuffing, controls the universe".

[soapdx]

Yeah watch lots of South Park, don't think I've seen that one yet, looking forward to it.

[Nyerguds]

lol. Yeah, that sounds like a dune reference all right.

[arnoldo]

Frank thought Star Wars ripped him off. 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by arnoldo

[Nyerguds]

They did. Tatooine and the Sarlacc pit were very obvious influences, and I'd even go as far as to see a link between the Fremen and the face-masked Sand People.

Of course, it's far from the only thing they cribbed. Go google the connection between Star Wars and the French comic "Valerian", you'll see

(now finally about to be a kickass movie itself. Can't wait - I grew up with these comics)

Edited May 16, 2017 by Nyerguds

[soapdx]

When you take a good look at Star Wars you see it "Borrows" from countless other sources, actually, there's not much original in it. heh.

Star Wars is fun Sci-Fi, but not the way I like my Sci-Fi.

[MrFlibble]

I'm not sure if I mentioned Emperor of the Fading Suns before as having rather obvious Dune influences and themes, but apparently there was another game (which was sadly cancelled) that also went in a somewhat similar direction. The game was called Mech Wars and then Metal Lords, and only a handful of pre-release screenshots and a non-playable demo appear to have been preserved. Here's a video of the demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5HpANBASHY

The premise seems to have a feudal interstellar empire with noble Houses, but unlike Dune, war is waged with giant mecha robots. Recently I found several preview screenshots on the SCORE magazine coverdisk (issue No. 21, found here), and uploaded them:

https://imgur.com/a/2IzGgMV

The shots show characters from noble Houses named Paul Strader and Vladimir Sardonis, which I believe are pretty obvious references to Paul Atreides and Vladimir Harkonnen:

Note how the two characters on the latter two screenshots (which are BTW not the characters mentioned by name in the respective images) also look very fitting for Dune character art.

Another noble House is called Ordeus.

The game was developed by SimTex, the team behind Master of Orion and Master of Magic.

[X3M]

That is indeed waaay to obvious.