Mentats

[TMA_1]

These guys have always interested me. I just love them in the book and have always pictured them just like how they looked in Lynch's version of Dune. Eccentric, unkempt, and extremely intelligent and linear with logic. What do you guys think? how did you picture the Mentat and what most interests you about the order.

[Vanguard3000]

Well, I saw the movie before I read the books, but I always picture the mentats similarly to the movie (God, this sentence is a grammatical nightmare!). Although I'm not exactly sure why they have very bushy eyebrows (the book said Thufir had bushy eyebrows, but I didn't think they were that bushy. :)), or why they wear fur coats over their uniforms.

The mentats always interested me because they really represent the resilience of humanity. Problem: We can't use computers to think for us. Solution: Transform people into living computers.

Also, I was always a big fan of Piter, and the whole idea of the twisted mentats.

[TMA_1]

hehe yeah. many piter's grown in axolotl tanks. by the way I dont like the prequel's idea of the axolotl tank. From all my reading, I think that how they showed them in the book House Corrino was silly.

[Vanguard3000]

I think the idea that they showed/described them at all was pretty silly. ;)

I'm also not a big fan of Piter having been Ghola'd in HC.

[Inoculator9]

Yeah, they should have allowed the axlotl mystique untouched ;) But there description was how I had originally pictured them, and as far as I can tell they are pretty accurate.

[Colonel_Worf]

The bushy eyebrow thing really bothers me, and I think they went over the top with Thufir in Lynch's version.

[TMA_1]

I pictured them as totally different. I take the DE once again on this.lol

[Inoculator9]

What did the DE say they looked like? Because in the last two books the descriptions are exactly the same as Brian Herbert's descriptions.

[Vanguard3000]

Inoc: IIRC, they never actually described them. You never got to hear anything more than speculation as to what the tanks might look like.

[TMA_1]

exactly. Well in the DE, axolotl tanks have gone through many evolutionary changes. They existed in the ancient past and have continually been modified through the centuries. The tleilaxu took some as their own and perfected them. Nobody knows what they look like or how they work exactly. I do believe other axolotl tanks were destroyed during the butlerian jihad. at least that is what I remember from the DE.

I also love frank's other books. And how the DE's idea of the axolotl tank like in Destination: Void or the whipping star series is almost identical.I wish frank was alive so I could ask him many questions about things unsolved. I guess though that it makes it fun that they are so mysterious.

[Digital Guerrilla]

I never had a image of how a mentat looked except what Herbert said about the eyebrows. I would also like to know why they wear the fur maybe it's a status symbol among the mentats. :-

[TMA_1]

that is just in the movie. Lynch did that stuff in my opinion to show the eccentricity all the mentats. Everything about them physically and mentally was on the edge of lunacy.

[Colonel_Worf]

Oh, geez... I am starting to realize Lynch did a better job with Piter. I think Thufir is just plain 10 times as ugly as Gurney as it should be the other way around.

[Vanguard3000]

I really liked Lynch's Piter (Brad Dourif). Dourif is an excellent actor (my favourite, in fact), and he portrayed the psychotic mastermind beautifully.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion...

[Colonel_Worf]

^ That's a good line that implemented into the prequels.

[Inoculator9]

Lynch's Piter was better...

And, in HOD and CD, axlotl tanks are hinted at enough to get an idea of what they look like, IMO.

[Vanguard3000]

Yeah, but it's all speculation. You never find out about them for certain.