Dune clip - Chalamet and Brolin shield fighting

[Wintermoot]

An aside on "exposition", especially in film adaptations of books.

With Dune reaching US audiences recently and more reviews coming to light, in the last few days I have been coming across this word more often than ever before.

And it got me thinking. It really feels that we simply consider that "exposition" is a negative thing per se in movies. Why is that? Surely Dune the novel has way more exposition than the movie. But I don't think that you see this notion brought up when discussing novels pretty much at all. The creator(s) retains more agency in novels, but in visual media the viewers are stakeholders of what's done, and how.

In the particular case of Dune, I think that it may come down to two things. One, we are in an era of nitpicking; criticism means finding problems in things, and complaining gets you social cred. Two, the exposure (?): surely the first LotR movie has as much exposition than Dune, if not more. But that was never an issue with it, I think. The LotR is so engrained in the collective mindset that maybe we accept it being more "exposition"-heavy than something that feels more like a novelty, even if it was written half a century ago.

I think it's easier for the exposition to feel clumsy and heavy-handed in a Movie, where it has to spew forth from someone's mouth in what is often very unnatural language, whereas in a novel it can simply be presented to the reader without having to ham-handedly jam it through someone's mouth.

certainly my issues with exposition comes from it being done badly, not just being done.

In this Dune movie, I liked, for example, when Paul was watching little videos educating himself on Arrakis culture. That's something his character would DO when sent there. And felt more natural and in-universe than some kind of "here's the thoughts in my head" voiceover like in the 80s movie.

But then I -hated- when Dr Keynes mumbles as an aside about Paul "he will know your ways as if born to them" because it was ridiculous that the character would mumble that out-loud out of the corner of her mouth while that close to the outworlders.

So I would say the first one was done well and the second done poorly, as examples.

[Aedilred]

I agree with the comments of Wintermoot above about the difference between novels and movies as regards exposition. There's another important difference, I think, which is the ability to skim in a novel. If the author decides to wax lyrical about the specific properties of this particular sci-fi whatever, you can just cast your eyes over it and pick up the important stuff before getting on with the story (or skip it altogether and return to it as necessary). You can also quickly refer back to it if necessary, if you've missed something. But in a movie you're forced to sit through it for however long the director decided was a good idea. This is, incidentally, one of the reasons I don't get on particularly well with audiobooks or indeed podcasts.

I think there's no problem with exposition per se. It's necessary, after all. But it becomes a problem when you get expo-dumps, characters who only exist to deliver exposition, exposition is told-not-shown, and so on. Really I think you want to minimise the amount of time that the audience is aware that they're being exposited to: you ideally want them to pick up the information organically through just watching the movie.

In this movie I felt that the first section was a bit heavy on the exposition, to the point that the film clunked a bit, although once that was out of the way everything was fine. And it was clear that they were making an effort to try to convey the information in an interesting way rather than just having people monologue at the camera or have long "as we all know" conversations. The movies Paul was watching were a nice way of doing (part of) it, although I did feel that they were a bit basic for someone in his position, especially considering he arrived on Arrakis supposedly fully-versed in this stuff including speaking the language. It was necessary to get that information across somehow, and it's always going to be a problem in a movie of this type, so I'm not going to hold it against them.

I haven't read the book (I know) but I have seen the miniseries and I'm familiar enough with the setting that I probably didn't need the exposition per se. Maybe if I were a complete noob I would appreciate that more.

Really my major criticism of it was the pacing generally. Much of the movie is essentially prologue to the main story, but this can't (and indeed shouldn't) be shortened much more than it is. This also means that much of the setting-exposition is further compressed into the very beginning of the movie because you need that to understand the prologue. And then at the point the prologue ends - that feels like the climax of the movie, which means that the second half drags terribly at times: you're waiting for a signal that another break point is coming to end the movie, but it feels like it's meandering about. There are a few points where it feels like that was enough and we can end the movie now, only for it to continue, and when that's been done a few times and when you haven't seen the film before, it's difficult to avoid the temptation to look at your watch just to see how much longer the thing has to run.

That might fall away on a rewatch.

The film was for the most part visually impressive but unexciting. It conveys scale brilliantly. But there's an awful of brown, grey, beige. Someone else commented on the sterility of the interior scenes; I thought so too. Surely there's a happy medium between the blandness of these costumes and the bonkers flamboyance of the Theodor Pistek outfits in the 2000 miniseries?

Regarding mumbling: I did at times struggle to hear the actors but I put that down less to their delivery and more to the intrusiveness of the score. The balance seemed off at times. Overall - maybe it's just me - but I'm not really sure I get the love for Hans Zimmer. I've seen a few articles about the efforts he went to to produce the score for this film and make it sound sci-fi-y and so on but at the time I just felt it was (a) generic and (b) often too loud... and I think that about a lot of Zimmer scores. From my armchair, it seems to me like he focuses on effect over melody, perhaps because at heart he's a producer not a composer? Has he ever actually written, you know, a tune? Looking at his portfolio, all the best scores on there were written primarily by someone else and then mixed by him.

[Eldan]

I agree with the comments of Wintermoot above about the difference between novels and movies as regards exposition. There's another important difference, I think, which is the ability to skim in a novel. If the author decides to wax lyrical about the specific properties of this particular sci-fi whatever, you can just cast your eyes over it and pick up the important stuff before getting on with the story (or skip it altogether and return to it as necessary). You can also quickly refer back to it if necessary, if you've missed something.

And to go even further, as in some books - including Dune - you can have appendices and a glossary.

As for bonkers flamboyant... they are space aristocrats who rule a rich planet. I think they could use a bit of ostentation.

[Dragonus45]

Watched it, loved it, was absolutely ready for another 2.5 hour continuation of the story...

I'm flabbergasted that Part 2 hasn't been greenlit yet; I would have thought filming both films at the same time would have huge cost savings.

Villeneuve has said he wanted to do that but there were "logistical issues" with the studio prevented that.

[Clertar]

(oops, wrong thread)

[Aedilred]

As for bonkers flamboyant... they are space aristocrats who rule a rich planet. I think they could use a bit of ostentation.

Well my Feyd-Rautha will always wear a large triangle for no apparent reason...

Spoiler

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… and I still hold out hope that he will when he finally appears in Part 2

Some of the costumes in the miniseries were OTT - to the point where when I watched it with my friends the attention we paid to those overshadowed the plot and the dialogue, etc. But I do feel that the movie could have used a bit more of that, all the same. Even the "ceremonial" outfits, surely the one place you can really let your costume designer off the leash, were pretty dull to look at. The Herald of the Change had the best outfit: hopefully when we see more of non-Arrakis, non-military personnel he won't be such an outlier.

[Dragonus45]

News just hit that the sequel is officially greenlit! I'm stoked. Hopefully they don't bungle the release of this one and we can get a third movie for Dune Messiah, which honestly feels like the easiest book to pack down into a single release.

[Aedilred]

The sequel is likely to be profitable: it'll probably do sufficient numbers on the strengths of this movie over the opening weekend that even if it stinks, word of mouth won't damage it quickly enough to stop it basically breaking even. So I suspect the WB bean-counters will now switch sides and support the idea of filming any projected sequels at once if there's a cost saving involved. But then there might not be so much of a saving if they can't re-use the same sets.

And that's assuming that Villeneuve has any interest in filming Messiah of course.

[Thrudd]

The sequel is likely to be profitable: it'll probably do sufficient numbers on the strengths of this movie over the opening weekend that even if it stinks, word of mouth won't damage it quickly enough to stop it basically breaking even. So I suspect the WB bean-counters will now switch sides and support the idea of filming any projected sequels at once if there's a cost saving involved. But then there might not be so much of a saving if they can't re-use the same sets.

And that's assuming that Villeneuve has any interest in filming Messiah of course.

Can't say for sure, but I feel like some of the visual and acting choices made in this film point to an intention to get to Messiah and Children, at the least. Some subtle foreshadowing and setting up of character relationships that wouldn't really pay off until then.

[Clertar]

Can't say for sure, but I feel like some of the visual and acting choices made in this film point to an intention to get to Messiah and Children, at the least. Some subtle foreshadowing and setting up of character relationships that wouldn't really pay off until then.

Yes, and consistently with the prequel series we'll get on HBO Max, it seems that the intention is to set up a sort of Dune franchise. It makes sense that they would want to cover the novels, if we compare Dune to Star Wars it would be a big advantage to have a story already set and just adapting it for the movies instead of having to create it as they go. The extended Dune lore is also perfect for devoting series to it in parallel to the movies, in a small-scale MCU approach.

[Catullus64]

An aside on "exposition", especially in film adaptations of books.

With Dune reaching US audiences recently and more reviews coming to light, in the last few days I have been coming across this word more often than ever before.

And it got me thinking. It really feels that we simply consider that "exposition" is a negative thing per se in movies. Why is that? Surely Dune the novel has way more exposition than the movie. But I don't think that you see this notion brought up when discussing novels pretty much at all. The creator(s) retains more agency in novels, but in visual media the viewers are stakeholders of what's done, and how.

In the particular case of Dune, I think that it may come down to two things. One, we are in an era of nitpicking; criticism means finding problems in things, and complaining gets you social cred. Two, the exposure (?): surely the first LotR movie has as much exposition than Dune, if not more. But that was never an issue with it, I think. The LotR is so engrained in the collective mindset that maybe we accept it being more "exposition"-heavy than something that feels more like a novelty, even if it was written half a century ago.

I strongly agree that the word "exposition" is over-stigmatized. But it still needs to be handled with finesse, and both of the previous on-screen adaptations of Dune struggled with it heavily, the 1984 film in particular. I would say that inability to translate the inner monologues and long expository dialogues of Herbert's novel into something that moves gracefully on screen is the greatest failing of the (otherwise very creative and faithful) Lynch adaptation, and one of the greatest strengths of the Villeneuve adaptation. I can understand why, with this property in particular, people would be leery of the weight of the exposition.

(Lest it seems like I'm giving Villeneuve and his team too much credit over Lynch and his, Villeneuve has a distinct advantage in terms of the filmaking climate that he is working in. Peter Jackson and company basically wrote the manifesto on how to adapt sprawling genre works like this, for those who know how to read it.)

Film, for better or for worse, biases towards the naturalistic, and expository dialogue is always going to veer into more noticeably artificial territory. Books can lean a lot more on the imagination of the reader to make things seem natural; a novel can still have clunky exposition, but the margin for error is much more generous on the page than on the screen. And for any story, book or film, the amount of exposition needs to be weighed in proportion to the gravity and intensity of the story being told. For all that they're derided as colossal loredumps, Dune and The Lord of the Rings are pretty thrilling page-turners with action-packed plots and consistently reinforced high stakes.

[Mordar]

First 70 minutes in...don't like splitting the viewing, but not much choice.

Visuals very pleasing. Gurney current favorite. Disappointed that it appears we have Jason Mamoa as Jason Mamoa playing Duncan Idaho, but it is early yet. Maybe that changes. Similarly, Bautista as Bautista, but he's only had like 60 seconds of time. Also may be confirmation bias since those were the two that I thought would be problematic.

- M

[ecarden]

I enjoyed it, but the longer these movies get, the more they start to need an intermission.

[Trafalgar]

Went to see it yesterday. After a minute and a half, the theatre lost power right in the middle of Paul sitting down to breakfast. (I don't think I need to put that in spoilers). They refunded me the ticket cost.

Went again tonight and some one three rows up brought their whole family including a toddler and a 7 year old. Between the toddler crying at every Hans Zimmer Bwoooom and the 7 year old playing a game on smart phone during the whole movie, I didn't have a great movie going experience. Hopefully that doesn't color my reaction.

Over all I liked it. It's true to the novel. I can see some people finding it slow but I think pacing was fine. Villeneuve is trying to go high brow with it and not turn it into an action flick. Cinematography is excellent, Casting is good. I liked Momoa as Duncan. I was pleasantly surprised that I like Chalamet as Paul.

What I didn't like: The music was off a bit. You know that high pitched singing/wailing that Hollywood likes to do whenever they want you to think a place is exotic? There is a lot of it and it got repetitive by the end of the movie. There are some characters from the book who are in the movie for like 10 seconds just so fans of the book can say ahhh, look who that is. But their parts could likely have been cut all together. Good examples are Shadout Mapes, Piter De Vries, and Dr. Yueh. I know Dr. Yueh is important to the plot but they don't establish his character at all. They could have almost gotten rid of him all together.

[Cikomyr2]

I have to say, there were instances of the music covering up Paul's dialogue when he was in the middle of a vision/frenzy. that's probably the one most annoying/displeasing thing about the movie to me

[Eldan]

Yeah, I think the sound quality was also pretty bad at my cinema, I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. Was quite tempted to go find a screening with subtitles, but apparently, the local cinemas declared they aren't doing English shows anymore because they aren't profitable in small towns.

[DavidSh]

... Was quite tempted to go find a screening with subtitles, but apparently, the local cinemas declared they aren't doing English shows anymore because they aren't profitable in small towns.

Do they run shows dubbed in French or German? Italian? Romansh? Is Dune showing in such a dub?

[Eldan]

German, yes, but I pretty strongly dislike dubs. If I can understand the original language (English, French) I always avoid them, and often even for other languages.

[Cikomyr2]

German, yes, but I pretty strongly dislike dubs. If I can understand the original language (English, French) I always avoid them, and often even for other languages.

I grown without knowing any english, so Dubbed was my life for a long time. But nowaday if I can avoid it I do

[Mordar]

Over all I liked it. It's true to the novel. I can see some people finding it slow but I think pacing was fine. Villeneuve is trying to go high brow with it and not turn it into an action flick. Cinematography is excellent, Casting is good. I liked Momoa as Duncan. I was pleasantly surprised that I like Chalamet as Paul.

I liked Chalamet as well...from an interview I read I wasn't sure I would, but we was good. Could use a sandwich or two though. Momoa is another matter, as I mentioned before.

There are some characters from the book who are in the movie for like 10 seconds just so fans of the book can say ahhh, look who that is. But their parts could likely have been cut all together. Good examples are Shadout Mapes, Piter De Vries, and Dr. Yueh. I know Dr. Yueh is important to the plot but they don't establish his character at all. They could have almost gotten rid of him all together.

Agreed. Especially...

Spoiler: Why?

Show

...since they weren't bothering with the conditioning. We're not shown anything impressive about the defenses Atriedes has in place to protect themselves, and the House Wars aren't the focus...so the sneak attack and Sardaukar had it covered. I guess we needed another example of Harkkonen = bad, and an excuse for the shields being down. Now we need an excuse for how the doctor could drop the shields, though...

What I didn't like: The music was off a bit. You know that high pitched singing/wailing that Hollywood likes to do whenever they want you to think a place is exotic? There is a lot of it and it got repetitive by the end of the movie.

I have to say, there were instances of the music covering up Paul's dialogue when he was in the middle of a vision/frenzy. that's probably the one most annoying/displeasing thing about the movie to me

Yeah, I think the sound quality was also pretty bad at my cinema, I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. Was quite tempted to go find a screening with subtitles, but apparently, the local cinemas declared they aren't doing English shows anymore because they aren't profitable in small towns.

Contrary to my general preference (theater over home theater) and our level of comfort with movies in the COVID era (good spacing, vaccinated, etc), I watched this on HBO Max. As such, I had the advantage of captioning. I am very happy about that, because even without outside people noises/distractions, a lot of the dialogue was tough to hear.

Pretty movie. Pretty hard to hear.

- M

[NRSASD]

I can’t seem to add spoilers tags so I’m trying to keep this post spoiler free. That said, consider yourself warned!

Just saw the film as someone entirely new to Dune.

The Good:
The worms are great. The Shaduakar are excellent, especially their homeworld. House Atriedes appears very Totalitarian Scotland, which is great. I adore the fact that they made landfall on Arriakas and were piped in by space bagpipers. All the actors are superb and I enjoyed them greatly. The movie is visually excellent across the board. Their dragonfly gunships are adorable and I love them.

The Meh (nothing was bad):
Everyone is human in this setting right, so why do the Harkunnons look like cloning rejects or really pasty orcs? Traitor guy seemed really smart for setting up all these ways to sabotage people but really dumb for not anticipating his reward? Music was distracting. Protagonist is named Paul (I suppose Bob would be worse but still, everyone else gets good names. Besides mom or Duncan Idaho). Nobody seemed to actually be suffering in the presumably lethal heat during the scenes where people are outside and unprotected. Last line of the film was “this is only the beginning” which was a little on the nose.

Overall an excellent film and I eagerly await part 2!

[Mechalich]

Contrary to my general preference (theater over home theater) and our level of comfort with movies in the COVID era (good spacing, vaccinated, etc), I watched this on HBO Max. As such, I had the advantage of captioning. I am very happy about that, because even without outside people noises/distractions, a lot of the dialogue was tough to hear.

Pretty movie. Pretty hard to hear.

Have to echo this, it seems to be the biggest issue with the film, bad sound mixing. The score is simple too loud compared to dialogue and ambient effects during many portions of the film. I actually liked the score itself and thought it very appropriate to the overall themes, but it was just brutal at points.

[Fyraltari]

I can’t seem to add spoilers tags so I’m trying to keep this post spoiler free. That said, consider yourself warned!

That's odd, have you tried putting them manually, like so [spoiler][/spoiler]?

Just saw the film as someone entirely new to Dune.

welcome to the fandom!

Everyone is human in this setting right,

Right, although, they're not afraid to bend the definition of "human" pretty far. But that's mostly sequel stuff. There's one mention that the Great Houses keep stockpiling nuclear weapons in case they ever run into an alien intelligence.

so why do the Harkunnons look like cloning rejects or really pasty orcs?

Ever since the Lynch film made the Harkonnens inexplicably redheaded, it seems to be tradition to have them have something weird going on, which is dumb. That and making the Baron fly, but that's objevtimvely cooler than in the book, so I give it a pass. The idea here is apparently tht their homeworld of Giedi Prime is sonpollited they kever get any sunlight.

that their Traitor guy seemed really smart for setting up all these ways to sabotage people but really dumb for not anticipating his reward?

Spoiler: The Betrayer

Show

Yeah, that whole plot got done dirty. The whole "the Atreides retainers suspect Jessica of being a plant" bit got excised which raises questions for the sequel, and poor Dr. Yueh's background and motivations were completely missing. It goes like this: he's a doctor of the Suk school which means hebwas condotionned to be utterly unable to harm his patients (anybody?) even indirectly. However, he was married to a Bene Gesserit adept called Wanna who was abducted by the Harkonnens. The tortures she's undergoing broke through his conditionning (the Baron tgunks it's because of his love for her, he thinks it's because of his sheer hatred towards the Baron, the fans suspect the BG mind whammy had something to do with it). The Baron offered to reunite them if he betrayed the Atreides. He immediately clocked that it meant there was a 95% chance the Baron meant killing them both, but he went along with it because A) He would never be sure of her fate until he looked the Baron in the eye, B) Her being killed is preferable to being tortured by the Harkonnens, C) He wasn't going to get another shot at killing the Baron. Hislast words in the novel are "You think I didn't know what I bought for my Wanna?" said as he's bleeding to death.

Music was distracting. Protagonist is named Paul (I suppose Bob would be worse but still, everyone else gets good names. Besides mom or Duncan Idaho).

What's wrong with being called Paul, Jessica or Duncan?

Nobody seemed to actually be suffering in the presumably lethal heat during the scenes where people are outside and unprotected.

The heat isn't lethal in the city, it's way up north. The Water Discipline is only really observed by the people who live in the desert.

[Trafalgar]

Spoiler: Why?

Show

...since they weren't bothering with the conditioning. We're not shown anything impressive about the defenses Atriedes has in place to protect themselves, and the House Wars aren't the focus...so the sneak attack and Sardaukar had it covered. I guess we needed another example of Harkkonen = bad, and an excuse for the shields being down. Now we need an excuse for how the doctor could drop the shields, though...

Spoiler: Why O Why?

Show

They eliminated the explanation of his conditioning. They also eliminated people suspecting Jessica of betraying him. That's important for when Gurney shows up again in part 2. I think the main thing for keeping him around is the poison tooth episode, but it depends if they have Hawat working as Mentat for the Harkonnen. But they never explained Mentats.....

Did else anyone notice that the spice silos were on concrete pads like the Dune RTS from the 90s?

[GloatingSwine]

Ever since the Lynch film made the Harkonnens inexplicably redheaded, it seems to be tradition to have them have something weird going on, which is dumb. That and making the Baron fly, but that's objevtimvely cooler than in the book, so I give it a pass. The idea here is apparently tht their homeworld of Giedi Prime is sonpollited they kever get any sunlight.

Not that inexplicable. The Baron is supposed to be a redhead, it’s a very buried clue that

Spoiler

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he’s Jessica’s father, and Paul’s grandfather, because Jessica is also supposed to have reddish hair.

Spoiler: The Betrayer

Show

Yeah, that whole plot got done dirty. The whole "the Atreides retainers suspect Jessica of being a plant" bit got excised which raises questions for the sequel, and poor Dr. Yueh's background and motivations were completely missing. It goes like this: he's a doctor of the Suk school which means hebwas condotionned to be utterly unable to harm his patients (anybody?) even indirectly. However, he was married to a Bene Gesserit adept called Wanna who was abducted by the Harkonnens. The tortures she's undergoing broke through his conditionning (the Baron tgunks it's because of his love for her, he thinks it's because of his sheer hatred towards the Baron, the fans suspect the BG mind whammy had something to do with it). The Baron offered to reunite them if he betrayed the Atreides. He immediately clocked that it meant there was a 95% chance the Baron meant killing them both, but he went along with it because A) He would never be sure of her fate until he looked the Baron in the eye, B) Her being killed is preferable to being tortured by the Harkonnens, C) He wasn't going to get another shot at killing the Baron. Hislast words in the novel are "You think I didn't know what I bought for my Wanna?" said as he's bleeding to death.

Spoiler

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I dunno, I rather liked that they dropped the conditioning bit. Like the Sun school is supposed to be this perfectly trustworthy thing but actually it’s broken by a single loved one held hostage. That doesn’t make the Baron look uniquely conniving and capable, it just makes Suk conditioning look pathetic.

The movie established well how much Yueh was trusted because it made a big deal of who was and was not allowed to attempt physical contact with Paul and Leto and he was and regularly did.

[J-H]

I guess this is the Dune discussion thread. After seeing a bunch of recommendations to watch it in a theater, I did. I had to drive an hour each way as the closest theater (30 minute) isn't showing it any more... rural life. Anyway, I'm really glad I saw it in the theater. If my wife wants to watch it, I'll watch it again, which is something I rarely do. I'm curious as to how much she'll be disoriented vs. someone who's familiar with the book.

It's been a decade or more, but I have read the original book a number of times (and own it). I am extremely happy with this adaptation. They changed some things, absolutely, but they did it in a way that was generally faithful to the spirit and intent of the book. This is the best rendition of 'thopters I've ever seen, and although the spaceships with their giant "we're on display like we're landing on the Death Star" ramps are kind of impractical, they do a great job of showing the high-tech alienness of the environment because they are not like anything we'd build on earth. We saw very little of the guild, but the super-giant "looks like the planet eater from Star Trek" heighliner again shows how powerful they are and how they control interstellar travel.

The trailers made it look like Jessica had a bit part, but she didn't. She was at least redhead-ish, which is close enough. She did a really good job mixing "mom concern" in with the other things she had going on; as a parent I definitely had empathy for her, as well as for Leto I.

Liet was a slightly more influential character than I recall in the book, but she worked. I really appreciated how when she got stabbed we saw a jet of water from her stillsuit instead of just "oh blood". Paul's visions were overall handled well (the one while flying the 'thopter was a bit weird) and giving Jamis some vision time made him a bit more humanized as not "the crazy guy" but "the guy who lives the Fremen way without compromise or adaptation." Gender and ethnicity swapping for movies is something I usually disdain, because it's usually done badly or disrespectfully vs the source material. I have zero complaints about it in this adaptation, because they did it well. I don't recall a lot of descriptions of the Fremen as far as skin color/hair although I think Chani may have been another redhead in the book (that detail has slipped from certainty to maybe in my head); anyway they make a lot more sense here than as the "white guys with long hair" in the David Lynch version. Paul needs to get a tan or he's gonna burn.

I knew what was going on with Yueh, and I like how they changed "Suk Doctor" into "Also like a Vulcan" with simply laying fingertips on Paul and others to check vitals and health. It was one of those subtle "these are high tech humans but also alien to how we do things" points.

A+ Exceeds Expectations. Worth the trip, worth seeing in theater.

Possibly my first time in a movie theater in 3-4 years?

[Clertar]

I find it interesting that when discussing the Dune adaptacion, Javier Bardem generally seems to not be considered white.

[Mechalich]

I find it interesting that when discussing the Dune adaptacion, Javier Bardem generally seems to not be considered white.

Bardem is Spanish, and was born in the Canary Islands. If one felt obligated to force him into US census style classification scheme he would probably report as White, Hispanic. In popular discourse this grouping, which encompasses a large portion of the persons considered to be Latino/Latina/Latinx, is generally considered 'non-white.' Frankly this is one of the reasons why attempting to discuss arbitrary higher-level classifications of human populations above those of identifiable hereditary or linguistic ethnic groups is a foolish enterprise.

[J-H]

There's been so much interchange between North Africa and Spain & Italy over the last couple of thousand years that "white" is more of a cultural than descriptive term. It's hard to tell a stereotypical Italian (tan skin, dark hair) apart from a Carthaginian Libyan, Lebanese, Egyptian, Armenian, etc. who also has tan skin and dark hair. You could argue that Leto looks more Persian than he does Greek-ish (I think the Atreides are supposed to be Greek-ish?) and have a good case for that too because of how blurred-together everything is.

If I remember correctly, when they were casting for 300, the directors put out a call for a bunch of Persians/Iranians to show up as extras. They were unhappy at the amount of "white" people who didn't look right for the part showing up because that was where their ancestors were from. They wanted darker skin, blacker hair, etc.

[Fyraltari]

There's been so much interchange between North Africa and Spain & Italy over the last couple of thousand years that "white" is more of a cultural than descriptive term.

It's never been anything else.

It's hard to tell a stereotypical Italian (tan skin, dark hair) apart from a Carthaginian Libyan, Lebanese, Egyptian, Armenian, etc. who also has tan skin and dark hair. You could argue that Leto looks more Persian than he does Greek-ish

Why would you want to?

(I think the Atreides are supposed to be Greek-ish?)

As the name suggests, they are indeed the descendants of Atreus, from Greek legend, through Agammemnon. But the year is 10, 091 after the Spacing Guild so if they have a phenotype, it'd be "Caladanian". Duke Leto is said to have dark hair and olive-dark skin. That's about it.

If I remember correctly, when they were casting for 300, the directors put out a call for a bunch of Persians/Iranians to show up as extras. They were unhappy at the amount of "white" people who didn't look right for the part showing up because that was where their ancestors were from. They wanted darker skin, blacker hair, etc.

Wow, are you telling me that 300 might be slightly historically inaccurate? I would have never guessed.