Very similar to the magical religions unfold by its Bene Gesserit, the influences of Dune unfold to each nook of the universe of science fiction. In some tales, the inspirations are woven so tightly into the material of the story they’re almost unimaginable to select up, perhaps even for the writer themself. In others, the homages to Dune are unmissable, often to the purpose of being distracting. After which there’s Star Wars, probably the most blatant ripoff of all — not less than, in response to Frank Herbert.
The Dune writer didn’t speak a lot about George Lucas’ landmark science fiction movie earlier than his demise in 1986, however he answered a number of questions on it over time, and he all the time appeared not less than somewhat aggravated on the similarities between the 2 tales.
The primary public feedback he appears to have made concerning the film come from an interview with the Related Press from 1977, the yr A New Hope was launched. The article is fairly easy shit-stirring, but it surely’s clear that whereas Herbert hadn’t but seen the film, he did have some ideas about its similarities to his seminal sequence, which was already three books in.
Herbert begins by saying an editor for the Village Voice had referred to as him and requested if he had seen Star Wars, and whether or not or not he was going to sue. It’s a robust lead-in, however apparently that’s what was high of thoughts of Herbert.
“I’ll attempt arduous to not sue,” Herbert advised the Related Press. “I do not know what guide of mine it suits, however I think it might be Dune since in that I had a Princess Alia and the film has a Princess Leia. And I hear there’s a sandworm carcass and hood dwellers within the desert, identical to in Dune.”
Herbert goes on to brag, rightfully, concerning the ubiquity of Dune, each in common tradition and at the same time as a school textbook on topics like “structure, psychology, writing, English, human dwelling, house evaluation, and a few I’ve forgotten.” Herbert doesn’t get too particular on this early article, but it surely’s clear the film’s reported similarities to his personal work didn’t sit fairly proper with him. And later it will be even clearer that they caught in his craw, a technique or one other.
![Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides holding up a dagger in a desert valley in Dune](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8djOLG8KI8pOt56wo8hyEVAUQIc=/0x0:4096x1716/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4096x1716):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23226523/rev_1_DUN_T2_0050r_High_Res_JPEG.jpeg)
Picture: Warner Bros. Photos
Now, with a long time of hindsight and years of interviews, it’s simple to see that Star Wars, significantly the primary movie, is an amalgamation of many genres and tales, together with (however not restricted to) science fiction, legendary fantasy, and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. There’s additionally a whole expanded universe of historical past within the Star Wars galaxy that borrows from all around the sci-fi canon, and has helped encourage simply as many future writers.
However should you take into account the time when Star Wars was only one tremendously profitable summer time blockbuster, it’s simple to grasp why Herbert may need had a bone to select. And because the years glided by, it’s clear that he thought fairly a bit concerning the topic, sufficient to depend the similarities between the titles.
“Lucas has by no means admitted that they copied numerous Dune, and I’m not saying they did,” Herbert mentioned in 1985, throughout a talking engagement at UCLA. “I’m simply saying there are 16 factors of identification between the guide Dune and Star Wars. Now you’ve had stat — what’s it? It’s 16 instances 16 instances 16 instances… over 1, the chances in opposition to that being coincidence? There aren’t that many stars within the universe.”
Herbert’s pissed off quote stemmed from a query about whether or not or not Lucas ever purchased Herbert dinner — a reference to a long-standing joke of Herbert’s that even when Lucas didn’t blatantly steal his concepts to make Star Wars, he not less than owes Herbert dinner for the coincidence.
However Frank Herbert was one to lose out on a warfare of pettiness. A yr earlier than that UCLA interview, he revealed Heretics of Dune, the fifth guide within the sequence and the second to final written by him. Late within the guide, which is usually about the way forward for humanity after the demise of The God Emperor, Herbert has a small, inconspicuous passage that definitely appears like a reference to Star Wars. He doesn’t appear to have ever mentioned that formally, so we’ll allow you to choose:
Within the time of the Outdated Empire and even below the reign of Maud’Dib, the area across the Gammu Hold had been a forest reserve, excessive floor rising effectively above the oily residue that tended to cowl Harkonnen land. On this floor, the Harkonnens had grown among the best pilingitam, a wooden of regular foreign money, all the time valued by the supremely wealthy. From probably the most historical instances, the educated had most well-liked to encompass themselves with high-quality woods relatively than with the mass-produced synthetic supplies identified then as polestine, polaz, and pormabat (latterly: tine, laz, and bat). Way back to the Outdated Empire there had been a pejorative label for the small wealthy and Households Minor arising from the data of the uncommon wooden’s worth.
“He’s a 3 P-O,” they mentioned, that means that such an individual surrounded himself with low-cost copies constituted of déclassé substances.