Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

In the absence of a public inquiry into the 7 July bombings, conspiracy theories have filled the vacuum. One of the more inflammatory involves a man hiding behind an Arabic-sounding pseudonym taken from a sci-fi film starring Sting, says the BBC's Mike Rudin.

The narrator alleges the four men blamed for the bombings were in fact fall guys in a government plot to win support for the war on terror; they were tricked into travelling to London with rucksacks on that day.

The Conspiracy Files 7/7, a BBC documentary, tracked Muad Dib down, eventually finding him in the small town of Kells in Ireland. He is in fact John Hill, from Sheffield.
His alias, Muad Dib, is a fictional character in the science fiction film Dune, a film starring Sting and Kyle MacLachlan about inter-galactic freedom fighting, from which he seems to draw inspiration.

Dune has been interpreted as an allegory for the Middle East
Clips from the film - including the quote "The sleeper must awaken" - appear in 7/7 Ripple Effect.
Frank Herbert's series of Dune novels use Islamic concepts like "jihad" and other terms based on Arabic.
A document on Muad Dib's website reveals he believes he is the Messiah and that George Lucas wrote Star Wars after being told telepathically what to write, by the very "Force" to which the films refer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8124687.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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A bit old news for some maybe but I never heard of it before today.

New to me as well. It would be funny if it wasn't for the horrific effects of terror attacks.

Most conspiracy theorists breed on that sort of ground, I guess the emotional appeal helps them further their twisted logic...

Well, at least the nut jobs see that Lucas stole from Herbert.

Omphalos wrote:Well, at least the nut jobs see that Lucas stole from Herbert.

Fans give Lucas too much credit for borrowing from Dune for Star Wars, since Star Wars is more Flash Gordon/Yojimbo/Hidden Fortress than Dune. Even Brian, Lynch, and Frank gave Star Wars too much credit in borrowing from Dune. Even so, they are kind of similar.

Back on topic. While I can understand the fantasy of becoming a repercussive prophetic figure who changes the world for the better, living out that fantasy is really not that ideal, and acting it out does not make him a hero. I really wish this guy didn't assume Paul's Fremen name and thinking that this somehow makes him a superhero. It's already a cursed name in the universe of the books, let's not have it be a name of scorn and irritation in reality.

If I impersonated a Fremen warrior who thinks he drunk the Water of Life, I would at least have come up with an original name different from any found in the books. I could be Darius the Sandtrout, or Atreus the Desert Plankton (all names are intentionally lame). Anway, if I tried to be a Dune hero, I wouldn't waste my time pressuring people with conspiracy theories. I would camp out in desert valleys, reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the Buddhist Scriptures, singing songs by Garrison Keillor, and duellling with my tribesmen with plastic chrysknives.

Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:

Omphalos wrote:Well, at least the nut jobs see that Lucas stole from Herbert.

Fans give Lucas too much credit for borrowing from Dune for Star Wars, since Star Wars is more Flash Gordon/Yojimbo/Hidden Fortress than Dune. Even Brian, Lynch, and Frank gave Star Wars too much credit in borrowing from Dune. Even so, they are kind of similar.

Herbert borrowed from Flash Gordon too. And Lucas outright stole ideas from Herbert. There was nothing subtle about it.

That reminds me... Have you ever thought of Dune being adapted in the style of the Flash Gordon comics and serials? If someone were to do a comic book adaptation of Dune, it should have a retro-sci fi/Heavy Metal quality to it.

It's a shame that there are no interviews with George Lucas as to which sci-fi novels influenced him. Even if he was borrowing, or "stealing," from a lot from the best sci-fi authors, he didn't really have much faith in what he was doing. Neither did the people around him have much faith in what he was doing. It took forever for Lucas to get a film distri butor to back his screenplay. 20th C. Fox at least produced it thanks to Lucas's American Grafiitti. It still boggles the mind how certain sci-fi films get made and succeed when others do not. Anyway, I'll continue the whole Lucas/Herbert connection in the George Lucas thread.

There is a comic book adaptation of Dune (or maybe you deliberately ignored it?)
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Dune_comics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

lotek wrote:There is a comic book adaptation of Dune (or maybe you deliberately ignored it?)
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Dune_comics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, lotek. I known of its existence before, and I would love to collect whatever copies of the comic still survive. I've also checked out the fan drawn Dune comic pages posted on this forum awhile ago. My point is that I want to do a Dune comic which is drawn in the style of a 1930s sci-fi comic, in the classic tradition of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. While the drawing and color style of the comic would be old school, the content would be pure Herbert, and a little bit on the Heavy Metal magazine side (keeping in mind the scenes of bloodsoaked dunes, sex with concubines, and the Baron's chunkyness.) If I have time, I'll draw the cover for the FG-like Dune comic and post it in the Dune Art section.