Since Ridley Scott was intimately involved in the Dune Film before, during and after the making of Alien. Has Ridley Scott ever been asked if the Alien franchise is canonically connected to Frank Herbert's Dune in a filmed interview?
asked Sep 29, 2020 at 19:04
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3Is there anything in one that leads you to believe it may be tied to the other?– DavoCommented Sep 29, 2020 at 19:19
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3...or Ghostbusters? Or Harry Potter? Or Star Trek perhaps? Or the Law and Order-verse? Munch is everywheeerre..... ;)– NKCampbellCommented Sep 29, 2020 at 19:22
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1Why would you presume that Scott is able to comment on what is canonical in the Dune universe? I think only really Brian Herbert has that power.– DavidWCommented Sep 29, 2020 at 20:55
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2@NKCampbell - I'm probably biased in its favour by the fact that it's answerable and that the answer is moderately interesting (since Scott was intimately involved in the Dune film before, during and after the making of Alien)– ValorumCommented Sep 29, 2020 at 21:24
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1moderately for sure. I suppose I can post a question if he's ever said anything in regard to Maximus being an ancestor of Ripley... ;) Director working on films doesn't mean they connect in any way imo so I'm just really struggling with the idea * behind * why the ask is all. I'm nearly certain posting a question asking if Gladiator and Alien are connected would get tossed out as specious so I'm not sure why this necessarily isn't– NKCampbellCommented Sep 29, 2020 at 21:31
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1 Answer
There appears to be no in-universe connection between Dune and the Alien universe although both (briefly) shared a film director in the late 1970s and H.R. Giger worked on both projects as a concept artist.
Ridley Scott was asked to direct Dune and was actively involved in the project during the late 1970s, including having multiple meetings with Frank Herbert but ultimately left the project after his brother died of cancer. He'd already passed on Blade Runner but picked it up after a rewrite.
I was attracted to Dune because it was beyond what I had done on Alien, which was a hardcore horror film. Dune would be a step strongly, very very strongly, toward Star Wars.
You may also wish to note that the two universes are technologically incompatible. FTL transit in the Alien universe is accomplished by the use of hyperspace/subspace and is a mature technology that is essentially foolproof. By comparison, early faster-than-light transit in the Dune universe is described as being deeply unsafe, requiring the use of psychic "navigators" to remove the inherent risk of ploughing into objects. Travel in the Alien universe is very fast (thousands of times the speed of light), but travel in the Dune universe is near-instantaneous, resulting in the translation of ships from one point in space to another in milliseconds.
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It should be noted that they only need psychic man-monsters in dune due to the banning of computers. There is a varient of FTL in the dune universe that is simpler and uses computers and was used to initially colonize the universe, but it is now effectively banned. Commented Oct 2, 2020 at 4:43
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@JohnMeacham - Yes, but deeply unsafe. I recall from the books by Herbert's son that the failure rate was approx 10%– ValorumCommented Oct 2, 2020 at 7:06
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Elder Noobernaut pebble ship shown in the first scene of Prometheus is not FTL travel. Commented Oct 2, 2020 at 17:06