I feel like this is possibly one of those things where Dune was responsible for a lot of the things you’re seeing in it that you might call derivative. Dune was written in 1965 and while I don’t mean to imply that Frank Herbert’s work was wholly original and that he didn’t take great influence from a number of things himself, it was also highly influential at the time and provided a lot of themes and tropes that would be taken up by sci-fi in the coming decades as well.
Hasn’t it been said that Star Wars was admittedly pretty influenced by Dune? Lemme see if I can source that …
To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad thing. I don’t think Lucas was wrong to wear his influence on his sleeve and I don’t think Herbert was wrong to take some offense at it. This is just art, this is how things work. Was it too much? I think it’s debatable. Whatever. I’m too old to be arguing about Star Wars on internet forums at this point.
I feel like this is possibly one of those things where Dune was responsible for a lot of the things you’re seeing in it that you might call derivative. Dune was written in 1965 and while I don’t mean to imply that Frank Herbert’s work was wholly original and that he didn’t take great influence from a number of things himself, it was also highly influential at the time and provided a lot of themes and tropes that would be taken up by sci-fi in the coming decades as well.
Hasn’t it been said that Star Wars was admittedly pretty influenced by Dune? Lemme see if I can source that …
EDIT: Yes, apparently Herbert himself even noticed and directly complained about it, https://nerdist.com/article/everything-star-wars-borrowed-from-dune/
To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad thing. I don’t think Lucas was wrong to wear his influence on his sleeve and I don’t think Herbert was wrong to take some offense at it. This is just art, this is how things work. Was it too much? I think it’s debatable. Whatever. I’m too old to be arguing about Star Wars on internet forums at this point.