Beautiful Movie Using A Streamlined Version of Dune

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 2013)

La Guerra de las Galaxias (Star Wars): A Review and Perspective
George Lucas is a genius, no doubt. A master film artist; the best at what he does. He created a film, its universe and its successors that stand up as cinematic wonders.
He took me by storm with this tour de force when I was six. I did not realize it was subtitle "A New Hope" until years later.
I saw it once in the threatre downtown, and then I saw it again at the drive-in threatre north of town. I was small, and the story made all the sense in the world to me. Breathtaking. Dynamic. Too good to be true. Drama and action, at its best.
We did not have a Beta Max or a VCR back then, but we did get HBO a bit during my youth and I recall it debuting on pay cable. And then finally ABC showed it for the first time on network TV. I must have seen it at friends' homes on their video machines, too. Maybe at a party here or there.
I was hooked, like so many of my generation. It filled my imagination with possibilities.
Maybe because of this film, I distinctly remember saying at the end of 1977 on New Year's Eve,"1977 was a good year". Pretty good, considering that 1976 was a fond tri-centennial year in the United States, and yours truly was a precocious 7 years old with that much perspective as years go.
My first two action figures were Han Solo and a Stormtrooper. My best friend two houses down had Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 and Darth Vader. And I seem to remember Obi-Wan Kenobi and C3-PO. And the Landspeeder. Of course, those figures may have been owned by a number of other neighborhood friends. I think anyone my age was drinking the Kool-Aid.
By Christmas 1978 or 1979, I got the Darth Vader Tie Fighter as a present. Still have it (2013).
By 1981 or 1982, I got all the figures from the first two movies.
Significantly, I read "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" by Alan Dean Forster around 1979, which notably added to the understanding and capabilities of Darth Vader. (Check it on Wikipedia).
And the myth of this blockbuster series was fundamentally essential in my life and imagination.
Later, in 1997, at age 26, long after getting over the fact that the 9 part series would not come to fruition (although some people must have rumored the prequels by then, I guess), a college roommate suggested a book based on my question to him what his favorite book was.
Dune. A story and concept I was somewhat familiar with. As an avid comic book collector in the 1980s, I saw copies of it featured in the front of the main store I frequented. Then around 1984 the film came out. It did not have success, which segues back to George Lucas and his genius. I think that Lucas had read and enjoyed Frank Herbert's Dune series and figured out how to adapt the story and streamline it in a more palatable fashion for the masses.
Perhaps others have questioned George about this. I would be completely shocked if George Lucas never read Dune prior to making his masterpiece.
But for film, George knew how to write and perhaps, more importantly, knew how to put in film what his story was about.
Nothing but fantastic.
I am not accusing George Lucas of plagiarism. But all works of art and concepts usually derive from other places.
And I think it is important to acknowledge that the desert planet of Tatooine, that is now part of our own earth lore, has a great part of its conceptualization in the far off planet of Arrakis, aka Planet Dune.
What will 2015 bring? It will all tie together, I am sure. And not just back to 1977.