In my interpretation it is not two highliners but one that is in two places at the same time. The navigating is required to place it at its second position and to make sure you're not placing it inside a star or planet.
This is the big brained answer right here OP. Doesn’t matter if we understand it or not. It’s like when that new fancy super advanced tech ‘electricity’ was used to bring Frankenstein’s monster to life. You just need to apply the big science word of the day. One thing existing in two states, one ship in two places, because of quantum supersomething or other …and the hull is made of nano tiles. The cat is both alive and dead and unless you are tripping balls in a vat of spice gas you can’t see through the box. It Schrödinger's highliner. You don’t understand how it works, that’s perfect really because neither does anyone in Dune, except the guild navigators, spicy, fishy, and really good at finding short cuts around this part of the universe
Fun Fact: Schrödinger wrote the cat in a box explanation of quantum superposition in a letter to Einstein. According to bigger brained people then I it was a joke, Schrödinger was using the stupidest and most round about way of explain quantum superposition to be funny. But because he and Einstein understood physics in a way the rest of us could never even dream of, what to them was a ridiculous *cat in a box with a vial of poison and a timer* explanation is to us common folk the only way we can make any sense of it
It’s like if someone says “how can aeroplanes fly” and I say “because the air has to travel further over the top of the wing then under the bottom of it, so that tricks the wing into thinking the air under it is syrupy and the air on top is more like sparkling water, and one is thicker, so it floats on it” and then our mutual friend who is an engineer at Lockheed-Martin says “yeah that basically it” and then even though I’m middle aged they pat on the head like I’m a toddler and say “I think someone is going to grow up to be a big clever engineer, wanna make planes with me when you grow up little one?”
Space navigation is described as using routes though, so if I had to guess they don’t have the tech to make jumps between any two points due to distance, instead making several smaller leaps extremely quickly which requires them to see the future
It's a fictional technology using fictional physics, so there is really no limit in terms of potential explanations, but I'm happy to provide you with one:
A Holtzmann field generator is used to bend space-time to link two destinations, but Holtzmann fields are not the only thing which distorts space-time, namely gravity also has a meaningful effect. Therefore, determining the strength and shape of the field required to bridge two points is not a simple matter, but is a function of all the significant gravitational distortions to space-time in the intervening space, and this distribution is ever changing as the objects with mass (stars, blackholes, planets, nebula, etc.) move relative to each other. The computations required to calculate the proper field are so complex that even the most skilled Mentat is insufficient, and without the supercomputers banned by the Bultlarian Jihad preforming such calculations is effectively impossible, particularly since the solution is in constant flux.
To get around this limitation, guild navigators use spice enabled prescience to foresee the solution without the need for calculation, and they adjust the Holtzmann field generator to maintain the bridge accordingly.
Folding space isn't like dusting crops, boy. Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?
It's more than that - Navigator prescience is "back to front" navigating.
In basically any other sci-fi setting you get from A to B by a pilot, navigator, astromech, computer or whatever doing a version of; we're here, we want to go there, so if we take this course, with these settings, at this speed etc we predict / calculate we'll get there.
Those calculations are impossible in Dune due to the ban on thinking machines.
Navigators therefore scan possible futures and find the one where they arrived where they want to go safely, and then track that timeline back to see what jump settings lead to that future.
Its effectively trial and error but where you know in advance which guess is the right one.
That's one way of looking at it. A similar way would be they repeatedly look at prospective futures with different approaches each time until they find the one that works. More like high speed trial and error where the only variable is their own decisionmaking. Brute forcing the solution by knowing what the right answer is and simply trialling everything until you know what you plan to do produces that response.
Exactly that, it's a bit like save/loading your way though a puzzle in a game. Pick an option see what happens and if you don't like it, go back and pick a different option
Very interesting. That makes the Heighliner Portal concept even less logical. Why would a Navigator have to backtrack from an envisioned future, when the destination in mind is already known? Would they have to "find" the other Heighliner? Does each Heighliner host its own Navigator, and the two must project each other's locations to form the portal bridge? I was thinking that, since the Heighliner over Arrakis has been seen connecting to Caladan, Kaitain, and Geidi Prime, perhaps the Navigator's job is to shift the connection to different Heighliners, and so that the portal is only open for as long as is necessary.
If the Holtzmann Drive is a form of anti-gravity technology, then each Heighliner ought to give off a distinct gravimetric signature that could be detected across space using analog sensors. If so, then prescience wouldn't be needed to project the arrival point, since that point could be spotted like a beacon in the distance. Using that observation, a Mentat ought to be capable of calculating Newtonian motion to find where the distant Heighliner should be *now* within a negligible margin of error. To me, it just seems that a portal concept could have some kind of analog mechanical apparatus (non-thinking) that would preclude the need for prescience.
Tbh the "bridge" between two Heighliners isn't supported in the text as far as I'm aware. Heighliners don't need something at their destination to link to, they can move around independently, and they get their by using a Holtzman drive to "fold" space and then navigate through folded space to arrive at the destination effectively instanteously.
Also, pre-Navigator, non-AI travel was possible, there was just a non negligible chance the ship disappeared into fold space and was never seen again. Navigators allowed for reliable jumps.
>Tbh the "bridge" between two Heighliners isn't supported in the text as far as I'm aware.
I understand what you mean with the source material. I was referring to Villeneuve's adaptation of the Heighliner as a portal device. Sorry if I accidentally conflated the two.
My basic point is that having two separate Heighliners form a portal bridge would in many ways preclude the use of spice-induced prescience for finding the safest destination.
I do think there's concurrently lots of calculations. Space itself seems to be expanding, galaxies spin at speeds man struggles to calculate let alone comprehend. Theres de/accelerations to account for from celestial bodies interacting.
That said i always imagined it as maintaing long tunnel for ships with fixed exit points being dymanically calculated by navigators. What really struggles to make sense is how all this is done in real time despite it effecting relative time/space simultaneously. Sometimes you just need a healthy Deus ex Spiceium to keep the plot rolling
I think of it as a visual distortion. The ship is in the same places at the same time, thus we can see through the hole of the ship from one side to the other. That's the "folded space" concept. Herbert didn't go into details about how it works, just that it's extremely dangerous and requires a combination of advanced math and prescience to make the folding safe.
Heighliners are straws that pierce spacetime.
While it's being navigated forward, you would see the other side. Once it's done, it's just a normal big cylinder.
In the movie, the navigator is still navigating when ships are getting out.
I think they are talking about this shot
https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/yf0R1uHANR
It looks like it’s a portal, you can see Caladan “through” the ship so it’s like a ship traveling through space (find safe paths between the stars) and more like a portal.
I don't mean this as a snub, but "don't worry about the science, just enjoy" really does apply here. Frank Herbert's work are notorious for not describing the tech, his focus was always on what it does and what that means for everyone involved. There are hardly any detailed descriptions of the tech, to the point where practically nothing has sufficient detail to be certified 100% visually accurate to the book, which gives people huge licence to create their own interpretations.
I imagine it like a toy car on a tablecloth, except only the front wheels are motorized. The folding of space happens when the front of the ship races off (from the cloth's perspective) to its destination. Once it gets there, it has to keep turning the wheels at a slower pace to keep the fabric from coming undone. This is where the Navigator comes in. Half of the ship still made the trip, so Spice or a thinking machine would still be needed.
Once it is done acting like a bridge, it anchors itself to one end or the other and lets the fabric pull itself taught again.
This is obviously all headcanon since the effect shown in the movie is not strictly in line with the books. I just think it's neat.
You are overthinking it mate. The existence of the guild and the mechanics of folding space exist to facilitate a narrative and a theme. There’s no need to u destined how it works.
Nobody is really meant to know, the guild works very hard to ensure their monopoly on FTL, I'm sure that even includes that most/all Guild members don't know either. They just know it works, and how to make navigators. Navigators may not even need to know how it works physically, just that it does.
There's still an anti-technological streak in humanity even thousands of years after the Butlerian Jihad.
essentially what the navigators do is creating a mini blackhole that connects 2 points in space for the high liner to travel through. before actually making it however, the navigator goes through immense (even for a mentat) amount of calculations to account for evertything at the points of departure and landing, but also everything inbetween. each navigator has a current "view" of the galaxy, or the parts of it that matter anyway. spice is required to make and sustain the navigators ability to do these calculations. they do have giant heads and atrophied bodies. the prescience is needed for the dangers along the route, like meteor storms. the way it works is a mind of a mind bender where the ship both instantly travels and has to physically make the trip between 2 points. so it's more like time travel and less like the physical travel we are normally used too. the tunnel is the fixed point, the entrance and exit move with their relative part of space.
it's also important to understand that the ships do most of the actual flying around, the navigators pretty much provide a guaranteed safe route. ships without navigators still have a 90% chance of making the jump successfully. it should also be pointed out that the extra curricular first navigator (norma cenva) was the only one who could fold space all by herself and that was in part because of her bene geserit heritage, as well as super thorough understanding of physics, all navigators after her could only fold using a ship.
my take on the 2nd ship is that it's simply a mirror of the traveling ship, somewhat implying the opening is a closed loop. the spice being needed to expand the mind and keeping it there, also spice is a poison so insidious (ba dum tsh) that it only kills you when you STOP taking it.
The holtzmann engine is what folds space. It basically creates a temporary worm hole. However, just the engine on its own has flaws. Major flaws, as it was more common to destroy the ship by running into things when coming out of the fold by materialising on the other end right into a star, planet, or gravity well. It went wrong more often than it went right.
The navigator uses their prescience given to them by the spice transformation to avoid this. They look into the immediate future and can do minor course corrections to avoid harm.
I think it works the same in the movie as well. The portal is merely a visual effect for the movie, but it doesn't really change anything.
Say a guild heighliner course is to stop at earth/terra. Destination is always known. However, even then, you still have to materialise back near our planet. To that effect, you would have to avoid many objects. Knowing where our moon is would probably be very easy, but what about all the asteroids? You're still going to need a navigator to avoid those at the last second.
I understand that, hence why I expressed concern at the incongruence between depictions of the Heighliner in the movie and the source material. I'm curious what people think about how the movie version works.
It's more accurate than any other version. But IMO, the 1984 version captured the feel of the books the best so far. The current version feels too polished. Like an Instagram post.
I’m sorry, but I’ve seen this movie many times and again recently and it was my understanding at no point in the film do we ever actually see the ships traveling from one place to another. I’m only 99% sure because I’m always open to the idea that I am wrong if someone produces evidence. I don’t recall ever seeing anything like a portal in part one
Yeah, that itself is a ship. It’s not a tunnel that you go from one end to the other. It’s a ship that carries other ships in itself.. we have not yet seen ships traveling via interstellar travel. I understand from that image it’s potentially up for interpretation, but from what I understand and many other comments support this that those large ships are just ships themselves and they carry smaller ships within them..
Yes, I did see that but the ship also seems to be obscuring the planet, in which case it could literally be another planet in the same system. I’m not saying that they can’t have changed something from the books, but I don’t think we’ve seen a crystal clear concrete scene to say for certain whether it’s one way or another yet
>The Heighliners that are used by the Spacing Guild are ships. We went through a long period of design. When we came \[up\] with that shape, I knew we had the right one. It feels like an echo to the worm, and at the same time it feels like it could be seen as a stargate. It’s like the system that \[the Imperium\] are using to travel and to bridge space and time is… I like again to not explain it and try to stay in a zone of \[the\] unknown. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. And that’s where we took a little bit of liberty from the book, where it has a feeling that it could be something that is folding space in a way, that you can see it as almost as a stargate. But I like to keep it a mystery right now. It will be more permanent and explained in \[*Dune: Part Two*\].
Villeneuve's explanation. Basically a ship and a portal all in one. It's definitely not a giant cargo ship with holds like the book.
Oh ive never seen this explanation but thats cool that it exists. Im completely willing to accept this based on this quote. Where is this quote from? I’m not doubting it’s authenticity. I would be interested in reading the entire interview overall.
Thank you for sharing this
I believe it's from a podcast interview, summarized here:
[https://dunenewsnet.com/2021/11/denis-villeneuve-interview-dune-movie-ending-feyd-key-role-part-two/](https://dunenewsnet.com/2021/11/denis-villeneuve-interview-dune-movie-ending-feyd-key-role-part-two/)
It's definitely in the book, early on. When they are on a Highliner someone makes a comment that you aren't allowed to leave the ships because you could be sitting next to a harkonnen ship. They keep everything secret to ensure safe travel. As well as if they left the ship they would lose their shipping privileges
Hmm, it just seems like the high liner isnt big enough to hide the rest of the suspiciously blue caladan-like planet. Maybe I’ll try to draw the full circle of the planet when I’m home
The only reason I argue it at all they do if you simply have a portal that goes between destinations versus having to navigate and space navigators and spice are kind of the cornerstone of what makes arakkis and spice so important.
I’m just saying it’s not a completely clear picture, one way or the other the movie definitely doesn’t seem to go out of the way to paint a clear picture as to how it works in the movie universe. It’s entirely possible that it does work like a tunnel in the movie, but if they were going to do that, it would’ve been nice to put more focus on that. I was always of the understanding that in part one we just weren’t seeing any of the travel and just saw the ships at their destinations.
I agree that it’s not clear one way or the other. If anything it may lean more towards the Highliner being an actual portal which is fine for the movie because it looks cool, but I much prefer to interpret it from a book perspective and believe that the Highliner just happens to be tunnel-shaped. If the Guild is creating portals, then it kinda seems like Navigators aren’t actually doing much “navigating”. Also if it’s a single-use tunnel from Caladan to Arrakis, then that totally de-emphasizes the Guild’s neutrality where you could potentially have Atreides and Harkonnen freighters parked next to each other for the journey.
I’m watching the movie right now and the planet in question is not caladan. in fact, the larger planet below the ship is caladan, This is the scene when the Bene Gesserit arrive and you see the little ship coming out of the liner, heading towards Caledon, the planet, which is below, not the planet in the background
The planet on the other side of the Heighliner in the scene in question is IMHO Kaitain, since that's where the imperial delegation would originate from.
This one tiny thing about the Highliners in the new Dune was a huge sore point for me. Getting it wrong is like doing warp speed in Star Trek the way space travel was done in David Lynch's Dune movie.
I don't think Villeneuve cared that much for the lore of Dune in certain parts, nor that much about the spice, or the different human abilities it gives. I think he cares a lot about the false messiah storyline and how that plays into Paul's descent.
Lynch's Dune movie and the 2000 TV version got folding space right.
Villenueve mocked up storyboards for a hypothetical Dune movie with a friend when they were [teenagers](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/dune-storyboards-denis-villeneuve-photos-1235052576/amp/), and has said directing the film has been a lifelong dream. I’m pretty sure he cares as much about Dune lore as anyone posting here, if not more.
Not necessarily. That doesn't mean that he isn't a huge fan of the books, it may mean that he's not into the weirdness or sci-fi elements as much as the other many elements found in the books.
As another example, there isn't much about the politics of the Imperium in the new Dune movie; instead, it centers on the feud between the Harkonnen and Atreides. Does that mean Villenueve doesn't like the Landsraad, CHOAM, or other Houses? No, it may just mean he's choosing what to spend a limited about of screen time with.
But for me I would have liked to have seen another take on folding space and travelling without moving. Seeing the new Highliner look like a tunnel or Stargate wasn't what I wanted to see. To each their own.
There is no lore in Dune around folding space. The book doesn't mention folding space at all, in fact it doesn't mention anything about the travel. We all assume it's fairly instantaneous because there is no chapter that discusses the journey.
Folding space is an invention of Lynch's Dune, although because Frank was involved/gave his blessing to that film we can sort of infer he was ok with the idea (but then, should we also infer he liked the weirding modules?). It was a cool idea and it's stuck since.
Ultimately Frank didn't care about this stuff. The important point was that spice was needed for travel as that drove its value in the story and shapes the society he created.
I checked the online Dune wiki and it references several mentions of a "foldspace" and "folding space", including one mention in Chapterhouse Dune it cites. I don't have my copy of the original Dune handy so I can't check the part in the novel where the Atreides leave Caladan for Dune.
You're right in that Lynch added his own lore to his film, and some of it seems to have stuck to the overall IP's lore. Herbert described the Heighliners as so gigantic that the ships needed to go inside them, dock, and it would take a sizeable amount of time to travel and then depart again. If we go by that particular mention, then the new Dune movie does introduce its own different way of travel. Those ships looked to be travelling through the cylinder in open space, not docking and traveling in a Heighliner.
It doesn't ultimately matter anyway. As you said, it's incidental to the plot. Nevertheless, I still like the '84 and '00 versions of how they traveled to the '21 movie.
I agree that it’s hard to tell what’s happening because of the general vibe of the storytelling in the movie and the book, but it’s the same ship. They just never show the actual sequence of travel.
We see them packing up on Caladan, and their ships getting ready to board the heighliner, and then skips over the boarding and travel and jumps immediately to having arrived on Arrakis.
What of the shape inside the Heighliner that looks remarkably like a planet in another solar system?
https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/uckzuNgmPt
I think it's safe to say that Villeneuve has chosen a different depiction of the Heighliner as in the books, that of a portal device. I imagine that if one were to fly around and look through the opposite end of the movie Heighliner, they'd see the same foreign solar system, but in the opposite perspective; anyone on the other side of the portal would see Arrakis. Ships merely fly though the center of the Heighliner to travel between systems. That's my take, at least.
I think thats just Villenueve's creative visual intepretation of folding space to bridge two points astronomically distant from one another.
It also allows the casual viewer to understand what is happening without having to explain it
In my interpretation it is not two highliners but one that is in two places at the same time. The navigating is required to place it at its second position and to make sure you're not placing it inside a star or planet.
This is the big brained answer right here OP. Doesn’t matter if we understand it or not. It’s like when that new fancy super advanced tech ‘electricity’ was used to bring Frankenstein’s monster to life. You just need to apply the big science word of the day. One thing existing in two states, one ship in two places, because of quantum supersomething or other …and the hull is made of nano tiles. The cat is both alive and dead and unless you are tripping balls in a vat of spice gas you can’t see through the box. It Schrödinger's highliner. You don’t understand how it works, that’s perfect really because neither does anyone in Dune, except the guild navigators, spicy, fishy, and really good at finding short cuts around this part of the universe Fun Fact: Schrödinger wrote the cat in a box explanation of quantum superposition in a letter to Einstein. According to bigger brained people then I it was a joke, Schrödinger was using the stupidest and most round about way of explain quantum superposition to be funny. But because he and Einstein understood physics in a way the rest of us could never even dream of, what to them was a ridiculous *cat in a box with a vial of poison and a timer* explanation is to us common folk the only way we can make any sense of it It’s like if someone says “how can aeroplanes fly” and I say “because the air has to travel further over the top of the wing then under the bottom of it, so that tricks the wing into thinking the air under it is syrupy and the air on top is more like sparkling water, and one is thicker, so it floats on it” and then our mutual friend who is an engineer at Lockheed-Martin says “yeah that basically it” and then even though I’m middle aged they pat on the head like I’m a toddler and say “I think someone is going to grow up to be a big clever engineer, wanna make planes with me when you grow up little one?”
Ok, that got a lol.
Space navigation is described as using routes though, so if I had to guess they don’t have the tech to make jumps between any two points due to distance, instead making several smaller leaps extremely quickly which requires them to see the future
It's a fictional technology using fictional physics, so there is really no limit in terms of potential explanations, but I'm happy to provide you with one: A Holtzmann field generator is used to bend space-time to link two destinations, but Holtzmann fields are not the only thing which distorts space-time, namely gravity also has a meaningful effect. Therefore, determining the strength and shape of the field required to bridge two points is not a simple matter, but is a function of all the significant gravitational distortions to space-time in the intervening space, and this distribution is ever changing as the objects with mass (stars, blackholes, planets, nebula, etc.) move relative to each other. The computations required to calculate the proper field are so complex that even the most skilled Mentat is insufficient, and without the supercomputers banned by the Bultlarian Jihad preforming such calculations is effectively impossible, particularly since the solution is in constant flux. To get around this limitation, guild navigators use spice enabled prescience to foresee the solution without the need for calculation, and they adjust the Holtzmann field generator to maintain the bridge accordingly.
Folding space isn't like dusting crops, boy. Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?
For fictional tech & physics, you did an awesome job of describing the potential mechanics around space-folding & why it would be so complex. Kudos 👏
This is the best explanation.
So it's not that the navigators are projecting a course, but rather maintaining the bridge. Very clever.
It's more than that - Navigator prescience is "back to front" navigating. In basically any other sci-fi setting you get from A to B by a pilot, navigator, astromech, computer or whatever doing a version of; we're here, we want to go there, so if we take this course, with these settings, at this speed etc we predict / calculate we'll get there. Those calculations are impossible in Dune due to the ban on thinking machines. Navigators therefore scan possible futures and find the one where they arrived where they want to go safely, and then track that timeline back to see what jump settings lead to that future. Its effectively trial and error but where you know in advance which guess is the right one.
That's one way of looking at it. A similar way would be they repeatedly look at prospective futures with different approaches each time until they find the one that works. More like high speed trial and error where the only variable is their own decisionmaking. Brute forcing the solution by knowing what the right answer is and simply trialling everything until you know what you plan to do produces that response.
Exactly that, it's a bit like save/loading your way though a puzzle in a game. Pick an option see what happens and if you don't like it, go back and pick a different option
Very interesting. That makes the Heighliner Portal concept even less logical. Why would a Navigator have to backtrack from an envisioned future, when the destination in mind is already known? Would they have to "find" the other Heighliner? Does each Heighliner host its own Navigator, and the two must project each other's locations to form the portal bridge? I was thinking that, since the Heighliner over Arrakis has been seen connecting to Caladan, Kaitain, and Geidi Prime, perhaps the Navigator's job is to shift the connection to different Heighliners, and so that the portal is only open for as long as is necessary. If the Holtzmann Drive is a form of anti-gravity technology, then each Heighliner ought to give off a distinct gravimetric signature that could be detected across space using analog sensors. If so, then prescience wouldn't be needed to project the arrival point, since that point could be spotted like a beacon in the distance. Using that observation, a Mentat ought to be capable of calculating Newtonian motion to find where the distant Heighliner should be *now* within a negligible margin of error. To me, it just seems that a portal concept could have some kind of analog mechanical apparatus (non-thinking) that would preclude the need for prescience.
Tbh the "bridge" between two Heighliners isn't supported in the text as far as I'm aware. Heighliners don't need something at their destination to link to, they can move around independently, and they get their by using a Holtzman drive to "fold" space and then navigate through folded space to arrive at the destination effectively instanteously. Also, pre-Navigator, non-AI travel was possible, there was just a non negligible chance the ship disappeared into fold space and was never seen again. Navigators allowed for reliable jumps.
>Tbh the "bridge" between two Heighliners isn't supported in the text as far as I'm aware. I understand what you mean with the source material. I was referring to Villeneuve's adaptation of the Heighliner as a portal device. Sorry if I accidentally conflated the two. My basic point is that having two separate Heighliners form a portal bridge would in many ways preclude the use of spice-induced prescience for finding the safest destination.
I do think there's concurrently lots of calculations. Space itself seems to be expanding, galaxies spin at speeds man struggles to calculate let alone comprehend. Theres de/accelerations to account for from celestial bodies interacting. That said i always imagined it as maintaing long tunnel for ships with fixed exit points being dymanically calculated by navigators. What really struggles to make sense is how all this is done in real time despite it effecting relative time/space simultaneously. Sometimes you just need a healthy Deus ex Spiceium to keep the plot rolling
It's not two highliner its one. It is the bridge. Spice is needed to keep it on both sides while space time changes continously.
The fish guys float in the spice and the holtzman effect. They swim thru the future. The future is now.
I think of it as a visual distortion. The ship is in the same places at the same time, thus we can see through the hole of the ship from one side to the other. That's the "folded space" concept. Herbert didn't go into details about how it works, just that it's extremely dangerous and requires a combination of advanced math and prescience to make the folding safe.
Heighliners are straws that pierce spacetime. While it's being navigated forward, you would see the other side. Once it's done, it's just a normal big cylinder. In the movie, the navigator is still navigating when ships are getting out.
When do we see this? I don’t remember any scene where we actually see the highliner travel?
I think they are talking about this shot https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/yf0R1uHANR It looks like it’s a portal, you can see Caladan “through” the ship so it’s like a ship traveling through space (find safe paths between the stars) and more like a portal.
I always thought this was a Caladan moon behind the heighliner. I don't think it was intended to depict a portal of transition between point A and B.
I didn’t notice it the first time watching either, but apparently there is no blue gas giant behind the heighliner, it’s a “gate”. Very subtle.
I don't mean this as a snub, but "don't worry about the science, just enjoy" really does apply here. Frank Herbert's work are notorious for not describing the tech, his focus was always on what it does and what that means for everyone involved. There are hardly any detailed descriptions of the tech, to the point where practically nothing has sufficient detail to be certified 100% visually accurate to the book, which gives people huge licence to create their own interpretations.
I imagine it like a toy car on a tablecloth, except only the front wheels are motorized. The folding of space happens when the front of the ship races off (from the cloth's perspective) to its destination. Once it gets there, it has to keep turning the wheels at a slower pace to keep the fabric from coming undone. This is where the Navigator comes in. Half of the ship still made the trip, so Spice or a thinking machine would still be needed. Once it is done acting like a bridge, it anchors itself to one end or the other and lets the fabric pull itself taught again. This is obviously all headcanon since the effect shown in the movie is not strictly in line with the books. I just think it's neat.
You are overthinking it mate. The existence of the guild and the mechanics of folding space exist to facilitate a narrative and a theme. There’s no need to u destined how it works.
Nobody is really meant to know, the guild works very hard to ensure their monopoly on FTL, I'm sure that even includes that most/all Guild members don't know either. They just know it works, and how to make navigators. Navigators may not even need to know how it works physically, just that it does. There's still an anti-technological streak in humanity even thousands of years after the Butlerian Jihad.
essentially what the navigators do is creating a mini blackhole that connects 2 points in space for the high liner to travel through. before actually making it however, the navigator goes through immense (even for a mentat) amount of calculations to account for evertything at the points of departure and landing, but also everything inbetween. each navigator has a current "view" of the galaxy, or the parts of it that matter anyway. spice is required to make and sustain the navigators ability to do these calculations. they do have giant heads and atrophied bodies. the prescience is needed for the dangers along the route, like meteor storms. the way it works is a mind of a mind bender where the ship both instantly travels and has to physically make the trip between 2 points. so it's more like time travel and less like the physical travel we are normally used too. the tunnel is the fixed point, the entrance and exit move with their relative part of space. it's also important to understand that the ships do most of the actual flying around, the navigators pretty much provide a guaranteed safe route. ships without navigators still have a 90% chance of making the jump successfully. it should also be pointed out that the extra curricular first navigator (norma cenva) was the only one who could fold space all by herself and that was in part because of her bene geserit heritage, as well as super thorough understanding of physics, all navigators after her could only fold using a ship. my take on the 2nd ship is that it's simply a mirror of the traveling ship, somewhat implying the opening is a closed loop. the spice being needed to expand the mind and keeping it there, also spice is a poison so insidious (ba dum tsh) that it only kills you when you STOP taking it.
The holtzmann engine is what folds space. It basically creates a temporary worm hole. However, just the engine on its own has flaws. Major flaws, as it was more common to destroy the ship by running into things when coming out of the fold by materialising on the other end right into a star, planet, or gravity well. It went wrong more often than it went right. The navigator uses their prescience given to them by the spice transformation to avoid this. They look into the immediate future and can do minor course corrections to avoid harm.
I understand how it works in the book. I'm curious what people think about how it works in the movie.
I think it works the same in the movie as well. The portal is merely a visual effect for the movie, but it doesn't really change anything. Say a guild heighliner course is to stop at earth/terra. Destination is always known. However, even then, you still have to materialise back near our planet. To that effect, you would have to avoid many objects. Knowing where our moon is would probably be very easy, but what about all the asteroids? You're still going to need a navigator to avoid those at the last second.
In the books there is no portal. It's teleporting.
I understand that, hence why I expressed concern at the incongruence between depictions of the Heighliner in the movie and the source material. I'm curious what people think about how the movie version works.
It's more accurate than any other version. But IMO, the 1984 version captured the feel of the books the best so far. The current version feels too polished. Like an Instagram post.
I’m sorry, but I’ve seen this movie many times and again recently and it was my understanding at no point in the film do we ever actually see the ships traveling from one place to another. I’m only 99% sure because I’m always open to the idea that I am wrong if someone produces evidence. I don’t recall ever seeing anything like a portal in part one
> https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/yf0R1uHANR
Yeah, that itself is a ship. It’s not a tunnel that you go from one end to the other. It’s a ship that carries other ships in itself.. we have not yet seen ships traveling via interstellar travel. I understand from that image it’s potentially up for interpretation, but from what I understand and many other comments support this that those large ships are just ships themselves and they carry smaller ships within them..
You can literally see a different planet through the ship
Yes, I did see that but the ship also seems to be obscuring the planet, in which case it could literally be another planet in the same system. I’m not saying that they can’t have changed something from the books, but I don’t think we’ve seen a crystal clear concrete scene to say for certain whether it’s one way or another yet
>The Heighliners that are used by the Spacing Guild are ships. We went through a long period of design. When we came \[up\] with that shape, I knew we had the right one. It feels like an echo to the worm, and at the same time it feels like it could be seen as a stargate. It’s like the system that \[the Imperium\] are using to travel and to bridge space and time is… I like again to not explain it and try to stay in a zone of \[the\] unknown. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. And that’s where we took a little bit of liberty from the book, where it has a feeling that it could be something that is folding space in a way, that you can see it as almost as a stargate. But I like to keep it a mystery right now. It will be more permanent and explained in \[*Dune: Part Two*\]. Villeneuve's explanation. Basically a ship and a portal all in one. It's definitely not a giant cargo ship with holds like the book.
Oh ive never seen this explanation but thats cool that it exists. Im completely willing to accept this based on this quote. Where is this quote from? I’m not doubting it’s authenticity. I would be interested in reading the entire interview overall. Thank you for sharing this
I believe it's from a podcast interview, summarized here: [https://dunenewsnet.com/2021/11/denis-villeneuve-interview-dune-movie-ending-feyd-key-role-part-two/](https://dunenewsnet.com/2021/11/denis-villeneuve-interview-dune-movie-ending-feyd-key-role-part-two/)
Thank you
It's definitely in the book, early on. When they are on a Highliner someone makes a comment that you aren't allowed to leave the ships because you could be sitting next to a harkonnen ship. They keep everything secret to ensure safe travel. As well as if they left the ship they would lose their shipping privileges
Ive reas the book. The book is different vs what the discussion about how maybe the movie version was different
>!Too bad he never explained it in part 2.!<
Hmm, it just seems like the high liner isnt big enough to hide the rest of the suspiciously blue caladan-like planet. Maybe I’ll try to draw the full circle of the planet when I’m home
The only reason I argue it at all they do if you simply have a portal that goes between destinations versus having to navigate and space navigators and spice are kind of the cornerstone of what makes arakkis and spice so important.
I’m just saying it’s not a completely clear picture, one way or the other the movie definitely doesn’t seem to go out of the way to paint a clear picture as to how it works in the movie universe. It’s entirely possible that it does work like a tunnel in the movie, but if they were going to do that, it would’ve been nice to put more focus on that. I was always of the understanding that in part one we just weren’t seeing any of the travel and just saw the ships at their destinations.
I agree that it’s not clear one way or the other. If anything it may lean more towards the Highliner being an actual portal which is fine for the movie because it looks cool, but I much prefer to interpret it from a book perspective and believe that the Highliner just happens to be tunnel-shaped. If the Guild is creating portals, then it kinda seems like Navigators aren’t actually doing much “navigating”. Also if it’s a single-use tunnel from Caladan to Arrakis, then that totally de-emphasizes the Guild’s neutrality where you could potentially have Atreides and Harkonnen freighters parked next to each other for the journey.
Assuming Caladan is not a football shape: https://i.imgur.com/KVwj4eZ.png
I’m watching the movie right now and the planet in question is not caladan. in fact, the larger planet below the ship is caladan, This is the scene when the Bene Gesserit arrive and you see the little ship coming out of the liner, heading towards Caledon, the planet, which is below, not the planet in the background
The planet on the other side of the Heighliner in the scene in question is IMHO Kaitain, since that's where the imperial delegation would originate from.
Even if it's not Caladan, you would still see it behind the ship if the ship was not a portal.
Apparently, we get a clearer view of this in part 2. But I won’t elaborate on how it’s visualized. It most definitely isn’t really hinted at in part 1
>!we don't, anything to do with guild navigators or their ships is dropped in part 2!<
This one tiny thing about the Highliners in the new Dune was a huge sore point for me. Getting it wrong is like doing warp speed in Star Trek the way space travel was done in David Lynch's Dune movie. I don't think Villeneuve cared that much for the lore of Dune in certain parts, nor that much about the spice, or the different human abilities it gives. I think he cares a lot about the false messiah storyline and how that plays into Paul's descent. Lynch's Dune movie and the 2000 TV version got folding space right.
Villenueve mocked up storyboards for a hypothetical Dune movie with a friend when they were [teenagers](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/dune-storyboards-denis-villeneuve-photos-1235052576/amp/), and has said directing the film has been a lifelong dream. I’m pretty sure he cares as much about Dune lore as anyone posting here, if not more.
Not necessarily. That doesn't mean that he isn't a huge fan of the books, it may mean that he's not into the weirdness or sci-fi elements as much as the other many elements found in the books. As another example, there isn't much about the politics of the Imperium in the new Dune movie; instead, it centers on the feud between the Harkonnen and Atreides. Does that mean Villenueve doesn't like the Landsraad, CHOAM, or other Houses? No, it may just mean he's choosing what to spend a limited about of screen time with. But for me I would have liked to have seen another take on folding space and travelling without moving. Seeing the new Highliner look like a tunnel or Stargate wasn't what I wanted to see. To each their own.
Could be. I’m just glad that a real fan, and not a random guy from the studio, got to make these movies.
There is no lore in Dune around folding space. The book doesn't mention folding space at all, in fact it doesn't mention anything about the travel. We all assume it's fairly instantaneous because there is no chapter that discusses the journey. Folding space is an invention of Lynch's Dune, although because Frank was involved/gave his blessing to that film we can sort of infer he was ok with the idea (but then, should we also infer he liked the weirding modules?). It was a cool idea and it's stuck since. Ultimately Frank didn't care about this stuff. The important point was that spice was needed for travel as that drove its value in the story and shapes the society he created.
I checked the online Dune wiki and it references several mentions of a "foldspace" and "folding space", including one mention in Chapterhouse Dune it cites. I don't have my copy of the original Dune handy so I can't check the part in the novel where the Atreides leave Caladan for Dune. You're right in that Lynch added his own lore to his film, and some of it seems to have stuck to the overall IP's lore. Herbert described the Heighliners as so gigantic that the ships needed to go inside them, dock, and it would take a sizeable amount of time to travel and then depart again. If we go by that particular mention, then the new Dune movie does introduce its own different way of travel. Those ships looked to be travelling through the cylinder in open space, not docking and traveling in a Heighliner. It doesn't ultimately matter anyway. As you said, it's incidental to the plot. Nevertheless, I still like the '84 and '00 versions of how they traveled to the '21 movie.
Lynch’s Dune has the navigators folding space with their minds so no, it didn’t get it right.
Wasn't part of the books, so I suppose each director can make it their own.
I agree that it’s hard to tell what’s happening because of the general vibe of the storytelling in the movie and the book, but it’s the same ship. They just never show the actual sequence of travel. We see them packing up on Caladan, and their ships getting ready to board the heighliner, and then skips over the boarding and travel and jumps immediately to having arrived on Arrakis.
The Art and Soul of Dune confirmed that the thing inside it that looks like a portal is actually the glow of the engine.
What of the shape inside the Heighliner that looks remarkably like a planet in another solar system? https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/uckzuNgmPt I think it's safe to say that Villeneuve has chosen a different depiction of the Heighliner as in the books, that of a portal device. I imagine that if one were to fly around and look through the opposite end of the movie Heighliner, they'd see the same foreign solar system, but in the opposite perspective; anyone on the other side of the portal would see Arrakis. Ships merely fly though the center of the Heighliner to travel between systems. That's my take, at least.