Memes

Had me in the first half ngl

My personal faves are the claims that the cybermen are ripping off the borg and that Pratchett's Unseen University is a hogwarts copy.

The music tends to be left off lists like this but without that fabulous score and the genius of John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra, Star Wars would not have had the same emotional impact.

So, an original work then.

Sounds like an AI prompt

And literally everything else and cramming it into one universe

Though you could do an identical meme with Games Workshop and Blizzard. There were so many people back in the day that didn't know Warhammer 40k had been around for over a decade when StarCraft released.

And then the same thing happened again when Dawn of War was released.

Not only Dune. GW ripped off so many franchises it made my head spin when I finally read the Foundation series by Asimov. Let’s just say the Mechanicum wasn’t an original idea.

I would say Dune (at least the first book before it goes really fucking weird) has a sort of anti-colonial, indigenous(ish) peoples under occupation themes that Star Wars just isn't interested in exploring. With Star Wars it's basically just "There's an evil empire, okay that's enough, let's go" vibes to OG Star Wars. Like you don't have to pay attention to the political background blurb at the beginning that serves as pasting a veneer of political intrigue at all and the story basically makes sense. It's a War story, whether or not a Monarchy is involved barely matters. It could be "Ambassador Leia" and "President Palpatine" and basically nothing would functionally change. Empire requires no monarchs to function.

Dune does come across as "The Indigenous peoples of Dune hadn't a hope until this one random outsider self insert character showed up and joined their cause and was amazing at everything and was lifted up as saviour because vague prophecy seeded by generations of matriarchal Jedi (Bene Gesserit) manipulation reasons..." It's sympathetic to indigenous peoples in a vaguely problematic for a host of familiar reasons kind of way. Like the world building is great and all but I feel like you could swap Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreidies and end up with a generally better story on both counts.

"Space opera" has been a term in science fiction since at least the 1940s. Flash Gordon, John Carter, and Buck Rogers all fought Emperors.

I'm 9 books into WoT right now (its good shit) and the overlap between the Dune series is pretty interesting to say the least. Rand -> Paul, Aes Sedai -> Benne Gesserit, Aiel -> Fremen, I mean there's a dozen more comparisons I could make too. The lack of Turbo Pussies and chair dogs is a let down though.

No. But it has drugs that make you accurately predict the near and far future. And turn you into an immortal worm eventually.

It definitely has aspects that could be considered magic, but I wouldn't necessarily compare them to the Force.

Some aspects of it. "The voice" is basically jedi mind tricks. People that are attuned also get visions/senses of foreboding about the future. There's no telekinetic stuff as far as I know.