Dune FUI
Here’s a look at some of the FUI highlighted in the recent film, Dune. The story unfolds in a world that features technology that’s familiar but slightly different to what we currently have.
Shield technology
Most combatants in Dune wear ‘shields’ that produce a protective energy field around the person. Things can only pass through it if it is going below a certain speed. These shields have been visualised as a sort of vibrating or ghosting affect, that indicates blue when activated and red when penetrated. This makes large battle scenes easy to read and also creates very visceral fight scenes.
Ornithopter
The ornithopter is a beautiful, dragonfly looking aircraft that characters use to fly around the desert planet of Arrakis. The inhabitants in the story are advanced enough to enable inter planetary travel yet the ornithopter cockpit relies on fairly basic and low-fi looking instruments. This retro-future approach is quite reminiscent of the world created in Blade Runner (see Blade Runner & Blade Runner 2049).
Thumper
The thumper is another example of low-fi technology in a futuristic setting. It’s used to summon sand worms and is just a simple mechanism with one function. Nicely designed and fits neatly into the world of Dune.
Hologram projector
The character Paul often uses a hologram projector to learn about the planet of Arrakis. It’s quite grainy and fairly low resolution but emits a 3D image that you can walk through. It works in a similar way to the projection game from the movie Her.
Shield explosions
These scenes show examples of a slow moving weapon that penetrates the shield of a big ship, causing a huge spectacular explosion. I love how the tearing of the shield is visualised with a grand sweep of the ship’s outline.
Dune is a really great example of world building. It has so much character from the planets, costumes, sound effects, music and even the technology. Each element has been given so much attention to detail. From a FUI point of view, everything fits neatly together. There’s a mix of low-fi technology along with new ideas, but it’s consistent and it’s believable. Hopefully we get to see more of the technology in the sequel!
If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definetely worth checking out.