Hyperion is well worth it - it borrows heavily from The Canterbury Tales but is also its own thing (but the CT structure keeps coming back - at least for books 1 and 2).
I liked Illium/Olympos too (a separate two-book series).
You get the feeling he’s done a massive amount of research, even with the sci fi.
Just got back from seeing the movie in theaters. A few things:
I grew up in Florence, Oregon, home of the original sand dunes that inspired Herbert. I don’t remember it ever coming up while I lived there, weirdly enough.
Assuming the filmmakers cram Book 2 into a third part of a trilogy, it would make a really neat tragedy in the old, Shakespearean style: a noble and sympathetic hero makes a bad choice for good reasons, causing great anguish and/or destroying himself along the way. I’ve always understood something like that to be Herbert’s intentions: Paul isn’t supposed to be all bad or all good, but a person who was once decent slowly being driven into doom and evil. I don’t get why “Paul is sort of great and sort of terrible” is such a conundrum for some. That’s just how tragedy works!
I have no idea if this was Herbert’s intention, but considering that he wrote these books in the 1960s when European colonies were gaining independence at the rate of, like, five countries per week, you had several real-life Pauls all over the world: good men with good intentions fighting for freedom, then slowly (or not so slowly) turning into despots, one moral compromise at a time.
Speaking of the oppressed, that’s the tragedy of the Fremen: to save their traditions and be free, they must organize; but to organize, they must abandon their traditions (notice how the water-conscious Fremen are torching bodies by the end of the movie?) and cede their freedom to somebody else.
Related - once whilst playing the old Dune board game, a mate attempted to use the “Harkonnen Voice”.
…and then claimed that he was being in-character for his Harkonnen role. 
When I was 3years old my Dad was reading Dune and telling me bedtime stories about it.
Years later after the Lynch version had been in theaters, I started watching it on TV from roughly the middle of the story. I had no idea what I was watching, it just looked interesting.
Then about the time they started climbing on sandworms I thought I was having some intense Deja Vu. I was freaking out that I somehow new all the details of this movie before they actually happened.
Then I finally remembered the bedtime stories.
It was a very wild experience.
I’ve been considering a re-read of the series lately. I remember them fairly well but it’s been a while (late 90s). Thing is I only read the six by frank. What are y’alls thoughts on the other books not writing by frank? I’ve heard plenty of arguments about whether they’re even considered canon which gives me pause. I’d surely be happy just reading the original six books again but if the others are also great works or give a greater understanding of the dune universe in a meaningful (and canonical) way then I might look into them.
They essentially don’t exist for me. Nothing against the writers of them, but I think that Dune and Dune Messiah are just about perfect just as they are.
The later books by Frank are already weird enough to be a reasonable point to put them down for some.
The first two movies are the book “Dune” and Messiah will be Messiah (or whatever Denis will call it).
I’d bet he ends it, before we see any sandworm symbotes, i stopped reading when FH started getting into that territory, as more absurd than the rest, LOL
It was for sure weird, but it could have just as easily been some other technological explanation for ultra extended life and that would have worked (hyper concentrated spice mixed with water of life and a twist of lemon).
The point wasn’t how funky powerful Leto II was, it was what a few thousand years of a despotic ruler would be like. Or, so I imagine of course, I ain’t Frank.
Ah yes you’re right. I thought there was more left of book 1 because of a change that was made to a certain character’s death. But that will probably be added to pt 3
I’ve heard that from a few people about the post frank books. I get the impression they’re mostly used to get your fix when the first six just aren’t enough.
I’ve also heard a lot of people echo your sentiment about the original books though most seem to include “children” on their list. I actually really liked god-emperor. It’s a weird one in that it’s in the middle of the series but it could almost stand on its own without the other books if it had a good setup chapter. There are plenty of criticisms to level at it but I tend to disagree with the ones I most commonly hear.
I liked the “last” two also but found the end of chapterhouse a bit frustrating as I’m sure most people did. A cliffhanger at the end of a six book, 5,000 year long story is going to taste a little sour. Admittedly I struggled with them compared to the first four but I think the things that made them more challenging were artistically and narratively valid.
I’m not exactly sure how they’re going to work that out since certain events have already taken place.
Exactly.