[Sheba]

Originally Posted by james3wk

LOL, I was joking...but even if I wasn't, mecha could still work in the Dune universe, quite well in fact. I purposely limited the mecha to the "evil" characters, because I intentionally seperated the more 'natural' Fremen from the more machine based society that Duke Harkonnen (and others) ran.

On Arrakis, a mech would be stuck in the sand.
Not to mention that it may draw a sandworm toward it.
I like my Sardaukar as freaking scary fanatical super-soldiers not trained mech pilots. I like my harkonnen as brutal and oppressive army as opposed to Duke Leto's. And mentats are fine in their roles of human computers and advisors of the noble class.

Additionaly, the mech could look more like a Votoms or Patlabor style mecha or even better the mecha used by Ripely in Aliens. You are imagining a Gundam Seed/Destiny/Wing style mecha (which is almost completely controlled by computers) when in fact there are multiple different formats and approaches to Mecha designs. Hell there have been mechas in anime that are soley controlled by voice recognition or are connected to a persons nerveous system effectively making the machine nothing more than an extension of the human body. Infact this could elevate the role of Mentat as the brain in a machine. This could be a very interesting approach to the series.

Mentats are meant as advisors, analyzers of politics/economics/strategy, trained to assist the rulers. So making them mech operators are wtf. In a bad way.

I am a fan of the Dune series, hell I have even read the non Frank Herebert books, but you are talking about fanatacism rather than simple fan-support. The movie Dune was not bad because it tampered with Herbert's work, but rather it was bad because Lynch had no idea what he was doing with the show and he was over-controlled by his producers etc. into creating a sub-standard (for him) work.

I am a Dune fan too, it is a mark of what is good science-fiction that touch several topics, such as alien ecology, the bounds between politics and economical interests and all the resulting tragedy. It was written at a time when science-fiction didn't get automatically associated with Space Opera+Star fleets battles/Cyberpunk/Mecha by the sci-fi fan.
As for David Lynch, I know very well the obstacles he has to overcome; but every directors has done bad movies at least one time no matter what was the reason, Dune just happened to be one bad movie by Lynch. You know the impression that a movie left when your more casual friends only remember Dune as "The movie where Sting dies." I can forgive, but I cannot forget.

There is nothing wrong with adding mecha to the Dune series, it is just that there is no real point for them to be added, so additional storylines would have to be created to define their existance.

There you said it. The Dune universe is fine as it is.
Adding more plot threads to explain mechs would turn it "Gonzo-deviating-from-the-source" bad (Hellsing comes in mind as show that deviates from the original material, badly. The other example being Ghibli's Earthsea, so bad I cried).

if you can improve anything in your re-imagination by adding Mecha (ala Infinte Ryvius), or if it will just get in the way.

This is my main qualm with the industry. Can't people think sci-fi without mech or any of its post-star wars and post-Mazinger tropes (dont get me wrong I like Star Wars)? Or are sci-fi writers involved in anime industry doomed to add mechs in their stories in hope to attract viewers who may otherwise not care.