Dune

The thought of him actually even attempting the depth of the character makes me laugh. It would be hilarious in a car crash movie ruining sort of way.

10,000 years before Dune, everything was exactly the same as Dune.

Count me in as one of those. Fucking dreadful cash-ins.

Yeah getting very bad vibes from the trailers for the series.

baihu1983 Same here!

Having read the first two books for the first time (now reading Children of Dune), I would also love to see Dune Messiah with the same team (Villeneuve/Chalamet/Zendaya etc.) as a closure to Paul and Chani's story.

So 10,000 years prior to Dune the costumes, weapons and entire culture were exactly the same?

Ffs

I think the argument that’s generally made for the lack of progress in these cases is either

1. In high fantasy magic has negated the need for technological advancement which is why these worlds are trapped in a permanent mid-medieval period state

2. Technology advanced to a point where no more advancement was possible or necessary

3. All of these societies are in decline with their social and technological high points in their distant past with real knowledge of how it came about long lost

The Butlerian Jihad where they smashed all their computers and now all their calculating is done by men with bushy eyebrows and navigation by mutant drug addicts

Very OT, but has anyone ever done a fantasy series/universe where they progressed from Swords to something more advanced like guns?

There are a lot of fantasy universes like Shannara* etc.. where they have long gaps between some of the novels, like hundreds or even thousands of years, but I don't immediately recall any where big technological advancements had happened in the intervening years.
There are a lot where they do one trilogy of books, and then do another trilogy 100 years later or something. And usually the politics and power have shifted, but everyone is still on a horse with a sword.

*possibly not the best example due to it being, allegedly post-apoc earth, but it's the only one that comes to mind right now that has big gaps.

The usual excuse is that when a world is filled with magic there is no need for technology, so no one bothers with advancing it. Who needs a gun when you have people that can throw fireballs? Why would you come up with the combustion engine, when you can just hop on the back of a dragon for a lift?

Technology existing as a threat to magic was a key plot point in The Longest Journey series and I'm sure there are other examples of that too. I guess you could say something like Star Wars mixes advanced technology with fantasy sword fighting and magic as well (although doesn't really have advancement - or regression - of it with time jumps).

That reminds me, I should finish Children of Time 

Brandon Sanderson Cosmere / Mistborn series sees quite a lot of technological advancement over the different in universe years.

Not read them all, but in the Mistborn series guns are common in the era 2 novels (appearing on the covers) and are set 300 years after the first era. The planned era 3 is going to be early computer age, and the planned era 4 is supposedely going to be in space-opera territory with FTL space stuff.

In other novels

Didn't see small arms but Joe Abercrombies First Law world does progress into an early industrial setting, with factories and cannons frequent by the most recent entries.

In a different setting, Pratchett's Discworld was developing into an industrial setting with steam trains and mechanised printing presses being key to the plots of some of the later novels.


In film, Ralph Bashki's Wizards animated film mixed technology and magic, though it's not really the same as it was a post apocalyptic setting where technology is an ancient thing rediscovered by the magical denizens.


And I'd like to point to the technological advancement seen in animated series The Legend of Korra, following on from The Last Airbender. No guns, but technology has started to advance and we see automobiles and radios, but not guns - but when much of the population can manipulate the elements, having guns not exist actually feels pretty realistic.