The Long Road to Prague

By Brian Herbert

I would like to thank the millions of Dune fans who continue to enjoy Frank Herbert's incredible universe through the first epic miniseries on the SCI FI Channel, and through the novels that I am writing with Kevin J. Anderson. Years ago, few people thought that this tremendous success could ever be achieved.

The novel Dune had a rocky road to publication in book form. It was rejected by more than 20 publishers before Chilton picked it up and published it in 1965. During the 1970s, several major production companies tried to film a motion picture based upon the book but were unsuccessful, despite spending millions of dollars in their attempts. Because of the sheer size and enormous complexity of the work, production costs were staggering. Special effects were particularly challenging, both in expense and in the technological requirements of bringing them to life. Storyboards were created and never used. Screenplays were written and scrapped. Years passed.

Finally, director David Lynch released a big-budget feature film version in 1984, almost 20 years after publication of the novel. While the film had some merit — particularly in its acting and costumes — it did not follow Frank Herbert's plot and characterizations nearly as well as the legions of Dune readers had hoped. Many fans were left confused and disappointed. (I have detailed this unfortunate episode in Dreamer of Dune, the biography of Frank Herbert that is being published in April, 2003.)

A little over two years ago, executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein of New Amsterdam Entertainment distributed the six-hour miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune, written and directed by John Harrison. It became the most-watched event in the history of the SCI FI Channel, up to that time. Critics loved it, and so did the fans. The show won two Emmy Awards, for cinematography (Vittorio Storaro) and visual effects (Ernest D. Farino). In large part, this success was also due to the faithful adaptation of the novel by Harrison and Rubinstein, as well as a first-rate international cast led by Oscar winner William Hurt.

The same production company is now following up with Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, scheduled to air on the SCI FI Channel in March 2003. Again, an excellent cast is headlined by an Oscar-winning actor; this time it is Susan Sarandon, and she will play Wensicia, the resolute daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. The six-hour production combines two Frank Herbert novels, Dune Messiah (two hours) and Children of Dune (four hours).

In May 2002, my wife Janet and I visited Prague in the Czech Republic to see how the film was progressing. Like some other science-fiction writers, I prefer not to fly in airplanes but I have always said that I would climb into a space shuttle and blast off. I would also ride in one of the huge space-folding Guild Heighliners, but that technology and its prescient Guild Navigators are still thousands of years away, in our distant future. (The soundstages in Prague did depict the planet Arrakis — more commonly known as Dune — so it would have been fitting if I could have taken a space-folder to get there.)

Unfortunately, our mode of transportation did not come close, and I could probably write an entire book about the adventure. My publishing deadlines do not permit time for such a detour, so I will provide an abridged version of my trip to the sets.

After arriving in England by ship, we took a fast Eurostar train to Brussels, Belgium. We knew beforehand that the rental car awaiting us there was not a Mercedes, an Audi, a Ford or any other make that we knew anything about. The problem had to do with the Czech Republic. Car-rental companies would not allow us to take a decent automobile into that country unless we wanted to pay a fee of more than $5,000. It seems that the theft rate for nice cars — and even average vehicles — was extremely high in the Czech Republic, to the point where car-rental companies were taking a hard stance to reduce their losses.

The dark-green car didn't look bad; it didn't look good, but it didn't look bad. As we surveyed it in the shadowy rental-car parking lot, we saw that it had only a few miles on it, and an interior cover over the rear hatchback compartment where we could hide our stuff from prying eyes and fingers. The dashboard, however, had plastic panels over places where clocks, tachometers, and other niceties should be. We noticed right away that it didn't have a tape deck, so we couldn't play our books on tape that we had hauled across the world, intending to listen to them while driving across Europe.

Some of the instruments were dark, but we didn't notice that until we were in Germany, hundreds of kilometers away. Around that time, we also noticed that the radio didn't work. Then we found something even more disturbing: The car had air-conditioning, but it didn't work. The infernal contraption merely blew ambient outside air on us. This was of some concern, considering the fact that it was already 27 degrees C outside (81 degrees Fahrenheit), with a forecast of even warmer temperatures ahead of us as we headed south to Italy after Prague.

Using our cell phone, we telephoned the car-rental company and asked to exchange the car at one of their many offices, which are located throughout Europe. After a number of long and expensive telephone conversations, we were told that we would have to drive all the way back to Brussels to exchange the vehicle because each office was run independently, like a franchise. That was totally absurd and out of the question, as we were already hundreds of kilometers away in another country, and on a tight schedule.

Resigning ourselves to our fate, we sighed and continued on. After all, we both were from impoverished backgrounds and assumed we could tough it out in order to reach the treat that awaited us in Prague. We also knew from recent trips to more than 40 countries that misadventures could be highly amusing to reminisce about later, providing us with enjoyment long after we returned home. Besides, we've always said that traveling is about problem-solving, and this wasn't so bad. At least the car did not rattle or shimmy, and it had decent acceleration. We crossed over the border into the Czech Republic.

We would learn later that much of the country is quite beautiful, but the countryside we saw along the highway to Prague was featureless and gray. The pollution-control laws must have been lax, because diesel trucks and buses, as well as factories, belched gobs of black smoke into the air, especially in the industrial city of Pilsen, which we drove through. Even so, our itinerary was working passably well at this point. The night before, we had stayed in the delightful medieval town of Rothenberg, Germany, and now we were going straight through to Prague, stopping only for gasoline and snacks. Although the scenery was dreary, we did discover that Czech chocolates were excellent, and that the people were pleasant and seemed to genuinely like Americans.

We reached Prague in the middle of a warm afternoon and were not disappointed. The only major European city to avoid severe damage during World War II, it features a magnificent ninth-century castle, ornate bridges, performing-arts centers, and many fine churches. Prague is a jewel in the pewter-gray setting of the land around it. It is easy to see why Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart spent a considerable amount of time here. He enjoyed some of his greatest successes in this sparkling city on the banks of the River Moldau, including the operas Figaro and Don Giovanni, and a concert that he named the Prague Symphony.

At night, the city lights up like Paris, and really comes alive. Young westerners flock to Prague for the nightlife and culture, and return home telling others how wonderful it is. If this continues, prices in Prague will go through the proverbial roof.

For now, Prague is a city in transition from its communist past; it is discarding old iron curtains to become more European and cosmopolitan. Prices are still moderate, although our room at the centrally located Blue Key Hotel could stand some updating and a few more basic creature comforts. There is a joke in Prague concerning things that are out of order. The tourist asks why the telephone doesn't work, and he is told, "Oh, it's just the local Czechnology."

The Czech people we met in the hotel, the restaurants and on the streets, while polite and exceedingly helpful, were not ebullient. Many seemed morose, as if still worried about being noticed and punished by communist overlords. They might also have been adversely affected by the weather in central Europe, which is said to be notoriously dismal. Even on warm days, we noticed many people carrying umbrellas.

Like many communist and formerly communist countries, there also seemed to be a good deal of public alcoholism, especially at night when the citizens hit the streets for a good time. We saw a number of weaving pedestrians, including a crowd of them on the ornate Charles Bridge. One of them made a lurching, chortling move toward my camera while I was filming Baroque statues, and acted as if he intended to grab it. We sampled some Czech wines and liquors in moderation; we found them to be quite good and reasonably priced.

Even with its aches and pains, the charming city of Prague, with its native population of skilled artisans — many of whom were hired to construct movie sets — was the perfect place to film Children of Dune. Wages and other production costs were still comparatively low, but were on the upswing as the city was in the process of being discovered.

The sets for Children of Dune — built inside three former airplane hangars on the outskirts of town — were stunning, and depicted my father's imaginative universe splendidly. The costumes, many of them made locally, were the perfect complement to the Imperial and Fremen settings.

On the set, my wife and I were treated like members of a science-fiction royal family, provided with tours and personal visits with fascinating people. All of the actors with whom we spoke were in full costume. We spent some time with Lady Jessica (Alice Krige), Chani Kynes (Barbara Kodetova), and Duncan Idaho (Edward Atterton). We also got to speak at length with the impressive young director, Greg Yaitanes, who did a masterful job after John Harrison — the director of Frank Herbert's Dune — was not available for this project, due to a scheduling conflict. (Harrison still co-produced this miniseries and wrote the screenplay).

The acting in Frank Herbert's Children of Dune is superb, but in this imaginative science-fiction series special effects are of equal importance. Ernest D. Farino, the visual-effects supervisor, spent more than an hour with us in his office, demonstrating some of the tricks of his trade on a computer screen. The scenes he produced were astounding, generating much awe and praise among the professionals on the set. After visiting with him, my wife and I went away thinking of the marvelous Wizard of Oz, creating magic behind the scenes.

My wife Janet is a painter, sculptor and potter, so we particularly enjoyed the time we spent with special-effects makeup artist Kim Collea. With a ready smile, this slender woman in a smock worked in a department that looked like a house of horrors. When we walked in, Kim was painting a faux severed hand, and over by the window lay a life-sized, realistic-looking female corpse with grievous, bloody wounds and no head.

Many other people on the staff showed us every courtesy. Publicist Tricia Deering coordinated things for us each day, making certain that we were always comfortable. On the set we stood inside the Emperor's Palace, saw the deserts and rock formations of Dune, inspected Fremen and Imperial costumes, and held cleverly crafted weapons used in the series, including crysknives that appeared to have been removed from the jaws of dead sandworms.

I saw more than a film production when I went to Prague to view the set. As I spoke with the actors in their costumes, I felt as if they were my siblings. After all, these were children of my father's imagination — walking around and behaving as he intended, populating his epic story. I knew all of these people well.

For me, it was like a family reunion. I only wish more Herbert family members could have been there, including my sister Penny (who could not make the trip) and my brother Bruce, who passed away in 1993. Most of all, I wish my father and mother could have been there, but both of them were gone, too. Reunions are often like that, though. You're constantly looking around for people who are not there, and wishing they were with you.

I observed a great deal of camaraderie and esprit de corps on the movie set, with executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein and producer David Kappes solving problems daily, keeping the film production moving forward. If an actor had a personal crisis or a disagreement over some aspect of filming, the producers were there to deal with it themselves, finding very human, caring ways to make everything work.

Now, with the two miniseries, my father's stories are more accessible than ever. These productions are faithful adaptations of Frank Herbert's astounding, brilliant visions. If he were alive today to see them, I'm sure he would be exceedingly pleased.

Frank Herbert's novel Dune set a new standard in science fiction, with sales far beyond the level of previous books in the genre, vaulting Dune into the mainstream. Similarly, New Amsterdam Entertainment is taking television programming to a new level, increasing the viewing audience for the series. The Children of Dune production is a grand adventure, a love story and much more.

Satisfied with the progress of the film, my wife and I left Prague in late May and drove south. In a picturesque farming and forest region near the Czech border we saw a colorfully dressed young woman standing on the side of the road, holding a bright orange parasol over her head. Her tawdry clothing looked like something Shirley MacLaine might have worn in the movie Irma la Douce. A hundred meters away, we passed another woman, and another, and another — at least 20 of them at separate stations, all ostentatiously attired and all with parasols. We strongly suspected that they were not selling farm or forest products. A short distance away, we saw resorts and a great deal of police activity.

In Salzburg, Austria, we made arrangements to exchange our car for a maroon Mitsubishi, with (working) air-conditioning, a tape deck, and the typical goodies that we should have received in the first rental car. An employee of the car-rental company promised us that we could protest the billings when we returned to the United States, and that the company would straighten it all out. Another employee told us that the make and model of automobile that we had driven from Brussels was notoriously bad and commonly referred to by their company as "a Monday car." This was because workers supposedly built these vehicles on Mondays, when they were in bad moods and didn't want to be back on the job. Some of the cars ran, and some didn't.

The Mitsubishi was quite a contrast with the first vehicle. At one stop for diesel, several Japanese men from a tourist bus came over to admire it, and spoke excitedly in their language. I tried to converse with them, but they spoke only broken English, so we exchanged smiles.

In July, upon arriving home in Seattle we found that the car-rental company had placed charges on our credit card of $3,500 for the two cars, even though we had a written quote from them of $1,400 and we exchanged vehicles only because the first one was defective. Today, more than six months later, our credit-card company (to their credit — pardon the pun) is acting on our behalf, refusing to pay the merchant. Thus far, however, the head office of the car-rental company, pointing fingers at its various independent offices in Europe, has credited only $400 to our account.

The next time we go to Prague, I think we'll take the train ... or see if we can get a Guild Navigator to journey back thousands of years in time and give us a lift.

Oh, well. As we reminisce on the trip, the "misadventures" still give us a great deal to talk about. We chuckle whenever we tell the stories and look forward to our next grand excursion away from home. When that time comes, we will plan everything meticulously, as always, so that we do not repeat the problems of the past. This will not, however, prevent new mishaps from occurring. Both my wife and I are of Irish heritage, and I suspect an impish little leprechaun named Murphy is always playing tricks on us. We strongly suspect that he was hiding somewhere inside that first rental car, pulling loose the wires as we drove.