'Foundation' Is Fixing The Trickiest Thing About the Asimov Books
'Foundation' Is Fixing The Trickiest Thing About the Asimov Books
In Season 2 of 'Foundation' the Apple TV+ sci-fi epic is addressing the biggest challenge of the Isaac Asimov books. Here's how the new characters in the show make the books even better.
The title comes from the article, but I agree with some of these changes. It's making for an engaging show that also feels modern.
I'm sorry but the show has only the name of the books and has very little to do with them...
I'm ok with Salvor Hardin being a woman, I'm not ok with her being an action hero with guns while in the book the dude had a motto which was "violence is the last refuge of incompetents" and was a master of talking.
There's also the bit where we have at least two "universe's most special boy/girl" characters upon whom everything hinges repeatedly when the entire point kf the psycho-history concept is that major events like that happen one way or another regardless of the specific details.
But Hari Seldon is being very clear that those characters are wrecking his psychohistorical predictions by being like that. It's perfectly fine, IMO, for psychohistory to have not been as complete and omnipotent as Seldon initially thought it was. It'd be kind of annoying if it was, frankly. I prefer stories where the characters have agency and have to make efforts for things to turn out well.
That flaw turned out to be present in the books too, BTW. The Mule was the universe's most special boy in there, the show's just added two extra ones to the mix on the protagonist side.
Which would be fine if the magic pixie dream girl wasn't insufferable as hell and had a terrible actress.
The needed the mystery to follow Gaal without her being in the story, just a legend they searched the galaxy for.
You say that yet in reality, psychohistory dictates that they WILL be the universes most special people. They aren't mutually exclusive, they're patiently entwined. Not even getting into the latter books and how that shows the truth of it.
Honestly dude.. as someone who has read every single asimov book, and the entire foundation series and then read the entirety of the robot series, these books were my lord of the rings. The show is doing something different. I'm willing to wait and see how things go. I mean hari being an immortal consciousness and all is already completely different. I simply enjoy being in the world of the foundation at all.
The only real way I'll probably actually get to see something like the book in a non written way is as a 4x game a la crusader kings, or total war, or Stellaris. Heck or even as an RPG. I just don't think it's easily adaptable for TV or cinemas. For them attempting to do this and weaving in the foundations story is pretty commendable from my perspective and I hope they keep improving the story. Shame about Daneel olivaw.
There's Anacreon, though it's only very loosely based on the books.
I have entirely stopped comparing the show to the books because all it would do is frustrate me. Now I just think of it as it's own thing.
I can't do it. There's a very simple principle here that seems to escape most of hollywood lately: If you want to do something different, then call it something different! I mean at least change part of the name. Look at the first four Star Trek sequel series, they all had different names, and still were closer to the original than that crap that Abrams spewed out. Even The Orville is closer to Star Trek and it doesn't use any of the original names at all. The Gotham tv series doesn't even have the name "Batman" in it. I know they weren't allowed to but still, makes it far easier to take as its own thing. It's almost like they are trying to do it backwards, where the closer the name is to the original, the less it bears any resemblance to it.
I'm OK with salvor because she's an OK character. That red monk girl is really starting to grow on me.
I am very much NOT OK with anything having to do with Gaal, because she seems like a terrible character with a terrible actress.
Haven't seen last night but last week was great specifically because it had 0 Gaal.
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The show has nothing to do with Asimov's books. They are just using Asimov's name for marketing.
I’ve only really heard negative opinions about this show but the budget and special effects actually look beautiful. What’s the consensus here on the show? I actually have never actually read the books as reference.
Its like… actively bad.
The only parts I have actually found engaging enough to watch are the parts centered around the emperor. Unfortunately, everything to do with Hari Seldon and Salvor Hardin so far is at best kinda inconsequential, and at worst so cringingly over-acted and poorly written that I genuinely cannot understand how it got past focus groups.
Not to mention, there is SO. MUCH. Expository narration… I guess the writers didn’t get the memo about “show, don’t tell”.
Not very good. It's a mess to follow.
It's a horrible show. Don't waste your money on it.
The consensus on here is that the show is horrible and should be obliterated with extreme prejudice. Especially amongst fans of the novels.
(Braces for pitchforks)
I read and finished the first Foundation novel and didn't really like it. I love classic science fiction novels in general. And I'm not saying it's a bad novel or series, just that Foundation certainly didn't grab me.
The show isn't perfect by any means. But as someone who didn't get into the novels, I think it's a pretty decent watch overall. It's a difficult story to tell, partly because of the big time jumps and abstract ideas, and partly because Asimov was light on character development compared to some other writers (especially more recent ones). But they've done a pretty good job adapting it IMO.
The big time jumps do make it a difficult story. The names of the people on the page are always changing and you don’t get true character development or drama.
The show doesn’t execute this well, it tries to avoid it. It bends over backward to invent multiple ways for the characters to defeat death. Cryo sleep. Digital consciousness. Synthetic bodies. Clones. Has there been any outright time travel yet? If not I’m sure there will be.
Read the books, actually just finished rereading them. Enjoy the show very much, but it's definitely a different story.
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I could not make it past the first season. It's all looks and no content. They drag out unnecessary bits, mess up the narrative of the original material to make it more "tv friendly".
I'd put it on the same shelf as Amazon's "The Expanse". If you like that, maybe foundation is also your cup of tea. Personally I'm not into either.
I love the Expanse, but I hate Foundation. Has nothing to do with the books. If they want to make something different, they should call it something different.
I liked The Expanse and still hate Foundarion.
I wanted to like it. I’m open to changes in adaptation because I honestly didn’t always enjoy reading the novels. And I am not one of those people to complain about “wokeness” in the slightest.
I just hated the show. Even on its own for what it is trying to be, it’s a mess. I guess there are some good special effects? There are also a lot of average and bad ones. It’s the lack of any self-propelling plot that kills it for me. Every step forward in the story is totally forced and uninteresting. No one should subscribe to Apple TV to get this show.
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I think the show is worth watching for sure. The effects are top notch and when they are telling The Empire side of the storyline it can be pretty entertaining.
I never read the book/books(?), thought the first season was cool. Seems like everyone who read the book hates it.
I thought it was interesting, visually appealing, and I pretty much binged the whole first season.
It really is beautiful. I'd call it the most cinematic show on the air right now. It takes paying attention to follow, but the story has been satisfying so far. The acting is excellent. I recommend it, but you have to invest yourself in keeping track of what's going on.
I grew up on the books and I’m loving this show. First season is more about set up but season two slaps hard so far. I legit can’t wait for each new episode, whereas first season was more of a passive curiosity about where they went with it.
Imho, don’t even pay attention to the hate. Most of it is from book readers and if you haven’t read them it literally does not matter.
I haven't read the books but the show is good scifi imo. The actors are solid and the story is really intriguing.
I never read the books, but I greatly enjoy the show. I think a lot of the people who don’t like it are being boring
I liked the books back when I read them. But sometimes it was tough work keeping on reading, because p.e. tech references would not translate well to nowadays, and from the social structure depicted they really showed their age. Which for me works with p.e. Heinlein, but not with Asimov and Foundation.
I try to see the series not as adaption of the books, but completely apart from them. And then I have to agree with the author and with OP, its modern, engaging and really well made.
Old school scifi always has issues with weird tech hangups just throwing wrenches into huge foundational aspects of highly advanced civilizations. Thankfully most of them can be handwaved away.
Anyone expecting a very internal monologue driven book series to be translated well into the screen is just green though lol.
Remember when everyone complained about Ender's Game which was so similar with blatant storytelling in character thought? Versus the reality of what's being show in universe to a 3rd party observer? I can name very few internal monologue driven movies, let alone tv series that did well. I can't name a single one off the top of my head. Maybe Sin City and that's stretching.
Old school scifi always has issues with weird tech hangups just throwing wrenches into huge foundational aspects of highly advanced civilizations. Thankfully most of them can be handwaved away.
This is something that Dune handles really well precisely because it writes a lot of the tech out of the setting. "Thinking machines" are gone and banned, guns don't work against shields, lasers are banned because of their (nuclear) interaction with shields. Even communications are largely handled by couriers. The tech is deliberately written to be at a level where it doesn't take convenience or deux ex machina for certain situations to occur.
Anyone expecting a very internal monologue driven book series to be translated well into the screen is just green though lol.
I thought Denix Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune handled this incredibly well when Paul and Jessica used sign language to communicate while they were tied up. In the book, that entire section is told through their internal monologues and their expectations of what the other would be thinking, so translating that to sign language for the screen was clever. I'm very curious to see how the internal-monologue-heavy second half of the book will fare, though.
I never thought of Sin City being different in that way. But it is. Whole sections are just the current character talking to themselves.
Ender's Game was bad because they changed the overall internal conflict from one of horror at making the 'necessary' decisions to a 'yay we beat the bugs' ending of generic sci fi. Yeah, internal dialogue is hard to adapt, but when the core part of the book is changed it should be an interesting contrast like in Starship Troopers.
Yes, correct. I think what made reading the books difficult for me, though - and that was many years ago, not sure if I remember correctly - was that strong "atomic" reference in everything tech related, overused. Yes, at the time of writing this was cutting edge, but for me when reading was extremely difficult to translate/take seriously. It killed the immersion.
Can't describe it better, but did not have that effect at all wit Asimov's contemporaries.
Not having read the books, I'm enjoying the show very much and since The Expanse was shitcanned, this is my favorite SciFi being produced every year now. The production value is off the charts, it's excellent science fiction.
I miss when Hollywood had original ideas
I am really enjoying the second season.