Apple Will Be Doing Asimov's Foundation

They said it's umfilmable and if the stories are true, they were right. It seems they haven't actually filmed Foundation as much as something with the same name and some of the same story concepts.

It’s probably been 10 years or more since I read the series. I liked it, thought it an interesting concept.

So far I’m digging this adaptation.

Especially the fall of the Empire aspect. Great visuals and characters. The rotating cloned triumvirate is a fresh concept that has me intrigued.

I am curious to see how they handle characters across seasons. I’m guessing cloning will play a part. But only limited on the Foundation side. So maybe you only get a couple of seasons and folks are rotated through. Especially if you bring folks in mid season you could have some decent rotation while still keeping fresh. So a bit of Theseus’s Crew of a cast.

Or maybe it will just be the Emperors that ‘survive’ across events while the Foundation folks are new every time.

If they can pull that off well I am hopeful.


Guess from E2 below

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. They did some significant world building, because they had to. The first 'book' is a collection of short stories, the first story written in 1942. It needed a revamp.

But the basic concept is great, Jared Harris is a great choice for Seldon, Lou Llobel is very good as his young protege. The production values are absolutely fantastic.

And I like the fact that they brought in concepts from Prelude, which includes the greater Robot and Empire stories into the same universe. Asimov didn't merge Robots and Foundation until 46 years after the first Foundation story.

Through two eps, I give it an A.

‘Foundation’ Renewed For Season 2 By Apple TV+

I've read elsewhere that the producers are hoping to make 8 seasons.

Watched the first episode (which anyone can do for free) and this is what I have to say:



Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It's not what was in the book written by this guy:

To which I say, "So fucking what?" Not only did the episode get the spirit of what Asimov was trying to communicate with his work (without being nearly as slavishly fascist as many of the characters in his novel did), but there were some serious goddamned nods to shit that Asimov would have loved, as well as to the whole of scifi.

WTF has no one pointed out that many of the library shots where we see Seldon were clearly shot at the Long Room in Trinity College.



Jesus fucking Christ, that's a goddamned statement. It's akin to comparing something to the works of Homer. Not Simpson, but the blind guy who wrote the epic poems of Greece. There's nods to great SF movies like Blade Runner, Tron, Star Wars, and even shitty (yes, and I'm willing to die on this fucking hill) novels like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series (not to mention Dune). In short, if you don't like this because you think that it's inferior to the original novels, you should eat all the dicks.

Plus that robot advisor(?) woman would seem to be a functionally immortal element.

So far there's a whole lot "hang on a sec, let us show you this stuff from the past...okay got it, no this is where we were...but wait here's something else..."

It hasn't lost me so far, if I can follow the jumps I think I'll like it. So far so good.

You want a surreal experience? Alternate episodes of this with HBO's Chernobyl series. Jared Harris’ characters in both are quite similar.

Foundation Adds 10 Characters for Season 2, and Most of Them Are Entirely New

Just started this and really like it.

Lee Pace is really good.

Finished it, really liked it.

Finally started watching this. Finished episode one.

They made some serious changes to the show. I don't mind too much because Foundation as written was poorly suited to film / TV adaptation.

One thing that did strike me as odd, if the Imperium finds Seldon's ideas so problematic, why broadcast his trial (and testimony) for everyone to see?

Did it suck? No.
Did it look great? Yes.
Was ist Foundation? HELL no!

It was gorgeous and good effort.
But it was NOT Foundation.

Foundation's David S. Goyer on Expanding Asimov's Vision in Season 2

So what I’m getting just from what I’ve seen so far, Empire is your typical antagonist, foundation is not your typical protagonist. I haven’t read the books so I know nothing. What it looks like is Empire is not Palptine, more Shinto Ceassr, but foundation is a misguided science cult.

I gotta say, I really like this show. This is hard core science fiction.

This may be the most "you have to THINK to follow this show" series I've ever enjoyed.

(I've seen more complex ones but I typically bailed on them as too much work. I LIKE a show to make me think, for more than some light entertainment of the sort I used to enjoy more, but there's a limit)

If you, like me, are enjoying this impressive series but are also trying to keep up with the complexity - Goyer did a pretty interesting pod this week that you might enjoy

(11) Foundation Season 2 Episode 9 Deep Dive W/Showrunner David S. Goyer - YouTube

So, having never read the novels, I decided to consult a wiki about how those stories are told and what's different in the series and, understanding a wiki isn't the novel itself, the series seems MUCH better.

I was commenting to my son the other day that the Cleonic line of Emperors struck me as a marvelously inventive trope that I was frankly surprised that other books and shows hadn't attempted to replicate. Well, TIL that that wasn't IN the novels, so major fucking kudos to the writers who came up with the Dawn/Day/Dusk conception of the Emperor, and there are so many creative little touches like the reference to Day as "Empire" as a mode of address.

Also, Demerzel while apparently not unique to the series but she's SUCH a good character and a unique integral facet of the Empire (and finally got backstory in this weeks episode which was great) and it seems to me (having not read the book) that they are doing some things with her that's not from the novels. Although they do allude to some points (many faces) I really like pulling the Robot wars/Laws/etc into the history that predates the Empire (which I guess WAS Asimov).

As far as I can tell, the whole business with the Prime Radiant also seems unique to the series. It's another excellent creative device.

As for all the other bits (the mutants, the spacers, etc) I don't know what's drawn from the books and what is new material. I know that Gaal and Salvor are both (gender flipped) characters from the book but the latter doesn't seem to play the same role on Terminus as in the book.

Anyway, I've been out here giving Asimov credit for stuff he didn't do, but the series is better for it IMO

Episode nine of season two was directed by Roxanne Dawson an it was fantastic. Best science fiction since the Expanse.

Episode 10 was even more amazing than episode 9, I really hope we get a third season. Apparently Goyer has already written the third season.

It’s been renewed for season three.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/foundation-renewed-season-3-apple-tv-1235712276/

Season One was great. Season Two was a giant meh.

This series is probably not for diehard fans of the novels.

I have read these books countless times over the last 30 years and probably would never get over all the changes to the source material, but then again I don’t think I am the target audience.

Although based on what I have read in this thread the series is not really an adaptation of the story from the novels.

Rather it plucks some of the names and ideas from the books and drops them into a completely new and different storyline with a few hints and nods to the original novels.

Which is fine. I am okay with reimaginings and new takes on older concepts but this is not a straight adaptation like Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter.

This is probably more similar to The Man In The High Castle series, which takes a basic idea and tells a different story with different characters.

For example Eto Demerzel in the books isn’t even a real person, it is just one of the aliases of a 19,000 year old humanoid robot who, for a brief period of time, took over the running of the Empire in an attempt to stall its collapse.

I have no idea how that relates to the Eto Demerzel of the show. So I don’t know that I would call the show better than the books or vice versa… they are just two completely separate stories with some common names for characters and locations.

There is a Prime Radiant in the books but the way it is used and the context in which it is used are probably completely different.

Towards the end of season two they hint at Demerzel basically being in charge of Empire for tens of thousands of years.