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When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

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Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#141

Post by rockemsockem »

whazor wrote: post #130
malermeister wrote: post #3

This sums up my feelings about the show pretty well. Loved the books, hated the show. It gets rid of everything that was interesting about the books - the high level narrative about civilization and power projection mechanisms and replaces it with generic Hollywood sci-fi tropes, with cringy romance subplots thrown in. The second episode was so bad I stopped watching.

But I completely understand why went with the current direction. I believe they are not replacing the high level narrative, but they are slowing down for making something that resonates emotionally. When producing television, you work with actors, screenplay, and a story. I believe you cannot make good TV with replacing actors at the speed of Asimov. I also believe that Asimov books allow for romance subplots, but th…

A slowed down narrative to fit into the greater Foundation narrative is exactly how Foundation should be adapted.

Unfortunately the show's narrative is completely ridiculous. Nothing makes rationale sense. It seems that no character can even walk down a hallway without something going awfully wrong and things get resolved by never-before-mentioned magical plot elements falling in place.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#142

Post by rockemsockem »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #111
malermeister wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two (not sure where you're getting 1.5 from) episodes have been completely incompatible with the source material already. There's no reason to go any further, in the same way you don't need to see the derailed train come to a complete stop to know it's not gonna make it to the station.

You said you didn't even finish the second episode. If that's not what you meant, chose your words more carefully. Tortured analogies ignored: you declared the series to be absent something that has been present in spades in the latter episodes and you still don't realize how that makes you look.

OP deserves credit. They accurately classified this show after less than 2 episodes. I'm resigned to watching all of season 1, despite how awful it is. The worst thing is that they already renewed this crap, so we'll have to wait even longer for a potentially good Foundation.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#143

Post by mihaic »

My greatest gripe with the show is that none of the writers seem to have any understanding of science, technology and have only a vague understanding of sociology, pretty much all of the main themes of the books. I actually liked the imperial cloning elements, as they fleshed out well an ossified society, but every other plotline seems to just happen because of pseudo-magic.

I can only wish that the writer's room of Futurama could have had a go at this. Writers today seem to not understand anymore how reality works, so they aren't able to extrapolate from it.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#144

Post by rockemsockem »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #86

No one learned anything from Game of Thrones. The show was absolutely amazing when it could follow the books. The definitive show everyone talked about. The moment the books ran out it started to go downhill. And when they couldn't easily extrapolate from the books the show fell apart completely. The showrunners and writes for the show weren't good enough to make Game of Thrones on their own. No offence, but that tak…

So glad I wasn't the only one to catch the contradiction with Hardin.

Also we seem to be saying that Hardin and other individuals (e.g. the woman who was tossed off the colony ship who narrates sometimes) are very special, which is also totally counter to the most important themes of the book.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#145

Post by liaukovv »

Apocryphon wrote: post #95
Jtsummers wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, A Scanner Darkly was a remarkably faithful adaptation of the book, and because of PKD's daughters involvement (they recognized the book's importance to him and it weighed heavily in the creation of the movie).

Christopher Tolkien also seems to be a pretty good steward of his father's estate.

I don't think the hobbit abomination is forgivable.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#146

Post by watwut »

pbak wrote: post #128
wslack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion Probably because at the time Dune was written, people conflated those things in a way that caused a lot of harm to people not interested in harming children. Seems highly reasonable not to feed a trope like that.

Are you saying grown men keeping young boys for sexual gratification is not perversion anymore ? It seems to me that that catholic priests abusing choir boys or the "bacha bazi" practice in Afghanistan are still shocking everybody.

He is saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things. Homosexuality is specifically not being considered perversion anymore. And the adults abusing pre-pubescent boys are not necessary homosexuals.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#147

Post by simonh »

wyager wrote: post #22
kaczordon wrote: post #6

This is also what happens when you re-write the core story to match a Political Correctness agenda. The producers should’ve taken a note from Denis Villeneuve’s treatment of Dune, the source book should be the Bible and you don’t mess with it.

Dune wasn't exactly untouched by Hollywood politics. They completely eliminated the themes of European/Arabic cultural conflict (replacing everyone except the bad guys with a generic box-ticking multi-ethnic cast) and they completely nuked Kynes' character to replace him with a forgettable "generic strong woman" character.

Oh come on. Atreides, Haleck, Hawat, Yueh, Idaho, Mattai. No hints of ethnic diversity there in the book at all? Really?

I thought Sharon did a fantastic job as Kynes, one of the more naturalistic performances in the whole movie.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#148

Post by LegitShady »

orwin wrote: post #118
LegitShady wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only stormtroopers are so precise. Personally these days when I hear they're making a book or book series I like into movies/tv I wait for the inevitable disappointment. I hear they're ruining Robert Jordan's books next, something I plan to skip entirely and just re-read the books instead.

Honestly, the only books that can be ruined from the Wheel of Time are Sanderson's. I've started with the translations, which are the worst, and told myself that it can't be worst than Shanarra, so i ordered the english books (it was roughly ten years ago), and discovered that yes, it was indeed worst than Shanarra. I'd say even those 80's fantasy books that are obviously loosely based on a dnd campaign are better.

you're allowed to like what you like, and me too.

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#149

Post by [deleted] »

rockemsockem wrote: post #137
Jansen312 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foundations series as a whole was relatively lite. Characters aren't that sophisticated as what you get in GoT, Dune, or Tolkiens. Screen adaptations are mostly to target a different kind of audience. People who loves the original books aren't the intended target. The mass who have heard of Asimov but didn't bother to read or just read the back of the book would be the main audience for this Foundations. It is curren…

Strong disagree. This is one of the worst shows I've ever watched. Lots of magical story elements that just poof out of nowhere at just the right time. On top of that there's ton of useless scenes where literally nothing important to anything is on screen for over a minute. The show-runner helped make Batman vs Superman and I see LOTS of that awful movie in Foundation.

[deleted]

Re: When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

#150

Post by throw0101a »

The economist Paul Krugman of all people wrote a 'review' of Foundation versus Dune:

> “Foundation” might seem unfilmable. It mostly involves people talking, and its narrative inverts the hero-saves-the-universe theme that burns many acres of CGI every year. The story spans centuries; in each episode everything appears to be on the brink, and it seems as if only desperate efforts by the protagonists can save the day. But after each crisis, Seldon’s prerecorded hologram appears to explain to everyone what just happened and why the successful resolution was inevitable given the laws of history.

> So how does the Apple TV series turn this into a visually compelling tale? It doesn’t. What it does instead is remake “Star Wars” under another name. There are indispensable heroes, mystical powers, even a Death Star. These aren’t necessarily bad things to include in a TV series, but they’re completely antithetical to the spirit of Asimov’s writing. Pretending that this series has anything to do with the “Foundation” novels is fraudulent marketing, and I’ve stopped watching.

* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/dune-movie-founda...

* https://archive.md/YFxVi

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