Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 498 posts

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

#111

Post by KennyBlanken »

malermeister wrote: post #69
KennyBlanken wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider that with such a complex story and large cast the show might take more than one and a half episodes to show you everything? The show has indeed been about power projection mechanisms, once it set up the universe and cast enough. It's one thing to watch an episode and a half and say "eh, not for me." It's another entirely to declare you know "the show" and speak authoritatively about it as a whole whe…

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.

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

#112

Post by Jansen312 »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #13

The show feels like the creators read the back of the book and nothing else. Adaptation is never a one-to-one translation but you need to keep the spirit of the show. Also the whole emperor lineage stuff feels like an attempt to add a Game of Thrones type plot to the show. I'm not far into the show, so perhaps they address this, but I'd love a more modern commentary on how the whole ideology of the Foundation is basi…

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 currently way better than the finale of GoT.

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

#113

Post by sersi »

I've been rather impressed with Villeneuve's Dune. It's not perfect, I feel that there's not enough backstory and context for those not familiar with the novel (not explaining CHOAM and the landsraad makes the emperor's actions confusing), Jessica is a bit too wimpy for a Bene Geserit who is supposed to be in control and I reserve judgement about the changes with Lyet Kynes. That said as someone who loved the books, it feels mostly faithful and was very enjoyable.

Not so for Foundation, there are some interesting ideas, I actually like the idea of the Cleon's genetic dynasty but overall it feels like a second rate star trek show where regularly I have to suspense my disbelief at how unbelievably stupid some of the plot points or character decisions are. It's nice eye candy and not awful. I'll watch it while doing something else and try to ignore the fact that it carries and betray the name of novels I revered in my childhood. But it's not a great show and it doesn't even compare to The Expanse, For all mankind and any number of nice Sci Fi shows.

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

#114

Post by gerikson »

edgyquant wrote: post #75
geenew wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iain Banks was famous for (tongue-in-cheek I think) saying he'd wouldn't mind changes Hollywood wanted in order to get a movie made.[1] The machine-machine conversations, virtual hell, etc. parts of his books would probably not translate well no matter who was directing. Otherwise, the material seems as well suited for adaptation as anything else. Consider Phlebas could be fantastic in a ~2hr movie with special effec…

I’d like to Consider Phlebas adapted as well but I think it’s be tricky. A lot of Culture fans don’t like it because the main character is scum and about 1/4 of the way through the book you start realizing that the antagonist machine empire he’s fighting (the culture) are actually the good guys. I think that makes it great, though.

If readers believe Bora Horza Gobuchul is "scum" they haven't read the book very well.

Next I'll be reading that Cheradenine Zakalwe in "Use of Weapons" is a good guy.

I don't want to go full Rick-and-Morty copypasta, but Banks' SF is a bit more mature and complex than most others. If you've only read US writers you might miss a lot.

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

#115

Post by orwin »

megablast wrote: post #63
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.

Did you love all the books?? Because the books he wrote in the 80s were very different to the ones in the 50s. Completely different. And awful imho.

The only books he wrote in the 80s i did not like are "prelude to Foundation" and "Forward the Foundation", and "Foundation and Earth" was pretty disappointing too.

And having re-read the originals (and not the translation) recently, with my new outlook and all the books i've read since, i'd say that even those are written better than the two first Foundation books (that i love). I'd say the "Cave of steel" was the best written of his books from the 50s, a bit better than "Naked Sun" and "Second Foundation", or at least better paced. But his best books are either "Foundation's edge" or "Robots and Empire", at least to me.

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

#116

Post by pbak »

scubadude wrote: post #99
hardwaregeek wrote: post #13

The show feels like the creators read the back of the book and nothing else. Adaptation is never a one-to-one translation but you need to keep the spirit of the show. Also the whole emperor lineage stuff feels like an attempt to add a Game of Thrones type plot to the show. I'm not far into the show, so perhaps they address this, but I'd love a more modern commentary on how the whole ideology of the Foundation is basi…

8 seasons is what I read :-)

So, in the end, the Mulet stabs Golan Trevize in the back?

F**...

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

#117

Post by christkv »

JasonFruit wrote: post #33
samplatt wrote: post #24

"Asimov's Vision". The guy himself has said in interviews that it was entirely inspired by gas/fluid dynamics theory, where you could predict the motion of the whole but individual molecules would be random, and then "what if that could be applied to people". Everything else is just exploring and extrapolating. It's far from perfect but I feel that if it was a new IP work the reaction to it would be very different. A…

Alternatively, if "Foundation and Dune are almost impossible to translate to screen faithfully," why are we translating them to screen, instead of writing a new work for which screen is the natural medium? With these adaptations, the two options are "That sucks!" and "That's not Foundation!"

Actually the sci-fi channel mini series of dune and children of dune is not bad considering the limitations of budget and 90s technology. Sticks pretty close to the books and gives more background for people to understand what is going on. Definitively worth a look.

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

#118

Post by orwin »

LegitShady wrote: post #14
yodon wrote: post #8

The army combat sequences are inconceivably stupid. Dozens of soldiers firing sci-fi machine guns at unprotected opponents at close range and everyone magically avoids injury. It makes one wonder if Apple applied some sort of violence limiting clause to the production with absurd results.

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.

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

#119

Post by christkv »

edgyquant wrote: post #57
samplatt wrote: post #24

"Asimov's Vision". The guy himself has said in interviews that it was entirely inspired by gas/fluid dynamics theory, where you could predict the motion of the whole but individual molecules would be random, and then "what if that could be applied to people". Everything else is just exploring and extrapolating. It's far from perfect but I feel that if it was a new IP work the reaction to it would be very different. A…

Having read both, I don’t think Dune is impossible to bring to the screen. I think it needs to be a TV show because as a film it will need to be super long (and will be exposition heavy and/or kinda boring.) But Foundation is like the Silmarillion. It’s supposed to be detailed over centuries/millennia and definitely is hard or impossible to get right on the screen.

Check out the 90's sci-fi channel mini series of Dune and Children of Dune.
Post reply on HN