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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

#231

Post by dnautics »

yufeng66 wrote: post #218
throw0101a wrote: post #150

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…

Krugman is just too emotionally invested in the book, so nothing comparable to the book. If the show is not called foundation, he will probably enjoy it.

Saying Krugman is too emotionally invested in the book is an understatement. This is the man who claims to have wanted to bring about psychohistory itself as the natural evolution of economics.

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

#232

Post by mihaic »

scotty79 wrote: post #197
mihaic wrote: post #143

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…

> Writers today seem to not understand anymore how reality works, so they aren't able to extrapolate from it. That's a quite accurate observation. Even for the largest budgets people tasked with story telling are almost always the weakest element. Who makes them? What kind of education do they undergo to be this wrong about reality and storytelling? Are they such small and in-bred group that they are all so wrong in…

True, it might be that the bubble writers live in nowadays is stronger than it's ever been, and it's a guild that rejects all non-aligned newcomers. It might also be that people that understand reality go into more stable domains, to make a sure income.

Whatever the reason, we're surely becoming culturally poorer.

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

#233

Post by rory »

simonh wrote: post #147
wyager wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I always envisioned each planet / great house / ethnic group to be ethnically homogeneous, although different from each other.

I don't think it's very likely there would be some black Fremen and some mediterranean looking ones in the same sietch. Even if the planet was colonized with a diverse population, it would have been blended out by the time the events Dune take place.

But also it's soft sci fi so tons of things already aren't realistic. Ethnicities are a weird one to get hung up on.

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

#234

Post by nottorp »

sandworm101 wrote: post #5

They lost me in the trailer. Foundation is a story across centuries about elderly and ossified leadership structures, not attractive young people in spandex. It is about one faction rebelling against another, not kids trying to get out from under their parents. And I really don't mind changing the genders of characters but please don't do so just to create eye candy. Dune did this too. I think making Kynes female was…

> I think making Kynes female was interesting, although it certainly changes the male/female dynamics that are the core of the story.

Hmm I'll disagree. They changed the gender of the only character whose gender doesn't matter in the story. Decent move.

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

#235

Post by dr_ »

burlesona wrote: post #159

There are a lot of people really hating on the TV show here, so I’ll offer a slightly contrarian take: I would say the biggest problem is the marketing that implies they faithfully are telling the books, when they’re not. The TV show is not faithful to the books. That said: the books are fascinating, but they are almost more like historical documentaries then narrative fiction. It works well because they are _short_…

Agreed. The show may not follow the book, but it’s entertaining in its own right. Star Wars was essentially a “dumbed down” version of this, the show maintains some complexity - it can get corny at times but you still have to follow what’s going on or you could lose track of the story.

And the Brothers’ are some of the most intriguing sci fi characters that I’ve watched.

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

#236

Post by dtx1 »

Having read foundation and seen the show so far they are two very different stories and the show is mostly just off hand references to the ideas of the books. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad show though, because there's a lot of potential of cool stories to be told in the foundation universe.

What does make it a bad show is that they writers fell into the Star Trek Discovery Trap of making it about not one but two diverse female space jesuses that save everyone. Arguably their depiction of woman in the show is just as superficial as asimovs depiction of them in the books, just the flipside of the coin.

However, they sometimes have hints of the really interesting parts of foundation, which, in my opinion, is the thinking and planning on large time scales. Only the Empire Storyline has that kind of thinking truly ingrained and subsequently is the only interesting part about the show. I can't even remember diverse female space jesus 1&2s names.

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

#237

Post by nottorp »

_ph_ wrote: post #206
light_hue_1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally nowhere does the book say what Kynes' skin color is. You might have imagined the character as white, but that's on you. It's not a "change" made for "PC" reasons. And if it was, well, that would be awesome!

It is kind of hilarious to argue about the skin color of people millennia from now as if they would be static. Considering the amount of globalization, I would expect humanity to look quite different in a couple of hundred years already. If there are major visible differences between people 10k years in the future, they probably are along planet boundaries, and in which way they express is difficult to estimate. UV r…

In 10000 years we should all be some (light?) shade of brown. If we get rid of the racism at least.

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

#238

Post by throw0101a »

burlesona wrote: post #159

There are a lot of people really hating on the TV show here, so I’ll offer a slightly contrarian take: I would say the biggest problem is the marketing that implies they faithfully are telling the books, when they’re not. The TV show is not faithful to the books. That said: the books are fascinating, but they are almost more like historical documentaries then narrative fiction. It works well because they are _short_…

> So, is it a classic? No. Is it faithful to the books? Not at all. But IMO it’s decent sci-fi, and interesting enough to watch if you’re bored :)

If you want to make an action-y television series, then choose action-y source material. There's so much good sci-fi (and fantasy) out there that can be used for that type of style. The Vorkosigan Saga for one:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga

While it may be possible to adapt Waiting for Godot into a Die Hard-like movie, why would you do so?

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

#239

Post by nottorp »

saberdancer wrote: post #187
Apocryphon wrote: post #82

Breaking news: Hyperion by Dan Simmons will be adapted courtesy of Bradley Cooper: https://deadline.com/2021/11/bradley-cooper-set-hyperion-at-...

Explanation that they are adapting it as a feature film instead of a limited series because they want to provide more breadth feels disingenuous. Limited series should provide more screentime than a movie. Also I feel that a tv show would work better - with all the flashbacks you need to have.

> Limited series should provide more screentime than a movie.

Yeah, like they did for The Hobbit.

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

#240

Post by pitspotter2 »

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…

The format of Foundation is rather terse and spare encyclopaedic entries alternating with stories of the characters meeting each other, conversing and so on.

One of the reason it fires the imagination I think is that the encyclopaedia portions leave plenty of gaps for one's imagination to fill. Paradoxically this makes it seem all the more real.

The characters (with one exception) are of course ephemeral, changing from one story to the next.

Hard to think of a more difficult show to film.

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