When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by StrictDabbler » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #238

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 b…

Waiting Hard for Godot sounds amazing.

The characters keep avoiding explosions and evading terrorists, mostly uninterested and unaffected by them, focused only on their eventual meeting with their CIA contact who is code named Godot.

Occasionally an unusually big action sequence will trigger an extended reflection on the banality of it all.

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

#272

Post by ssully » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

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.

"Lots of magical story elements that just poof out of nowhere at just the right time."

Have you read Foundation recently? That is literally how almost half (or more) of the conflicts in the first book get resolved!

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

#273

Post by Justsignedup » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

My #1 gripe with foundation has been the "lost" style of storytelling. A non coherent time line with multiple flashbacks and cutaway whenever anything interesting happens.

Most the darn episodes feel like the who is cartmans mom part 2 episode.

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

#274

Post by goatlover » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

RegBarclay wrote: post #202

rbanffy wrote: post #127

Unpopular opinion: Foundation, as written, would probably be very niche TV. A straightforward adaptation would be terrible, albeit interesting if seasons were launched in the order of the books the way Asimov fused his Robots, Empire, and Foundation series. Even then, you can get away with a lot less detail in a book than you can with a TV series - you need to flesh out cultures and characters that, in a book, you ca…

I completely agree. The robot novels would be much easier stories to adapt with little deviation from the novels. It's been decades since I've read the whole canon of Asimov robot and Foundation novels, but I recall the Foundation novels being very dry and academic - I loved them, but they're just not high adventure action stories that translate well to the screen.

You can start with the robots, and then move to the Foundation story with the robots from the beginning, because that's how Asimov revised his own Foundation story.

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

#275

Post by throw63738 » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

Lochleg wrote: post #224

jerf wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The humble flashlight must be one of the most abused pieces of modern technology in fiction. According to video games, it doesn't matter what century you're in, it is impossible to create a flashlight that lasts for more than a few minutes, and only provides a feeble cone of barely-light for that time. According to science fiction, despite the fact ~98%+ of the people reading this literally have a flashlight in their…

Even when LED flashlights were first popularized (more than a decade ago), it was believable that batteries always seemed to be on their last legs, especially in the wilderness. It's probably not supposed to be a thing on Terminus unless there's a missing plot point that explains why they couldn't use or were preserving their pocket nuclear reactors / batteries that can power force fields among other things.

0.5W flash light mounted on pulse rifle that produces 1MW :{

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

#276

Post by goatlover » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #204

globular-toast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that Dune didn't leave enough time to actually think about what was going on. Concepts from the book like the Missionaria Protectiva and Butlerian Jihad were given minimal lip service or not mentioned at all. But these are the best bits of Dune for me. These are what make it science-fiction rather than space opera. As a space opera Dune is good. As science-fiction it's great. I haven't seen Foundation (and won…

Dune in its full glory is simply unfilmable. Between the exposition that can be naturally woven into a novel that simply can not be naturally woven into a movie and the amount of the book that takes place as character's thoughts, to even the little things like the chapter headings being used for flavor text from a future encyclopedia, there's just no way to capture the whole thing on film. I haven't seen the movie ye…

God Emperor would be hard to adapt to film. Some changes would need to be made.

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

#277

Post by nextaccountic » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #254

nextaccountic wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LotR movies aren't book-accurate. But they are great!

Those movies are outstanding on multiple axes, but in terms of story I hate what they did to the source. Yes you need to mess with it to make a movie that works as a movie, no that doesn't mean your Aragorn can murder an emissary on a parley. These changes aren't just unfaithful, they're standard modern Hollywood tropes, subtracting rather than adding interest.

> that doesn't mean your Aragorn can murder an emissary on a parley

What emissary?

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

#278

Post by BiteCode_dev » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

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_…

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Apple made a ton of buzz around the TV show, and it took _because_ they use the Asimov work.

Apple did the Apple thing, they overhyped a product that they then designed according to their own rules, expecting everybody to just eat their crap and smile as usual.

But it turns out people liking classic SF books are not your average fanboy, and they don't like being lied to.

It's not just about marketing, it's about trust. It's about taking a dump on a legendary art piece to make money with a the Apple smug confidence. While Dune was a masterful yet humble demonstration of respect and love to the book.

Sure, it's was impossible to adapt the book as a show. By nature. Any reader would have told you that.

They didn't care. They wanted their poney.

It was never about making something for us.

Well, for once, I'm happy it back fired. They don't get to hear "no" often enough.

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

#279

Post by goatlover » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

lsjvjn wrote: post #241

globular-toast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that Dune didn't leave enough time to actually think about what was going on. Concepts from the book like the Missionaria Protectiva and Butlerian Jihad were given minimal lip service or not mentioned at all. But these are the best bits of Dune for me. These are what make it science-fiction rather than space opera. As a space opera Dune is good. As science-fiction it's great. I haven't seen Foundation (and won…

The biggest problem with the 1984 Dune is that the film becomes overburdened with clunky exposition. I think there was a deliberate decision to avoid that mistake with this adaptation. While, as a fan of the novel, I'd have liked to see these elements given more explanation, I think on reflection that they did a commendable job deciding which elements needed exposition for audiences to follow the plot and which ones…

I mostly agree with that, but I don't recall seeing any explanation for the necessity of Mentats and the lack of robots/AIs/computer screens 10,000+ years into the future, or that the date wasn't actually our calendar date, but from the start of the current empire. And it would have still been interesting to show a Guild Navigator plotting a path. The Guild are barely mentioned. It's easy to overlook exactly why the spice is so important. It seems like they could have taken 5 minutes to fit those two in there.

And also the dinner scene with the Emperor and his daughter, since they are important to the story. I saw one YT reviewer confuse the Baron for the Emperor, because they never show him.

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

#280

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

jlawson wrote: post #26

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 explicitly was adapted to satisfy PC morality. Villneuve said so (using other words of course). They made Jessica into a physical fighter, converted Liet Kynes into a black lady, excised the distinctive word 'jihad' to refer to Paul's vision of war. They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion and changed his servant boys into (bald) servant girls, etc. The damage wasn't too bad all things consid…

> excised the distinctive word 'jihad' to refer to Paul's vision of war.

That's probably for the best, because that term would have quite different baggage for the average viewer in the 2020s than it would have for the average reader in the 1960s.