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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

#301

Post by knolan »

sersi wrote: post #113

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,…

I love science fiction and I’m usually fairly forgiving of it’s worst tropes. However, while I mostly liked the first couple of seasons of Discovery (if you don’t consider them as proper Star Trek) but hard bailed with S3. Picard immediately pissed me off as tone deaf.

There were just too many moments with these shows where I rolled my eyes. Their inability to understand the legacy they inherit, the stereotypes, the lazy magical technology. The endless out of focus wailing of characters emoting doesn’t help either. I get they want to show grief and emotion but this is feels like filler.

I was excited for Foundation and it’s mostly fine but it’s not something I’m looking forward to new episodes of. It also suffers from the out of focus crying stuff but the new stuff they’ve added such as the clone emperor is interesting. The switch to some special chosen one is frustrating however.

All of these aforementioned shows suffer from a complete lack of scale, or an appreciation for it. An empire in the scale of the galaxy shouldn’t feel so empty. The day to day activities of the clones shouldn’t feel so bland and parochial. The Foundation shouldn’t even register as anything other than a minor whisper. Yet it seems all that matters to them along with some political squabbles. It all makes the world feel tiny.

With Dune on the other hand I never once rolled my eyes. It’s not perfect, it skips too quickly over characters and subplots, but it does an astounding job of building a believable and cohesive world.

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

#302

Post by matthewdgreen »

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_…

> No. Is it faithful to the books? Not at all.

I would offer an even more contrarian take: the show actually is being relatively faithful to the books. At least of the most recent episode.

More concretely, while obviously there are important changes (the Cleons, how Seldon dies, the Anacreons invading rather than making diplomatic threats, nobody smoking, etc.) none of these are terribly unfaithful to the story. Most are small bits of harmless dramatic license. Others explore parts of history that the books simply panned away from (e.g., happenings on Trantor during the first Seldon crisis.)

What really worries me is that, as of the most recent episode, they seem to be introducing characters with some kind of superpower wherein they can see or alter the future. This is going to screw the story up completely.

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

#303

Post by dkonofalski »

citizenkeen wrote: post #170
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_…

> interesting enough to watch if you’re bored is a terribly damning critique when a show costs as much as Foundation does. It's not Netflix faff, it's Apple's flagship.

Not really... most television needs to clear the bar of being something that you watch when you're bored and then get hooked into. Otherwise, you'd only have viewers that are familiar with the source and that's not a great way to grow viewership. It's how Game of Thrones grew so quickly for HBO. That show was a confusing mess with tons of characters but it was interesting to watch if you're bored because there was enough that you could pick up just from the costumes, locations, and acting.

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

#304

Post by rsynnott »

dkonofalski wrote: post #297
rsynnott wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree that they needed a lot of reworking to make a TV series out of it, but some of it feels slightly gratuitous; the clone emperor thing feels like a pointless overcomplication, and I'm pretty sure they're going for some sort of Dune-esque guild navigator thing with the imperial starships. I'm mostly quite enjoying it, but I think they could have been a _bit_ more restrained with their rewriting and lost nothin…

That's interesting to me because the brothers are one of my favorite parts of the show because of the new ideas they bring up in relation to the Empire. It gives the writers some really clever and interesting ways to discuss the problems with a long-standing continuity of ideas while giving those internal inconsistencies human faces to stand-in for something that would be much more nebulous and vague otherwise.

I feel like it kind of misses the point, though. Societies like that don't collapse because the leader is immortal, they do so because the _society_ is ossified.

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

#305

Post by tshaddox »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #278
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…

> 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 a bit silly to imply that the intended market was people who like or have even heard of SF classics like the Foundation series. The intended audience is pretty clearly everyone who watches stuff. It’s one of many shows trying to spend their way into cultural ubiquity after the immense success of Game of Thrones. Even if previous Asimov fans were disappointed it would have been totally fine if the show took off (this was the case for many George R. R. Martin fans and the Game of Thrones TV series).

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

#306

Post by stevenwoo »

ourlordcaffeine wrote: post #247
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_…

>IMO it’s decent sci-fi, and interesting enough to watch if you’re bored :) Is it still a somewhat hard sci-fi or has it been turned into a fantasy flick?

In the span of ten minutes they restore the artificial gravity on a derelict spacecraft then they walk into a room on that same ship that has large open vats of some dangerous liquid that people fall into and die.

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

#307

Post by johnchristopher »

brodouevencode wrote: post #242
robbiep wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. It took me a while to get my head around the approach they were taking (I re-read the whole series prior to it airing) but what struck me most on re-reading was how completely boring it would be to be faithful to it. Even just getting rid of the 1950s stereotype gender roles - which is the obvious place to start - doesn’t change the long arcs of obvious dialogue. It’s a really grand scope for a univ…

> how completely boring it would be to be faithful to it What movies have you seen that have been faithful to the literary work but still were great movies? I'm struggling to come up with one.

Hmmm. Harry Potter movies ? ~Lord of the rings ? Dune (even though I didn't enjoy it) ?

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

#308

Post by pier25 »

browningstreet wrote: post #298
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_…

Ignoring the lack of faith to the source material: It's bad.. the dialogue, conflict, etc., are far below the levels we've come to expect in sci-fi shows like Expanse. This is a complete waste of Jared Harris' talents. In the last episode, the resolution of his incomplete download was dramatized by a bit more screaming, then he was all good. It doesn't feel elevated or sophisticated at all... it does look very pretty…

I agree.

I don't care about the books and stopped watching mid season. The production impressed me for the first episode and then it was very bland and boring. There is no drama, nothing that caught my attention. It feels like watching a boring documentary.

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

#310

Post by layer8 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #167

Man, reading through this thread, I feel like such an odd man out. I'm enjoying Foundation. Sure, it's not amazingly intellectually stimulating, and it's not really based on the books, but I find it fun to watch. As it's own thing, it's entertaining to me. I also really enjoyed The Flash (up until season 6 or so when it just got too repetitive). It seems like there's a lot of people that can't seem to enjoy things "j…

It’s not fun when there’s too much disbelief that needs suspending.
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