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

#391

Post by garmaine » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #211

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…

> a flashlight that lasts for more than a few minutes (...) despite the fact ~98%+ of the people reading this literally have a flashlight in their pocket or equally available right now A tangent: it dawned on me only a few years ago just how little power LED lights use compared to most other things we do with energy. I never had a good intuition for this, so I was surprised when I noticed that keeping my smartphone's…

This is not my experience on iPhones. This light drains the battery pretty quickly.

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

#392

Post by chaostheory » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

Lochleg wrote: post #208

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…

I am wondering if SyFy's The Expanse succeeded completely in their adaptation of novels that were written in contemporary times. Apple's Foundation is awkward at times and its writers seem to believe that they needed to correct and reinvigorate books that were outmoded, but, apparently, the production itself is said to lack real faults. It's really easy to kill a franchise these days because you want it to speak to y…

The Expanse, like virtually all sci-fi and fantasy narratives, follows the Hero's Journey. It's a pattern that is familiar to virtually everyone and it's already proven commercially successful.

As Krugman himself writes, "[Foundation] mostly involves people talking, and its narrative inverts the hero-saves-the-universe theme that burns many acres of CGI every year."

It is hard to film faithfully while attracting and preserving a large audience.

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

#393

Post by jvanvleet » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #169

klodolph wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would reject faithfulness as a measure of success. I'd much rather have "That's not Foundation!" I already have Foundation. I can read it whenever I make the time. It's kind of cool to see a book translated to the screen... but if it doesn't really survive the translation? That's ok too! It can just be a movie with a ton of similarities to an existing story. Blade Runner, The Shining, Starship Troopers, or hell, Ad…

Starship troopers in particular has a very curious relationship between movie and book. Where the book manages to glorify the military the movie deliberately chooses an ironic treatment of the characters and plot elements to form the book’s antithesis. The movie is best enjoyed by not trying to fit it into the mold of the book, and vice versa.

I agree. The majority of the reactions here to Foundation seem exactly the way I felt so many years ago to the Starship Troopers movie. I hated seeing it in the theater with a passion and it was because I was one of the people that read and enjoyed the book. Even today when the ST movie is talked about as a cult classic I bristle a little bit - but I can see now it is good as a movie unrelated to the book and a disappointment to a fan.

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

#394

Post by ryanSrich » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:13 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_…

> 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.

I will have to disagree here. While I don't mind deviating from the books, I do mind incredibly bad story telling, pandering, shitty acting, and just about everything else wrong with Apple's Foundation.

Its only redeeming qualities are certain aspects of the aesthetics and cinematography. Everything else makes it completely unwatchable, and not because it's unfaithful to the books.

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

#395

Post by garmaine » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #381

addingnumbers wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaker for the Dead and the ensuing novels in the Ender's Game series managed to tell multi-stellar stories with sub-light travel and relativistic effects. Also most of the Three-Body Problem trilogy, there is no FTL until the very end when they jump forward by aeons.

Fair enough, but if you have a galactic empire, some sort of fast travel is needed.

Read Deepness in the Sky for an alternative take.

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

#396

Post by handrous » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

StrictDabbler wrote: post #283

GeekyBear wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what struck me most on re-reading was how completely boring it would be to be faithful to it Agreed. The inspiration behind the Foundation series, setting out to shorten the Dark Ages after the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is great. However, if you try reading those short stories again today, you're quickly reminded that early in his career, Asimov was already great at world building, but terrible with char…

Asimov's first real published story was in 1939 (his high school "published" a story earlier). The Foundation stories were written in 1941-1950. In 1951 Asimov stopped writing fiction for thirty years. So it's not "early Asimov" by any means. When he came back to write Foundation sequels his characters and dialog hadn't improved. Asimov was always an author only of ideas. His best dialog was the terrible and delibera…

> When he came back to write Foundation sequels his characters and dialog hadn't improved.

OK, great, it's not just me. I was about to respond, "wait, did he ever get good at characters and dialog? I've read a lot of Asimov, and at no point have those ever not been distractingly bad."

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

#397

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #322

dkonofalski wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 en…

Maybe this is just because of where I am in life, but between work, children, and hobbies, I don't have time to be bored. If I'm watching TV it's because I'm choosing to do it instead of something else I should be doing or want to do. I will only even try shows that receive high praise from people I trust or from a lot of reviewers. If a show's only function is to kill time it has negative value to me.

It's good that HN is so rewarding!

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

#398

Post by neurotrace » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

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…

I agree. I haven't read the original so I can't speak to the accuracy but it's a pretty good bit of sci-fi that I look forward to every week. I get the feeling that a lot of people have a lot of emotional attachment to the original and it's upsetting that it doesn't live up to their expectations. However, that doesn't mean that it isn't good.

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

#399

Post by tootie » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

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 has stated in the past that the entire reason he became an economist is because it was the closest real world profession to being a psychohistorian.

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

#400

Post by AniseAbyss » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #355

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_…

> the books are fascinating, but they are almost more like historical documentaries then narrative fiction and this is why it's near impossible to translate Asimov's Foundation faithfully to TV. I don't understand why a lot of fans can't see this

Perhaps a lot of fans never asked for Apple to do this?