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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

#431

Post by ASalazarMX »

jjk166 wrote: post #356
matthewdgreen wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm pretty sure the seeing the future thing is just how they're doing the second foundation.

Big but: Foundation never had clairvoyants, not even Gaia. This is a huge deviation from the books, since now we have people predicting the future on their own, without psychohistory.

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

#432

Post by jessaustin »

It’s an approach that would have appealed to Asimov’s Lord Dorwin, a dilettantish dignitary obsessed with identifying humanity’s original solar system. Rather than search for it himself, though, Dorwin relies on the findings of long-dead archeologists. When Salvor suggests that he do his own field work, Dorwin is incredulous: Why blunder about in far-flung solar systems when the old masters have covered the ground so much better than we could ever hope to?

In this case, surely Asimov better fills the role of "old master" than the anonymous screenwriters of various lasers-and-robots movies? Thus this conclusion somewhat undercuts the ostensible thesis of TFA.

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

#433

Post by goatlover »

TheTrotters wrote: post #427
chaostheory wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also Hardin being a Chosen One and the producer insisting on reddit that "it's not really so Almost all modern TV in the Scifi & Fantasy tropes relies on the the Hero's Journey. It is very hard not to use it especially if you want a large audience. To faithfully recreate Foundation for TV, you'd have to make a fake documentary and that just doesn't draw enough people to make the budget work

But if you want your show to be a success you have to take chances. If they make just another derivative show they can’t be surprised by the poor reception. (Besides I’m not sure I agree with the premise. Game of Thrones was a big success and it was much more complex than a simple Hero’s Journey.)

Particularly since one of the two characters on the hero's journey for a majority of fans turned evil in the last two episodes. And that the one who ended up in the seat of power at the end had a different kind of journey.

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

#434

Post by ASalazarMX »

rsynnott wrote: post #258
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'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…

> the clone emperor thing feels like a pointless overcomplication

This and other adaptations were made to keep the same actors for the thousand years of chaos. Some were ludicrous, like Gaal being forcefully put in hibernation for 30+ years, but the Cleon clones idea was well done in my opinion. It transmits that Cleon is the Empire. If only their interactions took less screen time...

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

#435

Post by ASalazarMX »

BurningFrog wrote: post #290
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 could handle a reinterpreted Foundation story for TV. Easily. The problem is that this is sooo bad. Dull, pretentions stories where nothing makes sense, and characters that are dull speaking boxes walking around saying script lines. That's what I saw until falling asleep halfway through Episode 3. Perhaps it got better. Perhaps it's not "for me". But that's what I saw.

> That's what I saw until falling asleep halfway through Episode 3. Perhaps it got better. Perhaps it's not "for me". But that's what I saw.

I have to skip some scenes because they become too boring: flirting, romance, sex? skip. Emotional scene that adds nothing to the plot? skip. Maybe I lost some important bit among that, but seeing the sluggish pace, I doubt it.

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

#436

Post by jjk166 »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #431
jjk166 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the seeing the future thing is just how they're doing the second foundation.

Big but: Foundation never had clairvoyants, not even Gaia. This is a huge deviation from the books, since now we have people predicting the future on their own, without psychohistory.

Of all the deviations from the books, this is really one of the smallest.

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

#437

Post by mordymoop »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #362
mordymoop wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The show was absolutely amazing when it could follow the books. The definitive show everyone talked about. The moment the books ran out it started to go downhill. And when they couldn't easily extrapolate from the books the show fell apart completely. The showrunners and writes for the show weren't good enough to make Game of Thrones on their own. No offence, but that takes a lot of skill and luck. They were good…

> George R.R. Martin is still underrated, even given his success. He wrote for television for a long time and structured his novels more like seasons of TV, with each chapter serving as an episode. It was never intended for film or TV. It was almost intentionally unfilmable. “I had worked in Hollywood myself for about 10 years, from the late ’80s to the ’90s. I’d been on the staff of The Twilight Zone and Beauty and…

Sure. He structured it the way TV shows are structured, in ways that novels are not usually structured. But that doesn't mean he was imagining it would be made into TV.

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

#438

Post by ASalazarMX »

dragonwriter wrote: post #293
BurningFrog wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could handle a reinterpreted Foundation story for TV. Easily. The problem is that this is sooo bad. Dull, pretentions stories where nothing makes sense, and characters that are dull speaking boxes walking around saying script lines. That's what I saw until falling asleep halfway through Episode 3. Perhaps it got better. Perhaps it's not "for me". But that's what I saw.

> Dull, pretentions stories where nothing makes sense, and characters that are dull speaking boxes walking around saying script lines. That seems...faithful.

Maybe a good screenwriter could have fixed that, who knows?

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

#439

Post by citizenkeen »

macintux wrote: post #134
Ekaros wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP... I really don't understand why having some relatively well known name is so important when it ends up being something entirely different. I think culturally that really shouldn't fly. Why not at that point just come up with new IP? If you want take the elements needed from existing work as influences...

Selling your product to a network, and later to the audience, must be dramatically simpler when you have existing IP to build upon. We almost certainly wouldn’t be talking about it on HN if it weren’t Foundation .

You don't think we would be talking about Apple's flagship science fiction show?

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

#440

Post by aspaviento »

ericmay wrote: post #409
aspaviento wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my memory serves me right, Foundation was never about individuals but collectives. That's what psychohistory math was about. The show fails completely to transmit this idea which for me, is the core of the books. So if they don't even get that right, what's the point of making a show about it?

It’s fun and interesting. What other reason do they need? You’re latching on to the premise that a show or movie based on a book must strictly adhere to that book or else it’s not good. It doesn’t. It can be loosely coupled or tightly coupled. You’re disappointed because you have set expectations on what they should do. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I got over the “it must follow strictly” mindset a long time ago.

It's bad for other reasons. What I'm criticizing is clamming to be an adaptation of the books when it doesn't even get the most fundamental thing of the book right.

> You’re disappointed because you have set expectations

They created those expectations by clamming it is an adaption of the books. Imagine if I claim that my show called "The lord of the rings" is based on the novels but the only thing in common is that the main character is named Frodo.

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