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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

#71

Post by malermeister »

megablast wrote: post #63
malermeister wrote: post #3

This sums up my feelings about the show pretty well. Loved the books, hated the show. It gets rid of everything that was interesting about the books - the high level narrative about civilization and power projection mechanisms and replaces it with generic Hollywood sci-fi tropes, with cringy romance subplots thrown in. The second episode was so bad I stopped watching.

Did you love all the books?? Because the books he wrote in the 80s were very different to the ones in the 50s. Completely different. And awful imho.

Ah! I was referring to the original trilogy when I said "the books"

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

#72

Post by rebuilder »

yodon wrote: post #8

The army combat sequences are inconceivably stupid. Dozens of soldiers firing sci-fi machine guns at unprotected opponents at close range and everyone magically avoids injury. It makes one wonder if Apple applied some sort of violence limiting clause to the production with absurd results.

It’s strange, like everything on Terminus was from a different show. Feels like 90’s sci-fi, the Anacreons are about as believable as a random Star Trek species. And the combat is truly awful.

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

#73

Post by Apocryphon »

klodolph wrote: post #50
JasonFruit wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, if "Foundation and Dune are almost impossible to translate to screen faithfully," why are we translating them to screen, instead of writing a new work for which screen is the natural medium? With these adaptations, the two options are "That sucks!" and "That's not Foundation!"

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…

Agreed, but we really need a faithful adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? set in San Francisco, as Dick envisioned it.

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

#74

Post by KennyBlanken »

Afforess wrote: post #7

I've read the books and watched the show as far as it's aired. I agree, but I almost think it's good that Asimov's vision is getting smoothed out a bit. After "second foundation" in the book series, the books go in a very different, unscientific "woo" direction. The end of the entire series is bizarre and controversial. I'm not all that convinced I want the original ending to be preserved - it wasn't that good anyway…

Did he do what he did for the Rama series and hand it off to a buddy to ghost write for him?

I wish I'd know he had done that, because I wouldn't have wasted any time reading the garbage that was the sequels.

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

#75

Post by edgyquant »

geenew wrote: post #65
m0zg wrote: post #32

I'm now glad Amazon decided not to do a show based on the Culture series by Iain Banks. I can only imagine how horrible that'd be, since they have even less taste than Apple or Netflix. Sci-fi is better for it, just read the books, they're excellent.

Iain Banks was famous for (tongue-in-cheek I think) saying he'd wouldn't mind changes Hollywood wanted in order to get a movie made.[1] The machine-machine conversations, virtual hell, etc. parts of his books would probably not translate well no matter who was directing. Otherwise, the material seems as well suited for adaptation as anything else. Consider Phlebas could be fantastic in a ~2hr movie with special effec…

I’d like to Consider Phlebas adapted as well but I think it’s be tricky. A lot of Culture fans don’t like it because the main character is scum and about 1/4 of the way through the book you start realizing that the antagonist machine empire he’s fighting (the culture) are actually the good guys. I think that makes it great, though.

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

#76

Post by light_hue_1 »

elil17 wrote: post #47

I think the show does plenty of focusing on “power and precarity.” It obvious to me that it works with a very different definition of psychohistory, one which is more accessible to viewers but is, in my opinion, much less neat. Beyond that, though, the differences between the books and the show seem to be done with the intention of coming up with a new and interesting narrative. I don’t have a problem with that. Also…

> Also, I think it’s important to note that the show is produced by his daughter and that she wanted to take things in a different direction. Most of these changes were made with deep knowledge of the books and the authors vision.

Just look at Dune. Brian Herbert's books are an abomination. They completely butcher the story and betray its core themes. Just like with this show.

Someone's child being involved doesn't mean anything.

If they wanted to take the show in a different direction, they shouldn't have called it the Foundation series. This show has nothing to do with the books at all, aside from stealing a few ides about the basic setting and some character names.

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

#77

Post by KennyBlanken »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #46
KennyBlanken wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also don't get why the stories are intertwined and so stretched out. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RotatingArcs It's a pretty standard technique to have multiple arcs going on in an episode. The most ready example that comes to mind is Battlestar Galactica.

Yes, but why? I'm familiar with the concept and it can work well (see Robert Altman films), but why was it necessary for this show? I think the straightforward single story single episode would allow for continuity, narrative depth and emphasize the theme that these books span centuries and multiple lifetimes. One of the better aspects of the book is seeing Salvor Hardin go from young upstart to elder statesman to my…

If you read the link I included, it discusses numerous reasons that are immediately apparent/applicable if you are familiar with the book/show.

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

#78

Post by edgyquant »

lostmsu wrote: post #55
m0zg wrote: post #32

I'm now glad Amazon decided not to do a show based on the Culture series by Iain Banks. I can only imagine how horrible that'd be, since they have even less taste than Apple or Netflix. Sci-fi is better for it, just read the books, they're excellent.

Don't roll a barrel on Amazon. They kept The Expanse alive (which is certainly better than Dune 2021).

Yeah but the fifth season wasn’t all that good (despite being based on one of the better books) and they aren’t adapting the last three books which are high fantasy. On a side note I felt the whole first 7 books were kind of just filler getting to Tiamats Wrath and Leviathan Falls (which comes out this month!)

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

#79

Post by Jtsummers »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #76
elil17 wrote: post #47

I think the show does plenty of focusing on “power and precarity.” It obvious to me that it works with a very different definition of psychohistory, one which is more accessible to viewers but is, in my opinion, much less neat. Beyond that, though, the differences between the books and the show seem to be done with the intention of coming up with a new and interesting narrative. I don’t have a problem with that. Also…

> Also, I think it’s important to note that the show is produced by his daughter and that she wanted to take things in a different direction. Most of these changes were made with deep knowledge of the books and the authors vision. Just look at Dune. Brian Herbert's books are an abomination. They completely butcher the story and betray its core themes. Just like with this show. Someone's child being involved doesn't m…

On the other hand, A Scanner Darkly was a remarkably faithful adaptation of the book, and because of PKD's daughters involvement (they recognized the book's importance to him and it weighed heavily in the creation of the movie).

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

#80

Post by unethical_ban »

smnrchrds wrote: post #9
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.

Foundation, as written, does not lend itself to any medium other than text. Dune had already been adapted to films, TV shows, and games multiple times before Villeneuve's film. Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I agree that the Apple TV series does not capture the essence of the books, but no series or film possibly can. Best we can hope is…

It doesn't matter that Dune was previously adapted and Foundation wasn't. Prior adaptations could have been terrible, and this iteration of Foundation will be seen in 2042 the way 70s Lord of the Rings animation, or 1984 Dune, is seen today. I reject the premise you put in another post that there is some "test of time", some arbitrary number of years, that a book passes that deems it unfit for adaptation.

It's one thing to acknowledge the flexibility required in converting a story from novel to film. It is another to change the entire message, character motives and morals while merely retaining the surface plotlines.

For what it's worth, having read ten chapters of Dune after watching the amazing 2021 film, I can say they did a fantastic job capturing the spirit and the core storyline of the book.

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