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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

#81

Post by tobyjsullivan »

LegitShady wrote: post #43
01100011 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking forward to the day when we can just feed books to a DL network and have it spit out a rendered movie. I'd love to train it on the LotR movies and spit out a book-accurate rendition of the story with those graphics.

I don't think that's the way art I value would ever work. It sounds more like algorithmic factory production with no intention. "The algorithm thinks this will be like that other thing people like" is not a way to make novel and valuable new things, to me.

I think you're 100% correct that it would not be work of value. On the other hand, "The algorithm thinks this will be like that other thing people like" sounds like the exact model used for the majority of film and television today. Not least, this terrible rendition of Foundation.

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

#83

Post by Jtsummers »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #74
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.

That was Clark, not Asimov. But on the topic of Rama, what a disappointing conclusion those sequels produced. I'm not sure which was worse, the Rama sequels or Crystal Skull. Either way, best to pretend they don't exist when recommending Rendezvous with Rama to people.

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

#84

Post by cgriswald »

edgyquant wrote: post #59
sandworm101 wrote: post #5

They lost me in the trailer. Foundation is a story across centuries about elderly and ossified leadership structures, not attractive young people in spandex. It is about one faction rebelling against another, not kids trying to get out from under their parents. And I really don't mind changing the genders of characters but please don't do so just to create eye candy. Dune did this too. I think making Kynes female was…

Yeah. Dune can be (but I don’t think has been) done right as it’s still the story of one character and his ascension to the throne. Foundation can’t be done as a typical show due to the time span in which it takes place.

I'm not so sure about Dune. I think it calls for (at least) a limited series, rather than a film. However, it's about far more than Paul. There are lots of complex themes and the most important setting in the story isn't on Arrakis; it's in peoples' heads. I think you can make a good show. I'm not sure it'll be Dune.

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

#85

Post by edgyquant »

cgriswald wrote: post #84
edgyquant wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Dune can be (but I don’t think has been) done right as it’s still the story of one character and his ascension to the throne. Foundation can’t be done as a typical show due to the time span in which it takes place.

I'm not so sure about Dune . I think it calls for (at least) a limited series, rather than a film. However, it's about far more than Paul. There are lots of complex themes and the most important setting in the story isn't on Arrakis; it's in peoples' heads. I think you can make a good show. I'm not sure it'll be Dune .

Agreed but I don’t think it has to be exactly like the book it just has to tell a good story. That’s a lot easier to do for Dune than Foundation.

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

#86

Post by light_hue_1 »

No one learned anything from Game of Thrones.

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 enough to adapt it though.

There's a reason why people love the Foundation. Why we read the books almost 80 years later. And it's not because of the title or character names (which is all the Apple show keeps).

The creators of this show are extremely arrogant. They think they could have done better than Asimov given the setting. So they threw away the thing people loved and replaced Asimov's work with their own. Well, clearly they couldn't do better. The show is a boring disjointed mess of random scifi tropes.

Hardin is now a "warden"!? Literally, the character with one of the most memorable sayings in all of literature "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" is now all about violence. That's nothing less than a betrayal of the source material.

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

#87

Post by mewse »

weikju wrote: post #19
Jtsummers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The powerful bit about foundation was always the ability to predict larger events better than smaller ones, as well as criticism of empire and overdependence on interconnectedness. In that, the TV show preserves the themes very well. I can't see how you'd think this, with respect to the show. Seldon literally tells another character that that character's decision (on that day, apparently) will shape the fate of the…

"presented as Chosen Ones" -- from the Goyer AMA, he said the show explores when believe think they are Chosen Ones, but that there are no Chosen Ones. In fact, the whole thing about Salvor believing she's a Chosen One is falling apart, as every one of her schemes (involving violence as well) are falling apart.. and it seems like she's where Gaal was supposed to be, therefore she's being mistaken as the leader that G…

But the whole point of Psychohistory (as it’s presented in the books) is that there aren’t any “Chosen Ones” at all. Sure Salvor isn’t one, but Gaal isn’t either; no one is. That’s the entire point.

Under Psychohistory, it shouldn’t matter who the leader is; what matters is the forces on the population as a whole and that populations respond to those forces in predictable ways. Individual leaders come and go and really don’t matter very much on the big-scale stuff that Psycho-History is making predictions about.

It’s the whole basis of the first several books that this “large forces acting across whole populations” model is the ‘true’ way that civilisation-scale history works and why the future history is so predictable (before stuff starts going a bit off the rails later on in ways that I’m not going to spoil).

To me, if you’re not using that concept as the bedrock of the story you’re telling, then you’re not telling a Foundation story. (It might be a quite good science fiction story of course, just not Foundation)

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

#88

Post by m0zg »

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).

> _Don't roll a barrel_ on Amazon

Speaking of, is this a common phrase? This exact phrase ("не кати бочку") exists in Russian as well, but I have never seen anyone use it in English.

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

#89

Post by m0zg »

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…

The only director I'd let anywhere near the Culture series (or broader far-future sci-fi in general) is Neill Blomkamp. That dude just _knows_ how to do it, better than anyone else, aliens, robots, everything. And Sharlto Copley would be quite welcome as well in the main roles. His Agent Krueger in Elysium should demonstrate what I'm talking about.

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

#90

Post by Maursault »

wyager wrote: post #22
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 wasn't exactly untouched by Hollywood politics. They completely eliminated the themes of European/Arabic cultural conflict (replacing everyone except the bad guys with a generic box-ticking multi-ethnic cast) and they completely nuked Kynes' character to replace him with a forgettable "generic strong woman" character.

> they completely nuked Kynes' character to replace him with a forgettable "generic strong woman" character

Kynes was perhaps a critical but yet very minor character in the novel and arguably was a forgettable character. The reason it may seem otherwise is that Kynes was first portrayed by that notorious show-stealer Max von Sydow.

Casting a Black female actor instead in the role of Kynes is merely license as opposed to and starkly contrasted with the sacrilege of Liv Tyler stealing all of Glorfindel's thunder.

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