I only got around to reading the book earlier this year. I knew they'd have to "elaborate" to fill out the story. It's a collection of short stories, dealing key events in the larger Foundation story.
Episode 1. I like the effects, The GCI is well done, and the costumes are elaborate without being stupid. The religious aspects weren't very interesting. Kind of boilerplate mysticism. Maybe that was the point.
The scenes from the actual short story were well done. The arrests and trials. The sabotage of the sky tether gave the impending fall of the Empire a much needed kick to get the Emperor (and us) to "feel" it.
Not fond of the cloning aspect. I'm not sure if that was in the story. I'll have to re-read it to make sure.
So, I'm middling pleased with most of it, not impressed with some of the changes, but agree with others.
Episode 2
Uhn... I hope they're going somewhere interesting with this.
I was on board with the idea of portraying the colonization of Terminus. Looked like fertile ground for some interesting storytelling.
I'm of two minds about the portrayal of the Empire. The books made it out to be a big bueracracy. This stuff about the Empire being a big, vindictive thing is interesting, but I feel it's more suited to much later in the series. Dunno. I kinda feel like I would be more invested if this wasn't trying to tell the story of Foundation, and was more of it's own thing.
Reminder that this is a spoiler thread.
Not thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually
like the source material?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
Or at least familiarize themselves with it. You don't have to love it, just do a good job with it.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:55:49 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
Or at least familiarize themselves with it. You don't have to love it, just do a good job with it.
I assume that doing a good job with something means that you genuinely like it on some level, otherwise you wouldn't be able to muster the passion to do it right.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 05:05:42 PM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:55:49 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
Or at least familiarize themselves with it. You don't have to love it, just do a good job with it.
I assume that doing a good job with something means that you genuinely like it on some level, otherwise you wouldn't be able to muster the passion to do it right.
I agree if we're talking about creative works. With some tasks though, it's possible to do a good job without really putting any heart into it, and some roles have a lot of such tasks.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
And of course they race/gender swapped Gaal Dornic and Salvor Hardin for no reason at all (except to con people in their being "diverse and inclusive" without renouncing the "Foundation" brand).
As far as i have seen the episodes so far.. its ok only, nothing that notable or noteworthy i care about. The characters are mostly devoid of charisma, i had some hopes for the emperor but i lost interest. Maybve ill return for the last episode, but theres better sci-fi out there i like.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:55:49 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
Or at least familiarize themselves with it. You don't have to love it, just do a good job with it.
Odds are, of course, outrage marketing.
Hire someone that hates the product to adapt it. That will get fans screaming and that will attract non fans out of curiosity about what they are screaming about.
Or its just standard hollywood wanting a title and sometimes not much else. Why? Who knows. From reading alot of development notes on adaptions I get the impression the execs just dont care and the producer/director wanted to do some other movie and or literally make a live action fan-fic thats barely related. The "vision".
As for Foundation. Who knows. Genderswapping characters is nothing new so could be agenda, could be just marketing said they needed some female characters to draw in women.
Quote from: Omega on October 01, 2021, 07:50:09 PM
could be just marketing said they needed some female characters to draw in women.
That's a load of shit. All the gayswap fanfiction is written by and for straight women.
Women don't need female characters to get invested. They just need dudes who are easy on the eyes and have unintentional gay chemistry.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 01, 2021, 09:22:48 PMThey just need dudes who are easy on the eyes and have unintentional gay chemistry.
Not even that. Just a scene where they say
anything to one another.
Quote from: Omega on October 01, 2021, 07:50:09 PM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:55:49 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:44:44 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 26, 2021, 10:29:47 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 26, 2021, 03:06:52 AMNot thrilled with how they killed off Hari Seldon. I hope it's more than just some drummed up drama to "spice up" the show.
Probably is. Most showrunners have nothing but contempt for their source materials. They see adapting a book as somesort of punishment.
Why can't studios hire showrunners who actually like the source material?
Or at least familiarize themselves with it. You don't have to love it, just do a good job with it.
Odds are, of course, outrage marketing.
Hire someone that hates the product to adapt it. That will get fans screaming and that will attract non fans out of curiosity about what they are screaming about.
Or its just standard hollywood wanting a title and sometimes not much else. Why? Who knows. From reading alot of development notes on adaptions I get the impression the execs just dont care and the producer/director wanted to do some other movie and or literally make a live action fan-fic thats barely related. The "vision".
As for Foundation. Who knows. Genderswapping characters is nothing new so could be agenda, could be just marketing said they needed some female characters to draw in women.
I will say. Having Hari Seldon be a white male, and not having Gaal Dornick be better than him at psychohistory, and/or not portraying him as a buffoon was a pleasant surprise.
Quote from: Warder on October 01, 2021, 05:57:56 PM
As far as i have seen the episodes so far.. its ok only, nothing that notable or noteworthy i care about. The characters are mostly devoid of charisma, i had some hopes for the emperor but i lost interest. Maybve ill return for the last episode, but theres better sci-fi out there i like.
The changes, BTW, caused a lot of holes in the plot. They are sent to Terminus via "slow speed" (which still covers 50,000 light years in 900 days so it is still FTL) because the Emperor doesn't like for the Foundation to have hyperspace technology. Even if we ignore how stupid this decision is (just make a law which says that if someone returns he is to be executed immediately), sending them to Terminus with a fleet of Imperial ships and then leaving them there was not in the cards apparently - not to mention how a foundation meant to collect and preserve all human's knowledge so to shorten the interregnum after the fall of the Empire will have the blueprints of hyperspace technology among the first items anyway.
The Empire, given the current situation, doesn't have basic anti-terrorist measures in place.
If you want to defuse a crisis, arresting and killing diplomats is not the smartest thing to do.
The Foundation does seem forced to decide "what" to preserve. This was never a problem in Asimov's novels. Even when they were written back in the '50s it was assumed that a whole planet and technologically advanced storage methods would be enough to store everything. That was not the problem the Foundation had to face at all. And why, BTW, scientists and mathematicians should debate if save the knowledge of math in base 12? It isn't that you need a supercomputer to do it: Wikipedia is enough. The whole scene is an excuse to have a young black woman patronising a reunion of scientists.
A colony ship hasn't a fleet off ground vehicles for when they arrive?
Anyway, even the basic plot goes off the rails by the end of Episode 2, and by Episode 3 it has become its own (boring) thing (Salvor Hardin is not only race/gender swapped but directly not Salvor Hardin at all). I don't think I'll bother to watch the rest.
Quote from: Reckall on October 02, 2021, 06:17:18 AM
And why, BTW, scientists and mathematicians should debate if save the knowledge of math in base 12? It isn't that you need a supercomputer to do it: Wikipedia is enough. The whole scene is an excuse to have a young black woman patronising a reunion of scientists.
Yeah. That bit was cringey. I could see them debating the value of individual societies history and culture to preserve, but putting it in the context of a base counting system was dumb.
Just finished episode 3. I really liked the stuff about the clone emperors.
I can see Salvor Hardin as a warden before becoming mayor.
I'm not thrilled with how they've mystified up The Vault.
Still, I'll check out episode 4. They haven't lost me yet.
I listened to the audio book version of the foundation series about a year and a half ago. I dunno, I wasn't that impressed. Not enough to sub to amazon to watch the show. It's an interesting idea but boy it gets strange at the end. I can see why people might have a soft spot in their heart for Azimov because he was so prolific, but IMO he is more of his time as an author than something that could be a timeless masterpiece. Like.. a lot of his ideas don't hold up well to 30+ years of tech advancement we've had since then.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on October 04, 2021, 12:49:50 PM
I listened to the audio book version of the foundation series about a year and a half ago. I dunno, I wasn't that impressed. Not enough to sub to amazon to watch the show. It's an interesting idea but boy it gets strange at the end. I can see why people might have a soft spot in their heart for Azimov because he was so prolific, but IMO he is more of his time as an author than something that could be a timeless masterpiece. Like.. a lot of his ideas don't hold up well to 30+ years of tech advancement we've had since then.
Ah yes, the one weakness of science fiction...
science!
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on October 04, 2021, 12:49:50 PM
I listened to the audio book version of the foundation series about a year and a half ago. I dunno, I wasn't that impressed. Not enough to sub to amazon to watch the show. It's an interesting idea but boy it gets strange at the end. I can see why people might have a soft spot in their heart for Azimov because he was so prolific, but IMO he is more of his time as an author than something that could be a timeless masterpiece. Like.. a lot of his ideas don't hold up well to 30+ years of tech advancement we've had since then.
Original trilogy: 1942 to 1951
31 years later: Books 4 and 5
37 years later: The Prequels
If you want to know why it gets weird at the end, just look at that 30+ year gap. The person who wrote the later books was very different person.
Quote from: Pat on October 04, 2021, 05:25:24 PM
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on October 04, 2021, 12:49:50 PM
I listened to the audio book version of the foundation series about a year and a half ago. I dunno, I wasn't that impressed. Not enough to sub to amazon to watch the show. It's an interesting idea but boy it gets strange at the end. I can see why people might have a soft spot in their heart for Azimov because he was so prolific, but IMO he is more of his time as an author than something that could be a timeless masterpiece. Like.. a lot of his ideas don't hold up well to 30+ years of tech advancement we've had since then.
Original trilogy: 1942 to 1951
31 years later: Books 4 and 5
37 years later: The Prequels
If you want to know why it gets weird at the end, just look at that 30+ year gap. The person who wrote the later books was very different person.
Yeah I remember that. Azimov had a lot of other strange ideas too, like people on earth living in dome cities, earth becoming gradually more radiated and the people there not knowing why. I guess when you didn't have much other sci-fi azimov could be said to be good, but compared to what we have now he's kinda just forgettable.
Although I've seen some interesting works set in Asimov's universes. Roger MacBride Allen's Inferno (set in Asimov's Robot universe) is a murder mystery -- it just involves robots.
Episode 4.
Where is this going?
When I watch a show that gets bombastic and self-important, I ask the question, is this going somewhere interesting, or are the show creators just huffing their own farts?
Salvor Hardin being some kind of magic prognosticator who receives mystic visions from the vault is really rubbing me the wrong way.
Gaal Dornick's narration is getting on my nerves.
They better start paying off some of this setup so I know I'm not just being led around in circles.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 04, 2021, 05:11:10 PMAh yes, the one weakness of science fiction... science!
I've read a ton of science fiction from the 30s and 40s and find that the more action oriented stories, such as from Leigh Brackett, hold up better than the more sciency stories. I tried to read Foundation years ago and found that it was a strange thing, a sort of retelling of historical events (the fall of the Roman Empire) but set in the future. That framing device didn't really work for me. In a way it is kinda like Dune's retelling of Lawrence of Arabia. Maybe it's just that as soon as I recognize the trope, I can't unsee it and take the story seriously. From what I remember, the first Foundation book flat out states that the sci-fi empire of the book is following a historical cycle. It didn't help that the historical cycle in question was pretty much revisionist history.