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ref :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series)

A few thoughts occur.
1. They based the series no on the famous Foundation trilogy, but on one of the poorly regarded prequels Asimov (or another writer) added onto the series in the 80’s when he needed cash. I hope they move the series past the “everything is failing” stage and get to the more positive “rebuilding with science-history” stage fairly quickly.

2. It looks like they’re going for the same style of drama as every other sci fi show since nuBSG. At the very least, a similar look, tone and directorial style. Maybe that will lend the prequel some gravitas that the books never had. Maybe. (Personally, I’d love to see a brightly-lit, cheesy, true-to-the-era adaptation of the book. It would certainly stand out more.)

3. Trantor looks positively rural.

4. The production value is there. It’s like they have the design team from the 90’s Lost in Space, but with modern technology and budgets.

There's a slightly different trailer here.

The future begins in 2021.
Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire: https://apple.co/_Foundation
Foundation stars SAG Award-winner and Emmy-nominee Jared Harris as Hari Seldon; Lee Pace as Brother Day; Lou Llobell as Gaal; Leah Harvey as Salvor; Laura Birn as Demerzel; Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk; and Cassian Bilton as play Brother Dawn.
Foundation is executive produced by Robyn Asimov, David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman, Cameron Welsh, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross. The series is produced for Apple by Skydance Television.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
4. The production value is there. It’s like they have the design team from the 90’s Lost in Space, but with modern technology and budgets.

I like the overall look but it looks a bit generic SciFi. I'd have loved a more retro-futuristic design direction. I think that would fit its themes a bit better (and also just from what I imagined when reading it due to it's age).

The problem for TV is Foundation was a centuries long generational saga and TV is unwilling to fire the entire cast every few episodes.

Books can get away with that, but TV results in people associating real faces, real personalities and real actors with a series. Move the setting up a century or two, ditch them and it may as well be another show.

(It also helped that Asimov well... there's a reason he's famous for the characterization of his robots, let's just leave it there)

So I would guess it will stay around Trantor during Hari's life.

Whether this ends up good or not, its about damn time.

Only read the first novel decades ago on lunch breaks but it was defintely a page turner.

One of the things I enjoyed about Foundation was the contrast between the provinces and the central part of the Empire.

I hope this is successful enough to get us there.

I think this looks really promising. It will need to be an adaptation in the liberal sense of that word considering the source material consists of a handful of conversations between a handful of people. As long as it remains about the ideas of the book rather than, as contemporary sci fi has tended to be, about relationships between characters (i.e., soap opera, not especially sci fi at all), I think it will be worth watching. I quite like the production design and the casting seems pretty interesting. Those vehicles look beautiful to me!

As to Foundation itself — the work takes me back to thinking about the setting of Star Wars. I don’t mean the Star Wars franchise; I mean the movie that came out in 1977 that is now called Episode IV: A New Hope. For a moment, put Episode IV: A New Hope completely out of your mind and just take the 1977 movie on its own. Consider the Galactic Empire not as the front for some two-man evil cult but rather as a working interstellar state. I think that is the Galactic Empire of Foundation, or put it another way, Foundation is the inspiration for that Galactic Empire. So imagine if Star Wars actually was sci fi rather than pulp adventure; a story about a society rather than about a farmboy turned fighter pilot.

To me, this is very exciting precisely for the reasons that SW has, since 1977, generally shrunk in intellectual and creative ambition and consequence despite exploding in terms of commercial relevance. If you go back to those WEG RPG supplements for SW, what we fan(atics) really craved was a living breathing setting to explore. Lucas provided the visual and emotional “reality“ of that world but for his purposes it wasn’t a world at all but rather just a set that only existed for the sake of a handful of characters to have a specific adventure. Why anyone would, for example, actually become a Storm Trooper was not important.

By contrast, the very premise of Foundation is that everything is the way it is for reasons. Yes, for very complex reasons but ultimately knowable reasons. Otherwise, psychohistory would be impossible. To what extent Asimov did or did not (as in the sense, for example, of J.R.R. Tolkien) actually deliver an actual simulated world is not really important. The central idea of the books demands that such a world exist. A team of creative people could, I think, actually meet this demand, if they really try.

I mean, on the other hand, this could be just a cynical production, just a slick but superficial hook for yet another streaming sub. But with sincere effort and talent it could be something really special.

Yeah, but...David S. Goyer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean, I would love it if the series captured the ideas from the books about how societies change and the forces of history. I would love it if the show sparked the same sense of scale and wonder as the books. If passionate people put a lot of thought into this adaptation, it could really shine.

But like...David S Goyer.

So you think that means ... ?

That they are going for flashy soap opera over science fiction.

Ha, well then it won’t be Foundation at all. Foundation doesn’t have enough characters or, for that matter, any sufficiently developed characters to constitute a soap opera.

Will reserve judgement until I see more.




As an aside, someone really needs to make a movie based on "Let's Get Together"

Doh. Finnish women as Demerzel? So another type change just for sake of adding more women roles. Lol.

As far as I can tell, the gender of Asimov’s characters almost never matters.

As long as the robot with a plug does not become a robot with a socket.

 Manchu wrote:
As far as I can tell, the gender of Asimov’s characters almost never matters.

So wouldn't be issue to have it original then eh?

Create new rather than change old just for sake of making cheap safe way to be politically correct.

It's not like there's not female roles and important ones in Asimov's book as it is plus unless the series is word to word copy(unlikely) it's going to have new content to which you could come up with female roles as well.

It's just making money safely option. Boooooooriiiiiing.

You’re complaining that the casting is what makes an Asimov series, where every climax consists of two characters talking and every outcome has already been decided, boring?

tneva82 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
As far as I can tell, the gender of Asimov’s characters almost never matters.

So wouldn't be issue to have it original then eh?

Create new rather than change old just for sake of making cheap safe way to be politically correct.

It's not like there's not female roles and important ones in Asimov's book as it is plus unless the series is word to word copy(unlikely) it's going to have new content to which you could come up with female roles as well.

It's just making money safely option. Boooooooriiiiiing.

TBH, Asmiov’s parade of static, virtually indistinguishable characters is boring. I have no qualms at all with casting women in some of these roles. That alone won’t make the characters interesting. But it will make “the future” feel less like 1949 (if only to feel a bit more like 2020).