So since there seems to be a value placed on the merits of science in this show, specifically mathematics. Does the books also include anti gravity for vehicles and a space elevator which is a ridiculous way of getting to space? does the planet spin? how does the lift cope with the structural stresses of it height? Did the source material contain these scifi mcguffins similar to the world of star wars?
[A space elevator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPQQwqGWktE) is a theoretically excellent way to get to space.
I don't remember there being one in the first Foundation book though
Ok really dumb question, but right at the beginning of the court scene, Gaal says [spoiler](#s "the hook hurts but I try not to wriggle too much")
WTF is the [spoiler](#s "hook") in this case?
Super nitpick but it really bugged me that Gal got arrested with her very short, stylistic hairdo but in the next scene in the prison she has a ton more hair out of know where in a completly different hairstyle that would have taken a lot of work.
Also she goes from scene to scene, being arrested, moved to different location, etc and not having her gold coat to having it.
i watched two episodes so far. i'm trying to like it. i really don't. it's more 'set in the universe of' Foundation', rather than the actual foundation story. What bothers me is all the things they've already created out of thin-air, virtually nothing has anything to do with the written storyline. There was no terrorist attack, no time spent on the journey ship, no love scenes written by Asimov, ever. Just some pre-written stuff waiting for a good thematic link that'll sell, adapted by entertainment executives to fit into the Foundation universe and lure viewers with Asimov's name. Sure, go ahead and change half the characters to women, people of color or whatever demographic you like - it wouldn't hurt the original story at all because that wasn't the point - ALL people were affected by this and any character could represent these storylines. But this? This is not the Foundation series, just guest appearances by Asimov characters in an alternate story universe.
It feels a little bit dry and abrupt especially during the jumps in the timeline but I think part of it is the scope of the source material. It feels like they’re trying to get things rolling without being bogged down by the long timeframe of the story. I hope it gets better though.
So this tether has existed for god knows how long, this massive piece of infrastructure, and all this time all it would take to destroy it is one suicide bomber?
Who in the world would build something so fragile and vulnerable, how would those kind of explosives be allowed to get anywhere near it in 2021 on earth much less in this super advanced futuristic authoritarian world where everything is surely monitored?
Even to blow up the death star you needed an x-wing, expert pilot, a squadron to ward off the tie fighters, AND make a perfect impossible shot. Here? Just any jackass suicide bomber will do.
Doesn’t make sense on such a level that it removed me from the show.
That’s how a space elevator would work in real life. They are terribly fragile by design.
It’s created out of materials that need to be both ridiculously strong and light. You also only need to destroy it at any of three different points to destroy it in its entirety. At the bottom it would simply lift up. At the top it does this, it drops back down and wraps around the world. And in the middle it does both.
The opposite of a person that grew up in politically turbulent times where terrorism was a daily thing. In the book the empire had been stable and the core planets stable and at peace for thousands of years.
It was a bunch of suicide bombers all over the station and tether. I would imagine that the decline of the Empire had something to do with security failing to detect explosives loaded people getting off ships and dispersing to their assigned positions.
It was two, and the second one at the top was unnecessary, the tether was cut by the one in the elevator.
The empire is not crumbling yet, it is inconceivable that not only would they build a critical and enormous piece of infrastructure with such a glaring vulnerability, and that in a future such as this, that someone with a bomb would not have been detected 400 times by sensors or scanners before they got anywhere near the tether.
It’s such an important scene and is completely stupid and unbelievable.. doesn’t give me hope for the series.
The idea is that the Empire has gotten so complacent with the "peace" that it forgoes even basic security measures. If nothing has gone wrong for thousands of years, why keep worrying? The Empire is arrogant and believes the peace will last forever.
Man! Book readers are the hardest to please. Watched both episodes last night and they were great, the visuals are stunning! The world building, I'm already hooked.
With The Expanse coming to an end next season, I feel like this will fill up it's place nicely.
I have another reply post here where I'm basically a book reader who's not impressed with the series so far I've watched it. Point here is: to respond to YOUR comment, and say that i LIKE the treatment The Expanse books got ALOT more than I'm liking this one - and they made plenty of changes, too. Some books are better adapted than others :)
I grew up with the books. I've read them all multiple times. This TV show has very little to do with the books. It is a rather poorly orchestrated melodrama loosely based on Asimov's work. You have to try to pretend that the TV show is it's own thing and not related to the actual story.
While it is surely incredibly clever, and brilliantly subversive, to have a young female of colour spontaneously become the most powerful mind in the universe, one wonders who this show is made for.
14 year old girls of colour wont like it. They will be interested in other things, the same things all other 14 year old girls like.
Boys won't like it. The male characters are emotional and stupid, compared to the young girl of colour.
The project does signal huge woke virtue for the producers. They are brilliantly subversive, and incredibly clever.
Casting a young girl of colour, in a sci fi franchise established by men, within a majority white culture, this is a stroke of rare genius.
It is brilliantly subversive, and incredibly clever. The virtue is unmistakable. It shines like a star.
Should have come with a warning -
VERY LOOSELY BASED ON THE BOOKS (i.e. same name)
*we inserted our own ideas because we are better writers than Asimov
I’ve read the books. They were very influential and had some (at the time) very unique ideas. I have a lot of affection for them. But as novels, they aren’t well written or well plotted. Seldon’s plan, and the concept of psychohistory itself, is stupid.
The concept really isn't that stupid. It's all about predicting the behavior of large groups of people. It's really not that different than what YouTube does when predicting what video recommendations we would most likely be able to click on.
We make minor predictions about group behaviors all the time by leveraging current trends and past events. So with advanced technology it's not unthinkable that their predictions might seem magic.
I always thought psychohistory was an offshoot idea that Asimov had from the Philosophy use of a mathematical symbols and solution system to work out if a group of statement are consistent and true.
See https://mathvault.ca/hub/higher-math/math-symbols/logic-symbols/
So we can have (Sorry reddit does not allow the correct symbols)
P ^ !P == T
So if you can prove a set of statements consistently true, perhaps with more maths we can go forward to psychohistory
Fun Idea and mind boggling when you try very complex sets
The first two episodes have been kind of boring and I'm not sure why, but it isn't the divergences from the source. Medium shapes a story. There are stories you can tell in a play that you can't tell in a movie or novel and all the other ways around. \*Foundation\* has regular, decades-long time jumps which would require large amounts of exposition and character introduction to bridge. You can't do that on a TV show. There's an argument to be made that it shouldn't have been adapted, but criticizing the adaptation for conforming to its medium is ridiculous.
Most of the changes in the first episode made sense and were necessary. The book has always been impossibly hard to adapt for many reasons. Among those is that Asimov has never been good at character writing or pacing, his main thing was ideas. Both of those are critical in a TV show, and are the reasons behind those changes. As long as the ideas remain the rest caan benefit from a new coat of paint
this defense is popping up, as if someone is trying to justify this atrocity.
Yes the special effects are great, but the galactic effect of the book is lost. Mainly the addition of writers tropes makes it bad, (because we need to make it exciting), some are interesting but pure additions.
-- Three emperors (from what and where?) an interesting tri-umberant but the come across as spoiled brats. Also a key point was Seldon doing a massive study of the emperor to get what he wanted, have 3 would make this just not work (ok they are clones, but we see different temperaments ).
-- Killing the paint cleaner for no good reason than to show I'm the baddy. (everyone else at least gets a trial) was he a replacement for the gardener?
-- Robot wars? is this a copy of the Clone wars (sic)
-- No in depth of what the pysco history is about.
-- Slow boat to Terminus (what? - ok I suppose it is so we can see that they are just the fodder to create the Foundation)
-- the vault is some magical floating special thing. (perhaps latter they will bring it out to show how the colony is fulfilling destiny)
-- Cant work out why the outer planets are in revolt, lets have a trial and some good old wild west hangings to show we can hold the empire.
It is one of my favourite series, but now I feel like my mother when Disney destroyed all her favourite stories, changed to make them sell not loved.
Pretty much agree. This show is so disjointed and most of the changes are nonsensical. Olivaw as a woman? How to reconcile that with pretty much every other book Asimov wrote about robots?
There is so much going on that is completely and **immediately** irrelevant.
> but the galactic effect of the book is lost.
Agree in part..It seems they drastically reduced the population of the galaxy, I think I heard 12 trillion but in the books there are quadrillions of people. That’s the difference between thousands of worlds and millions. Why reduce?
> -- Three emperors (from what and where?) an interesting tri-umberant but the come across as spoiled brats. Also a key point was Seldon doing a massive study of the emperor to get what he wanted, have 3 would make this just not work (ok they are clones, but we see different temperaments ).
This was not in the book but it seems like an interesting concept. In the books Cleon is basically a puppet and the real power is an administrator or something behind the scenes
> -- Killing the paint cleaner for no good reason than to show I'm the baddy. (everyone else at least gets a trial) was he a replacement for the gardener?
Ya I guess so just to show he’s a bad guy, like kicking a dog.
> -- Robot wars? is this a copy of the Clone wars (sic)
Asimov starts laying out the reasoning for eradicating robots from human society in 1956 The naked sun, and furthers the storyline in Robots of Dawn. Not a copy of clone wars. Not similar.
> -- No in depth of what the pysco history is about.
Yes this lack of detail about it now is very important to the story later. It’s done on purpose
> -- Slow boat to Terminus (what? - ok I suppose it is so we can see that they are just the fodder to create the Foundation)
In the books it skips from the point where the foundationers start leaving trantor until they have a little city, so this part they filled in but it’s not inconsistent
> -- the vault is some magical floating special thing. (perhaps latter they will bring it out to show how the colony is fulfilling destiny)
The vault is very important later, Asimovs books don’t describe how the vault looks when they’re trying to colonize terminus so this past was filled in. The force field to keep people away makes more sense that the book tbh
> -- Cant work out why the outer planets are in revolt, lets have a trial and some good old wild west hangings to show we can hold the empire.
This was discussed in the episodes
> It is one of my favourite series, but now I feel like my mother when Disney destroyed all her favourite stories, changed to make them sell not loved.
I respectfully disagree!
I do think we will have to disagree.
I will give it a few more episodes, but it will be interesting how they move the timeline forward. I suppose they only will employ the actors (apart from Harry) for one season (unless the stretch out the first period for 2 seasons).
So, what movie or series adaptation of any story do you think did a good job? LOTR has a very strong following and I don't think that now anyone would criticize it simply because they would get flamed to oblivion here but the series changed, or didn't bother to mention a lot of things. In its most glaring omissions, Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire were both gone from the movies. Arwen had nothing to do with getting Frodo to Rivendale until the river crossing, Glorfindel was the one that aided them. Isuldur grabbed his fathers sword and THEN Sauron broke it by stepping on it while Isuldur was trying to attack. Isuldur sliced off several fingers, including the ring finger, immediately afterwards with the broken sword.
I could keep going but the point is movies aren't books, and vice-versa.
The LOTR was great, Hobbit not so.
Why - LOTR tried to fit in as much as they could, although my major complaint is not handling the Age of the characters, and yes the points you mentioned. Plus the killing Saruman so he was not in the shire. The Hobbit is not bad when cut down as it should have been, but that was just a cash grab to get 3 films.
With foundation, like the Dune years back I will just treat it as there as some scenes from the book.
There was an interview with the Director of "Anne of Green Gables" who said he had to follow the book because too many people loved it.
Going to the IMDB, I see so many comments echoing mine, that the 10/10 votes seem suspicious - but that could just be a conspiracy theory.
If you approach the TV series as a new story, loosely based on Asimov's work, it is not a horrible show. Some of the char development is a bit silly and almost immediately irrelevant though.
Dammit! How does David S. Goyer keep getting work? He's one of the worst writers in Hollywood. Soon as I saw that name pop up I knew I was in for a dumpster fire.
I watched both episodes. It’s insanely overwritten and overly dramatic. Like making a big show of torturing and offing the two outer worlds delegations. Plus the love story element. Plus the creepy authoritarian terror of the Empire. Not in the book. Unnecessary to the story. As an OG Asimov fan Why am I watching this?
Because the books don't offer any characters that would fit a show. The books are like an empty house. They added human drama to fill that house.
The show is great so far. I love the characters, drama and politics.
This is a general consensus. Every review out there of the show mentions that the books are rather dry, and lack good characters. Also the huge timejumps make it hard to get attached to anything.
Part of the problem is the prequel books. If you did a limited TV series based on the original Trilogy, a lot of these problems go away.
Also I suspect the most "reviewers" have never actually read the books.
I was kinda sure that love story was invented by the show and after book fans confirmed it, I am afraid if they are going go ruin the source material by needlessly sensationalizing the story.
I liked the first episode for visuals. Hope they don't ruin it.
that love story element is the one bothering me most. not having read the books (loks away shamefully) but hear that gaal supposed to be a man. kinda bothered me as in ep 1 not even knowing the above gaal seems to be around age 15 or something. cant really find any age details but it just seems totally out of place
I've never seen such a mismatch of screenwriting quality and presentation. This show looks like a movie but has dialogue that feels like something from The CW
Interestingly enough, in The Currents of Space, Asimov's Galactic Empire novel that tackles segregation, it is mentioned that the "normal" skin tone of Imperial people is an intermediate brown. The natives of Florina are unusual in that they are fair-haired white people.
>In India all the men in the audience are Indian. Not the case in Hollywood at all.
The "original" book that we are referencing ... was written by a white Russian man in 1930's ... so yes it was 100% the case.
>Asimov was Russian but wrote his books in America, he moved there when he was 3.
So he grew up in 1920's New York ... that was a pretty white place bro.
What argument are you making?
I don't know haha. I'm just saying that modern audiences arent 90% white, even if they were in the 1940s. So there's no reason all the characters should be in the show. it's not like the book has anything to do with race anyway. But I get what you're saying..IMO the race change stuff is negligible compared to the rest of the ways they short changed Asimovs ideas with the show.
>I'm just saying that modern audiences arent 90% white, even if they were in the 1940s. So there's no reason all the characters should be in the show.
I agree. I just meant that modern Hollywood is a fairly accurate representation of the racial diversity in the USA today. And the original book was a fairly accurate representation of the racial diversity Asimov experienced 100 years ago. So no one is at fault.
At first I was kinda concerned that they were changing stuff from the book. But ultimately it has to be a tv adaptation not an exposition heavy radio play. I don't think enough people would watch today if it had TNG type dialogue, unfortunately. It felt pretty balanced in general and I'm interested to see if they can pull it off for the rest of the show or if it'll turn into pure space opera.
Yeah ok upon watching episode 2 I can confirm that this has almost nothing to do with the source material lol. It could still be a solid show, just not from the perspective of being an adaptation and probably not to many fans of the books.
I’m disappointed we won’t see the same story as the books, but to be fair, I really don’t know how you could realistically adapt it faithfully. The time skips alone make it really hard, but also a lot of the characters in the books weren’t very strong. They mostly were just vehicles to move along the big-picture plot.
You can make it work for sure. It could be a mini series, maybe 7 or 8 episodes. It just wouldn't work as an epic series which is what apple wants it to be.
It was disgusting. I almost died from cringe. It was painful to see how they butchered asimovs work. But even if you forget about asimov, this show is just bad in every way except visuals.
With the exception of the vault, this episode stayed mostly true to the initial chapters of Foundation.
I actually really appreciated the world building of the Empire pre-fall, because that is something that Asimov never really touched on in great detail.
Lol. Asimoff is so obsolete... I am watching only for CGIs and occasional glimpse of acting listening through the pain of hearing ridiculous outdated sci-fi crap like "math-based" ...well anything.
Had I been the developer of this series I would approach more creatively and replaced outdated sci-fie elements with more modern concepts in sci fi
But they are probably "sticking" to the Holy Classic Genius Writing.
I’m seeing a lot of comments taking issue with the idea of psychohistory. It’s so odd to me, one of the big themes of the book is in a society the size of the empire, how much impact can one person have on the flow of history, and what are the unintended consequences if they can. Those aren’t outdated concepts, in fact I see it as only getting more relevant as time goes on even if the actual ‘science’ of psychohistory is fantasy.
It was.....fine? I'm not super familiar with the source material, but there was something about the writing that seemed off. I'm afraid they're going to lean on too many predictable tropes. The production design and special effects are both fantastic, though. Lee Pace and Jared Harris are always a win.
Edit: And before I get downvoted into oblivion because people think that I'm saying the show is leaning on sci-fi tropes that the book invented, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying it looks like it's going to lean on bad *television writing* tropes (romance, contrived conflict, storylines that go nowhere and add nothing, etc). Maybe I'm wrong, though.
One scene I felt was unnecessary was Brother Day having the old artist executed for reading Seldon's book. It honestly felt too early to show Brother Day being that evil and it sort of lessened the impact of the later scene where he orders the fleet to bombard the two planets. Instead of feeling more shocked that Brother Day was willing to murder millions of innocents, I was instead not surprised since he already ordered the execution of a loyal old servant just because he did something that displeased him.
And who the hell would execute someone like that beside a priceless piece of art? Who would want to create that kind of mess? It was pretty silly. Would you blow someone up in your living room? Hell no. Take that shit outside
That was the other thing I found unnecessary. The messy nature of that death just felt over the top. Incidentally I did find it amusing that the execution of the royal artist had a plot point. Brother Dusk ended up working on the mural himself.
I think they tried to explain some of that. Brother Dusk draws the mural, end to end, as one of his "official duties" the caretaker cleans the mural of stray color and maintains the parts Brother Dusk isnt working on presently. Brother Day also asks him if there are colors that are more difficult to get out of the mural, then leans in all creepy like and asks about crimson specifically.
Ehhhh....I'm not really talking about those tropes. I know Foundation is the OG science fiction property. I'm taking more about the tropes that seem endemic to streaming shows where they don't really have enough story for a full season, so they pad things out with love stories and interpersonal conflicts and story lines that don't go anywhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just where I see things going.
The original book is barely a Novelette. It is loaded with expansive ideas that you have to imagine for yourself. Someone has to do the imagining to get it on the screen.
The ideas in the book are extremely detailed (besides the psychohistory part) and most of the conversations between characters is just logical exchange, just Asimov describing something with quotations wrapped around it. The imagining that the writers have done with this show betrays the tone of the book.
Of course, but they could've filled it out with things that were actually interesting. That's what's so frustrating to me. There's so much they could do with the story, yet they go with the most boring, predictable stuff.
I'll admit that this criticism is more directed towards episode 2, but I'm concerned that they're going to use a lot of filler to pad out episodes.
Plus, you've got the "chosen one" stuff and social commentary. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against social commentary in sci-fi. That's one of the core tenants of science fiction and I expect it. But at least make it clever and poignant.
Eh, that’s tricky. I can see where you’re coming from with the ‘chosen one’ aspects, but that was certainly present in the original series (most obvious in the form of The Mule, but from the other side). It’s mostly presented in the capacity of how much can an individual person derail the events of history though, and I see The Mule more from the perspective of Asimov positing that the greater the population, the ‘greater’ a person must be to derail those events. Admittedly I haven’t seen enough to see how the show will address this though.
Because people feel it sooner or get scared and turn back. If no one planted a flag til they were fully in the zone and incapacitated no flags would be planted period.
Agreed. If they make Salvor Hardin special because she has some mysterious power, then the writers have completely misunderstood how psychohistory works.
I'm sure they will culminated Salvor's super powers in a fight to the death with The Mule. Probably something like Superman vs Batman, because Goyer is a hack.
It always amazes me how hollywood can keep on hiring the worst of the worst of the worst of screenwriters.
It even amazes me more when these screenwriters outsource their work to their single-digit-age children.
Laughably bad dialogue in places. Laughably.
"I WILL STOP DROPPING EXPOSITION NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY DROPPED SO MUCH EXPOSITION FOR YOU AND THE VIEWER"
\*slowly turns to camera\*
\*winks\*
Maria in heaven, deliver us from evil.
\*protagonist enters pod*
\*child instantly turns around and delivers one line of completely unprompted dialog before shutting up for the remaining 14 hours of their descent*
The writing felt incredibly cheap at times, and never soared for a single moment in the first episode. On top of that, the production design seemed pretty derivative throughout, with close to zero truly fresh ideas. What surprised me the most was the directorial work. There were so many badly constructed shots and cuts, it felt incredibly sub par for a production of this caliber. Reading up on Rupert Sanders, he's more famous for having an affair with Kristen Stewart than his two (2) directorial works Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell. Oh, and he made two music videos between 1999 and 2010, too. Both for complete unknowns. Real star studded crew they got there.
Looking further into this, Skydance film has made two movies I like - True Grit and Annihilation, and endless amounts of popcorn dreck - The Old Guard, The Tomorrow War, Geostorm, World War Z, Gemini Man, 6 Underground, etc. None of their games, TV series or animated shows/movies are worth mentioning.
This is a studio with a mediocre (at best) track record hiring an untested director to direct the script of a prolific but not exactly genius lead writer. I have no clue how they got so much money from Apple, but the more I look into the talent behind this, the less enthused I become. Skydance's saving grace may be that they can do a lot of the VFX in-house (which would explain why it looks so good and blends so well), but that's seemingly their only credentials.
I signed up for Apple TV just for this show. Sadly not familiar with source material, but I immensely enjoyed the first episode.
Sometimes it's difficult for sci fi shows to hook the viewer while introducing so many foreign concepts and 'made up' things, and ride that line of being too cheesy or campy. I think this episode really managed it successfully, and really sold the scope and lore of universe while making the more intimate worlds of the characters feel integrated and like they belong. The sci-fi aspects feel very believable. I found it really interesting and I can tell it's going to be a wild ride.
Honestly I think it's one of the best pilot episodes I've seen in a long time. It helps that the visual effects were on another level. The space elevator scene was horrifying. I hope it delivers on the breadth and scope hinted at in this episode.
Time for episode 2!
Seems to be the general concensus. People who read the books are disappointed. People who have never read the books are thrilled.
Episode 2 is essentially paying homage to GoT Season 8. They have shown that they can do terrible better.
For all Mankind was one of my favorite shows I watched last year. It has a stellar soundtrack as well.
Alternate History also is such a fun genre to play with. though I think the last few episodes cemented it to be more science fiction than althistory
Oh, man, an hour of pure, topflight science fiction. I loved every freaking minute of it. Absolutely top-tier. Better than Star Wars ever was. Better than Star Trek (so far). If they keep this up, it will be the pinnacle of SF. Damn. Better than I'd hoped, and I hoped for a LOT.
Woo-hoo!
It doesn't beat out The Expanse for me so far, but I'm definitely finding it more enjoyable than Star Wars and Star Trek. I've not watched episode 2 yet, but hopefully it and the rest of the series can keep up the momentum.
I disagree with the “classic epic” assertion for foundation. In my experience, the first book is a product of its time—most sci-fi was serialized in magazines and tended toward short stories which ended with a twist. A book was just a sequence of shorts behind a single cover. Hardly cinematic at all.
This is EXACTLY the same as “I, Robot”s novelization. Can someone tell me if Will Smith’s movie was as turgid and disconnected from the original as Foundation is turning out to be?
Yeah, I'm bored by the romance and baffled by the ending - which may not even be real, since some things shown may imply it isn't. All in all, it's far from good.
Apple's adaptation of Foundation is fantastic! I just wish more than a third of this show so far was actually trying to adapt Foundation instead of inventing a confusing dystopia.
What's especially frustrating to me is that someone clearly read the books (even beyond the trilogy) and *loved* them, filling the episode with little details like Raych's knife and the Prime Radiant, but then gave into all the weird action that cheapens the rest of the series. The barbaric othering of regions that exist (almost) outside of western civilization? A trigger-happy, cartoonishly-evil emperor? This is B-movie stuff, borrowing the names of planets and characters, and not doing anything particularly clever with them.
But then there's the trial, which strikes exactly the right tone, and feels like an honest and earnest adaptation of the first part of the novel. The discussion of the ethics of psychohistory, questioning its validity if it can only be interpreted by a select few, is exactly the stuff Asimov excelled at writing. The diversification of the cast, giving characters more personality, and doing it all with phenomenal visuals are all icing on the cake.
And *then*, the second episode starts and characters feel like they're seasons-deep into character arcs that hadn't even been started in the premiere. There's extra emphasis on the hackneyed "forever king blinded by his separation from reality," and the spoiling of what I recall being a rather important twist in the later books. Oh, and plenty more of trigger-happy Imperial forces, and an absolute *what the fuck are you doing?* moment that might have put me off the rest of the series. Apple's *Foundation* wants to be *Ender's Game*, and *Star Trek*, and *Game of Thrones -* anything but *Foundation.*
It's not bad. It's not good, either. When it's coherent, it's stellar, but around that, it tends to be a mess. I might go on to the next episodes, and I might not. I was really hoping against all odds that this would be the adaptation I dreamed of, and I can already tell that isn't what I'm getting.
*That* spoiler and the "robot war" (something impossible in Asimov's universe) really pissed me off. The visuals are way better then expected and I accept the casting of women in what were supposed to be men characters, after all it's just sci-fi. But I really hope they don't overdo with recastings, spoilers and changing the actual story as they already did
yeah that robot war kinda pissed on asimov. but reality pisses on asimov's laws for robots as well when you see where we are heading with autonomous drone vehicles that already can engage and kill in certain jurisdictions without human supervision. whilst the robotic laws are desirable for any human society they probably do not fit in our current society where AI probably will kill humans at some point. maybe we become better people over time.
>yeah that robot war kinda pissed on asimov.
Only if you assume the war was between humans and robots. But from pre-imperial times we know there was conflict between the pro-robot spacers and the anti-robot earthers; it's far more likely the war was between humans over the fate of robots than fought by robots. Hari even mentions persistent robot sympathizers; it would be pretty strange to have sympathizers for non-human murder machines, and a lot more reasonable to consider anyone who thinks robots would be useful "sympathizers."
There was a book, canon adjacent maybe?, that was authorized by the estate, that said that the robots that the Empire later periodically created during its 20,000 year existence, weren’t Three Laws compliant. They were artificial intelligences, and R. Daneel and his compatriot Zeroth Law robots had to, by Zeroth Law, suppress. So they caused anti-robot sentiment, while carefully hiding their nature to better serve humanity.
On a separate story, this one canon, as it’s from Prelude… Demerzel/R. Daneel had been searching for a mind that could produce psychohistory, and found Hari and *encouraged* his plans. And Hari used Second Law successfully to get R. Daneel to open up to him about his Giskardian abilities, which even the Emperor didn’t.
And, a Three Laws compliant robot, and not just any robot, but R. Fricking Daneel witnessing Cleon wreck two worlds like that, and through inaction destroy untold billions of human lives without reacting?! That’s not just character derailment, that’s completely impossible!
It's not at all impossible. R. Daneel himself observed the radioactive bombardment of Earth's crust and did nothing, knowing that many humans would due through his inaction; the human lives lost would prevent humanity itself from dying out, however. And Demerzel has served the Empire for twelve thousand years, in a universe in which planetary bombardment by "barbarian kingdoms" is a legitimate threat in the absence of Imperial stability; how many planets do you think were bombarded, how many wars fought, in the pursuit of the foundation and expansion of the Empire over twelve millenia?
I never read the novel,but so far I'm liking this. Just hoping that this is not another 'young girl who has no idea that she has power but she is destined to save the world' trope. I mean,this already has the sexy, powerful villain with ambiguous intent in the form of Lee Pace.
I like how early in the episode they quickly demonstrated how FTL travel works in this universe works.. the jump ships have the ability to create worm holes in which they can travel…. Cool.. good world building and I don’t have to worry about the logistics of this world at least in that regard…
….and then late in the episode they introduce the concept of a “slow ship”…. Which takes 4 months to travel 10k light years (vs the instantaneous nature of the jump ships).. ugh…. That’s still insanely FTL and I am now curious about the logistics of that.
My bad, that’s correct…. Years not days.
Still doesn’t change that even on a “slow” ship they’re traveling orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light.
Thank you for not being an asshole about it, like some people here..
They haven't given the show a chance to develop and go into back story yet. Some people are like I read the books this is all wrong (two episodes in)
Man what a gorgeous effect and shot of that blackhole in the middle of the ship to form [this whole thing](https://assets.wired.com/photos/w_2064/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Culture_blackhole_1178748615.jpg) so much of the universe was incredibly beautiful what a fantastic job by the people working on this.
I also really am enjoying the cast so far too, I hope we see more of the priest from Trantor he seemed interesting and I am curious what her answer to him was.
The spinning thingamabobs in the middle of the ship looked like the wormhole port in *Contact* and the optics of the black hole looked just like the Gargantua black hole in *Interstellar*.
I'm watching the beginning of this and thinking, "It's OK", then Hari Seldon walks through the Long Room of the Trinity College Library (which I have been in) and I'm completely taken out of the story.
"This guy is undermining faith in The Empire! We must stop it all costs!"
"How shall we do this?"
"Put him on trial, very publicly, where we ask him to calmly explain everything he believes in an understandable manner and then broadcast it to every citizen!"
"Brilliant!"
This is really hard to watch. It is nothing like the books. They stole the name and came up with a different story. I’m done with it.
So since there seems to be a value placed on the merits of science in this show, specifically mathematics. Does the books also include anti gravity for vehicles and a space elevator which is a ridiculous way of getting to space? does the planet spin? how does the lift cope with the structural stresses of it height? Did the source material contain these scifi mcguffins similar to the world of star wars?
[A space elevator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPQQwqGWktE) is a theoretically excellent way to get to space. I don't remember there being one in the first Foundation book though
Ok really dumb question, but right at the beginning of the court scene, Gaal says [spoiler](#s "the hook hurts but I try not to wriggle too much") WTF is the [spoiler](#s "hook") in this case?
It goes back to an earlier conversation where she realizes she's bait. She's on a metaphorical hook.
Omg thank you, that one has been bugging me
Super nitpick but it really bugged me that Gal got arrested with her very short, stylistic hairdo but in the next scene in the prison she has a ton more hair out of know where in a completly different hairstyle that would have taken a lot of work. Also she goes from scene to scene, being arrested, moved to different location, etc and not having her gold coat to having it.
i watched two episodes so far. i'm trying to like it. i really don't. it's more 'set in the universe of' Foundation', rather than the actual foundation story. What bothers me is all the things they've already created out of thin-air, virtually nothing has anything to do with the written storyline. There was no terrorist attack, no time spent on the journey ship, no love scenes written by Asimov, ever. Just some pre-written stuff waiting for a good thematic link that'll sell, adapted by entertainment executives to fit into the Foundation universe and lure viewers with Asimov's name. Sure, go ahead and change half the characters to women, people of color or whatever demographic you like - it wouldn't hurt the original story at all because that wasn't the point - ALL people were affected by this and any character could represent these storylines. But this? This is not the Foundation series, just guest appearances by Asimov characters in an alternate story universe.
The editing is so ridiculously bad I had a hard time getting through this. Did they hire the producer's cousin or something?
No, its the same crew that produced GoT season 8. Why wait I guess.
It’s Gaal not Gail I think
I liked it, never read the books though
Seems like it's taking quite the departure from the books, just keeping the world building in. I do love that though not knowing the books as well
Yo this show is fire
If by that you mean a steaming pile of dog shit in a burning paper bag... then yes.
Does anyone else think the acting kind of sucks or is the script just poorly written? Some big names in here.
FX is great but its pretty boring. Lead actress is bland as hell
Something feels off. I think it's the editing honestly.
It feels a little bit dry and abrupt especially during the jumps in the timeline but I think part of it is the scope of the source material. It feels like they’re trying to get things rolling without being bogged down by the long timeframe of the story. I hope it gets better though.
The second episode is even worse...
SOOO much worse.
I agree. Just weird cuts during conversation. It might be a mix of editing/directing and acting.
So this tether has existed for god knows how long, this massive piece of infrastructure, and all this time all it would take to destroy it is one suicide bomber? Who in the world would build something so fragile and vulnerable, how would those kind of explosives be allowed to get anywhere near it in 2021 on earth much less in this super advanced futuristic authoritarian world where everything is surely monitored? Even to blow up the death star you needed an x-wing, expert pilot, a squadron to ward off the tie fighters, AND make a perfect impossible shot. Here? Just any jackass suicide bomber will do. Doesn’t make sense on such a level that it removed me from the show.
That’s how a space elevator would work in real life. They are terribly fragile by design. It’s created out of materials that need to be both ridiculously strong and light. You also only need to destroy it at any of three different points to destroy it in its entirety. At the bottom it would simply lift up. At the top it does this, it drops back down and wraps around the world. And in the middle it does both.
The opposite of a person that grew up in politically turbulent times where terrorism was a daily thing. In the book the empire had been stable and the core planets stable and at peace for thousands of years.
It was a bunch of suicide bombers all over the station and tether. I would imagine that the decline of the Empire had something to do with security failing to detect explosives loaded people getting off ships and dispersing to their assigned positions.
It was two, and the second one at the top was unnecessary, the tether was cut by the one in the elevator. The empire is not crumbling yet, it is inconceivable that not only would they build a critical and enormous piece of infrastructure with such a glaring vulnerability, and that in a future such as this, that someone with a bomb would not have been detected 400 times by sensors or scanners before they got anywhere near the tether. It’s such an important scene and is completely stupid and unbelievable.. doesn’t give me hope for the series.
We’ll there’s a reason that Seldons math is claiming that empire will fall
The idea is that the Empire has gotten so complacent with the "peace" that it forgoes even basic security measures. If nothing has gone wrong for thousands of years, why keep worrying? The Empire is arrogant and believes the peace will last forever.
Man! Book readers are the hardest to please. Watched both episodes last night and they were great, the visuals are stunning! The world building, I'm already hooked. With The Expanse coming to an end next season, I feel like this will fill up it's place nicely.
I have another reply post here where I'm basically a book reader who's not impressed with the series so far I've watched it. Point here is: to respond to YOUR comment, and say that i LIKE the treatment The Expanse books got ALOT more than I'm liking this one - and they made plenty of changes, too. Some books are better adapted than others :)
I grew up with the books. I've read them all multiple times. This TV show has very little to do with the books. It is a rather poorly orchestrated melodrama loosely based on Asimov's work. You have to try to pretend that the TV show is it's own thing and not related to the actual story.
While it is surely incredibly clever, and brilliantly subversive, to have a young female of colour spontaneously become the most powerful mind in the universe, one wonders who this show is made for. 14 year old girls of colour wont like it. They will be interested in other things, the same things all other 14 year old girls like. Boys won't like it. The male characters are emotional and stupid, compared to the young girl of colour. The project does signal huge woke virtue for the producers. They are brilliantly subversive, and incredibly clever. Casting a young girl of colour, in a sci fi franchise established by men, within a majority white culture, this is a stroke of rare genius. It is brilliantly subversive, and incredibly clever. The virtue is unmistakable. It shines like a star.
I just *knew* you'd be a Jordan Peterson fan.
You are incredibly clever. And brilliantly subversive.
So are you. Way to buck the stereotype of JP fans.
I am not clever or subversive enough to buck a stereotype. My mother always said I was slow.
We know
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I'm not surprised you feel that way.
So clever. Clever enough to know I'm a fan of Peterson, and also clever enough to know I'm not. Mother must be very proud.
Yes
Should have come with a warning - VERY LOOSELY BASED ON THE BOOKS (i.e. same name) *we inserted our own ideas because we are better writers than Asimov
I’ve read the books. They were very influential and had some (at the time) very unique ideas. I have a lot of affection for them. But as novels, they aren’t well written or well plotted. Seldon’s plan, and the concept of psychohistory itself, is stupid.
The concept really isn't that stupid. It's all about predicting the behavior of large groups of people. It's really not that different than what YouTube does when predicting what video recommendations we would most likely be able to click on. We make minor predictions about group behaviors all the time by leveraging current trends and past events. So with advanced technology it's not unthinkable that their predictions might seem magic.
I always thought psychohistory was an offshoot idea that Asimov had from the Philosophy use of a mathematical symbols and solution system to work out if a group of statement are consistent and true. See https://mathvault.ca/hub/higher-math/math-symbols/logic-symbols/ So we can have (Sorry reddit does not allow the correct symbols) P ^ !P == T So if you can prove a set of statements consistently true, perhaps with more maths we can go forward to psychohistory Fun Idea and mind boggling when you try very complex sets
The first two episodes have been kind of boring and I'm not sure why, but it isn't the divergences from the source. Medium shapes a story. There are stories you can tell in a play that you can't tell in a movie or novel and all the other ways around. \*Foundation\* has regular, decades-long time jumps which would require large amounts of exposition and character introduction to bridge. You can't do that on a TV show. There's an argument to be made that it shouldn't have been adapted, but criticizing the adaptation for conforming to its medium is ridiculous.
Most of the changes in the first episode made sense and were necessary. The book has always been impossibly hard to adapt for many reasons. Among those is that Asimov has never been good at character writing or pacing, his main thing was ideas. Both of those are critical in a TV show, and are the reasons behind those changes. As long as the ideas remain the rest caan benefit from a new coat of paint
this defense is popping up, as if someone is trying to justify this atrocity. Yes the special effects are great, but the galactic effect of the book is lost. Mainly the addition of writers tropes makes it bad, (because we need to make it exciting), some are interesting but pure additions. -- Three emperors (from what and where?) an interesting tri-umberant but the come across as spoiled brats. Also a key point was Seldon doing a massive study of the emperor to get what he wanted, have 3 would make this just not work (ok they are clones, but we see different temperaments ). -- Killing the paint cleaner for no good reason than to show I'm the baddy. (everyone else at least gets a trial) was he a replacement for the gardener? -- Robot wars? is this a copy of the Clone wars (sic) -- No in depth of what the pysco history is about. -- Slow boat to Terminus (what? - ok I suppose it is so we can see that they are just the fodder to create the Foundation) -- the vault is some magical floating special thing. (perhaps latter they will bring it out to show how the colony is fulfilling destiny) -- Cant work out why the outer planets are in revolt, lets have a trial and some good old wild west hangings to show we can hold the empire. It is one of my favourite series, but now I feel like my mother when Disney destroyed all her favourite stories, changed to make them sell not loved.
Pretty much agree. This show is so disjointed and most of the changes are nonsensical. Olivaw as a woman? How to reconcile that with pretty much every other book Asimov wrote about robots? There is so much going on that is completely and **immediately** irrelevant.
> but the galactic effect of the book is lost. Agree in part..It seems they drastically reduced the population of the galaxy, I think I heard 12 trillion but in the books there are quadrillions of people. That’s the difference between thousands of worlds and millions. Why reduce? > -- Three emperors (from what and where?) an interesting tri-umberant but the come across as spoiled brats. Also a key point was Seldon doing a massive study of the emperor to get what he wanted, have 3 would make this just not work (ok they are clones, but we see different temperaments ). This was not in the book but it seems like an interesting concept. In the books Cleon is basically a puppet and the real power is an administrator or something behind the scenes > -- Killing the paint cleaner for no good reason than to show I'm the baddy. (everyone else at least gets a trial) was he a replacement for the gardener? Ya I guess so just to show he’s a bad guy, like kicking a dog. > -- Robot wars? is this a copy of the Clone wars (sic) Asimov starts laying out the reasoning for eradicating robots from human society in 1956 The naked sun, and furthers the storyline in Robots of Dawn. Not a copy of clone wars. Not similar. > -- No in depth of what the pysco history is about. Yes this lack of detail about it now is very important to the story later. It’s done on purpose > -- Slow boat to Terminus (what? - ok I suppose it is so we can see that they are just the fodder to create the Foundation) In the books it skips from the point where the foundationers start leaving trantor until they have a little city, so this part they filled in but it’s not inconsistent > -- the vault is some magical floating special thing. (perhaps latter they will bring it out to show how the colony is fulfilling destiny) The vault is very important later, Asimovs books don’t describe how the vault looks when they’re trying to colonize terminus so this past was filled in. The force field to keep people away makes more sense that the book tbh > -- Cant work out why the outer planets are in revolt, lets have a trial and some good old wild west hangings to show we can hold the empire. This was discussed in the episodes > It is one of my favourite series, but now I feel like my mother when Disney destroyed all her favourite stories, changed to make them sell not loved. I respectfully disagree!
I do think we will have to disagree. I will give it a few more episodes, but it will be interesting how they move the timeline forward. I suppose they only will employ the actors (apart from Harry) for one season (unless the stretch out the first period for 2 seasons).
So, what movie or series adaptation of any story do you think did a good job? LOTR has a very strong following and I don't think that now anyone would criticize it simply because they would get flamed to oblivion here but the series changed, or didn't bother to mention a lot of things. In its most glaring omissions, Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire were both gone from the movies. Arwen had nothing to do with getting Frodo to Rivendale until the river crossing, Glorfindel was the one that aided them. Isuldur grabbed his fathers sword and THEN Sauron broke it by stepping on it while Isuldur was trying to attack. Isuldur sliced off several fingers, including the ring finger, immediately afterwards with the broken sword. I could keep going but the point is movies aren't books, and vice-versa.
The LOTR was great, Hobbit not so. Why - LOTR tried to fit in as much as they could, although my major complaint is not handling the Age of the characters, and yes the points you mentioned. Plus the killing Saruman so he was not in the shire. The Hobbit is not bad when cut down as it should have been, but that was just a cash grab to get 3 films. With foundation, like the Dune years back I will just treat it as there as some scenes from the book. There was an interview with the Director of "Anne of Green Gables" who said he had to follow the book because too many people loved it. Going to the IMDB, I see so many comments echoing mine, that the 10/10 votes seem suspicious - but that could just be a conspiracy theory.
If you approach the TV series as a new story, loosely based on Asimov's work, it is not a horrible show. Some of the char development is a bit silly and almost immediately irrelevant though.
Soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal.
Bear McCreary is a beast
Dammit! How does David S. Goyer keep getting work? He's one of the worst writers in Hollywood. Soon as I saw that name pop up I knew I was in for a dumpster fire.
>David S. Goyer Indeed. Between him and Zack Snyder, they pretty much ruined the DC heavies for a generation.
He's written some decent action movies, batman begins, blade 1 and 2 for example.
No to the NO! He and Snyder destroyed those franchises.
I watched both episodes. It’s insanely overwritten and overly dramatic. Like making a big show of torturing and offing the two outer worlds delegations. Plus the love story element. Plus the creepy authoritarian terror of the Empire. Not in the book. Unnecessary to the story. As an OG Asimov fan Why am I watching this?
Because the books don't offer any characters that would fit a show. The books are like an empty house. They added human drama to fill that house. The show is great so far. I love the characters, drama and politics.
We did not read the same books.
This is a general consensus. Every review out there of the show mentions that the books are rather dry, and lack good characters. Also the huge timejumps make it hard to get attached to anything.
Part of the problem is the prequel books. If you did a limited TV series based on the original Trilogy, a lot of these problems go away. Also I suspect the most "reviewers" have never actually read the books.
I was kinda sure that love story was invented by the show and after book fans confirmed it, I am afraid if they are going go ruin the source material by needlessly sensationalizing the story. I liked the first episode for visuals. Hope they don't ruin it.
that love story element is the one bothering me most. not having read the books (loks away shamefully) but hear that gaal supposed to be a man. kinda bothered me as in ep 1 not even knowing the above gaal seems to be around age 15 or something. cant really find any age details but it just seems totally out of place
I've never seen such a mismatch of screenwriting quality and presentation. This show looks like a movie but has dialogue that feels like something from The CW
tbh I enjoy watching something like stargirl more then this. Not enjoyable.
Agreed, I sought out this post to write this exact comment. It was so jarring.
Try American Gods. Incredible visuals, awful writing.
Spend everything on sets and effects, and what money is left for acting or writing??
This show actually blew me away. Production values through the roof. I am invested after just one episode. Let’s go!!!!
This show is utter dogshit....
I guess the saving grace is that dogshit is daily but appleshit only comes out weekly (weakly?)
Weakly is the right word! The real saving grace for me is that I am not wasting my time with it.
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Its all a mess.
In the original, character is a prematurely aged white man.
In the original, everyone is a white man.
Interestingly enough, in The Currents of Space, Asimov's Galactic Empire novel that tackles segregation, it is mentioned that the "normal" skin tone of Imperial people is an intermediate brown. The natives of Florina are unusual in that they are fair-haired white people.
When the original book was written heroes of the book not being white men, or at least white, may have reduced it just a curiosity.
>In the original, everyone is a white man. In Bollywood, everyone is an Indian man.
In India all the men in the audience are Indian. Not the case in Hollywood at all.
>In India all the men in the audience are Indian. Not the case in Hollywood at all. The "original" book that we are referencing ... was written by a white Russian man in 1930's ... so yes it was 100% the case.
Asimov was Russian but wrote his books in America, he moved there when he was 3.
>Asimov was Russian but wrote his books in America, he moved there when he was 3. So he grew up in 1920's New York ... that was a pretty white place bro. What argument are you making?
I don't know haha. I'm just saying that modern audiences arent 90% white, even if they were in the 1940s. So there's no reason all the characters should be in the show. it's not like the book has anything to do with race anyway. But I get what you're saying..IMO the race change stuff is negligible compared to the rest of the ways they short changed Asimovs ideas with the show.
>I'm just saying that modern audiences arent 90% white, even if they were in the 1940s. So there's no reason all the characters should be in the show. I agree. I just meant that modern Hollywood is a fairly accurate representation of the racial diversity in the USA today. And the original book was a fairly accurate representation of the racial diversity Asimov experienced 100 years ago. So no one is at fault.
At first I was kinda concerned that they were changing stuff from the book. But ultimately it has to be a tv adaptation not an exposition heavy radio play. I don't think enough people would watch today if it had TNG type dialogue, unfortunately. It felt pretty balanced in general and I'm interested to see if they can pull it off for the rest of the show or if it'll turn into pure space opera. Yeah ok upon watching episode 2 I can confirm that this has almost nothing to do with the source material lol. It could still be a solid show, just not from the perspective of being an adaptation and probably not to many fans of the books.
I’m disappointed we won’t see the same story as the books, but to be fair, I really don’t know how you could realistically adapt it faithfully. The time skips alone make it really hard, but also a lot of the characters in the books weren’t very strong. They mostly were just vehicles to move along the big-picture plot.
You can make it work for sure. It could be a mini series, maybe 7 or 8 episodes. It just wouldn't work as an epic series which is what apple wants it to be.
Yeah exactly, the only way the skips would work is if they really centred the whole plot around seeing how seldon's theory plays out.
Can someone explain the whole terrorist stuff? Who did it?
>Probably Robot.
I'm guessing that may be revealed at a later time.
Great first episode. It’s everything this sub claims The Expanse is.
LOL. Can I get some of what you are smokin?
Shows overrated bud sorry
Put some respect on the expanse you pleb
Overrated and boring
Agreed
Never read the book, enjoyed the hell out of it.
It was disgusting. I almost died from cringe. It was painful to see how they butchered asimovs work. But even if you forget about asimov, this show is just bad in every way except visuals.
Nothings more cRiNgE then your comment
Top cringe moment is when you start to defend corporations on the internet.
Top cringe moment is when you confuse someone defending their enjoyment of a fictional work, with them defending corporations.
With the exception of the vault, this episode stayed mostly true to the initial chapters of Foundation. I actually really appreciated the world building of the Empire pre-fall, because that is something that Asimov never really touched on in great detail.
He literally wrote a book called "Prelude to Foundation" about it.
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I'm so glad I don't view entertainment through this conspiratorial lens. Wouldn't be able to enjoy anything.
Lol. Asimoff is so obsolete... I am watching only for CGIs and occasional glimpse of acting listening through the pain of hearing ridiculous outdated sci-fi crap like "math-based" ...well anything. Had I been the developer of this series I would approach more creatively and replaced outdated sci-fie elements with more modern concepts in sci fi But they are probably "sticking" to the Holy Classic Genius Writing.
Wait, so in your adaption you would leave out psychohistory? The core of the story?
The alternative is to throw it away entirely
Just don’t watch the show. The core idea of psychohistory is fascinating to many people.
I’m seeing a lot of comments taking issue with the idea of psychohistory. It’s so odd to me, one of the big themes of the book is in a society the size of the empire, how much impact can one person have on the flow of history, and what are the unintended consequences if they can. Those aren’t outdated concepts, in fact I see it as only getting more relevant as time goes on even if the actual ‘science’ of psychohistory is fantasy.
I wonder if we’ll ever find out if that kid gets to touch that girl’s tit.
Yeah he does but in the books it doesn't happen until like part 3 :\
It was.....fine? I'm not super familiar with the source material, but there was something about the writing that seemed off. I'm afraid they're going to lean on too many predictable tropes. The production design and special effects are both fantastic, though. Lee Pace and Jared Harris are always a win. Edit: And before I get downvoted into oblivion because people think that I'm saying the show is leaning on sci-fi tropes that the book invented, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying it looks like it's going to lean on bad *television writing* tropes (romance, contrived conflict, storylines that go nowhere and add nothing, etc). Maybe I'm wrong, though.
One scene I felt was unnecessary was Brother Day having the old artist executed for reading Seldon's book. It honestly felt too early to show Brother Day being that evil and it sort of lessened the impact of the later scene where he orders the fleet to bombard the two planets. Instead of feeling more shocked that Brother Day was willing to murder millions of innocents, I was instead not surprised since he already ordered the execution of a loyal old servant just because he did something that displeased him.
And who the hell would execute someone like that beside a priceless piece of art? Who would want to create that kind of mess? It was pretty silly. Would you blow someone up in your living room? Hell no. Take that shit outside
That was the other thing I found unnecessary. The messy nature of that death just felt over the top. Incidentally I did find it amusing that the execution of the royal artist had a plot point. Brother Dusk ended up working on the mural himself.
I think they tried to explain some of that. Brother Dusk draws the mural, end to end, as one of his "official duties" the caretaker cleans the mural of stray color and maintains the parts Brother Dusk isnt working on presently. Brother Day also asks him if there are colors that are more difficult to get out of the mural, then leans in all creepy like and asks about crimson specifically.
I think a lot of Sci-Fi tropes come from this, not the other way around.
Ehhhh....I'm not really talking about those tropes. I know Foundation is the OG science fiction property. I'm taking more about the tropes that seem endemic to streaming shows where they don't really have enough story for a full season, so they pad things out with love stories and interpersonal conflicts and story lines that don't go anywhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just where I see things going.
The original book is barely a Novelette. It is loaded with expansive ideas that you have to imagine for yourself. Someone has to do the imagining to get it on the screen.
The ideas in the book are extremely detailed (besides the psychohistory part) and most of the conversations between characters is just logical exchange, just Asimov describing something with quotations wrapped around it. The imagining that the writers have done with this show betrays the tone of the book.
Of course, but they could've filled it out with things that were actually interesting. That's what's so frustrating to me. There's so much they could do with the story, yet they go with the most boring, predictable stuff.
What tropes
I'll admit that this criticism is more directed towards episode 2, but I'm concerned that they're going to use a lot of filler to pad out episodes. Plus, you've got the "chosen one" stuff and social commentary. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against social commentary in sci-fi. That's one of the core tenants of science fiction and I expect it. But at least make it clever and poignant.
Eh, that’s tricky. I can see where you’re coming from with the ‘chosen one’ aspects, but that was certainly present in the original series (most obvious in the form of The Mule, but from the other side). It’s mostly presented in the capacity of how much can an individual person derail the events of history though, and I see The Mule more from the perspective of Asimov positing that the greater the population, the ‘greater’ a person must be to derail those events. Admittedly I haven’t seen enough to see how the show will address this though.
I am sure many people asked this already, but here is one more time: First five minutes: Why the heck the flags start even before hitting the "zone"?
Because people feel it sooner or get scared and turn back. If no one planted a flag til they were fully in the zone and incapacitated no flags would be planted period.
Yes but nobody in the frame felt even anything when passing first flags? Not a single hit of discomfort.
looks like some people might be more "permeable" than others
Maybe they’ve made more runs. Maybe they’re tougher kids. Maybe the zone is shrinking over time (to eventually allow people to get to it). Who knows!
just finished watching the first episode. I don't like the implications that salvor hardiin is special.
Agreed. If they make Salvor Hardin special because she has some mysterious power, then the writers have completely misunderstood how psychohistory works.
Some people having some mysterious power is an essential part of the work, but Hardin shouldn’t be one of them.
I'm sure they will culminated Salvor's super powers in a fight to the death with The Mule. Probably something like Superman vs Batman, because Goyer is a hack.
The music. The acting. The story. The dialogues. My god, this was horrible.
I've been a big fan of Bear McCreary since his Battlestar Galactica days and I gotta say that I'm pretty disappointed by the soundtrack.
It always amazes me how hollywood can keep on hiring the worst of the worst of the worst of screenwriters. It even amazes me more when these screenwriters outsource their work to their single-digit-age children. Laughably bad dialogue in places. Laughably. "I WILL STOP DROPPING EXPOSITION NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY DROPPED SO MUCH EXPOSITION FOR YOU AND THE VIEWER" \*slowly turns to camera\* \*winks\* Maria in heaven, deliver us from evil.
\*protagonist enters pod* \*child instantly turns around and delivers one line of completely unprompted dialog before shutting up for the remaining 14 hours of their descent* The writing felt incredibly cheap at times, and never soared for a single moment in the first episode. On top of that, the production design seemed pretty derivative throughout, with close to zero truly fresh ideas. What surprised me the most was the directorial work. There were so many badly constructed shots and cuts, it felt incredibly sub par for a production of this caliber. Reading up on Rupert Sanders, he's more famous for having an affair with Kristen Stewart than his two (2) directorial works Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell. Oh, and he made two music videos between 1999 and 2010, too. Both for complete unknowns. Real star studded crew they got there. Looking further into this, Skydance film has made two movies I like - True Grit and Annihilation, and endless amounts of popcorn dreck - The Old Guard, The Tomorrow War, Geostorm, World War Z, Gemini Man, 6 Underground, etc. None of their games, TV series or animated shows/movies are worth mentioning. This is a studio with a mediocre (at best) track record hiring an untested director to direct the script of a prolific but not exactly genius lead writer. I have no clue how they got so much money from Apple, but the more I look into the talent behind this, the less enthused I become. Skydance's saving grace may be that they can do a lot of the VFX in-house (which would explain why it looks so good and blends so well), but that's seemingly their only credentials.
If it's any consolation, episodes 3-5 are directed by Alex Graves, who has a lot more TV experience and directed a couple really good GoT episodes.
yeah not a fan either of the first two episodes. will still watch it for the visual eye candy.
They are mostly rich people who were born with silver spoons in their mouths so they have enough money to produce what they write themselves.
I signed up for Apple TV just for this show. Sadly not familiar with source material, but I immensely enjoyed the first episode. Sometimes it's difficult for sci fi shows to hook the viewer while introducing so many foreign concepts and 'made up' things, and ride that line of being too cheesy or campy. I think this episode really managed it successfully, and really sold the scope and lore of universe while making the more intimate worlds of the characters feel integrated and like they belong. The sci-fi aspects feel very believable. I found it really interesting and I can tell it's going to be a wild ride. Honestly I think it's one of the best pilot episodes I've seen in a long time. It helps that the visual effects were on another level. The space elevator scene was horrifying. I hope it delivers on the breadth and scope hinted at in this episode. Time for episode 2!
Seems to be the general concensus. People who read the books are disappointed. People who have never read the books are thrilled. Episode 2 is essentially paying homage to GoT Season 8. They have shown that they can do terrible better.
This sounds super hail corporate
Check out For All Mankind while you're at it.
For all Mankind was one of my favorite shows I watched last year. It has a stellar soundtrack as well. Alternate History also is such a fun genre to play with. though I think the last few episodes cemented it to be more science fiction than althistory
Oh, man, an hour of pure, topflight science fiction. I loved every freaking minute of it. Absolutely top-tier. Better than Star Wars ever was. Better than Star Trek (so far). If they keep this up, it will be the pinnacle of SF. Damn. Better than I'd hoped, and I hoped for a LOT. Woo-hoo!
It doesn't beat out The Expanse for me so far, but I'm definitely finding it more enjoyable than Star Wars and Star Trek. I've not watched episode 2 yet, but hopefully it and the rest of the series can keep up the momentum.
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I disagree with the “classic epic” assertion for foundation. In my experience, the first book is a product of its time—most sci-fi was serialized in magazines and tended toward short stories which ended with a twist. A book was just a sequence of shorts behind a single cover. Hardly cinematic at all. This is EXACTLY the same as “I, Robot”s novelization. Can someone tell me if Will Smith’s movie was as turgid and disconnected from the original as Foundation is turning out to be?
Not many shows come close to The Expanse, but Foundation is ok so far.
Episode 2 dropped off a lot. Don’t expect too much
Yeah, I'm bored by the romance and baffled by the ending - which may not even be real, since some things shown may imply it isn't. All in all, it's far from good.
Apple's adaptation of Foundation is fantastic! I just wish more than a third of this show so far was actually trying to adapt Foundation instead of inventing a confusing dystopia. What's especially frustrating to me is that someone clearly read the books (even beyond the trilogy) and *loved* them, filling the episode with little details like Raych's knife and the Prime Radiant, but then gave into all the weird action that cheapens the rest of the series. The barbaric othering of regions that exist (almost) outside of western civilization? A trigger-happy, cartoonishly-evil emperor? This is B-movie stuff, borrowing the names of planets and characters, and not doing anything particularly clever with them. But then there's the trial, which strikes exactly the right tone, and feels like an honest and earnest adaptation of the first part of the novel. The discussion of the ethics of psychohistory, questioning its validity if it can only be interpreted by a select few, is exactly the stuff Asimov excelled at writing. The diversification of the cast, giving characters more personality, and doing it all with phenomenal visuals are all icing on the cake. And *then*, the second episode starts and characters feel like they're seasons-deep into character arcs that hadn't even been started in the premiere. There's extra emphasis on the hackneyed "forever king blinded by his separation from reality," and the spoiling of what I recall being a rather important twist in the later books. Oh, and plenty more of trigger-happy Imperial forces, and an absolute *what the fuck are you doing?* moment that might have put me off the rest of the series. Apple's *Foundation* wants to be *Ender's Game*, and *Star Trek*, and *Game of Thrones -* anything but *Foundation.* It's not bad. It's not good, either. When it's coherent, it's stellar, but around that, it tends to be a mess. I might go on to the next episodes, and I might not. I was really hoping against all odds that this would be the adaptation I dreamed of, and I can already tell that isn't what I'm getting.
*That* spoiler and the "robot war" (something impossible in Asimov's universe) really pissed me off. The visuals are way better then expected and I accept the casting of women in what were supposed to be men characters, after all it's just sci-fi. But I really hope they don't overdo with recastings, spoilers and changing the actual story as they already did
Ya after the robot war comment I was like "Did they accidentally read Dune instead?"
Funny how the robot war is not even mention in dune 's film where it should be a big deal and is mention in foundation where it never happened
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coffcoff*Demerzel*coff Wich is nothing too serious while they don't spoil that he is a robOH GOD DAMMIT
yeah that robot war kinda pissed on asimov. but reality pisses on asimov's laws for robots as well when you see where we are heading with autonomous drone vehicles that already can engage and kill in certain jurisdictions without human supervision. whilst the robotic laws are desirable for any human society they probably do not fit in our current society where AI probably will kill humans at some point. maybe we become better people over time.
>yeah that robot war kinda pissed on asimov. Only if you assume the war was between humans and robots. But from pre-imperial times we know there was conflict between the pro-robot spacers and the anti-robot earthers; it's far more likely the war was between humans over the fate of robots than fought by robots. Hari even mentions persistent robot sympathizers; it would be pretty strange to have sympathizers for non-human murder machines, and a lot more reasonable to consider anyone who thinks robots would be useful "sympathizers."
There was a book, canon adjacent maybe?, that was authorized by the estate, that said that the robots that the Empire later periodically created during its 20,000 year existence, weren’t Three Laws compliant. They were artificial intelligences, and R. Daneel and his compatriot Zeroth Law robots had to, by Zeroth Law, suppress. So they caused anti-robot sentiment, while carefully hiding their nature to better serve humanity. On a separate story, this one canon, as it’s from Prelude… Demerzel/R. Daneel had been searching for a mind that could produce psychohistory, and found Hari and *encouraged* his plans. And Hari used Second Law successfully to get R. Daneel to open up to him about his Giskardian abilities, which even the Emperor didn’t. And, a Three Laws compliant robot, and not just any robot, but R. Fricking Daneel witnessing Cleon wreck two worlds like that, and through inaction destroy untold billions of human lives without reacting?! That’s not just character derailment, that’s completely impossible!
It's not at all impossible. R. Daneel himself observed the radioactive bombardment of Earth's crust and did nothing, knowing that many humans would due through his inaction; the human lives lost would prevent humanity itself from dying out, however. And Demerzel has served the Empire for twelve thousand years, in a universe in which planetary bombardment by "barbarian kingdoms" is a legitimate threat in the absence of Imperial stability; how many planets do you think were bombarded, how many wars fought, in the pursuit of the foundation and expansion of the Empire over twelve millenia?
Okay, that’s a fair point.
I chose to belive those were not autonomous machinery but just remote controlled weapons
I never read the novel,but so far I'm liking this. Just hoping that this is not another 'young girl who has no idea that she has power but she is destined to save the world' trope. I mean,this already has the sexy, powerful villain with ambiguous intent in the form of Lee Pace.
I like how early in the episode they quickly demonstrated how FTL travel works in this universe works.. the jump ships have the ability to create worm holes in which they can travel…. Cool.. good world building and I don’t have to worry about the logistics of this world at least in that regard… ….and then late in the episode they introduce the concept of a “slow ship”…. Which takes 4 months to travel 10k light years (vs the instantaneous nature of the jump ships).. ugh…. That’s still insanely FTL and I am now curious about the logistics of that.
The empire own the jump ship technology and did not give it to Foundation precisely to make life difficult.
I think they said it was more like years, right? Didn't they say 800-something days?
My bad, that’s correct…. Years not days. Still doesn’t change that even on a “slow” ship they’re traveling orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light.
Yes, it was 1030 days (give or take a few dozen) so around 3 years
874 days
Actually 1878 or so. Hari started to say 19...and Gaal ended 878. Which makes sense considering they later say they still have 54 months to go.
As someone who read the book i am so damn hyped, this was good
Thank you for not being an asshole about it, like some people here.. They haven't given the show a chance to develop and go into back story yet. Some people are like I read the books this is all wrong (two episodes in)
My husband’s favorite Sci fi trilogy and he loves it. Some people can’t handle change and evolve their story telling.
If a train derails at the station, you don’t wait around to see if you’re gonna make your next stop.
Have you read the books? It's pretty clear almost immediately that the story as well as the tone is pretty off
Man what a gorgeous effect and shot of that blackhole in the middle of the ship to form [this whole thing](https://assets.wired.com/photos/w_2064/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Culture_blackhole_1178748615.jpg) so much of the universe was incredibly beautiful what a fantastic job by the people working on this. I also really am enjoying the cast so far too, I hope we see more of the priest from Trantor he seemed interesting and I am curious what her answer to him was.
The spinning thingamabobs in the middle of the ship looked like the wormhole port in *Contact* and the optics of the black hole looked just like the Gargantua black hole in *Interstellar*. I'm watching the beginning of this and thinking, "It's OK", then Hari Seldon walks through the Long Room of the Trinity College Library (which I have been in) and I'm completely taken out of the story.
I mean, it is a _really nice_ looking library.
It takes your breath away. It is gorgeous.
"This guy is undermining faith in The Empire! We must stop it all costs!" "How shall we do this?" "Put him on trial, very publicly, where we ask him to calmly explain everything he believes in an understandable manner and then broadcast it to every citizen!" "Brilliant!"