If this series were not based on a book, I would have nothing negative to say about it. However as it is based on Asimov's Foundation novel I am regretfully very disappointed. The incongruities in the story line differ so drastically from the book as to make it nearly unrecognizable from the novel it draws its name from. I feel this is a slap in the face to one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time. Asimov would never have signed off on this mockery!
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I enjoy the show mostly for its visuality. Beautiful planets, gigantic palaces etc. A lot of SF is way too dark. (the Phara/Salvor sequences were all black. I hated those, although Phara is quite good looking)
I'll be entertained by it. Just don't make Seldon or the Second Foundation into Bad Guys please.
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Right now, as of episode 7, I'm calling this series, a wannabe 'Expanse' but without the tight world building, character development, situational promises, and script in general. In other words, another show in the "JJ Abrams" world of Sci-Fi television, after he threw in the towel with 'Fringe'.
In contrast, the first 3 seasons of 'The Expanse' were possibly the best Sci-Fi/futurist show ever made for the small screen. And yes, the mysterious powers of the Aliens which created the space virus, asteroid engine, and finally the portal, was kept obscure, as to not interfere with the current tech of the human settled solar system so that the show didn't have aliens appearing out of nowhere to explain something phantasmagorical.
And thus, with only 3 episodes left to go for 'Foundation', I can't see the Seldom crisis as anything more than a setup where let's say Salvor & Gaal finally meet up, and play tag-team against the bad guys of the periphery.
The two psychic *Twin Towers* vs the bad fellas and then, "JJ Abrams" will simply explain that Hari knew all along that some combination of cryo-frozen younger Raych a/o (Salvor & older Gaal) or younger cryo-frozen Gaal & Salvor, would have resolved the first crisis anyways and both permutations were the 50/50 outcome.
We haven't got to the end of the first season. So we don't even know how the first Seldon crisis get resolved in the series. You are complaining that it doesn't get resolved how you were hoping, before we see how it gets resolved.
And by the way, since the first Seldon crisis is resolved by packaging the Foundation's technology as religion, I'd point out that so far Salvor Hardin is doing well in selling religion to the Grand Huntress of Anacreon. By now she's pretty convinced that Salvor has superpowers. It looks like a lot of viewers are convinced, as well. I'm not.
The gender switching is irrelevant. We are talking Asimov Characters after all. 99% of the time a character’s gender and/or ethnicity is completely irrelevant. Asimov himself often explained that he wasn’t a visual person. He never “saw” his characters in his mind. I have no doubt that he would have approved of gender and race blind casting.
The problem is that the series completely misses the central theme of the books.
In the first book and a half there are a series of moments in which the fate of the galaxy seems to hang in the balance, as the Foundation faces the apparent threat of extinction at the hands of barbarian kings, regional warlords, and eventually the decaying but still powerful empire itself. Each of these crises is met by the men of the hour, whose bravery and cunning seem to offer the only hope. Each time, the Foundation triumphs. But here's the trick: after the fact, it becomes clear that bravery and cunning had nothing to do with it, because the Foundation was fated to win thanks to the laws of psychohistory. Each time, just to drive the point home, the image of Hari Seldon, recorded centuries before, appears in the Time Vault to explain to everyone what just happened. The barbarians were never going to prevail, because the Foundation's superior technology, packaged as religion, gave it the ability to play them off against each other. The warlord's weapons were no match for the Foundation's economic clout. And so on.
This unique plot structure creates an ironic resonance between the 'Foundation' novels and a seemingly unrelated genre, what I'd call prophetic fantasy. These are novels— Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' cycle comes to mind—in which the protagonists have a mystical destiny, foreshadowed in visions and ancient writings, and the unfolding of the plot tells of their march toward that destiny. Actually, I'm a sucker for that kind of fiction, which makes for great escapism precisely because real life is nothing like that. The first half of the 'Foundation' series manages, however, to have the structure of prophecy and destiny without the mysticism; it's all about the laws of psychohistory, you see, and Hari Seldon's prescience comes from his mathematics. So far I don’t get that from the show.
I agree that this TV show has a number of inconsistencies, like pretty much all TV shows these days. It's practically required, for easy laughs and to have some mysteries to solve in the next season.
But if I was going to point out an inconsistency, I wouldn't focus on Brother Dawn asking his staff to do things he could well do himself. I've seen powerful people in action a few times, and I've noticed that's how they often behave. And I can see why: delegating tasks is a skill, and there is some "use it or lose it" to it, like with any other skill.
If you're looking for inconsistencies, episode 4 is one long incoherent list of them. But then, you may realise that Salvor Hardin isn't just saying that she's an outlier, she's showing what an outlier is. The whole episode is daring viewers: would you say it's a brilliant episode, in spite of this, and that, and the other thing?
I would.
I love the books, and I also love the show. I love all of Asimov's books and I'm not afraid to knock him off his pedestal. His first Foundation book especially is little more than a skeleton. There is a 50 year gap between "The Psychohistorians" and "The Encyclopedists". What do y'all think happened in 50 years?? A hell of a lot. That's why it took 4 episodes to portray it on the show. Then another 30 or so years till the next chapter, "The Mayors". Oh, and the conflict with Anacreon? The 'Encyclopedists" chapter ends with Terminus quivering in terror of Anacreon and waiting to watch Seldon's Time Vault message. THEN there is a gap of How many years?? The next scene we see, is Mayor Salvor Hardin talking with a bunch of politicians about things that have already happened: Hardin engineered a coup, gave nuclear tech to the kingdoms of the Periphery, and established a religion & priesthood to keep all of this tech under control of the "Holy Foundation".
Excuse me, but what kind of novel skips over the most dramatic action so it can 'recap' it later? No kind. Only a serialized collection of pulp stories that probly appeared over months in the early 50s, which is what the first book Foundation really is. What I'm saying is, thank you Apple TV and Goyer for making this into a Real Story with characters, action, drama etc. If this series were a faithful rendition of the book, critics would be howling to the sky.
Maria, agreed. Esau, if your goal was simply trolling you may have succeeded. However, if your sentiments were truly thoughtful then you should be ashamed for ridiculing the surely careful consideration of a daughter‘s understanding of her father’s intentions for his legacy which I’m certain were difficult. Unless of course you knew him better than his own daughter?
You are entitled to your own preferences and opinions.
This said, on the question of whether Asimov would have signed off on this project, I'd say the evidence points to a likely yes.
After the original trilogy, Asimov didn't add to it for decades. Then he wrote additional books on the same universe. And he wrote things that fans weren't expecting. He merged the Foundation universe with his robot stories, that before people had seen as separate. And in "Foundation's Edge", he slaughtered the Seldon Plan, which was a shock to many fans.
After Asimov died, his estate agreed that three famous science fiction writers, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin, would write three additional books to the Foundation series, that were called the Second Foundation Trilogy. These books took things into even more unexpected directions. The three writers called themselves "the killer B's" for this project, which makes me think that pushing the envelope was the intention all along.
The Asimov estate has also signed off on this TV series, and specifically Robyn, Asimov's daughter, has given her agreement. I think this is significant because Robyn was the inspiration for the character of Arcadia in the original Foundation trilogy, so it's fair to assume she feels an emotional connection to the Foundation universe.
In short, all the evidence suggests that the way Asimov saw the Foundation universe was that he was more interested in considering the ways that it could plausibly expand than in keeping it rigidly confined to the original trilogy.
I think it is a good balance of made up stuff and adherence. As long as it's good, I'm happy. I've seen worse adaptations