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David Goyer and Josh Friedman Adapting Isaac Asimov's Foundation for TV
- Detonacciones 9y agoThis is good news! If successful, it means that a new generation will learn of the Seldonian ethical imperative -- to monitor to foresee looming societal collapse into a new "Dark Age", and to then act so as to avert that collapse, or, if too late to avert it entirely, to act so as to reduce both the severity and the duration of that collapse. A group which is acting to implement this imperative in the real world is Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.], whose works are made available via www.dialectics.org .
- johnhattan 9y agoHere's hoping. Although I'm not sure how well it'll be received, given that (IIRC) there's not a single explosion in the entire series. It might be interesting if they went in more of a direction of "House Of Cards In Space" rather than "Game Of Thrones In Space".
- ohjeez 9y agoI cannot imagine how anyone could possibly adapt that tale and have it work. I would love to be wrong though.
- ianai 9y agoAs I recall, violence was often threatened but avoided. They might make plenty of tension that way.
- dep_b 9y agoThere was a point where the old empire was advancing on the Foundation only to have their general recalled at the moment of total triumph to prevent the general from taking over power after returning victorious. Also the expansion phase against the barbarian kingdoms wasn't completely bloodless. But the wars and conquests were never really explicit, more described as a historian would describe it as it would happen in the Roman Empire.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoFoundation and Empire has two wars in it so there would be plenty of potential for explosions. The actual fighting isn't described much in the book, but I doubt that a TV adaptation would treat it the same way.
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoI'm not optimistic. David S. Goyer is a hack. He likes to credit himself as the Dark Night screenwriter, but if you compare his previous body of work to Nolan's previous body of work, it's easy to see who was the talent behind the project. If you want to see what Goyer is truly like when he doesn't have a director to reel in his horrible dialogue, watch Blade: Trinity. It's the only one he both wrote and directed, and, fittingly, it's terrible.
- thrillgore 9y agoChris and Jonathan Nolan have their fair share of writing gaffs, but its mostly on the dialogue front. Both are brilliant worldbuilders, but don't tell me that "For you" is Oscar-tier dialogue. And before you ask, I am a hothead.
- Tasboo 9y agoSomeone get this hothead outta here
- kartD 9y agoWhere does "for you" occur? I can't seem to place it...
- cholantesh 9y agoThe Dark Knight Rises.
- cholantesh 9y agoDELET TH- er, I think they hit more often than not. Person of Interest has a lot of duds, but I chalk that up to it being network TV.
- e40 9y agoAnd SyFy. There is very little that comes out of them that is even watchable.
- skepticaldrunk 9y ago
- markbnj 9y agoI'm a huge fan of the Foundation series, and I really can't see how it can be adapted for video in any sort of faithful way. For one thing it's almost all dialog. There is very little action or exposition, the former of which at least Hollywood relies heavily on.
- robertlagrant 9y agoI agree - I would love to see a film, but I can't imagine how it'd work.
- MrZongle2 9y agoWhat's even more concerning is if you look at what Goyer & Friedman have done in the past, it's almost exclusively comic book and action movie stuff (and that track record is pretty spotty). My expectations are low, unfortunately.
- JKCalhoun 9y agoMine too. Wither, Dune....
- mattmanser 9y agoAnd, worse, it keeps changing main characters. No star actors. You can't even have an ensemble cast, the protagonists constantly change as the story progresses.
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- sideshowb 9y agoYou Seldon see projects like this these days!
- eduren 9y agoMule never know what these Hollywood types try next.
- eduren 9y agoI do believe there exists some combination of format, production, and screenwriting that could bring Foundation to video. The largest problem is getting the right people to do it. My ideal setup: Format: Miniseries with 1-1.5 hour episodes Network: HBO or Netflix. Mostly because I think only those would take a chance without mucking around the story. Directors/Producers/Screenwriters: This is the foggiest in my opinion. The Nolans might do well. It would have to be directed by someone visionary but faithful, like Peter Jackson was for LOTR (a great example of a "un-filmable" story turning out well).
- comstock 9y agoProbably. I thought the BBC Radio plays did a reasonable job: https://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy https://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy Whatever they create, it's something a little bit different than the source material, but will hopefully give a flavor of it. The hardest part of the Foundation series is it's epic scope, in particular because it would be nice to integrate parts of the Robot series as well. But the essential message for me was humanity as his massive sprawling creature, slowly evolving across millennia.
- pferde 9y agoDid everyone already forget how hollywoodization of "I, Robot" turned out? Nothing good will come out of this, methinks. Not every good book needs a movie made out of it.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoI actually like I, Robot even if it has nothing to do with the books at all. It's a decent action sci-fi movie. I'm more worried it might be like Ender's Game and remove all substance from it.
- Xoros 9y agoThat's the problem. Changing the story and the spirit, you end up having just a bit of context and the title for marketing only. Faking for getting more audience is wrong from my point of view.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Did everyone already forget how hollywoodization of "I, Robot" turned out? It didn't happen. An almost completely unrelated work, done almost completely without any intention of connection, got the title and a couple org/character names and other window dressing from Asimov's work added to it. Not at all a guide to how a project setting out to adapt Asimov's work would end up. Sure, the latter might end up badly, but the former is an unrelated thing that provides no guidance.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoWow, this is topical. I'm about 2/3 through book 3 from Audible. It will be interesting to see how it deals with so man different characters and settings. And also, if it bothers to emphasize the political and cultural differences between the Foundation, the Traders, and the Empire. The books are very steeped in politics and could potentially make for a boring TV show but at the same time I hope they don't go full Ender's Game on it and remove politics and any form of political commentary entire. Which is why I hated the Ender's Game movie... they made it into an action flick and removed all the moral ambiguity.
- yvesmh 9y agoI'm really curious how they could adapt Foundation to TV, I really liked the books but I think the Robot Series (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn) lend more to a TV adaptation.
- squozzer 9y agoIt's probably a mistake, because as much as I like Foundation, it has some issues. For starters, most of its themes have already been stolen by other works / franchises. How many kids are going to accuse Asimov of ripping of Coruscant when they see Trantor? And it reads much like a tightly-written Dune. We all know how that turned out.
- Xoros 9y agoMaybe they'll go full Golan Trevize inserting flashbacks from the 3 original books for context ? So they can have action and a hero, and the full universe.
- importantbrian 9y agoIt's been a while since I read the series, but it was one of my favorites. Every time a read a story about using ML to predict human behavior I think about Foundation and psychohistory. I don't know how you could put this kind of story on screen though. Maybe it would work in an anthology style with each season having a new cast.