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This is also what happens when you re-write the core story to match a Political Correctness agenda. The producers should’ve taken a note from Denis Villeneuve’s

This is also what happens when you re-write the core story to match a Political Correctness agenda. The producers should’ve taken a note from Denis Villeneuve’s treatment of Dune, the source book should be the Bible and you don’t mess with it.

bobsil1 5y ago
Quite the opposite: TV Foundation’s terrorists are brown; Villeneuve’s Dune turns Muhammad into a white guy and defends oil/spice colonialism.
smnrchrds 5y ago
Foundation, as written, does not lend itself to any medium other than text. Dune had already been adapted to films, TV shows, and games multiple times before Villeneuve's film. Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I agree that the Apple TV series does not capture the essence of the books, but no series or film possibly can. Best we can hope is a loose adaptation, which is what we have gotten now.
- natechols 5y ago
  I still think "The Mule", AKA the second half of "Foundation and Empire", could make an excellent standalone - still one of the best sci-fi thrillers IMHO, and much more interesting characters than most of Asimov. But otherwise, there are so many better choices for translating to screen...
- chrisfosterelli 5y ago
  On the other hand... Dune had also been widely considered 'unfilmable' in the industry and that same thing had been said about it: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-denis-villeneuves-dune-is-a-successful-adaptation-of-an-unfilmable-novel-10096271.html https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-denis-villeneuve...
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    But Foundation is the one that had never been adapted. It had passed the test of time for being unfilmable, unlike Dune that has been adapted multiple times to multiple media.
    - chrisfosterelli 5y ago
      My point is that something is only unfilmable up until the point at which someone makes a good film about it. There's lots of literary attributes which may make a series easier or harder to adapt, but, just like Dune used to be called unfilmable for the heavy monologue, length, and nonverbal components, a director with a vision can overcome them.
    - unicornmama 5y ago
      I think it’s comical that a group of techies make broad assertions about what’s film able and not film-able. It’s like because we’re smart in one domain then we are smart in other domains and can just make baseless claims not grounded with experience. If an experienced film creator made such claims then it’s worth listening. Otherwise these sorts of comments are just noise.
- shirro 5y ago
  I don't know if it is documented or not but I would swear Asimov had aphantasia. When I was younger reading him was a revelation after getting bogged down in long winded books full of visual description which just felt like needless baggage to me. There isn't a lot of imagery described in his books (not that I would see it anyway) but that doesn't mean it couldn't be presented visually while keeping to the spirit, just that Asimov probably couldn't have done it. Good writers and directors could. If given the Villeneuve or Kubrick treatment it might be very different.
- canjobear 5y ago
  I would barely call Apple TV's Foundation a loose adaptation. It's like 5% Foundation and 95% other made up stuff.
- swsieber 5y ago
  It was adapted to a radio drama. Pretty close to text, but also closer to an audio-visual format. And I liked it. https://archive.org/details/foundationtrilogythe--bbc1973radiodrama8hours https://archive.org/details/foundationtrilogythe--bbc1973rad...
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  It doesn't matter that Dune was previously adapted and Foundation wasn't. Prior adaptations could have been terrible, and this iteration of Foundation will be seen in 2042 the way 70s Lord of the Rings animation, or 1984 Dune, is seen today. I reject the premise you put in another post that there is some "test of time", some arbitrary number of years, that a book passes that deems it unfit for adaptation. It's one thing to acknowledge the flexibility required in converting a story from novel to film. It is another to change the entire message, character motives and morals while merely retaining the surface plotlines. For what it's worth, having read ten chapters of Dune after watching the amazing 2021 film, I can say they did a fantastic job capturing the spirit and the core storyline of the book.
- ConceptJunkie 5y ago
  > Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I believe there was a radio show adaptation done by the BBC.
wyager 5y ago
Dune wasn't exactly untouched by Hollywood politics. They completely eliminated the themes of European/Arabic cultural conflict (replacing everyone except the bad guys with a generic box-ticking multi-ethnic cast) and they completely nuked Kynes' character to replace him with a forgettable "generic strong woman" character.
- simonh 5y ago
  Oh come on. Atreides, Haleck, Hawat, Yueh, Idaho, Mattai. No hints of ethnic diversity there in the book at all? Really? I thought Sharon did a fantastic job as Kynes, one of the more naturalistic performances in the whole movie.
  - k__ 5y ago
    The descriptions of Atreides in the book didn't strike me as particularly western. Dark hair, olive skin, etc.
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      But they trace their line to the ancient greek Adreides which fought in the siege of Troy. So their origin would be Greek, whatever mixed in over the millenia.
      - simonh 5y ago
        Genetically it doesn't make sense to privilege one ancestor or ancestral line as 'their origin', over others that are merely 'mixed in'. They're all just ancestors. Take Paul for example, is his ancestry Atreides, or whatever Jessica's background is*? He's just as much her son as he is Leto's. * spoiler alert
        _ph_ 5y ago
        That is of course correct. Isn't it even so that every 4th man in Asia can name Genghis Khan as his ancestor? I think in general, making large assumptions how humanity looks even very few generations in the future is pure speculation with the current speed of globalization and mobility.
jlawson 5y ago
Dune explicitly was adapted to satisfy PC morality. Villneuve said so (using other words of course). They made Jessica into a physical fighter, converted Liet Kynes into a black lady, excised the distinctive word 'jihad' to refer to Paul's vision of war. They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion and changed his servant boys into (bald) servant girls, etc. The damage wasn't too bad all things considered, but in Dune 2021's case the source book was not the Bible and it was definitely messed with.
- wslack 5y ago
  > They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion Probably because at the time Dune was written, people conflated those things in a way that caused a lot of harm to people not interested in harming children. Seems highly reasonable not to feed a trope like that.
  - pbak 5y ago
    Are you saying grown men keeping young boys for sexual gratification is not perversion anymore ? It seems to me that that catholic priests abusing choir boys or the "bacha bazi" practice in Afghanistan are still shocking everybody.
    - watwut 5y ago
      He is saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things. Homosexuality is specifically not being considered perversion anymore. And the adults abusing pre-pubescent boys are not necessary homosexuals.
      - pbak 5y ago
        I understood that distinction perfectly. And as OC wrote "at the time Dune was written", it is absolutely true the distinction was generaly not made. However this movie has been made in 2021. People who fail to make the distinction today are few and far between, except maybe in the extreme Christian Right or Fundamentalist Islam. Somehow, I don't think those are the target groups for the movie or book. IMHO the filmmakers wanted to "protect" (if you allow me such an expression) the "cause" of homosexuality by using preventative narrative censorship. However, a trope cannot be fed if next to nobody understands it in that way, under that specific context. Most of the audience would completely gloss over his homosexuality. Even homophobes are "used to it" now. This is precisely why I think they did a disservice to the work to pander to modern virtues and little gain. The audience/readers are supposed to find the Baron to be the most execrable human-adjacent being they have ever heard about. The author wanted to drive us to despise him. In only watching the show, you are robbed of the necessary substrate for that emotion to arise. His evil was abstracted.

bobsil1 5y ago

Quite the opposite: TV Foundation’s terrorists are brown; Villeneuve’s Dune turns Muhammad into a white guy and defends oil/spice colonialism.

smnrchrds 5y ago

Foundation, as written, does not lend itself to any medium other than text. Dune had already been adapted to films, TV shows, and games multiple times before Villeneuve's film. Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I agree that the Apple TV series does not capture the essence of the books, but no series or film possibly can. Best we can hope is a loose adaptation, which is what we have gotten now.

natechols 5y ago
I still think "The Mule", AKA the second half of "Foundation and Empire", could make an excellent standalone - still one of the best sci-fi thrillers IMHO, and much more interesting characters than most of Asimov. But otherwise, there are so many better choices for translating to screen...
chrisfosterelli 5y ago
On the other hand... Dune had also been widely considered 'unfilmable' in the industry and that same thing had been said about it: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-denis-villeneuves-dune-is-a-successful-adaptation-of-an-unfilmable-novel-10096271.html https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-denis-villeneuve...
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  But Foundation is the one that had never been adapted. It had passed the test of time for being unfilmable, unlike Dune that has been adapted multiple times to multiple media.
  - chrisfosterelli 5y ago
    My point is that something is only unfilmable up until the point at which someone makes a good film about it. There's lots of literary attributes which may make a series easier or harder to adapt, but, just like Dune used to be called unfilmable for the heavy monologue, length, and nonverbal components, a director with a vision can overcome them.
  - unicornmama 5y ago
    I think it’s comical that a group of techies make broad assertions about what’s film able and not film-able. It’s like because we’re smart in one domain then we are smart in other domains and can just make baseless claims not grounded with experience. If an experienced film creator made such claims then it’s worth listening. Otherwise these sorts of comments are just noise.
shirro 5y ago
I don't know if it is documented or not but I would swear Asimov had aphantasia. When I was younger reading him was a revelation after getting bogged down in long winded books full of visual description which just felt like needless baggage to me. There isn't a lot of imagery described in his books (not that I would see it anyway) but that doesn't mean it couldn't be presented visually while keeping to the spirit, just that Asimov probably couldn't have done it. Good writers and directors could. If given the Villeneuve or Kubrick treatment it might be very different.
canjobear 5y ago
I would barely call Apple TV's Foundation a loose adaptation. It's like 5% Foundation and 95% other made up stuff.
swsieber 5y ago
It was adapted to a radio drama. Pretty close to text, but also closer to an audio-visual format. And I liked it. https://archive.org/details/foundationtrilogythe--bbc1973radiodrama8hours https://archive.org/details/foundationtrilogythe--bbc1973rad...
unethical_ban 5y ago
It doesn't matter that Dune was previously adapted and Foundation wasn't. Prior adaptations could have been terrible, and this iteration of Foundation will be seen in 2042 the way 70s Lord of the Rings animation, or 1984 Dune, is seen today. I reject the premise you put in another post that there is some "test of time", some arbitrary number of years, that a book passes that deems it unfit for adaptation. It's one thing to acknowledge the flexibility required in converting a story from novel to film. It is another to change the entire message, character motives and morals while merely retaining the surface plotlines. For what it's worth, having read ten chapters of Dune after watching the amazing 2021 film, I can say they did a fantastic job capturing the spirit and the core storyline of the book.
ConceptJunkie 5y ago
> Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I believe there was a radio show adaptation done by the BBC.

wyager 5y ago

Dune wasn't exactly untouched by Hollywood politics. They completely eliminated the themes of European/Arabic cultural conflict (replacing everyone except the bad guys with a generic box-ticking multi-ethnic cast) and they completely nuked Kynes' character to replace him with a forgettable "generic strong woman" character.

simonh 5y ago
Oh come on. Atreides, Haleck, Hawat, Yueh, Idaho, Mattai. No hints of ethnic diversity there in the book at all? Really? I thought Sharon did a fantastic job as Kynes, one of the more naturalistic performances in the whole movie.
- k__ 5y ago
  The descriptions of Atreides in the book didn't strike me as particularly western. Dark hair, olive skin, etc.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    But they trace their line to the ancient greek Adreides which fought in the siege of Troy. So their origin would be Greek, whatever mixed in over the millenia.
    - simonh 5y ago
      Genetically it doesn't make sense to privilege one ancestor or ancestral line as 'their origin', over others that are merely 'mixed in'. They're all just ancestors. Take Paul for example, is his ancestry Atreides, or whatever Jessica's background is*? He's just as much her son as he is Leto's. * spoiler alert
      - _ph_ 5y ago
        That is of course correct. Isn't it even so that every 4th man in Asia can name Genghis Khan as his ancestor? I think in general, making large assumptions how humanity looks even very few generations in the future is pure speculation with the current speed of globalization and mobility.

jlawson 5y ago

Dune explicitly was adapted to satisfy PC morality. Villneuve said so (using other words of course). They made Jessica into a physical fighter, converted Liet Kynes into a black lady, excised the distinctive word 'jihad' to refer to Paul's vision of war. They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion and changed his servant boys into (bald) servant girls, etc. The damage wasn't too bad all things considered, but in Dune 2021's case the source book was not the Bible and it was definitely messed with.

wslack 5y ago
> They removed the Baron's homosexuality and sexual perversion Probably because at the time Dune was written, people conflated those things in a way that caused a lot of harm to people not interested in harming children. Seems highly reasonable not to feed a trope like that.
- pbak 5y ago
  Are you saying grown men keeping young boys for sexual gratification is not perversion anymore ? It seems to me that that catholic priests abusing choir boys or the "bacha bazi" practice in Afghanistan are still shocking everybody.
  - watwut 5y ago
    He is saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things. Homosexuality is specifically not being considered perversion anymore. And the adults abusing pre-pubescent boys are not necessary homosexuals.
    - pbak 5y ago
      I understood that distinction perfectly. And as OC wrote "at the time Dune was written", it is absolutely true the distinction was generaly not made. However this movie has been made in 2021. People who fail to make the distinction today are few and far between, except maybe in the extreme Christian Right or Fundamentalist Islam. Somehow, I don't think those are the target groups for the movie or book. IMHO the filmmakers wanted to "protect" (if you allow me such an expression) the "cause" of homosexuality by using preventative narrative censorship. However, a trope cannot be fed if next to nobody understands it in that way, under that specific context. Most of the audience would completely gloss over his homosexuality. Even homophobes are "used to it" now. This is precisely why I think they did a disservice to the work to pander to modern virtues and little gain. The audience/readers are supposed to find the Baron to be the most execrable human-adjacent being they have ever heard about. The author wanted to drive us to despise him. In only watching the show, you are robbed of the necessary substrate for that emotion to arise. His evil was abstracted.