4 ms·

To be fair Asimov himself kept us hanging with the books and only completed the series (making it worse imo), just because the commercial publishers wanted the

To be fair Asimov himself kept us hanging with the books and only completed the series (making it worse imo), just because the commercial publishers wanted the money. Sometimes less is more.

eadmund 2y ago
To be fair, Asimov’s Foundation and Apple’s Foundation are almost completely unrelated.
- dbspin 2y ago
  Indeed. One is an all time great science fiction series thats inspired a host of imitators. The other is whatever fluff Apple have bowdlerised its name with. It's genuinely closer to the YA fanfic level screenwriting of the new Star Trek series than Gibbon's Decline & Fall in space.
  - GreatLdisisp88 2y ago
    Asimov Foundation books near impossible to adapt to TV series or movies. It has no typical hero's arc. Even in Gibbon's Rome book you able to follow say Nero rise and downfall. As a generic idea book, Asimov books were ahead of his time. As a good scifi novel? He was several magnitudes below Cixin - and majority would even place Ursula way way higher than Asimov. Apple Foundation literally blast through Asimov story telling. To me, at least Apple succeeded as YA or within a potshot of Cixin. Asimov literally failed in adult scifi by today's standard. What holding you is nostalgia. Evaluate the story in contemporary terms.
    - leereeves 2y ago
      Why does a book need a hero's arc? I've read the "Second Foundation trilogy" written by other renowned sci-fi authors, as well as the later Foundation books written by Asimov. They had typical main characters with hero's arcs driving the story. I much preferred the originals. Especially the first book. It's refreshing to read a story where events occur because of unstoppable historical forces instead of the superhuman actions of a hero. If I wanted a story about a hero, I could read...well...just about any other book ever written.
      - voltaireodactyl 2y ago
        A book doesn’t, and Foundation makes excellent use of every inch of the novel as a medium to explore itself, but the commenter above was specifically referring to what made the book difficult to adapt into a television series. And while Malick et all can def do “rumination on a theme” as a feature film, an ongoing tv series requires the audience to invest and keep coming back week after week, episode after episode. Generally that takes the form of characters who experience things — ideally growing or changing in response, although many genres and formats don’t require that part. It’s unnecessary since part of the medium of television, unlike the novel, is people putting on a show to entertain you which is different from reading, an inherently more-individual experience. Part of what TV is selling is a group of people to hang out with every week. Generally. Which is not to say always — shows like Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt proved the anthology format has a wide audience. But they had the advantage of a brand new paradigm each week, which creates a relationship with the show itself (but even TZ allowed the audience Serling). Foundation def be done as anthology style episodes with some crossovers/overlap, but again practical realities make it difficult to guarantee narratively-necessary access to actors due to contract and scheduling factors, and you have the issue of both too big for standard structure and “not big enough” for a true anthology at its core. Not saying it couldn’t work it’d just be more difficult, which is not a quality that makes studios likely to invest.
        dbspin 2y ago
        I think your description of television much better fits the mould of 90's network TV (24 weekly episodes per year) than prestige era limited series or narrative arc TV. Foundation could absolutely be done as an anthology show in the vein of American Horror story - where each season covered an era of an unfolding narrative, with characters like Hari Seldon and R.Daniel recurring as audience favourites. Either way though, there are issues with the adaptation that are quite distinct from eschewing the episodic arc of the original trilogy. It's full of spiritual woo for one, which is entirely antithetical to Azimov's vision. It's also more than fond of sadistic violence. Azimov's whole method as a writer was to have smart characters solve difficult problems intellectually. 'Violence is the last resort of the incompetent' after all.
    - lostmsu 2y ago
      What's so interesting about Cixin? I could barely finish the books. On goodreads Foundation (which IMHO is not even among the best Asimov works) is rated noticeably higher than The Three Body Problem, and as a reader I feel it is justified. If you take into account the novelty factor, it will probably sink to the average rating of mediocrity in a couple of decades.
    - dbspin 2y ago
      Having read all of Azimov - but only the Dark Forrest trilogy by Liu Cixin, I actually think they're more comparable than you suggest. Both are hard science fiction 'ideas men'. Fairly uncomfortable with deep characterisation or 'literary' writing. Capturing vast scopes of time and space in space operas that are somehow more charming and interesting than their broad scope and concept heavy setups have any right to be. Azimov is more of a well rounded intellectual - the man literally wrote hundreds of general knowledge and popular science books. And it shows in his depth of reference and context. Cixin seems more rooted (inevitably) in authoritarianism and historicism. These critiques are obviously subjective. I've greatly enjoyed the work of both, but Cixin has a long long way to go before he can demonstrate the longevity let alone influence of an Azimov. They do share one other thing in common though - the adaptations of their work have been enormously disappointing, arguably entirely missing the point of the original series. Re: A hero's journey, hard disagree. There are numerous heroes in the original foundation series, and the later books have one very well drawn one - Golan Trevize, in addition to a host of memorable characters.
jahnu 2y ago
True but they have filmed season 3 already. Just hope it makes it out of the edit room and onto the screen.

To be fair Asimov himself kept us hanging with the books and only completed the series (making it worse imo), just because the commercial publishers wanted the money. Sometimes less is more.

eadmund 2y ago

To be fair, Asimov’s Foundation and Apple’s Foundation are almost completely unrelated.

dbspin 2y ago
Indeed. One is an all time great science fiction series thats inspired a host of imitators. The other is whatever fluff Apple have bowdlerised its name with. It's genuinely closer to the YA fanfic level screenwriting of the new Star Trek series than Gibbon's Decline & Fall in space.
- GreatLdisisp88 2y ago
  Asimov Foundation books near impossible to adapt to TV series or movies. It has no typical hero's arc. Even in Gibbon's Rome book you able to follow say Nero rise and downfall. As a generic idea book, Asimov books were ahead of his time. As a good scifi novel? He was several magnitudes below Cixin - and majority would even place Ursula way way higher than Asimov. Apple Foundation literally blast through Asimov story telling. To me, at least Apple succeeded as YA or within a potshot of Cixin. Asimov literally failed in adult scifi by today's standard. What holding you is nostalgia. Evaluate the story in contemporary terms.
  - leereeves 2y ago
    Why does a book need a hero's arc? I've read the "Second Foundation trilogy" written by other renowned sci-fi authors, as well as the later Foundation books written by Asimov. They had typical main characters with hero's arcs driving the story. I much preferred the originals. Especially the first book. It's refreshing to read a story where events occur because of unstoppable historical forces instead of the superhuman actions of a hero. If I wanted a story about a hero, I could read...well...just about any other book ever written.
    - voltaireodactyl 2y ago
      A book doesn’t, and Foundation makes excellent use of every inch of the novel as a medium to explore itself, but the commenter above was specifically referring to what made the book difficult to adapt into a television series. And while Malick et all can def do “rumination on a theme” as a feature film, an ongoing tv series requires the audience to invest and keep coming back week after week, episode after episode. Generally that takes the form of characters who experience things — ideally growing or changing in response, although many genres and formats don’t require that part. It’s unnecessary since part of the medium of television, unlike the novel, is people putting on a show to entertain you which is different from reading, an inherently more-individual experience. Part of what TV is selling is a group of people to hang out with every week. Generally. Which is not to say always — shows like Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt proved the anthology format has a wide audience. But they had the advantage of a brand new paradigm each week, which creates a relationship with the show itself (but even TZ allowed the audience Serling). Foundation def be done as anthology style episodes with some crossovers/overlap, but again practical realities make it difficult to guarantee narratively-necessary access to actors due to contract and scheduling factors, and you have the issue of both too big for standard structure and “not big enough” for a true anthology at its core. Not saying it couldn’t work it’d just be more difficult, which is not a quality that makes studios likely to invest.
      - dbspin 2y ago
        I think your description of television much better fits the mould of 90's network TV (24 weekly episodes per year) than prestige era limited series or narrative arc TV. Foundation could absolutely be done as an anthology show in the vein of American Horror story - where each season covered an era of an unfolding narrative, with characters like Hari Seldon and R.Daniel recurring as audience favourites. Either way though, there are issues with the adaptation that are quite distinct from eschewing the episodic arc of the original trilogy. It's full of spiritual woo for one, which is entirely antithetical to Azimov's vision. It's also more than fond of sadistic violence. Azimov's whole method as a writer was to have smart characters solve difficult problems intellectually. 'Violence is the last resort of the incompetent' after all.
  - lostmsu 2y ago
    What's so interesting about Cixin? I could barely finish the books. On goodreads Foundation (which IMHO is not even among the best Asimov works) is rated noticeably higher than The Three Body Problem, and as a reader I feel it is justified. If you take into account the novelty factor, it will probably sink to the average rating of mediocrity in a couple of decades.
  - dbspin 2y ago
    Having read all of Azimov - but only the Dark Forrest trilogy by Liu Cixin, I actually think they're more comparable than you suggest. Both are hard science fiction 'ideas men'. Fairly uncomfortable with deep characterisation or 'literary' writing. Capturing vast scopes of time and space in space operas that are somehow more charming and interesting than their broad scope and concept heavy setups have any right to be. Azimov is more of a well rounded intellectual - the man literally wrote hundreds of general knowledge and popular science books. And it shows in his depth of reference and context. Cixin seems more rooted (inevitably) in authoritarianism and historicism. These critiques are obviously subjective. I've greatly enjoyed the work of both, but Cixin has a long long way to go before he can demonstrate the longevity let alone influence of an Azimov. They do share one other thing in common though - the adaptations of their work have been enormously disappointing, arguably entirely missing the point of the original series. Re: A hero's journey, hard disagree. There are numerous heroes in the original foundation series, and the later books have one very well drawn one - Golan Trevize, in addition to a host of memorable characters.

jahnu 2y ago

True but they have filmed season 3 already. Just hope it makes it out of the edit room and onto the screen.