I've been reading a lot of Asimov lately (though I've not read Foundation yet) and greatly enjoying it. Something I love about his novels is that about halfway through, the characters will start interpreting the situation and making decisions about it, and there's a great deal of sophistication to it. People are often wrong, or even come to the correct conclusion through incorrect means.
Currents of Space is an especially good example here, the characters will spin these complex conspiracy theories and talk themselves into a paranoid position, but in the end the explanations are very simple, but their bigotries prevented them from seeing it.
Which brings me to my next point, I was surprised by how political they were, in a quiet, unassuming way. There's a strong through line of center-left populism and critiques of bigotry and classism and sexism (though Asimov clearly had some blind spots here as well, he's a product of his time after all). He was very artful about constructing scenarios where his critique was apparent, without being explicit and without it feeling forced or in your face.
I feel like Apple´s Foundation is three shows pretzeled into one:
- Days of our Cleons: mature and political, similar to Asimov's writing.
- Star Trek Salvor: superficial action show with a controversial superprotagonist.
- Gaal Dornick and the Chamber of Gaia: nonsensical chosen-one kid's show.
Not a single one respects the sources enough to be called simply "Foundation", although the first IMO is the most interesting of the three, and coincidentally, the one who took most of the screen time in season 1. I don't plan on watching season 2 until mit's over, and only if the reviews are better. It would consume too much time for the quality of the entertainment.
The first season was frustrating for me. If it was a stand alone story I probably would have really enjoyed it, but it is based on one of my favorite sci-fi book series, and it is one of the least faithful adaptations I've seen.
It's an infuriating trend with modern shows, they take something established and proceed to ignore what established it, and end up with something completely different.
Honest derivatives like Rick and Morty have demonstrated how you can both use a beloved franchise and create something completely different from it, yet most producers choose the evil path.
I think the big issue is that adaptation is it's own special skillset. Being able to adapt an existing work in as faithful a way as possible while juggling technical, budgetary, human, contractual, medium, etc. constraints is a really difficult thing to do. And the problem is most people who get into making movies and TV don't get into it because they want to be adapters. They get into it because they want to be creative. They want to tell new stories or tell old stories in new and creative ways. So there aren't really a lot of talented adapters in Hollywood. The studios have an insatiable apatite for adaptations. They're looking for that built in audience and franchise potential. But the pool of adapters is small, and so they hire a team of creatives instead of a team of adapters.
Hmm. I thought the first season was cool, and very well acted, well scored, etc...but had very little in common with the book series. Should be interesting to see what direction the show goes in.
Now I can't get the emporer's theme out of my head.
I loved the show and picked up the book afterwards (still working my way through it), and ya I think you're right to some extent, but the show feels more additive than reductive; the book, as it is, would not adopt well for television, and the more human stories felt like a nice addition for me without straying too far away from the book's story. Arrival felt like it was in a similar boat where it was adapted for the movie-medium and, IMO, much better for it.
The best parts of the show were the original parts that focused on the Empire and Lee Pace did a great job as Brother Day. The show dropped off hard whenever it focused on the actual settlement on Terminus and it remained extremely unfaithful to the books all the way through.
Don’t know why you got downvoted. This opinion is very widespread, based on people around me from diverse political opinions, including the « woke and moralistic » part. Hollywood recent trend of displaying moral virtues instead of a good script is ruining a lot of recent shows. This becomes embarrassing as most of the world isn’t concerned by america’s internal politics.
Well, apparently there are several people that agree with you, but I watched season 1, and I don't remember anything that could be called "woke," or was in any way pertaining to American liberal-vs-conservative or racial divides, even as allegory. Do you mind refreshing my recollection? Obviously, there were different races and religions from different planets in conflict. I am fairly centrist, so perhaps I'm not as attuned as some.
the most obvious one is the trend of gender swap (man character becomes a woman character , usually with a far more important role, to boost the character a bit) and racial swap (white becomes black) to get a perfect « diversity » in the cast of characters on screen which look totally artificial and very often derails the story from the original plot (because they absolutely want to demonstrate that woman are as strong as men, instead of just create a good plot).
The only exception in my mind so far is « sandman ». Which also had the same swap, but the original writer being involved, he managed to do it in a much more intelligent way (turning lucifer into a woman, and death as a black character for example, are two very interesting choices, that other writers may have been scared to do).
Art reflects the current state of culture. When you consider speaking to basic human rights "extreme", in a time when basic human rights are being actively attacked on a daily basis, you're on the wrong side of history. If the the bigots would stop attacking these rights, artist would be bored talking about them because, from the other side, there is nothing remarkable about it other than the struggles introduced by the assholes who hate certain people for existing.
Basic human rights haven’t been attacked in the US since the anti-terrorist laws voted after 9/11
But somehow i assume this isn’t what you mean… and this is most certainly not what hollywood chose to put in their series for elevating the moral level of society (since it looks like they’re now reconverting from entertainers to priests). Instead what we end up with are bizarro versions of modern classics.
I haven't read the books but felt the series sort of floundered a bit in the later epsiodes, and in particular found myself not that interested in any scenes not containing Empire (can thank Lee Pace for that!) but excited to see where it goes.
(spoilers) Remember when they revealed a clone of Brother Dawn that might have added some interest to the storyline but just kidding they immediately killed off the clone. Guest written by the GoT guys I assume.
I thought they discovered their DNA had been messed with for quite a while. Anyway, hope Dawn’s girlfriend gets rescued - seemed a fate worse than death.
I read a lot of Asimov in high school and for whatever reason I didn’t like Foundation.
I also didn’t like the TV series though I will probably watch season 2. It was visually appealing but I found it to be somehow flat. Like, the damage from the collapse of the space elevator - IIRC this was described to great effect in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series - but in Foundation it really felt underwhelming. (That said: “Three Colours Mars” I would definitely watch!)
Also quite weird to see Lee Pace as Empire, since the series I’d just finished was Halt and Catch Fire (recommended).
The one Apple TV show I really enjoyed was Severance. That was amazing.
No idea what everyone is on about calling season 1 “woke”. Have no clue what that refers to. I think the big problem was that it was pretty stupid and boring and confusing and poorly acted. Having not read the books, the only thing I really liked was the Lee Pace genetic dynasty which apparently isn’t even in the books.
Currents of Space is an especially good example here, the characters will spin these complex conspiracy theories and talk themselves into a paranoid position, but in the end the explanations are very simple, but their bigotries prevented them from seeing it.
Which brings me to my next point, I was surprised by how political they were, in a quiet, unassuming way. There's a strong through line of center-left populism and critiques of bigotry and classism and sexism (though Asimov clearly had some blind spots here as well, he's a product of his time after all). He was very artful about constructing scenarios where his critique was apparent, without being explicit and without it feeling forced or in your face.