Online Series: Asimov's Foundation series on Apple tv
- Thread starter beowulf
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NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Foundation doesn't really lend itself to television.
Virtually no action sequences.
It does say "based on" which I guess means they have some lattitude.
Virtually no action sequences.
It does say "based on" which I guess means they have some lattitude.
Eisen
Registered User
It's too long for the big screen. As a tv show it could work. Here's crossing my fingers they don't rewrite it in a major way. Another question is how many of the novels are they going to film? The first three? The second trilogy as well (I hated Gaia when I read it), do they add the development of psychohistory and Dors?
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Eisen
Registered User
It will be interesting to see how far into the series they go. Goyer does mention the 1,000 years the series take place over so I am guessing they are leaving it open as to how far they go. I've read that Apple sees this as a Game of Thrones for them, I guess how Amazon is going with Lord of The Rings and Netflix has the Witcher....they all want these huge tent-pole, epic shows based on epic beloved series of novels.
Eisen
Registered User
They could definitely do that. The episodes between the vault appearances could be fleshed out and full of political intrigue, just for the start. With a good writer that could already be a season and it didn't efen start properly then.
I'm already very interested. And for such an influential work it was strangely absent from the screen.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Of course it doesn't.
That doesn't mean they won't try to put some in to attract the casuals.
I can't imagine the Mule coming into play for some time.
I suspect that, given how dry most of Asimov's material is (he is really more about ideas than execution), they are going to have to take a lot of liberties with his work, which will alienate some of the die-hard fans.
The trailer looks to be consistent with Prelude to Foundation / Forward the Foundation and could end with the establishment of the Foundation as opposed to the way the original novel begins with the Seldon Crises brought quickly to the forefront.
Eisen
Registered User
That might be true. I know I wouldn't like it. As you said, it's about ideas and subtle manipulation, not fights. If you shoehorn in a lot of fights, how could they justify the Second Foundation?
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
I've often thought about how to turn this into a movie or TV series and to be honest, I really thought it couldn't be done.
No characters are consistent because of the time jumps throughout the story. Every Seldon crisis could be a very interesting story in its own right, but the novel cruises along pretty quickly in its early stages.
So I'm rather curious.
Eisen
Registered User
I don't know. The black girl could be Gaal Dornick so the trailer could only be the very beginning of Foundation, then again, it could be Dors and then it might be Prelude/Forward.
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NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
I suppose the prequels are pretty dry as well - you don't really need a lot of time dedicated towards those plot lines.
They could probably summarize them in one or two episodes.
I was thinking about the last two released novels, aka the prequels, and whether they would include that.
Now if someone out there had the vision and wanted to something really epic as a on-going series that would likely take a decade or more to play out would be to do all three series in order as Asimov created them to be in the same universe.
- I, Robot (1950) - a fixup novel composed of 9 short stories about robots, set in the 21st century on Earth
- The Positronic Man (1992) - a standalone robot novel, co-written with Robert Silverberg, based on Asimov's 1976 novelette "The Bicentennial Man", set from the 22nd to 24th centuries
- Nemesis (1989) - a standalone novel, set in the 23rd century in a star system about 2 light years from Earth, when interstellar travel was new
- The Caves of Steel (1954) - first Robot Series/R. Daneel Olivaw novel, set in the 35th century on Earth[36]
- The Naked Sun (1957) - second Robot Series/R. Daneel Olivaw novel, set in the 35th century on the Spacer planet Solaria[36]
- The Robots of Dawn (1983) - third Robot Series/R. Daneel Olivaw novel, set in the 35th century on the Spacer planet Aurora[36]
- Robots and Empire (1985) - fourth Robot Series/R. Daneel Olivaw novel, set in the 37th century on Earth, Solaria, Aurora, and Baleyworld[36]
- The Stars, Like Dust (1951) - first Empire Series novel, set thousands of years in the future before the founding of a Galactic Empire
- The Currents of Space (1952) - second Empire Series novel, set thousands of years in the future during Trantor's unification of the galaxy into a Galactic Empire
- Pebble in the Sky (1950) - third Empire Series novel, primarily set thousands of years in the future on Earth, when the galaxy is unified into a Galactic Empire
- Prelude to Foundation (1988) - first Foundation Series novel
- Forward the Foundation (1993) - second Foundation Series novel
- Foundation (1951) - third Foundation Series novel
- Foundation and Empire (1952) - fourth Foundation Series novel
- Second Foundation (1953) - fifth Foundation Series novel
- Foundation's Edge (1982) - sixth Foundation Series novel
- Foundation and Earth (1986) - seventh Foundation Series novel
- The End of Eternity (1955) - a standalone novel, about Eternity, an organization "outside time" which aims to improve human happiness by altering history
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
What's funny about Asimov is that the stories were written so long ago that inevitably there is some cringe-worthy social commentary at times and behaviours that probably wouldn't fly in today's society.
So there will have to be some kind of modernization of his material.
One character I've always liked is Susan Calvin, who could be a terrific protagonist in our current age. She's probably the most well-developed and well-rounded individual in the Asimov universe. She appeared in the film I Robot but was a pale copy of the actual character.
Susan Calvin embraces robopsychology because of her own deep-seated psychological issues - caring for and understanding robots in a manner that she never could with humanity.
"Liar!" and "Evidence / The Evitable Conflict" (both in Robot Visions and both featuring Susan Calvin) represent high points of managing to blend character and science fiction concepts. In general, I found Asimov to be great on ideas, and short on character.
IMO, Olivaw and Baley, despite their popularity, are showing their age as fairly one-dimensional Holmes and Watson archetypes.
So there will have to be some kind of modernization of his material.
One character I've always liked is Susan Calvin, who could be a terrific protagonist in our current age. She's probably the most well-developed and well-rounded individual in the Asimov universe. She appeared in the film I Robot but was a pale copy of the actual character.
Susan Calvin embraces robopsychology because of her own deep-seated psychological issues - caring for and understanding robots in a manner that she never could with humanity.
"Liar!" and "Evidence / The Evitable Conflict" (both in Robot Visions and both featuring Susan Calvin) represent high points of managing to blend character and science fiction concepts. In general, I found Asimov to be great on ideas, and short on character.
IMO, Olivaw and Baley, despite their popularity, are showing their age as fairly one-dimensional Holmes and Watson archetypes.
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Eisen
Registered User
Is "The End of Eternity" in the same universe? It doesn't mention anything about it as far as I remember.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Eisen
Registered User
Agreed on Calvin and Baley but I am unsure about Olivaw. If you take all the novels together and toss in Giskard, Baley and Seldon you see a nice development of the character
The Macho King
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- Jun 22, 2011
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The problem with the Foundation series is the original trilogy is so good, and all of the prequels/additional material he wrote later suck.
Same with his Robot novels. And then he tried to link them all together a la Heinlein.
Same with his Robot novels. And then he tried to link them all together a la Heinlein.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
If you haven't had a chance to read Robot Visions, I highly recommend it!
There may be some redundancy with some other anthologies.
There may be some redundancy with some other anthologies.
I may follow your lead and do the same with my stack of ancient Asimov books.
This is the sci-fi geek's version of 'whipping it out'.
I don't even know where to start here. The Foundation Trilogy might've been the very first big book I fell in love with. Read it as a teenager, then re-read the whole thing again in my 20s. Haven't touched it in 30 years. It's in my long term memory surrounded by the same gauzy romantic glow as my first girlfriend.
First question is why anyone would choose this source material in the first place. I'm shocked that a 70-year old story high on concept and low on character development would be considered, let alone get made. How many people still care about Isaac Asimov and are familiar with the trilogy? Honestly, I can't be objective, but it would be a pleasant surprise to learn that people under 50 would want to watch this.
Next thought is that they'd have to span the entire 1000 year (or whatever it was) timeline for the psychohistory premise to have its full dramatic impact. You can't possibly condense the arc into a single generation, at least not without radically re-writing the central idea of reshaping the future over a millennium. But if the series respects Hari Seldon's vision, it sacrifices main characters that carry the story from start to finish. Too many planets, periods and people to really dig deep on any of them, which is a built-in design flaw for a filmed series. How the hell are they going to pull this off? What a shame to wait this long for a dud.
Last thought: you don't hear the word, "interregnum" often, but on the rare occasion it's used I immediately flash back to The Foundation Trilogy.
First question is why anyone would choose this source material in the first place. I'm shocked that a 70-year old story high on concept and low on character development would be considered, let alone get made. How many people still care about Isaac Asimov and are familiar with the trilogy? Honestly, I can't be objective, but it would be a pleasant surprise to learn that people under 50 would want to watch this.
Next thought is that they'd have to span the entire 1000 year (or whatever it was) timeline for the psychohistory premise to have its full dramatic impact. You can't possibly condense the arc into a single generation, at least not without radically re-writing the central idea of reshaping the future over a millennium. But if the series respects Hari Seldon's vision, it sacrifices main characters that carry the story from start to finish. Too many planets, periods and people to really dig deep on any of them, which is a built-in design flaw for a filmed series. How the hell are they going to pull this off? What a shame to wait this long for a dud.
Last thought: you don't hear the word, "interregnum" often, but on the rare occasion it's used I immediately flash back to The Foundation Trilogy.
