I got a three month trial of Apple + and since the Stros were done have watched the first three episodes. For me so far very Meh... It looks great with some incredible and beautiful sets. The acting is mixed but agree that Lee Pace is very good but many of the other actors are wooden, not all their fault as given how sprawling the story is it's hard for them to really dig into their roles. What really bothers me though is how much they departed from the original story and this feels like they started with the settings, character names and then took off from there with no fealty to the original story. While not as bad or as much of a departure as Will Smith's I Robot was from the original Asimov's stories this is a very far departure. The departures though I don't think add anything to the overall story and to me seem more like an excuse to not just get more action in but shoehorn at least two other sci-fi stories into the Foundation story. Stuff like this feels like a lack of trust in the source material. I get it that the original Foundation series was written in the 50's and is lacking in action. It's endurance though is because the story holds together with enough turns to keep it entertaining. The Foundation series so far to me feels like what doomed the 1982 Dune movie that there wasn't enough trust in the story that they had to add in a bunch of other stuff like voice weapons to make it more appealing. All of that said as a sci-fi nerd I'll keep on watching and give it a chance on it's own merits but honestly other than the names of people and places this doesn't really feel like Asimov's story.
As a big Asimov fan I'm still having a hard time with how much it departs from the original story. It literally goes against some of the principles that were laid out in the original.
Read the books…. I’d give it a C- Really enjoyed the Empire genetic clones… that’s different than the books but was pretty “meh” on everything else. Really departs from the books.
I finished the series and honestly I wish I hadn't read the books before seeing the show. It's just too different and other than the names really feels like a completely different story. The biggest problem I have with it though is how it just drops some key points from Asimov's story and either drops them or goes against them. Seldon develops psychohistory which is the science that allows him to develop his plan. Psychohistory largely works by considering movements of large populations of humans like atoms of gas. As such individual humans matter very little. While there are individuals who play key roles the idea behind "The Seldon Plan" is that conditions are forced where smart rational people will make what will to them seem obvious decisions. It's a major plot point of the overall story arc where a particular mutant individual upsets the plan because a mutant cannot be predicted. Without giving away spoilers the problem with the Apple Series is that The Seldon Plan specifically depends on individual actions by certain exceptional possibly mutant people. At one point one of the major characters themselves says that Seldon said an individual is the key, which is the opposite of the point of Pyschohistory in the books. This show isn't as bloody as many other shows but there is a fair amount of violence. While blood sells in the books violence was both downplayed but also mocked and the story often involved how the protagonists found ways around problems without using violence. In the series though main characters embrace violence and encourage it. Spoiler In the book one of Salvor Hardin's mottos is "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". In the show though Salvor Hardin frequently shoots people and rather than the voice of restraint advocates the Foundation take violent action against the Anacreon' and looks for every opportunity to kill Anacreon invaders. While her father does say "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" he dies planting a bomb to blow up the Anacreon ships. There are also a few characters and names taken from the overall Asimov universe that are thrown in but how they are used is very different than Asimov had and in some cases there are key plot points from the later story arc that hinge on those and it looks like they will have to majorly change the story to make them work. The biggest one of these is the character Demerzel. Spoiler Demerzel is the first minister of the emperor in the lead up to the Foundation and is a robot that has existed for 20,000 years but one of the key points of the story is that no one knows he (in the book) is a robot. That many people know that she/he is a robot and that robots still exist greatly changes the role of the character and also the nature of the empire. This is a really big spoiler for Demerzel in the books so for any who haven't read a lot of Asimov and want to be in suspense don't read. Spoiler Demerzel in the book series is revealed to be not only the key character in the Foundation series but the key character in the whole Asimov story arc. He is actually Daneel Olivaw and has existed since the Asimov Robot series set 20,000 years before the Foundation. He ties together the whole Asimov Universe. While in general I'm not bothered by changing the gender casting Daneel Olivaw as a male Robot actually matters to plot. Also he has been the influence for many other figures in sci-fi including Spock and he specifically Data. To me while the Apple series suffers from the same problems that the Will Smith adaption of I Robot suffered from that the story was completely changed to the point that the ideas and philosophy of Asimov was totally lost. In I Robot it was to make a loud action packed mess but in Foundation it appears to be because the writers had something totally different in mind than Asimov. Taking the series on it's own it's not bad and there is a lot that I liked about it. The visuals are stunning and even though it's not Asimov's the genetic dynasty is very interesting. The exploration of religion in the Empire is also very interesting. Leaving besides where it departs from Asimov the story of what happens in the Foundation itself seems both forced and confusing at times. Lee Pace is great as Empire but a lot of the other acting seems very wooden. Overall I would say it's a decent show and entertaining. I'll watch the next seasons but I almost wish they hadn't called it "Foundation."
The feel of the books is very different. The early one's were a series of short stories written for sci-fi pulp magazines in the 50's so they will come off as very dated. There is also isn't much action in them but what makes them good is the ideas behind them and the sprawling nature of story arc. Through the books events happen decades and even centuries apart and protagonist in one story become historical reference points in the next. Even in the later books written in the 70's and 80's where there is some more action there is a lot of philosophical and scientific discussion in them rather than action.
Free trial is long up..... and now: I thought it was an above average show and I read the books. After watching the trailer I went down a Foundation TV series youtube rabbit hole and came to the conclusion that the Cleon storyline was by far the best and most original aspect of the TV series. This is a pretty big departure from the books, but became my favorite part of the show.
I'm looking forward to it. It was enjoyable entertainment, not great mind you, but enough to keep me interested.
I’m going to watch it but am not very excited by it. I’m a classic sci-fi nerd and still don’t like how much they trashed the story and more importantly the philosophy of Asimov. Other than names it has almost nothing to do with the actual Foundation series and wish they would’ve just called it something else and changed the names.
I understand, they did it to a lesser extent for Wheel of Time and the TV show kind of sucks. Hoping future seasons get better but the show runner has an axe to grind it seems. We'll see. I don't have an interest on the books for this series sor it doesn't bother me as much, but I can understand how the quality drops when amateur show runners make their own changes for shows and how it can ruin them.
I didn’t read the Wheel of Time books and quit watching the series after a few episodes. It just didn’t keep my interests and seemed like fairly run of the mill fantasy. I haven’t read much about the show runner for Apple Foundation but it does seem like they don’t trust the original source material at all and it would make sense to me if they actually didn’t like it and thought the message of it was bad so they decided to go a completely different direction. That was what Verhoven did with Starship Troopers as the movie is very different from the book. Verhoven felt the book was too much a praise of the military so he deliberately changed the story and look to make it overtly Fascist. In Foundation the feeling I get is the that they thought the source material was too slow and boring so they crammed in multiple storylines and a lot of action. They also took names from other Asimov stories and just put them it to try to appeal to sci-if nerds. It’s understandable the original source material written as a series of short stories in the 1940’s and 1950’s would need to be updated and fleshed out for current viewers but trashing the philosophy for what seems to me is that it’s not as exciting just seems wrong. It’s basically doing this: There is stuff of the Apple Foundation series that is vey interesting. Such as the genetic dynasty and the religions of the empire that weren’t in the original series. It seems like those are from separate storylines. To me it would’ve almost been better to do a separate show about those rather than cram them into the Foundation.
Outstanding, judo. While I've seen all the associated films several times, I've never seen this. Very sly and amusing, and very well done. Thanks. I'm a fellow fan of classic science fiction.
