Foundation (Asimov) Apple TV series

[G W Zipper]

A cursory search didn't turn up any threads discussing the Apple TV Isaac Asimov Foundation series yet. Anybody have any impressions of the trailers so far? Any insiders have any scoops on what to expect? To me, the trailers look stunning, graphically, though perhaps more action-oriented than the book series. If ever there was something that deserved a long running TV series rather than a feature movie, Foundation would be it IMO.

 

[Cephus]

I'm not holding my breath, mostly because every single thing I've ever seen on Apple TV has been a serious disappointment, but hey, I'll give the first episode a watch to see if somehow, they didn't screw it up.

 

[Darth Lars]

It seems to me that saying that the story has been padded out quite a lot would be an understatement.

 

[teragon]

Uh, personally I really enjoyed For All Mankind, Dickinson and The Morning Show, found them superior to most Netflix shows these days and on par with HBO and Amazon offerings. Will definitely check out this one as well.

 

[G W Zipper]

Since this is coming out in a couple of days, I'm just updating this thread to start some conversation. Me, I'm cautiously optimistic about this - I've read the series twice, and expect this to stray a fair bit in order to be filmable. Hoping it keeps some of the same headiness as the original material.

 

[renaissance_man]

I'll be watching the 3 available episodes across this weekend. The trailer looked promising. With a lack of high quality sci-fi TV at the moment this could satisfy that desire.

 

[3Dsf]

(no real spoilers particularly)

Well, I've seen episode 1. I had expected them to deviate massively from the original 1950s novels. Mainly because they had to. Asimov's books were all about Big Ideas, and not about characters. The books featured a parade of cardboard cutouts with goofy names, all male and presumed white, pontificating about said Ideas. The early books also seemed oddly small in scope - it was just a rotating cast of guys sitting around rooms talking, supposedly against this mighty backdrop of space and time and power. They were, after all, originally serialized short stories.

You couldn't make that stuff into an interesting TV show. Maybe a really long stage play that lasted weeks or something, or certainly a radio play, but let's be real.

So for TV, they had to focus on character. And grand visuals. And my goodness the visuals were sumptuous! It's fun how the framing and composition for TV is like cinema these days - they can put tiny details in a frame, in the knowledge that so many people are watching on big high-rez TVs.

Anyway. Episode I wasn't bad. It looked great, and was entertaining. Acting was decent, and mostly a cast of unknowns and character actors, which was wise. Just as wisely they had a reasonable spread of male and female characters and accents and skin tones, which obviously makes sense. Like the Expanse writ large, this is supposed to be the future of all humanity out in the galaxy. Effects, cinematography, set design, and costuming were all big-budget and excellent.

So it's naturally "inspired by Foundation" rather than the books themselves on-screen. Don't go in expecting a 1:1 correspondence of events.

Anyway. I'm definitely going to see where they go with it.

 

[renaissance_man]

I quite enjoyed the first couple of episodes, it has promise and is clearly a series with some longevity to it given there are three books upon which to draw inspiration.
Lee Pace is relishing his role as another power hungry character after his previous turn as Ronan the Accuser in GOTG and Captain Marvel.
Looking forward to episode 3 on Friday and where this series will go.

On a side note, I turned to my girlfriend whilst watching episode one and said I wonder who will be the first to reproduce the data module clear prop that Dr Seldon has.
It looks relatively simple but not necessarily one I'm looking to reproduce just yet.

 

[G W Zipper]

Haven't watched episode 2 yet, but I thought the first episode was brilliant. Given that it was never going to be able to go page for page with the books, this does the next best thing. Asimov being one of my favorite authors, I believe he would approve of what's been shown so far. Here's hoping they don't go GOT at the end of the series - the saving grace that Foundation has over GOT is the complete source material of the author to jump off from.

 

[Cephus]

I've seen the first two episodes and so far, so good. I think it's about the best we can expect.

 

[G W Zipper]

So - I get that the TV series is only loosely based on the books, and I really am enjoying them so far for what they are but one thing I'll particularly be interested in seeing how they stick with the books -

Spoiler: OK to read if you're only watching TV version

Why didn't the emperor ask Demerzel to confirm/refute Seldon's predictions?

Spoiler: robots in Foundation books - big ending spoiler, don't read if you haven't read all the books

in the books, robots weren't originally part of the universe, Asimov retconned them in years later. With Demerzel being a robot known to the Emperor, will she (or he, considering that "she's" also R Daneel Olivaw) remain the grandmaster behind the whole Seldon/Psychohistory thing? Did the emperor ask her, but she knowingly denied any understanding of psychohistory?

Also - am reading some mixed reviews of episode three. It's actually one of my favorites so far, especially the emperor's arc.

 

[Cephus]

I think it's fine because Foundation, as it's done in the books, could never be done, period. Anyone who is looking for the books, go read them. It'll never be on the big or small screen.

 

[Metaluna mutant]

Having seen 3 eps, I like it. I do think it's slow going because they're setting up, well, a thousand years of plot with a few hundred years of backstory thrown in.

Inspired by is the best description, but I'm satisfied. Granted, as has been repeatedly stated, Foundation is unadaptable to a visual media. A faithful adaption to a TV/Movie would basically be a platonic dialogue on stage. It's just dialogue, exposition, ideas and concepts.

As an aside, I find the idea of an Emperor cloning himself to rule consistently for hundreds of years interesting. Historically, the Roman Empire had a continual problem with a clearly defined mechanism for succession. When an Emperor died, anyone with an Army -- or just some local support -- could claim the Emperorship. The problem became so severe the Empire couldn't deal with other problems because new Emperors were coming every 1-3 years through assassination and civil wars to claim the spot. As Asimov originally meant Foundation to be a Sci-Fi version of the "Fall of the Roman Empire", it's a interesting idea.

 

[renaissance_man]

This week's episode was okay. I'm glad we finally got to see what happened to Gaal after being ejected in the escape pod but they wasted about 20minues retreading the same ground of the first episode by showing us her upbringing on Synax. There was nothing new in the flashback scenes in this episode that wasnt already conveyed in the first episode.
Plus, knowing that Gaal would be rescued by the Raven, why did Raych Foss make everything nearly impossible for her to get answers from the ship. It all just felt very contrived to remind us how amazingly intelligent Gaal is. Which was unnecessary as she proved herself by solving the Abraxas Conjecture, a feat not achieved by the empire's greatest mathematicians, so having her go through the convoluted method of extrapolating her destination was a bit of a waste of screentime.
I loved the design of the ship.
The series has great production design.
Overall I'm enjoying the series so far despite some pacing problems.

 

[Darth Lars]

It's not quite Asimov's Foundation but very well made. I found the last two episode (4 and 5) to be a bit bit slower-paced though, and I even skipped forward some during the flashbacks in the last one.

I started re-reading the first book. I can't quite see how the resolution on Terminus could be anywhere near how it is in the book though.

 

[G W Zipper]

This week's episode was okay. I'm glad we finally got to see what happened to Gaal after being ejected in the escape pod but they wasted about 20minues retreading the same ground of the first episode by showing us her upbringing on Synax. There was nothing new in the flashback scenes in this episode that wasnt already conveyed in the first episode.
Plus, knowing that Gaal would be rescued by the Raven, why did Raych Foss make everything nearly impossible for her to get answers from the ship. It all just felt very contrived to remind us how amazingly intelligent Gaal is. Which was unnecessary as she proved herself by solving the Abraxas Conjecture, a feat not achieved by the empire's greatest mathematicians, so having her go through the convoluted method of extrapolating her destination was a bit of a waste of screentime.
I loved the design of the ship.
The series has great production design.
Overall I'm enjoying the series so far despite some pacing problems.

I don't think Raych intended for Gaal to be the one in the pod, pretty sure he intended to escape himself. So the ship's computer wasn't meant to exclude Gaal, it was just meant to exclude anybody but him. Gotta love a math montage though, right?

I agree the Synax scene didn't add that much new, unless there was something in there I'm not seeing as important yet.

 

[G W Zipper]

I'm really surprised how little chatter there is on this show. Is nobody watching it because of the AppleTV subscription, or is everyone just un-opinionated (unthinkable within this group)?

 

[renaissance_man]

I'm really surprised how little chatter there is on this show. Is nobody watching it because of the AppleTV subscription, or is everyone just un-opinionated (unthinkable within this group)?

If my girlfriend hadn't bought an ipad and got a year of free AppleTV thrown in I wouldn't have watched Foundation. I've never worshiped at the church of Apple as many so feverently do, plus I wouldnt pay for yet another subscription service.

All that aside, I have been enjoying the series despite some pacing problems and some predictable parts. The casting has been very good and the production design is top notch.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

 

[G W Zipper]

If my girlfriend hadn't bought an ipad and got a year of free AppleTV thrown in I wouldn't have watched Foundation. I've never worshiped at the church of Apple as many so feverently do, plus I wouldnt pay for yet another subscription service.

All that aside, I have been enjoying the series despite some pacing problems and some predictable parts. The casting has been very good and the production design is top notch.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

I'm with you regarding the "church of apple" thing, but that's another conversation. I don't really think of Apple TV as a "normal" apple product (I'm surprised they don't make you buy an ipad to watch it on)- it's, as you say, just another subscription service.

 

[G W Zipper]

Not sure I like how Apple seems to not be following Asimov's three rules of robotics. I mean, it's a very core tenet of his writings. Unless the writers are somehow going to invoke his later zeroth law, it's a pretty big hurdle for me to overcome.

I love Brother Day's journey down the Great Spiral, and the anguish he obviously suffers having not seen anything at the end. Like the show or not, Lee Pace is doing a fantastic job.