Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" (2021 - Apple TV)

[Khaldun]

I think they'll be pretty disappointed if they read the books. I just re-read them again this past summer and they really have not held up well.

(The Caves of Steel and the later Baley/Olivaw books are still pretty good, and the stories in I, Robot are as good as they ever were, meaning that the clunkers are still clunkers and the great stories are great.)

[Surlyboi]

The newcomers will hate the books. A few will find some weird-ass fascination with them. The neckbeards will rage at the differences.  The insecure morons will complain about how “woke” it is and the world will keep on turning. I’m just glad we’re putting it on screen.

[Endie]

I will be disappointed if they don't retain Asimov's coal-powered spaceships.  I want to finally see on the screen the chief engineer shouting at the captain that he can't give him any more power because they're stoking as hard as they can, while grimy men, stripped to the waist, shovel away like Stakhanovites in the background.

Edit: I know that some people argue that their societies are coal-powered but actually they have leftover ships using nuclear power but that just leaves me picturing them kicking a reactor whose fuel rods failed centuries ago.

[slog]

How is this turning out? 

[Tale]

I'm watching and I like it. I don't think I've read the books (though I did read some Asimov 33 years ago - a year where I lived in the school library's sci-fi section). I'm told it's not really like the books.

The first five episodes or so were full of slow, lavish world-building (worthy of the budget), with a little action. Since then there's been more intensity and some cliffhangers.

They've apparently made a lot of changes with race and gender and to me that really works in the show's favour, rather than seeming forced. I look forward to it each Friday.

[Chimpy]

The books never really mention race in particular. But they were a mega-sausage fest. I am not sure there even was a single female main character in any of the books.

[Khaldun]

Zippo. Closest you get is Bayta, who (kind of) foils the Mule.

[Setanta]

Isn't Gaia female from Foundation and Earth? It's been so long since I've read the books.

[Johny Cee]

The books never really mention race in particular. But they were a mega-sausage fest. I am not sure there even was a single female main character in any of the books.

I mean..  Asimov thought women were for groping, not for talking and actually doing shit.

[Khaldun]

Not even an exaggeration that. He got a public rep for being pretty gross back when people generally did not talk about that kind of thing and he didn't even seem particularly embarrassed about it.

Gaia is female, in the sequels, but that was written way later when Asimov was getting a bit sensitive about the constant knock that he absolutely couldn't write women. And of course Gaia is there in part for potential sexual gratification (and if I remember right, says as much).

Gladia in the later sequel to the Olivaw-Baley books is actually written fairly well.

[Teleku]

Zippo. Closest you get is Bayta, who (kind of) foils the Mule.

Err, that's not 'closest'.  She is the full POV character for that entire story/era who drives the plot.  Probably one of the most important main character of that book.

But yes, it was very male dominated and I'm fine with them gender switching for whatever.  Having said that, I'm annoyed they went out of there way to keep the main girl characters alive to the next century instead of wiping the cast and starting again like you'd expect.  Especially fucking Gaal Dornick.  All she did for 10 episodes straight was scream and cry pathetically about whatever bad situation she was in.  Every fucking episode.  Was so ready for her to be killed off by time, or somebody just strangling her, but nooooo!

So I overall liked this for the first half.  Even though almost none of this was in the books, the world building was great, character setup for the imperials and various factions engaging, ect.  But then the foundation plot line shifted to the half assed event horizon story, and everything that lead up to it and after was pretty cliche.  Still some good stuff, but a lot of eye rolling from me.  And the small scale of cast for such big events made the last few episodes feel like a very high produced Star Trek episode, not to mention the dialog and resolution.  Probably not going to bother to stick around for whatever comes next unless reviews are great.

[Raguel]

But yes, it was very male dominated and I'm fine with them gender switching for whatever.  Having said that, I'm annoyed they went out of there way to keep the main girl characters alive to the next century instead of wiping the cast and starting again like you'd expect.  Especially fucking Gaal Dornick. 

If you think about it, all the main characters were done this way (one's a robot, 3 are clones, another AI as opposed to a recording). I think they just didn't trust a general audience would stay engaged if all of the main characters in the first season didn't come back for a second season.

[Abagadro]

Thought this was pretty good right up to the last 2 episodes which I thought were terrible.

[Khaldun]

There's a good analysis of this series in the Atlantic that gets at some things that I couldn't clearly articulate myself--basically that Asimov never even bothers to explain why Seldon's vision of a shorter interval of 'barbarism' before the revival of empire is one we're supposed to root for at all, but that Goyer walks away from that because times have changed without providing a substitute reason to root for the Foundation. The point about the change to Hardin's character is especially good. Sure, he's a boring Heinlein-esque smartass negotiator in the original books, but that's a big relief from him being Zapp Branigan as an alternative.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/foundation-tv-series-books-empire/620750/

[Raguel]

There's a good analysis of this series in the Atlantic that gets at some things that I couldn't clearly articulate myself--basically that Asimov never even bothers to explain why Seldon's vision of a shorter interval of 'barbarism' before the revival of empire is one we're supposed to root for at all, but that Goyer walks away from that because times have changed without providing a substitute reason to root for the Foundation. The point about the change to Hardin's character is especially good. Sure, he's a boring Heinlein-esque smartass negotiator in the original books, but that's a big relief from him being Zapp Branigan as an alternative.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/foundation-tv-series-books-empire/620750/

It's been awhile since I've read the books but this seems on point. I just have a minor quibble re: the heroes being nerds. I can only really remember Hardin and in my mind he led a coup against the nerds. He understood people way too much to be a true nerd, but maybe that's just my bias.

I really wanted to like this series. I realize they needed to make some changes from the original (it's really just a bunch of dudes talking in various rooms: all the action takes place offstage), but I can't help but think they missed the plot.

[Endie]

There's a good analysis of this series in the Atlantic that gets at some things that I couldn't clearly articulate myself--basically that Asimov never even bothers to explain why Seldon's vision of a shorter interval of 'barbarism' before the revival of empire is one we're supposed to root for at all, but that Goyer walks away from that because times have changed without providing a substitute reason to root for the Foundation. The point about the change to Hardin's character is especially good. Sure, he's a boring Heinlein-esque smartass negotiator in the original books, but that's a big relief from him being Zapp Branigan as an alternative.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/foundation-tv-series-books-empire/620750/

That's not what that article says. He makes clear that Asimov does explain why the restoration of the Empire is a good thing. The critique is of the lazy approach of the show-runner for the TV series, who adopts the acceptable modern take of "Empires are necessarily bad: look how evil they are" but then plots a series around characters trying to restore it:

"Asimov’s Galactic Empire, despite its flaws, is the greatest incubator of art and knowledge the universe has ever known. Goyer’s is just a brutal autocracy. Who cares if it is destroyed? Why would anyone want to make another one?"

To Asimov, the problem with the Empire was not its nature, but that it has declined and failed to serve its purpose of securing peace, stability and a bedrock upon which art and science can grow.  But Goyer was incapable of the nuance of taking that approach, balancing it with a post-colonial analysis and exploring the complexity of the moral questions that arose. Which is a shame, because that sort of use of a fictional frame to explore current problems is the excitement of so much speculative fiction.

[Khaldun]

I don't agree with the author that Asimov explains in any kind of detailed or specified way--and if you read it carefully, the author's article acknowledges that it's implicit (it's why he makes such a big deal of the Cold War context). Seldon offers only a very few reasons why he wants a galactic state to rise again as quickly as possible--he largely treats it as self-evident. The character of 'barbarism' is laid out in the first book in the Foundation's first encounters with local enemies (as the author of the article notes). When Bel Riose shows up in the second book, he hardly bothers to explain why he thinks the Empire is worth defending--it just is. Nobody in Second Foundation has anything to say about what they're ultimately trying to build. If you can find a detailed passage in Foundation where Seldon explains specifically, with details, why the Empire is a great thing and why he wants to revive it as fast as possible, say where. "Because art and science" is pretty vague; in Foundation and Empire we even hear from a person whose complaint against the Empire was that it brutally destroyed the art and science of his own world (and not because it was in decline).

In the not-great-sequels, Foundation and Second Foundation set out to convince Trevize that the future is best guided by one of the two of them, which I think is Asimov acknowledging that he needed to say *something*, but it's pretty weak tea. Trevize decides for Gaia, ostensibly because he finds the arguments so weak and Gaia's plan is slow and reversible if it's a mistake. We find out at the very end that Daneel wanted it that way because a human galaxy needed to get ready for invasion by alien galaxies, which is pretty fucking stupid, imho.

[Endie]

That's cool. Your previous post explicitly said that the author of that article did echo your opinion, and I pointed out that it didn't.

That doesn't require me to search the books to argue with you on your interpretation. Just to point out that the article said the opposite of what you stated. Which I did.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I felt the entire point of the article was that the TV series skipped a reason why the empire needed to be preserved, unlike the books.

But without going back to reread it right now (it's been awhile), it seemed pretty straight forward.  Especially considering how much it's based on the fall of the Roman Empire.  If the empire disintegrates as it is right now, it will lead to mass civil war that will wipe out a significant amount of the galaxies population, and reduce math/science/art/standards of living/civilization back to the brutal primitive days for thousands of years.  I think most people would generally consider that 'bad', something to be avoided.  So the plan is just a relatively short bit of that (only a thousand years) before a new empire can quickly refill the power vacuum and reestablish the Pax Romana, so that everybody can live in peace.

Of course that might be a controversial take now I guess, but I'd honestly like to see them be brave enough to just run with the general premise of a benevolent empire ruling everybody as the best option.  Certainly would break with all the standard tropes from Hollywood.

[Khaldun]

Except that even in Asimov's original trilogy, it's plain that it's not best for everybody. Seldon himself acknowledges that it's been falling apart for a long time; in Foundation and Empire we learn about one planet where a rebellion led to an entire city dying from an atomic weapons attack intended to punish the rebels. It isn't until Second Foundation that we see that the Seldon Plan intends to stabilize the future empire with a secret clique of telepathic rulers--basically Plato's philsopher-kings--but even in Second Foundation we find out that they're not moral paragons themselves (a long-time rejoinder to Plato). In the sequels, Asimov opens that up even more--it's no longer clear that either Foundation will provide an answer to the problem of internal instability in a galaxy-wide empire.

But basically, yeah, I think the author of the article is right that Asimov was just assuming that Cold War American readers would vibe with the assumption that a galactic empire would encourage peace, stability, science and art in keeping with the 1960s understanding of the blessings of the Pax Americana. But Asimov doesn't say it explicitly and it seems evident to me that this is a basically dumb and unconvincing assumption in the books much as it has been in the real world. Not just for the US in  the Cold War--the entire idea of the "Dark Ages" after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has been thoroughly rubbished by historians.

[Endie]

I enjoyed this article - https://lawliberty.org/book-review/foundation-dark-future/ - which explores the Foundation books as a reflection of Asimov's own journey from a celebration of rationalism and positivism to dubious and fantastical mysticism.

[Tale]

I enjoyed this series as a big-budget sci-fi hit that sometimes really gave me what I was looking for: all the scenes involving spaceships, and the convincing environments of each planet. Much of the drama was forgettable, but I didn't really mind. I thought the actors playing Salvor Hardin and Gaal Dornick were great and really made these revised characters their own. For the budget it all could have been much better, but it was a decent watch while waiting for the final season of The Expanse.

[Tale]

This is GREAT now. It's slow, epic storytelling, but it's really gone there. Just watched season 2 episode 7 and it was firing on all cylinders.

[Abagadro]

I just can't get engaged with it.  This last ep was better than most of this season and it is well made (with some good acting) but I honestly can't figure out what the actually driving plot/conflict is and what the motivations are for most of the characters. They just sort of go different places and do various things for no real reason.

[Khaldun]

Sort of like the books. Or when they do things with good reasons, they're generally doomed to have it not work out as expected.

[Tale]

... but I honestly can't figure out what the actually driving plot/conflict is and what the motivations are for most of the characters. They just sort of go different places and do various things for no real reason.

Surely the plot is that Hari Seldon is trying to establish the Foundation to limit losses to humanity (lives and culture) from the forecast disastrous age that would follow the inevitable (says psychohistory) impending demise of the Cleonic dynasty. Meanwhile the Cleonic Dynasty sees Seldon's Foundation as a threat.

I have not read the books, but I have read the following huge spoiler.

[Khaldun]

In the books, that's Asimov's attempt to link his early robot stories with his Foundation work--the telepathic robot Giskard in conversation with R. Daneel Olivaw, who partnered with a human detective in two early Asimov novels,  reason  their way to a "Zeroth Law" since they can see human thoughts and realizes that there are times where a robot obeying the Three Laws must act on behalf of all humanity rather than individual humans. Giskard's positronic brain breaks down but his dying gift to Daneel makes Daneel telepathic; he then works to further develop his understanding of the collective needs and welfare of humanity. He's still around in the time of Foundation and helps plant the idea of psychohistory in Seldon--and to develop the telepathic power of the Second Foundation.

[Abagadro]

It is the overall central conflict that defines the narrative I guess, but the actual mechanics of what is means or who is doing what to further or hinder it just aren't there.  It's like they want it to be a puzzle box show but the puzzle is just one color and the pieces are just squares.

The characters are also all over the place between being overpowered and useless depending on what is needed for whatever mini-arc (that doesn't go anywhere) they are doing at the moment.

Also, annoys me they hired Holt McCallany for a lousy two scenes just to kill him for no reason.

[Abagadro]

Last couple of episodes have been pretty good even though the show still completely fizzles whenever it cuts to Gayle/Salvor/Wish.com Apocalypse.

[Samwise]

I love how Cleon I turned out to be an even bigger asshole than I'd ever dreamed.

[Tale]

I love how Cleon I turned out to be an even bigger asshole than I'd ever dreamed.

Ha, yes. Loved the latest episode.

Demerzel: "You're a sperm led by its waving flagellum, mistaking its random motion for complexity."

[Abagadro]

Finale was a bit meh with a couple of good bits. Some of it made zero sense, but whatever.

[Tale]

I continued to enjoy it immensely. Great season.