David Goyer adapting Asimov's Foundation books for Apple+ (Previously: Jonathan Nolan adapting Asimov's Foundation books for HBO)

Took forever but some actual news (also, on Apple+ TV now):

https://deadline.com/2019/10/foundation-lee-pace-jared-harris-cast-star-in-apple-series-based-on-isaac-asimovs-sci-fi-classic-1202765708/

Lee Pace (Halt and Catch Fire) and Jared Harris (Chernobyl) have been tapped as leads in Foundation, Apple TV+’s upcoming drama series based on Isaac Asimov’s science fiction novel trilogy.

Harris as Seldon, Pace as the Emperor "Brother Day" which...what?

happy 100th, isaac

Y'all saw that a black woman was cast as Salvor Hardin, right? The furious nerd tears are going to be so delicious.

after the racist "joke" Asimov aimed at Samuel Delaney when he won a slew of awards and the repeated, documented sexual harassment and assault Asimov was known to engage in.... good

Love Lee Pace, love Harris, and especially love the books but I can't see this series keeping the spirit of the books while staying watchable

Well we got a sort-of trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbPSA94Rqg

Hm hm hm, maybe. But per Eliza's post there a few back, all the better that the main figures aren't ALL white dudes...even with Goyer Goyering, though, so we'll see. If anything this seems more like a riff on the core story, and I'm not sure still what the whole 'Brother Day' thing is w/r/t the Empire, especially since there are two other characters called "Brother Dawn" and "Brother Dusk."

My thing is he is somehow the worse Nolan

Looks like that Nolan's not actually involved now, though, just Goyer and others. Should update the subject line.

It’d be nice if Goyer has figured out how to write a single woman by this point

not as in uncoupled, but (1) character who is a woman

That's a claim:

"Foundation" writer and showrunner David Goyer is ambitiously hoping to tell Isaac Asimov's science-fiction story over the course of eighty hours.

Well, anyway, it's almost here. Goyer interview has this bit:

“The book series itself makes these massive leaps forward in time, and particularly the first book is very ontological,” Goyer said. “Very few characters continue from one story to the next. My very first meeting at Apple, I said to them, ‘Guys, time is a character. You’re just going to have to embrace that.’ We do time jumps. We’re going to jump forward. We’re going to jump backwards. Sometimes we’re going to tell two parallel storylines that are operating at different times. We just have to embrace it. It would be insanity not to embrace it. And fortunately, everyone embraced it.”

Which, honestly, I have no problem with -- would actually explain some of the trailers we've seen.

It’d be nice if Goyer has figured out how to write a single woman by this point

Annnnnnd maybe he hasn't but:

“In this case, because Asimov wasn’t alive, I was talking to his estate, to his daughter, and I said, I want to make sure that I’ve identified the core ingredients that make Foundation, Foundation. Fortunately, they said, yeah, we feel like you’ve zeroed in on the most important elements. And because we’re adapting it now, over 70 years after Asimov first wrote it—you know, it was a metaphorical story back in the post-World War II environment—some of the events, some of the things that we’re interrogating, we’re going to have to change because we’re speaking to an audience of today and not an audience post-World War II.”

The first big, important change: diversifying the characters. “Because there are virtually no female characters in the first book, I said to the Asimov estate, ‘How would you how would you feel if we gender-flipped a couple of the characters?’ And they said, ‘We love it. We think Asimov himself would have completely embraced that,’” Goyer said.

Not that that gets him automatic points for trying for any number of reasons, but I guess we'll see.

Asimov well known for completely embracing female convention goers

Ugh

Of the Big Three, I sort only have time for Arthur C. Clarke these days, but would watch this, especially for Jared Harris.

Asimov’s son a piece of work too, but maybe shouldn’t go there.

I remember reading something Fred Pohl said about Asimov’s behavior. Actually I met both of them and for some reason liked Pohl a lot better than Asimov.

Lee Pace says things. Apparently the future is we're all dominated by endless Lee Pace clones, and I fail to see the problem.

https://gizmodo.com/foundations-lee-pace-i-love-science-fiction-1847708416

So this thread then? Albums covers that depict the artists hanging out with their clones

i like this? not terribly fast-moving, but i'm okay with that. not sure i believe the lead actress is 26

lose the voiceovers tho

Saw the first episode and was honestly most intrigued by how they were trying to solve the problem of 'things which everyone now knows from what's come after/ripped it off so how do we do it differently?' eg making Trantor not quite Coruscant, trying to figure out a new way to do faster than light speed, etc. Lee Pace perfectly cast of course.

I was amused by the entire imperial library being smaller than big city central libraries I've known. Though maybe the rest of it goes eight miles deep or something.

Enjoying this so far, I was wondering if the 80 hours idea is for real? I'm only two episodes in and they've gone quite a ways into Asimov's story already.

Well yes and no, in terms of the original stories they’ve essentially only done the very first, the rest is stuff drawn out from the prequels, most of which I’d forgotten about, or wholly invented.

So, at this rate, if the show gets canned at the end of S3 they'll probably have done most of the book series before they start making stuff up.

Perhaps? They're definitely tempting fate a bit with that initial voiceover going all in on naming Hober Mallow and the Mule. The fact that they're leaning into the robot stuff early, again not surprising given the prequel books, but also I think they figured there was more potential for actual drama beyond stories that mostly could be filmed as stage plays with people batting ideas back and forth.

Further elaborating a bit but again I am amused but not surprised at how thoroughly it's repurposing just about everything from a ton of filmed SF of recent years. Inevitable Galactica vibes on this colonist ship, the floating particle stuff reminds me of Krypton from Man of Steel, lots of anime vibes from spaceships in general, etc. etc. Arguably the basic story is just a gloss over the rest. That said, again given the plainness of that basic story stylistically, seeing them tackle questions of design, costume, etc. in particular is of interest since there's no real guide and I've kinda been pleasantly surprised -- it'll be interesting to contrast that against the designs in the new Dune.

i haven't read these books in well over 35 years so looking forward to watching this series without that baggage

Ha, same, pretty much.

I love how poor Lee Pace is any casting director's go-to when a show needs a pompous monologuing douche.

i love how his eyebrows couldn't help but influence the casting of his counterparts

i commented elsewhere - have only watched ep1 but was super irritated/rmde by how hard they were hammering “do u seeeeee” 9/11 parallels. (but i am not a fan of scifi when it tries to overtly refer to current/recent events anyway in general)

it looks amazing though, -and i love the acting, esp love jared harris & lee pace !!

it is intriguing to me how jared harris is actually kind of an ugly man but also compelling/attractive

i think it’s his speaking voice & kind eyes

was super irritated/rmde by how hard they were hammering “do u seeeeee” 9/11 parallels

Yet another Galactica callback as well, I figure (or rather, Caprica)

I think a lot of The Terror fans think Harris is hot.

this really is extremely slow/laid back . . . and i'm okay with it

Yeah, works for me. Also don't mind the time-hopping.

I thought episode 3 might start with Raych getting airlocked into space for murder, but it's fine that they advance the story forward and leave it to your own imagination to fill in the blanks. This is easily the best sci-fi series since The Expanse so far.

Kind of glad I havent read the books but I skimmed the outlines enogh to know the show's not really sticking to them, but yeah I'm enjoying this too. It is visually spectacular.

I haven't got a clue about the books but according to imdb both Dornick (last seen hopelessly floating through an asteroid field in a liquid chamber) and Seldon last seen ... are both featured in 9-10 episodes, so I presume there will be some flashbacking to come or maybe just voiceovers.

Both Dornick and Seldon only feature as living characters in the very first short story, more or less adapted fully in the first episode; Dornick is mentioned briefly in the second story, where Salvor Hardin is introduced, but is implied to have already passed, Seldon being long dead. But since the time structure is indeed all over the place, who knows?

wouldn't be too surprised if 'dornick and seldon are featured in 9-10 episodes' is a red herring just to keep people guessing. although i guess the dornick actress is also our voiceoverer

it would be odd to keep dornick's fate unresolved tho!

maybe quite mischievously they've given a credit to Harris for every time his character's statue is in shot on Terminus.

Today's episode was pretty great -- love the way they're ratcheting things up. (Also are we getting a full Aliens tribute with that last shot there?)

Word went around they've renewed for a second season.

I love the way brother day is such a consistently repeating arrogant arsehole to the point that even when he matures into brother dusk he's still going to blame his older predecessor (himself) for everything that goes wrong! And then every time he's got old enough to learn an iota of humility and wisdom they atomise the fucker into dust.

I do like how they're slowly setting up how 'the system' is all clearly going to screw up and fall apart on their end. One of the middle-run of original Foundation stories has a great emperor character -- not a clone per se and rules alone but definitely stands out some, and is named Cleon of course -- but I can see how some elements already in play will help to shape the portrayal of him down the road.

cleon wears his war wound like a crown

maybe quite mischievously they've given a credit to Harris for every time his character's statue is in shot on Terminus.

just the credits and how many episode he's listed in imdb as being in. I haven't a clue about Apple TV. I get it all from my usenet account.

enjoying this! very good episode

Yeah, ramped up the soap part of space opera just enough but made it work. Also I'm now dimly seeing more how they can hold to certain key beats from the original stories if they choose to, but I'm still waiting for things to play out to be sure. These last two episodes will be kinda insane.

the hologram Seldon stuck with the first Foundation doing his “oh, that’s excellent. also, what exactly is ‘the Mule’?” bit from last week had me laughing

Season finale tomorrow and we got season 4 incoming:

https://gizmodo.com/foundation-will-return-for-season-4-2000657700

How well this will work without Goyer, guess we'll see.

Omg next episode is the finale?? It doesn’t feel like we’re ready for the climax

Oh it's very much a cliffhanger of some sort, Goyer indicated that a long while back. Basically that things wouldn't be as (relatively) neat as the previous two season enders were.

(I also noticed in looking through some of the PR stuff when the season dropped, interviews and that, that pretty much press had access to all of the season *except* the last episode. So they're intentionally driving a bit of hype here. I have a couple of half guesses but we'll see what happens; as it stands my particular guess in my hidden comment on July 31st still holds true and is in fact being quietly bolstered as the season has gone on. My podcast cohost Jared hasn't read the stories -- he just got a copy of the original Foundation itself, not the full trilogy -- so his perspective on these admittedly heavily reworked scenarios has been interesting and in particular he's made some guesses as to the Mule that haven't hit the actual mark of where the stories themselves went, so I'll be both interested to see what happens tomorrow as well as what he thinks -- whatever it turns out to be!)

And looking waaaay back upthread:

So, at this rate, if the show gets canned at the end of S3 they'll probably have done most of the book series before they start making stuff up.

As it stands, S4 will I'm guessing essentially cover what's left of the original trilogy-as-such, so not far off. No idea if Goyer's original eight season plan (if you will) will hold, depending, but whatever wild riffs they want to do with Edge and ...and Earth, hey, especially since that they've finally made it explicit in the show that Demerzel is Daneel, straight from the prequel books.

Whew, okay, that was WILD -- they absolutely pulled off a real headfake re the Mule! And then on top of that we both lose Demerzel/Daneel AND at the very very end reveal that a key beat from the end of Foundation and Earth which as written does have Daneel is now in play! Man I am here for the continuing madness.

This Goyer interview has a lot more re decisions made and where the future may go.

This was great, tight, dramatic. DuskDarkness' very destructive remote control! Day :( Demerzel survives in robot skull form?

Fun finale. Questions/observations:

—does this mean Lee Pace is no longer in the show??

—I think Demerzel could still come back since her head/skull remained intact

—I didn’t like the Mule fake out at all. I’d have to go back and rewatch the season to see if they really laid that groundwork but it felt really forced and unearned.

Combining responses:

In re Laura Birn and Lee Pace, do read that Goyer interview, as he addresses both, cagily but without absolute clarity either. As for the Mule fakeout, this interview with Synnove Karlsen (ie the actress that plays Bayta) I thought raised some good points as to how they and she specifically tried to convey things: https://gizmodo.com/foundation-star-synnove-karlsen-walks-us-through-that-jaw-dropping-finale-2000656636 -- I did notice that she always seemed a little more on the ball than Torie and well, there was a reason!

I’d have to rewatch the season to decide if the twist was earned, but it didn’t feel like it was.

Wild finale with quite a few shocks.

Also thought the Mule twist felt a bit unearned but man, Dusk really broke bad in the final two episodes. And fairly sure they could concoct some cloning shenanigans for Pace to continue

I saw it mentioned in an interview or something, but re: groovypanda's last point

Apparently what was apparently a robot in shadow in that last scene was voiced by Pace? We also have a Day that is still with the Mule, right? He couldn't stand up from the bed and was left in there.

I keep reading this thread as David Groyper ...

Another enjoyable season, though I liked the two previous seasons more. Kind of ridiculous to say given how little Asimov develops his characters but I think the books did a better job with Magnifico, Bayta, and Ebling Mis, who we barely get a sense of in this show. The twist did feel unearned and specifically meant to troll us book readers, though I did read a Goyer interview where he mentions some clues that I missed. As usual, the Dawn/Day/Dusk storylines were the highlight, particularly Dusk's. A very fitting end to their legacy. Lee Pace celebrated that the show is getting another season, so I guess that means he'll be in it? Certainly hope so, he elevates the show a lot

the 1973 radio four adaptation (which i enjoyed on first broadcast)* is here: https://www.scifimike.com/sf-radio-foundation.html

in conclusion everyone in space is posh**

*i was 12 and went on to read the books which i imagine i quite liked but never reread) (bcz by then i was older than 12)
**sfx (sound and music) is im guessing the radiophonic workshop, tremendous boop-bleepy work from them

i continue to watch the TV show mainly for how it looks (alien worlds aplenty 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽)

but i think this is the SLOWEST drama i ever ploughed thru: "the narrative spans centuries ppl, let's make the viewer really FEEL that, every conversation an aeon"

also the ruling family never change and despite being evil they are the three most boring ppl in galactic history

Banality of evil doncha know

I dunno, Lee Pace hams it up plenty enough! But yeah Pitt the Younger whatever his name was, was a bit wet.

So Gaal has apparently triumphed over the Mule and then suddenly she's making a fast escape? Alone? She can tamper with the Mule'a balladeer but can't do the same to prevent her team from being converted?

...maybe?...

iirc we don't see what actually happened between the showdown and Gaal jumping off the station

yeah I'm just trying to come up with a plausible explanation for what we saw given that we'll apparently have to wait years for a resolution to the cliffhanger

heyyyy just finished watching the entire thing. some fantastic bits, lots of talky bits that had me "resting my eyes"...

last ep was crazy. i liked it although the clone tube thing was tramatising.

every time they say Cleon I think they're saying Klingon, and every time they say Kalgan I think "washing machines live longer..."

I think "Take me away..."

last ep was crazy. i liked it although the clone tube thing was tramatising.

Amazing body horror move for sure.