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

HMMMM.

hard to imagine any sci-fi classic that would be more boring to watch onscreen. these books are quite literally action-free.

aren't they mostly about math?

i actually read at least 4 or 5 of them when i was 10 or 11, but i can barely remember anything about them.

i love these books to a ridiculous degree but i don't think they would make particularly good movies.

There's an amazing twist with the Mule at the end of book 2, if i recall, so definitely think this could be compelling.

Well, the original involves empires, and this is HBO, so no doubt they'll find ways to write in intrigue and boobs

they span thousands (millions?) of years, have no central characters... this is a stupid idea

xp

long (reallllly long) expository sections in place of characters interacting

they probably were just like "game of thrones in spaaaaaace" and HBO said go for it. (not that they are really similar, just "beloved book series")

"And what are your credentials?"

"I just cowrote a big space movie with my brother! With emotion! Which I will bring to this adaptation!"

"Uh...okay."

yeah i reread them last year and once the mule enters the picture the whole thing becomes way more gripping. the problem i've always had recommending them to people is that the first book is by far the worst, but asimov was like 21 when he started writing them so watching him gradually become a better writer is fascinating in and of itself. also some surprisingly strong and interesting female characters in the second and third books, along with some of the weirdest and most convoluted plots i can remember in any classic SF stuff.

there is a lot of intrigue, but it's all so divorced from, like, actual humans - the Mule is good but so much of the series is this giant abstraction

the later foundation books are mostly really terrible but iirc the very last one asimov wrote right before he died, about the early life of hari seldon, is pretty good.

j.d. otm that the first three books get better as they go

love love love second foundation so much

don't think they would make good movies, though

pretty much because of what was said upthread re: giant abstraction

"Ars has confirmed not only that Foundation was in development, but it has now been given a full series order—meaning we're definitely going to see it." #AsimovFTW https://t.co/YnzcjTcQZx

— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) August 29, 2018

It’s probably going to look amazing and it’s definitely going to be better than that insipid Star Trek revive that was only watched by people who write nerd tv recaps for their side gig

Discovery was pretty good. Definitely wouldn't call it insipid.

It wasn’t. You should.

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.

Yes I think that approach will get used also. The books don't really translate well into TV but that reveal would

Initial teaser here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGWT-t7AS74

And we got full trailer -- new season starts July 14.

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

So per io9 beyond Mr Pace there, just to re-sum up where we're at:

The rest of Foundation’s starring cast includes Jared Harris, Lou Llobell, and Leah Harvey; also returning are Laura Birn, Cassian Bilton and Terrence Mann. Season two brings in even more cast members: Isabella Laughland (Brother Constant), Kulvinder Ghir (Poly Verisof), Ella-Rae Smith (Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion), Holt McCallany (Warden Jaegger Fount), Rachel House (Tellem Bond), Nimrat Kaur (Yanna Seldon), Ben Daniels (Bel Riose), and Dimitri Leonidas (Hober Mallow).

...KINDA guessing that means the Mule is third season though as I muttered upthread wouldn't be surprised if the character has been drastically redone and will be hiding in plain sight.

Oh and official synopsis:

“More than a century after the season one finale, tension mounts throughout the galaxy in Foundation season two. As the Cleons unravel, a vengeful queen plots to destroy Empire from within. Hari, Gaal, and Salvor discover a colony of Mentalics with psionic abilities that threaten to alter psychohistory itself. The Foundation has entered its religious phase, promulgating the Church of Seldon throughout the Outer Reach and inciting the Second Crisis: war with Empire. The monumental adaptation of Foundation chronicles the stories of four crucial individuals transcending space and time as they overcome deadly crises, shifting loyalties and complicated relationships that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity.”

Phew, well, sure are amping up the space opera here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0BGkVQMuQ

And one more trailer to go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBHT1oebvDk

All I remember is thinking of the combinatorial explosion of different clone-age actors they had to consider in order to match Lee Pace's eyebrows, but then I remembered they can CG that stuff now. And now I'm thinking how much of the FX budget is reserved for eyebrow continuity.

I re-binged the first season over the last few days in hopes of remembering the complexities and nuances of this show before the new season started. Watching it all, with subtitles, in basically three sessions definitely helped.

The first couple episodes were still tough to wrap my head around without consulting some episode summaries to help me keep track of it all. (If it’s not obvious, I never read the books). The time jumps remained confusing. And even though I understood the concept of the aging Cleons I still had some dissonance and had to keep reminding me that the brother dusk in one episode was brother day in the previous episode.

In any case’s case I settled into it more and more as it went on and by the end the time jumps made sense and Hari repeatedly showing up wasn’t dumb or weird. And now I’m properly primed and ready for s2.

The one thing that still bugged me was that Hari’s mathematical theories supposedly predicted things that would happen at an epic thousand-year scale, and he said repeatedly he couldn’t predict what would happen at an individual level. And yet he was constantly orchestrating hyper-specific things or actions - and the idea that two specific people falling in love had the potential to derail all his predictions. I could never really square this.

if i were trying to placate you, i would suggest that dude predicted at least *someone* would solve his proofs, and that they might well be attracted to someone *else* who at least knew what they were talking about

but yeah it's handwaving

the TV series must create its own drama because the books honestly have very little (and essentially none on a human level)

it's doing a decent enough job so far

Interview with Goyer about things

https://gizmodo.com/foundation-s2-asimov-apple-tv-david-s-goyer-interview-1850596741

Ho ho he make joke:

I told [Demerzel actor] Laura Birn when she joined the show that her character was a slow burn—we don’t get into her interior life that much in season one. And then slowly, we peel back the layers

Anyway, first episode of the new season was pretty good all around, I thought. The show is even more off in its own zone at this point but it did get right what Rings of Power didn't in general in terms of how to loosely adapt something from a source and make it interesting in its own sphere, and the design remains remarkable on several levels. Some spoilery thoughts:

However handwavey it is (and boy is it) getting Gaal, Salvor and Hari together in 'real space' makes for good TV, and Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey in particular make for a good combination of actors playing one of the weirdest dynamics ever set up. If they end up somehow being a combination Greek chorus/narrator across the entire series via a series of convenient hibernations, well, why not. The sense of everything being more fraught and baroque on the Empire end of things was nicely done; the time jump allows for a fully new set of the three Emperors and the unspoken sense of how things are just more fragile and loaded now is clear enough. Also it's nice to see all three actors playing slightly different versions of themselves again (Demerzel as the constant I do want to see a little more of). Smushing details of a slew of stories together -- "The Mayors," "The Merchant Princes," "The General" and given we know Kalgan shows up in some form this season possibly the start of "The Mule" itself -- isn't a bad idea, really. If anything the small hint dropped in the brief Terminus scene that the Seldon cult, explicitly said in the stories to be designed for the off-world rubes, has an actual presence in the society itself is a smart one.

I’m catching up on s2 today. After watching the most recent episode of The Righteous Gemstones, who knew I’d so soon have another naked fight scene to compare! (Gemstones was better and, er, braver.)

I was happy when the Mindhunter actor showed up, but then oh

ha I was trying to remember what I knew him from.

I've never read the books but based on commentary in this thread I'm happy to see that The Mule has showed up. Based on comments further upthread it sounded like that plot point could've been much further off in the series.

As usual this show is still daffy and dense but I'm happy to keep going along with it. I appreciate its ambitions.

https://imgopt03.mrskincdn.com/mrman/blog_resource/000/000/003/084/women_in_love_nude_wrestling-e0ee453e_featured.png?1576764862

"who knew I’d so soon have another naked fight scene to compare! (Gemstones was better and, er, braver.)"

xpost Yeah the Mule showing up even as a future projection/vision accelerates a lot of things. Mikael Persbrandt was already announced as the 'Warlord of Kalgan' but yeah, the Mule, so that makes sense per the original stories. Assuming this isn't some sort of weird headfake and the 'real' Mule isn't more like the character as revealed in the stories, it's a massive revamp -- the Mule in the stories is slight, physically unimposing, hides in plain sight. That's one reason why I figured Persbrandt WASN'T the Mule because he's anything but such a small and seemingly quiet figure in real life, and turning him into a Robert Z'Dar style cyborg executioner from a direct to TV 1990s Sci-Fi Channel movie is, I admit, a choice, but given the revamping of so much else about the story I'm just rolling with it. The show continues to look remarkable at the least.

I do think it's kind of a smart move to have introduced both Riose and Mallow by name but we haven't seen either yet.

suddenly we're swearing a lot

Well it's later in time, they teach those words in primary school now.

And anyway we get Hober and Bel at last. I was amused at how a key plot point of "The Traders" was delivered and then completely undercut.

I'm on board with most of this show except I still find all the plot logic around Hari Seldon's character to be really tough to swallow. It switches between complex/arbitrary at the drop of a hat. At one point Gaal says "pychohistory is not omniscient!" and Hari simply replies "It is now!" Like OK writers, thanks for trying.

It's probably the most handwavey part of it all. Though arguably the more Asimov himself wrote about psychohistory the more handwavey THAT got.

Not a bad ep this week but def felt like they were moving the pieces on the chessboard.

ben daniels is the most intriguing actor in this show and they’re not doing enough with him

also everything on this mentalist planet is corny af

also also can robots nullify the three laws if they commit to holding their arms that way for millennia on end or what

ben daniels is the most intriguing actor in this show and they’re not doing enough with him

Would agree.

Yesterday's episode: best of the season, especially with the mask-off on the mentalist planet. Ends on just the right note. It's seriously Good TV all around.

Did I miss the scene that explained how Salvor didn’t die in the last episode and was instead moved to a pit prison? Seemed like they just ignored their own plotting.

Otherwise agree this was good episode that felt like it was building toward the climax.

the bad woman is putting visions in peoples’s heads (including ours)

not entirely sure why she bothered, tho

I lol’d at Hari having an epiphany about the second Foundation and conveniently summarizing major plot arcs which the writers clearly know are hard to follow.

wau

definitely wau

i apologize for having ever suggested that things don't actually happen too much in this series

did hari seldon really compensate for the gravometric effect of lee pace's eyebrows tho

I like this show but damn do I want to punch Lee Pace's big sweaty face so bad.

that final shot of the newest episode might have been the first time I’d agree

some real viewer-teasing going on here by just dumping everything they’d foreshadowed in one episode

Rather. Intrigued to see where/how this exactly resolves.

idk man

love a demerzel showcase but magicking everyone on terminus back to life is lame af. while still killing the two (three?) most interesting characters! also the whole side quest on ignis was essentially pointless imo

hoping mikael persbrandt survives until series three in 2025 i guess

While I liked it more than you did, yeah I was kinda pissed to lose Leah Harvey in particular. (I kept half guessing that the young kid was going to BE the Mule later on, but I guess that's not happening!) Also unless the whole idea is to change around the future timeline and shorten things -- which, why not, the whole idea of the Mule is that he's the unforeseen chaos factor and here the series has been basically setting him up as a threat for almost the whole season -- seems like we'd lose Isabella Laughland's character as well by default, which sucks. I was amused by Vault TARDIS Emergency Vehicle but I had to figure there was going to be some sort of save -- part of me almost wonders if they're going to go Cylon Homeworld somehow -- and until the episode was far enough along I kept wondering if Hari had stuffed Day into a pocket universe of some sort while in the Vault. As for the Ignis sideplot, I kept waiting for some sort of info dump that basically confirmed whatshername old Empress was a robot and that Hari was dumped into a robot body of his own. I suppose that could still happen? But hm either way. My own minor nit was Sareth and Dawn flying off and me going "But the Empire doesn't have small jumpships so how far do they think they're going to get."

Persbrandt's great casting and I kinda appreciate they're just ditching the whole 'who is the Mule' thing in favor of just introducing a straight up jacked Terminatorish fascist asshole, but I would have been amused to see him introduced in a scene capering on the beach busking while wearing a clown outfit or whatever.

One other thing, looking back a couple of weeks: I appreciated how the Salvor/Hari-on-Terminus conversation essentially implied that the latter is outside of conventional time, since he only knows to call Hober Mallow precisely because Salvor tells him to, and thus explains the name appearing on the vault in delightful cursive a few episodes prior. But I'm beginning to wonder if that was just a weird one-off instead of an actually interesting plot device.

Non-spoiler since it addresses several bits from the season: My assumption that the brief inter-Hari communication was a sign that were partially viewing multiple points in time now, if not separate timelines that are entangled via the prime radiant. There’s a bunch of very fast travel throughout space and cryosleep so there’s no reason we couldn’t have one Hari far ahead of another.

Anyway, couple of Goyer interviews out there about it all, spoilers obv

https://www.tvguide.com/news/foundation-season-2-finale-david-s-goyer/

This bit isn't a spoiler but does maybe indicate that if the strikes get resolved we might get season 3 on schedule, more or less:

We've written Season 3 — because we have to write these seasons sometimes years in advance — and as wild as Season 2 has gotten, in many ways it's only prelude for Season 3. Season 3 will get even wilder.

And this, well, if you guys can actually pull it off, god love ya:

We have the broad strokes of (Season) 4 all mapped out. We know where all the major characters wind up at the end of (Season) 4. It doesn't mean we might not shimmy along the way. We have some very broad strokes for how some of the subsequent seasons would map out. I don't know how many seasons I'm going to get and I don't want to leave the audience hanging, so we're building a satisfying offramp that can be achieved at the end (Season) 4 and another one at the end of (Season) 6, and the ultimate one at the end of (Season) 8.

Really enjoyed S10, but the mule is corny as f

^that's me in the future obv, E10

This show has gotten to the point where, when Hari and Gaal explain how Hari didn’t die a few episodes back, I just roll my eyes and say “okay, Foundation,” and we just move on.

Goyer’s gotten a little better with a team of writers working for him but he’s definitely a sucker for the plot cliche where it’s revealed someone actually disarmed the threatening bomb three episodes ago, you just didn’t see that

It’s kinda funny to follow up watching Foundation with Mrs Davis (which I’m currently doing)—two shows that do a lot of hand-wavey plot explication, but where Foundation is stone faced and serious, it’s basically the punchline of Mrs Davis.