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

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.

Ah, I see. Anyway now that Jared Harris is off of this show, mostly, I can go back to seeing what he is up to as I continue to catch up on The Expanse.

unnecessary flashback, and i'm starting to worry that things are so stretched out because they don't have enough story

Yeah the first part flashback was little more than addendum -- could have done that in even a couple of minutes I think -- but excellent build of weird tension throughout. Now that we have the big reveal at the end that answers a few questions at least, more to come.

I gotta give Goyer this much, he may (may) have pulled a Lindelof in getting a good creative team together to actually do something that's more watchable than expected. Depends on how they stick the season landing but halfway through this season, I'm good with it.

Season ending but season landing works!

lol how crap was that imperial ship, just one surface to air shot and it's completely taken out.

"Say Captain there's some big gun pointed our direction."

"Eh whatever."

I want less action

But I thought everybody wanted a piece of the *is stifled*

Fight scene zzzzz, innocents in a settlement being terrorized by soldiers zzzzz, gimme more standing around in very high ceilinged rooms plz

so [redacted] designed his own space coffin and then something happens at the end of this ep. That would be a good way of skipping a few boring decades on Terminus but not so good for his accomplice! Yeah I prefer the long boring bits to the action as well.

Agreed re trying to figure things out on a deserted ship.

less 'action' is fine (and that fight scene was terrible) but this whole sequence with the offworlders -- which is really pretty straight-forward? -- is now going to leak into a fourth episode

we long ago knew which defenders were righteous and which were lame; let us move on to the next stage already

But the invaders have a plan and as we know in serial TV SF when it's stated there's a plan everything is plotted out to the last desire. Anyway there must be some kind of way out of here.

of course! but let's get to it. i don't need a flashback of anacreon being devastated for 20 minutes to establish motive.

btw am i alone in wishing that hari was not being pronounced 'harry'

i'm sure we can all look forward to my similar complaints whenever dune hits the torrentz and i manage to watch it! <3 <3

"Say Captain there's some big gun pointed our direction."

"Eh whatever."

Wasn't the gun what they cloaked earlier in the episode?

Didn't seem clear it was still cloaked by the time it was just 1K away.

It probably makes a good point about decadent colonial powers on the wane. Just fly in there expecting an easy rout and then get taken out by one well aimed shot.

Oh it wasn't clear at all,. I just assumed it must be otherwise what was the point of the whole cloaking scene in the first place xp

Getting pretty Game of Thronesy here

gonna name my next cat 'empire'

A rotating trio of cat

ya - they were right to draw out the theme of the books of whether history is a story of individual actors or of movements, but mostly that theme feels like lip-service: by focusing so much on Seldon, Salvor, Day, etc, it kind of eliminates the question. it's boring imo to experience history as the psychodrama of a few immortal action heroes.

Nice interview with Goyer on the season

https://decider.com/2023/10/25/foundation-david-s-goyer-interview/

Hey, we got good news:

https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2023/12/apple-tv-renews-global-hit-epic-sci-fi-saga-foundation-for-season-three/

I’d have been extremely irritated if they didn’t!

We got Preem Palver

Meantime, hmm, but guess we'll see what results.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/foundation-david-s-goyer-steps-down-showrunner-season-3-1235834630/

This is the part that I'm actually concerned about the most: given the general excellence of the visual effects in combination with the design, it would hurt if that was cut back some.

Sources say Goyer and executives at the show’s production company, Skydance, clashed over the budget for the upcoming season. TV budgets are under scrutiny across the industry as streamers right-size their slates with an eye toward boosting profitability.

Yeah losing Goyer as well as budget is a pretty bad sign. Visual effects are a big part of the show's appeal