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

On the other hand, good to know that Touch ID will still work after 700 years

oh no my first law of robotics

When “Foundation” Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Isaac Asimov’s Vision Gets Lost

some points, some misses imo

Two episodes in, I feel like it's a lot of telling rather than showing, just a lot of exposition and CGI backgrounds.

Real 300/Zack Snyder's Owl Movie vibe.

I feel like it's a lot of telling rather than showing

well this is true to Asimov's vision

haha otm

Lol.

Burn...

Martin Skidmore to thread!

idk man

Mm. It's definitely heading towards a 'huh' season ender at this rate.

i haven't been bored (except by the narration), so that's cool. just seems like we're still more or less in the same place we were six episodes ago

Meantime we got this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5CBWy17y70

How does a robot have a religious belief!?

I like this show, but I think I'm glad I never read the books.

Visually, I keep thinking of what someone could do with an Earthsea adaptation (yeah again, I know), with the right casting finally, and stuff like Ged finding the floating city in the ocean and etc.

I'm enjoying this as well. Sometimes some half decent sci-fi shit is just what you need and best avoiding the plethora of hottakes!

well. sucks to be azura

We were saying she'd be better off just jumping into the pond than what lay ahead.

Also, did not see what Demerzel did coming. But maybe its because she too is beginning to go against her nature (same as brother dawn and day seem to have)? I mean shes a robot so that shouldnt be possible, but ...

hmm tried to be vague but is that too spoilery?

appreciated that brother dusk angrily flung the stuff at his painting with his *left* hand, and wonder whether that was done on purpose

anyway, solid finale with some unexpected things -- i look forward to the next season whenever that is

Yeah it's definitely not Asimov's story anymore, broadest of outlines aside. Still, I'll watch. Wondering if the time jump means going straight to Hober Mallow (and thus skipping the thoroughly cynical view of religion in the intervening Seldon crisis).

xp

well spotted there [what was posted in hidden text] probably was on purpose.

Yes, I missed that!

I'm a little confused by the continued presence of somebody I thought Hugo had missed the landing on the Invictus and floated off into space.
I thought it odd when they came back out of the warp over Terminus and he reappeared. Did I see one character in a spacesuit do that and think it was him or was there a further plan being enacted.

Quite enjoying this and wondering how much of it I read. I think I got several of the series from my uncle's collection when he died. Definitely think I got some Dune from him as well as Ed Sanders The Family. Definitely thinking I did get into a few of them at one point. But it is decades ago.

I think Hugo faked his miss/death so he could go for reinforcements

He did. He deliberately flew off so he could sneak back in.

(but yes, all those bits flying about in spacesuits and nothing else and somehow succeeding were redic implausible but I'm bad at willing suspension of disbelief)

i was more bitter about the anacreons surviving the naked jump and then somehow being allowed to take over ships again

fuckin figure it out, thespins

Man, this show. It seems like it has some pretty obvious flaws - lot of telling instead of showing, unevenly paced, some so-so acting - but I loved these 10 episodes. I do think it kind of lacks the spirit of the Asimov books (was very weird to see a robot kill someone!) but keeps the scope and the interesting ideas, and the writers somehow turned that into something very compelling and visually gorgeous. So glad that it's getting another season!

Ya good point about the robot

Tbf, the robot laws never made a lot of sense

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Sorta slipped past but Season 2 went ahead and filmed earlier this year -- only image released so far is this:

https://dl.moviesr.net/images/dn9sN.jpg

Which, hm. (Flashback to Foundation founding? Some later meetup with another clone?) -- new cast members: Isabella Laughland, Kulvinder Ghir, Mikael Persbrandt, Sandra Yi Sencindiver, Holt McCallany, Ella-Rae Smith, Dimitri Leonidas, Ben Daniels, Rachel House, and Nimrat Kaur.

And per burblings today but which date back a couple of months as well, Season 3 renewed and filming starting in April, so the five season plan may actually happen here.

Per an article back in February, here's who's playing what in Season 2.

(In reading that closely, we're getting some familiar characters from the original stories -- Poly Verisof, Hober Mallow, Bel Riose and 'the Warlord of Kalgan,' who I kinda assume is the one that the Mule ends up defeating -- notably no mention of that character quite yet.)

Show is a drastic remix of the books so I doubt the TV characters will bear much resemblance but I am interested to see how they eventually handle the Mule, one of the few standout characters. I already said it upthread but despite its many flaws I am very excited to watch more Foundation

Given the latitude -- and some of the aspects of the characterization in the first Mule story -- wouldn't be surprised if they do some other kind of hiding-in-plain-sight approach. The mention of the 'Mentallics' in that Deadline piece from February is making me assume that'll be where the Second Foundation element ends up.

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