i can’t believe foundation has 86% on rotten tomatoes. the writing is like a bad episode of doctor who that thinks it’s game of thrones. but it is beautiful and there is something alluring about it anyway. so i will be watching the season three
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It’s a slog to get through, but they usually wrap everything up nicely by the end of the season. The real culprit is the source material isn’t “up to modern expectations” despite being a classic
Long time ago tried to read Foundation. Didn't get far b/c it was really dry emotionless internal-dialog-less. Asimov same.
Maybe I should try again.
LOtR made me scoff and throw it down b/c of all the illogical *magic*, until a few years ago I was able to suspend disbelief for the entertnmnt valu
Foundation was fun enough, but man, I wish Hollywood would let people who actually care about the source material run the show instead of a bunch of execs who probably skimmed the Wikipedia page. Sure, I dream of 1:1 adaptations, but I can tolerate a some changes.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 1:1 adaptation of anything. Even when they get the original author involved, it’s like they make it their mission to twist the narrative for no reason. I get where you’re coming from—everyone sees it through their own lens, shaped by personal experiences.
Books and screen are different media. What works on one often doesn’t work on the other. I’m a huge Asimov fan (I’ve read both his Bible and Shakespeare commentaries), but I never thought Foundation would have made a good film/show as Asimov wrote it. I like the current show’s take on the idea.
I get it, the show does some cool stuff the book missed, and I respect that. But honestly, I’d rather have a true adaptation, even if it’s not all shiny and trendy. At this point, most post-hype adaptations are just nonsense anyway.
Books are not written or paced to be watchable while shows have too
Books can do what films can't
Ex
- Inner dialogue feels atrocious in film when (over)used, in books it fills the gap for non-verbal communication
- One character can get hours in a book, but film & tv are limited for the whole story
I can't wait for season 3. Yes, it's beautiful and expansive and pulls you into a far-flung dystopian future you're hoping will turn out eventually as beautiful ideologically as it is physically.
Have you noticed that monarchies and tyrants dominate most of the fantasy views of the future of humanity? Is that a subconscious acceptance that democracy doesn’t and won’t work?
Every fucking show ‘promotes’ amazing SE01 show runners and brings in sabotage agents whose sole purpose is to tank shows by doing a 180 on main characters and hang successful season 1 s/ls and themes out to dry and slowly rot in the sun
Hatin ass. The show is great. The writing deviates from Asimov from what I understand, but characters are well developed and the plot lines well maintained. Frankly, it’s one of the better offers on Apple.
As an Asimov lover I am fine with this and really enjoy the character development on the show. Asimov built AMAZING worlds and challenges but the people were secondary, often with less personality than the robots.
The show has to diverge from the novels. The novels would make incredibly bad TV. The cast of characters change too often which makes for poor drama, and there’s little action to make up for it. The books were impressive for the epic arcs of societal change and concepts of how those happen.
I figured as much. I’m certainly not complaining lol. I enjoy the concepts added to the show. From what I have read of Asimov, his material always works better when altered in adaptation. He was a great idea man, but execution sometimes lacked.
Sugar…I implore you to really engage with Doctor Who. I have loved and hated that show in my time. And even at its best it’s still soapy camp. I think you may be letting nostalgia block your view of reality
Unfortunately it Bears no resemblance to the source material. Just like that shit movie by Will Smith iRobot where they just took the title from Isaac Asimov and threw out the rest
They ruined perfectly good source material which was ideal for a few seasons of individual episodes. Sure the books have dated, but smart writers could have sorted that out without overblowing the whole thing. An opportunity lost.
Really like the series. It is visually beautiful. I’ve seen a few plot devices that I kind of thought were pretty much contrivances. *Spoiler.* like when he returned out not to be dead at the end of the last season.
Is not a shoot them up series...
And is also not for the low IQ folks,so that result is quite expected considering the average intellectual level of so many Americans...
It would be a good show if they had Asimov’s name removed, since there is little left of his work in the first two seasons. I will probably watch the third because fandom, you know, but my expectations are really low now
Season 1 I thought was pretty good.
Season 2 was awful except when it was about empire. Almost as if they had the good writers doing Empire scenes and interns doing everyone else.
Then at a high level season 2 ends with, iirc, THREE? deus ex machinas?
To be fair, that’s kinda like the books. And it wasn’t intentional, Asimov wrote the first one as a standalone but it sold really well, so they offered him a bunch of money to write another one. He did think of a pretty clever way to do it, that sold even better, so he had to come up with a third 🤣
Gave up after two episodes of season one. Terrible writing and slow as a glacier. Shame, as I love a lot of the cast and clearly there’s some money been thrown at it. Not a patch on the books.
I haven't read Foundation yet. Simplistic as the TV show writing is, is the core of the story the same as the books, or did they make major changes like with Game of Thrones or WoT?
AppleTV's Foundation is as faithful an adaptation of Asimov's source material as Will Smith's I, Robot was. In other words, some of the characters and places have the same names as the book, but everything else is different.
Acknowledged. I guess I'm glad I saw the show first, so I can save myself from hating it and just wallow in my 'meh, it's pretty'ness, and appreciate the books later.
I don't think it's that bad
But, I acknowledge that it's not what I wanted. Isaac Asimov's version was more philosophical; this cinematic version is too action-heavy
Maybe that's the price we pay to watch our favourite books on the screen 😪
Anyway, I'll be watching season three too
I don't want them to adapt word for word. I like as they added new things (it can get boring if they recreate scenes I already know. I wouldn't feel the tension)
I'm just saying that it should have been more of a space political and philosophical Sci-Fi, and less of an action-filled Sci-Fi
I’m not arguing one way or the other, I’m just pointing out the reason why they don’t adapt books Word for Word. It largely has to do with money, but I’m also seeing a lot of adaptations are being done that is really bad. Foundation is not one of them.
It’s the show that punishes you for having any expectations at all in the first place. Like HBO Max’s “Raised by Wolves”, you’re supposed to watch the train wreck unfold. It’s all about the journey, because there’s no destination. For my part, I’ll continue to root against Hari Seldon, El Cucaracho.
It like Wheel of Time the limited number of episodes means the story has to get from A to Z at light speed. This means the story and characters are twisted to fit. I’ll be watching season 3 too. Besides the books it’s all we have
The writing is over the top, the plot and motivations are often confused. But it is very pretty, and you get Lee Pace taking on a bunch of roles with gravity. As I recall, there are a few payoffs moments in S2, but also a lot worse meandering, and arbitrary choices from Hari.
There were moments I was excited to see from the books which are basically impossible with how they ended up doing it, but I enjoy it for what it is. Nor were the books unassailable, to be honest; it's for the best that they merely drew structure from them, despite the missteps.
honestly I'm so desperate for new science fiction content I don't ever want to discourage a crew that does an adaptation. I would rather have more mediocre adaptations that give new writers a chance than fewer faithful adaptations.
I'm just grateful that Apple has invested in so much sci-fi.
Yeah, and that's a huge issue with Foundation which had almost no significant female characters as written. I don't love every change they made but I think changing Salvor and others to women was a very good choice. I also like the "genetic dynasty" addition and a robot being seen so early.
Agree. I was at first pissed because of the absurd liberties it took from the original books, but it's actually pretty great. And for TV/streaming, it looks sensational.
It's not a bad show, but I was expecting something more like the actual books. Nope. Not even close. After 1 season, I gave up forever. Isaac Asimov is rolling in his grave.
Well ... high expectations cuz of Isaac Asimov, one of a kind author ... suffered through season one, gave up mid season two ... very disappointing adaptation.
I am a bit sad that the streaming era of “splurge big money on epic sci fi and fantasy” ended before we could get adaptations of Hyperion, The Culture or Malazan.
I agree completely the ending is perfectly symmetrical imo. I feel wait ten years from season six then it’s doable. We still won’t have Alex though and he’s got a pretty heavy arc in the last trilogy so they’d have to make some serious adjustments
The Expanse was hands down my favorite science fiction of the last 15 years. Although I also enjoyed Foundation. Love the casting especially Gaal, Demerzel, and the Brothers. I read that in middle school 40+ years ago with my dad, so I can't really recall the finer points of the series sadly.
Books 7-9 would work well as one long movie for sure, but it could also work very well as a regular television season condensed to 9 or even 6 episodes. They could drop or condense some side plots.
I read them a few years ago now, are you talking about the neutron star trap gate? Because hands-down, that was one of the coolest sequences in a book I've ever read
Internet chatter round about the time of the final episode? And the fact that some of the episodes prepped stories that could only be finalised by more filming…😁
I feel like the budgetary issues got worse after the Amazon renewal. Season 4 was mostly fine but the S5 Clarissa Mao demon mode CGI was 🤢. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Apple will adapt the final three books after the rights expire at Amazon.
The PEOPLE are what it's all about for me. Or in this case, also the androids...
I do not care about smooth seamless fancy special effects!
A suggestion is enough for me, like in a live play.
Foundation is fantastic. Don't compare it to the worst of Doctor Who. 🤢
It has Ug from Critters, dammit!
I already lost Raised by Wolves. This is the only weirdo space show left.
I watched a bit when it first aired. It seemed very generic in writing and I just list all interest when they made a "I just peed a little" joke.
Those kinds of jokes are never funny.
Just saying. You wanted a weird science fiction show and that's one of the weirdest and far better than a lot of other shows of the same genre. It finished its story without cancelation. yes it is a procedural and somewhat generic because of it but that's because procedurals were the big thing
It wasn't really all that weird from what I saw. Sure, they got into alternate timeline stuff but other shows had done that as well. It was all typical fair.
RT scores are deceptive. You'd think it's somehow an average of review ratings - but it's not. It's the % of reviews that are middling and above. So a movie could get nothing but C+ / B- scores and still be 100%. It's a lousy system
It's not a rating, it's the likelihood you'll not hate the film/show.
It's a very different goal to most ratings which try to measure how much people love/hate the film, which then becomes messy(people rate extremes or adjust their rating because they think a films total rating should be different)
The difficulty is in trying to encompass such large time gaps. It’s very difficult to character build. It’s about expansive concepts which people have trouble wrapping their heads around. Imagine if Interstellar started in its last 10 minutes and went on from there for 1000 years.
Rotten Tomatoes does not score QUALITY, it scores CONSENSUS.
All that number means is slightly more than 8 out of every 10 critics gave it a review that was more positive than negative…which you also just did lol
My ex had it as the designated hate-watch show with their roommate while season 1 was rolling out, so they could yell at the screen about how nothing made any sense 🤷
i did like some parts of the story! and season 1 felt a bit tighter to me. overall i struggle with the main conceit re: how they use “mathematics” and what rules the universe lives by
doctor who does this too but in its defense, it also did pretty sophisticated twists with that freedom (some may be too much). foundation feels like it just makes its own job easy but doesn’t capitalize on its freedom
The adaptation lands as a "soft" sci-fi, but I admit I've not read the source material to compare. The second season kind of fell off for me, and I stopped watching after episode 3 or so.
Yeah AFAIR the show mixed up “the law of large numbers means sufficiently advanced techniques can closely predict the future of humanity” with “this guy can see the future, and also sometimes cast spells, don’t worry about it”…
It was very cool, esp the empire arc, but the way they changed the books was… hamfisted, IMO. Which is a shame bc it’s basically begging to be a serial show/miniseries! Ah well, we can just try again in 2-3 decades
The Foundation books were among my very favourite Asimov story when I was in my early teens (late 1970's). I have not seen the series but reading these comments makes me wonder if I should even bother? .
The books are good, although there are some great time shifts. "It's 100 years later and the powers that be decided that character who saved everyone in the last chapter got too big for his boots, so they sent him to be worked to death in the slave mines. Now here's five new characters!"
Ugh don’t get me started on the is show man. It’s like mental herpes - every time I remember the dumb stuff I did get through the mind rash flares up and I get mad again.
In fairness, although I was captivated by reading Asimov’s original trilogy, it was more about the concepts than the writing. I never bothered to touch any of his other Foundation works.
The entire point of the series was to demonstrate that human behavior is perfectly predictable with large enough masses over a long period of time, and that only individual outliers can disrupt the apparent trajectory.
I see your point, but maybe there was a better way to do this. For instance, see Netflix's Three Body Problem....imho a wonderful adaptation that truly honored the actual books. I must say that a literal adaptation of Foundation would be something that almost no one would watch....
This is why I use IMDB, my hack on there is if its over 5/10 by more than 500 reviews, its typically going to be good enough, hit or miss, but mostly hit. RT confuses the shit out of me, Rotten Tomatoes too.
I’ve attempted to watch it three times. Watching mold grow is more interesting. Not that the books weren’t boring too. Worst science fiction series I ever tried to read.
It’s like they almost had it when they spent the first couple of episodes explaining that statistics can predict trends that don’t depend on the actions of individuals, and then went “fuck that, HOLLYWOOD YEEHAW”.
I big checked out on that when I ended up watching like a hallway fight more akin to something from a Marvel movie or Star Wars. You think you have to have fisticuffs in your fucking Asimov adaptation?
shhhh. if you’re the reason people realize it’s not top notch I will hold you personally accountable for its cancel (I harbor no material impact—but I’ll still be upset. this is all I have)
I haven't read the original books, but now I want to - I wonder how it compares. But damn, is it absolutely beautiful! And the soundtrack for season 1, when Bear McCreary was still involved, was stunning. Season 2 took a dip all around...
The books are fantastic, highly recommend. They’re definitely a little esoteric given all the perspective jumps, but it’s worth it IMO. And they’re far, far more logical/understandable than the show, which prioritized the Rule of Cool way too much
The series have very little to do with the books. Barely recognisable.
This is good thing - each are their own, distinct, representation. A TV interpretation which tried to slavishly ape the books would be interminably dull.
Certainly it has gone through "the filter," but generally I've enjoyed it. Read the books many years ago and this brings it to life in its own way (similar to Jackson's take on Tolkien) that I can enjoy as its own thing. We can all use some smarter entertainment, so I'll take what I can get.
Yeah, it's not great, but I will say that I think the genetic dynasty emperor concept is pretty cool and I think it's little mystery that the show focused on that over the what the show is meant to be about. My view is Foundations isn't a great material for building a character driven show.
I'm curious how the show's writers plan to end the series, given how the books' story seemed to fizzle out at "Foundation and Earth." Granted, it was probably 2-3 decades ago that I read it. So I may have missed something.
Comments
Maybe I should try again.
LOtR made me scoff and throw it down b/c of all the illogical *magic*, until a few years ago I was able to suspend disbelief for the entertnmnt valu
Maybe that's what I meant.
I dunno - I started drinkin'.
Books rely heavily on the readers imagination to fill gaps
Shows don’t have that luxury— you have to make changes to make a book story work on screen
Books can do what films can't
Ex
- Inner dialogue feels atrocious in film when (over)used, in books it fills the gap for non-verbal communication
- One character can get hours in a book, but film & tv are limited for the whole story
I'm watching it for Jared Harris and Lee Pace, exclusively.
Every fucking show ‘promotes’ amazing SE01 show runners and brings in sabotage agents whose sole purpose is to tank shows by doing a 180 on main characters and hang successful season 1 s/ls and themes out to dry and slowly rot in the sun
And is also not for the low IQ folks,so that result is quite expected considering the average intellectual level of so many Americans...
Season 2 was awful except when it was about empire. Almost as if they had the good writers doing Empire scenes and interns doing everyone else.
Then at a high level season 2 ends with, iirc, THREE? deus ex machinas?
Lee Pace
*packs up stool and exits stage left*
As long as isn’t horror masquerading as a sci-fi show.
But, I acknowledge that it's not what I wanted. Isaac Asimov's version was more philosophical; this cinematic version is too action-heavy
Maybe that's the price we pay to watch our favourite books on the screen 😪
Anyway, I'll be watching season three too
I'm just saying that it should have been more of a space political and philosophical Sci-Fi, and less of an action-filled Sci-Fi
It largely has to do with money
Season 2 - wtf are they on about?
I'm just grateful that Apple has invested in so much sci-fi.
For example, the way women & people of color are portrayed or used.
Also, we have new ways of looking at things and new science.
I’ll take a well done update over tried and true series.
I'm watching "Foundation" on Apple TV, but I think it's rubbish.
timeline is convoluted.
I don't give a damn about these characters.
the science is shallow and boring.
glad I didn't pay that high opportunity cost of reading that tome.
disappointing.
I do not care about smooth seamless fancy special effects!
A suggestion is enough for me, like in a live play.
It has Ug from Critters, dammit!
I already lost Raised by Wolves. This is the only weirdo space show left.
Also, that show was cancelled.
Those kinds of jokes are never funny.
It's a very different goal to most ratings which try to measure how much people love/hate the film, which then becomes messy(people rate extremes or adjust their rating because they think a films total rating should be different)
I felt like S2 did a pretty good job: I've bought the first book and can't wait to get into it 💫🥹
However, I do feel that way about Dune Prophecy. Couldn't stop watching that either though so idk 😅
All that number means is slightly more than 8 out of every 10 critics gave it a review that was more positive than negative…which you also just did lol
BECAUSE. FUCK. THAT. GUY.
OR. GIRL.
WE. DO. NOT. DISCRIMINATE. WE. JUST. EXTERMINATE.
not a good, but visually interesting
Lee Pace is always great though
And an apropos which I enjoyed:
https://youtu.be/ei1QhjvNnVM
Which is to say: consider the source material.
The entire point of the series was to demonstrate that human behavior is perfectly predictable with large enough masses over a long period of time, and that only individual outliers can disrupt the apparent trajectory.
I think the show is accomplishing this.
The movie and the show are just meh.
I always fall asleep watching them and suspect I am not the only one.
Just sloppy, meandering, and unnecessarily meh.
This is good thing - each are their own, distinct, representation. A TV interpretation which tried to slavishly ape the books would be interminably dull.
You’re being overly generous
Honestly felt like Dune Prophecy was taking notes from Foundation.