Foundation TV series, based on Isaac Asimov's sci-fi books, comes out September 24 on Apple TV+. Produced by David S. Goyer. First season has ten episodes. It's very hard to imagine how anyone could adapt the books (even just the first one alone), which take place over thousands of years and multiple generations of unrelated characters and storylines. Although I am intrigued by the ambition it took to tackle this as a TV series.
I don't subscribe to Apple TV (nor am I likely to) so I hope it is shown on another channel (in the UK). I have recently re-read the Foundation novels up to Foundation And Earth and I agree it will interesting to see how they manage to keep continuity. Just a little amendment to your post - it takes place over a few hundred years. I would love to see his other novel being adapted, particularly the Robot novels.
I'm most of way through the first book at the moment and I've found it to be pretty disappointing. Apart from noticing a couple of aspects that were probably the basis for a couple of ideas for Douglas Adams and George Lucas, it just hasn't really interested me that much. I imagine the series will be easier to digest (less plodding dialog), but I'll wait and see how it's received.
I've read the Foundation Series many times in my life...Hope they did a good work with the tv show...I will wait for some feedback from fellow Series lovers, before subscribing to one more service.
It appears to be an Apple TV exclusive, so I highly doubt that it will be shown on any other platform.
From the trailers that I have seen, it doesn't appear the series will follow the books too closely. Still, I would watch it but I no longer have an Apple TV subscription.
I would not call the Foundation beautifully written (in terms of its prose, which is kinda at a simple reading level). The twists and turns are probably not as thrilling for today's reader: the first Foundation book is almost 80 years old by now, and so much sci-fi has been written since that borrowed from the Foundation. It is also hard for me to imagine how to execute a show that doesn't follow a central protagonist, but is about a world changing over a long timeline. But the Foundation still captures a lot of what people love about sci-fi, the large world building and ambitious ideas. I could, however, see the Foundation getting lost among all the sci-fi shows out there in recent years, like The Expanse and HBO Watchmen for deep world-building, or Black Mirror for its twists and turns that also target issues in our society today. Not to mention how saturated our entertainment options are these days, with so much Star Trek, Star Wars and Marvel and DC comic book movies.
A spokesperson for Apple+ noted, "We feel recent adaptations of unfilmable epics, like Steven King's The Stand [for Paramount+] have shown how you can distill multiple stories down to one and really squeeze the pathos out of that. That's the path we've taken in The Foundation. Small is bigger."
Well the action stuff was in the first 2 books. The Second Foundation is dramatically inert as it involves people writing equations so to speak and doing mental suggestion. The only memorable character was The Mule. I suppose you could have a war between the two Foundations as Asimov implied would happen. Didn't Asimov eventually disavow the whole Foundation concept? But if Apple wants to make a domestic drawing room drama out of it as implied by kwadguy I guess they can do that too.
The Paramount+ adaption of The Stand managed to be worse than the mini-series version. This doesn't sound like good news for Foundation.
For its time and for some decades afterwards, I wouldn't doubt at all that some of the concepts in Foundation would have been mindblowing to a lot of readers. I also wouldn't doubt its long term influence on scifi in general. I've finished the first book now and would have to say that overall I preferred the first section (on Trantor). It just reads more like regular scifi material, using more imagery to fill the reader's imagination. The other parts are much heavier on dialog in a style that I expect will be reworked for the series. It was interesting to discover that the book was a collation of short stories (that's how it reads) and that the first section was written last. The original concept was in part based on the fall of the Roman empire. Overall I don't think I'll be jumping into the next book any time soon, I also have Dune on my list which I'm more optimistic about.
As many others have done over the years, I've read the entire Foundation series multiple times, original 3 books and the prequels/sequels. It may not include lots of action - - particularly the original books - or fully-developed characters (both common complaints) but imo those were intentional choices by Asimov. And I believe this is because this is one of those stories featuring Big Ideas and so doesn't require much, if any, action; and spending time delving into each character's background and motivations takes away time for developing Asimov's psychohistory concept and the civilization-wide effects it attempts to predict. I understand why the series' creators had to change certain aspects of the original story to create something suitable for a moving-picture version, and despite that I am still looking forward to watching this. Plus going by the trailers, it looks like they have lavished a lot of time and money on this series, strengthening my decision to subscribe to AppleTV for the first time.
David Goyer says: So without giving too much away, I figured out a way to have some of the characters extend their lifespans. About six characters will continue from season to season, from century to century. That way it becomes a half anthological, half continuing story. David S. Goyer interview: ‘Foundation,’ ‘Dark Knight,’ ‘Tomorrow War’ – The Hollywood Reporter
I’ve been anxiously awaiting this. I love the series and I was very young when I first read the original trilogy, I think it was early/mid 80 when Asimov just released the 4th book, Foundation’s Edge, after a 30 year sabbatical in non-fiction writing. I’ve always been struck by the fact that in this series, the dialog is the action - and that’s why I’m anxiously awaiting this. Hoping for good things.
This BBC article has the provocative title "Is this the next Game of Thrones?": Foundation: The 'unfilmable' sci-fi epic now on our screens Okay, that is a clickbait title, and it is probably best not to compare this to the GoT, which was flying high in the sky before the crashing under the weight of poor screen writing.
I read the books so very, very long ago that I barely remember them. I am debating rereading then watching or watching then rereading. I am looking forward to this production.
I just hate when they add new characters/rename characters in an existing "world". Goyer could have done his clone thing but still called them Cleon IX, Cleon XXX, etc. We didn't need a triumvirate with new names. I'll hate it even more if Foundation Apple is successful and we have to deal with a generation of the clueless who will think the books are terrible, or worse, will have never read them. Now get off my lawn.
Big fan of the books and of Asimov .. I have read them all. I don’t want to spoil anything .. but let’s just say I really enjoyed the 1st Episode. It really captures the Asimov feel and hard sci fi aspect and a lot of other aspects. Just watch it especially if you like the books can’t wait to see the entire series
First episode was good. There's a second available to watch and I will in the next few days. It's been so long since I read the books I'm not a good judge but feel there were some large liberties taken--but it's working on TV so far.
This really looks interesting to me. I assume you know that Isaac Asimov was not just a science-fiction writer; rather, his day job was professor of biochemistry at Boston University. I like the idea of science-fiction by a scientist. Several months ago, I gathered together some information on "anti-intellectualism" in American life. And this short article by Asimov was spot on . . . then and even more so, NOW: “A Cult of Ignorance” by Isaac Asimov, 1980 In the past, has Apple TV later released on blu-ray its programs? I hope they don't follow the pattern established by Netflix in this regard.
Just sat down to watch the premiere, and it looks like there are ATV+ server issues at the moment preventing the show from loading. Downdetector is showing a spike in problem reports, although Apple’s status page is not showing a problem. Edit: It looks to be back up.
If you know anything about Apple's corporate mission to create its own streaming content and services, remove disc drives from its devices, and avoid other companies' technologies, e.g., Sony's blu-ray, you know Netflix's aversion to blu-ray is nothing compared to Apple's. In other words: if you're waiting for any Apple content to be released on blu-ray, you'll still be waiting on your deathbed.
