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Apple TV+ Epic Saga 'Foundation' Based on Isaac Asimov's Best-Selling Novels Premieres September 24

cpnotebook80 said:
Time to re read the books or should I go with low expectations knowing that book adaptations don’t always translate well to big screen. Would be disappointing if they took liberal creative differences on the book content.

Remember I, robot? , wasn’t how I expected it from reading the book.
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I haven't read the books - my understanding based on what I've read and some YT videos i've watched about them is the original books were written in the style of several men sitting around discussing things that are going on in the empire. By todays standards, the writing isn't great (so i'm told) - but it was groundbreaking on the SciFi side at the time. That doesn't translate to screen at all. Apple is most likely (and seems confirmed from the teasers) going to show the events, instead of describe them in that manner.... the entire series also takes place I believe over millennia... so how Apple will translate that to the screen is an unknown.

There are reasons this show had been contemplated for decades and no one ever was able to bring it to screen. It is very hard to adapt from the source material. It may be people who are true fans of the books may have trouble with any adaptation that makes the show interesting to everyone else.
 
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dguisinger said:
the entire series also takes place I believe over millennia... so how Apple will translate that to the screen is an unknown.
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IMO they will use multiple casts. Probably each season is a book - so three seasons for the originals. I've never seen good reviews for the other books but have never read them. Should they be in the TV adaptations ?
 
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citysnaps said:
Yes...if you're struggling to scrape 17 cents per day for AppleTV+ and have no interest in other AppleTV+ shows, that's what you should do.
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The other shows will be there waiting for you. I’m looking forward to season 2 of Ted Lasso but if it’s like the first season I’ll want to binge the whole thing over a few days so happy to wait until it’s all available.

Apple TV+ does not justify a continuous subscription IMO. Netflix costs twice as much but does justify itself.

It’s not about scraping money together. I could throw the cost of TV+ in the trash every day. That would be stupid. But IMO so too is continuing to pay for a service that is below existing standards when you can cancel and then resubscribe with just a few clicks.
 
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dguisinger said:
I haven't read the books - my understanding based on what I've read and some YT videos i've watched about them is the original books were written in the style of several men sitting around discussing things that are going on in the empire. By todays standards, the writing isn't great (so i'm told) - but it was groundbreaking on the SciFi side at the time. That doesn't translate to screen at all. Apple is most likely (and seems confirmed from the teasers) going to show the events, instead of describe them in that manner.... the entire series also takes place I believe over millennia... so how Apple will translate that to the screen is an unknown.

There are reasons this show had been contemplated for decades and no one ever was able to bring it to screen. It is very hard to adapt from the source material. It may be people who are true fans of the books may have trouble with any adaptation that makes the show interesting to everyone else.
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The writing isn’t bad by today’s standards. That’s an interesting take. Just because it isn’t written in the manner that you or YouTube people don’t like it would’ve written it in doesn’t mean it’s not good writing.
 
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posguy99 said:
It looks interesting, and I'm a fan of the books, but it's not worth subscribing to ATV to see it.
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It doesn't make any sense , if there is a good show or movie on a streaming service then 5$ to watch it seems VERY competitive just for the one show or movie , I think ppl got so jaded about streaming overflow that they don't look at the value proposition anymore , 5$ for one good series ? amazing deal !!! 5$ for 100 **** series ? very bad deal.

I pay for my books , Brandon Sanderson gets my 15$ for most of his books , I read it in a couple of days and I feel that I got my money worth.

TLDR - 5$ is a very cheap price for a good TV show (if it ends up being one of course).
 
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posguy99 said:
It looks interesting, and I'm a fan of the books, but it's not worth subscribing to ATV to see it.
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Exactly. Personally I haven't found that much TV+ programming worth watching. But even if the few shows and movies they offer on TV+ were mostly all good, there isn't enough programming to make it worth the subscription rate. Apple should probably give everyone at least another full year of free trial since they don't have enough programming to warrant charging a fee yet, IMO. This reminds me of the first iPhone that was released with an app store that had very few apps. I returned mine and waited a few years until the app store had enough apps to make the purchase worth while.
 
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drsox said:
IMO they will use multiple casts. Probably each season is a book - so three seasons for the originals. I've never seen good reviews for the other books but have never read them. Should they be in the TV adaptations ?
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They’ve already gone way off book, and seem to be smashing the foundation series together with the events that took place in the prequels “Prelude to Foundation,” and “Forward the Foundation.”
 
NotTooLate said:
It doesn't make any sense , if there is a good show or movie on a streaming service then 5$ to watch it seems VERY competitive just for the one show or movie , I think ppl got so jaded about streaming overflow that they don't look at the value proposition anymore , 5$ for one good series ? amazing deal !!! 5$ for 100 **** series ? very bad deal.

I pay for my books , Brandon Sanderson gets my 15$ for most of his books , I read it in a couple of days and I feel that I got my money worth.

TLDR - 5$ is a very cheap price for a good TV show (if it ends up being one of course).
Click to expand...
Not very good logic IMO. How many shows do you stream per month? Just one? Then $5 is probably a decent price. Do you watch 25 shows per month? I do, and if I had to stream those from multiple $5 streaming services, then that could potentially cost up to $75/month. That is getting too high. IMO, there is a cutoff point somewhere. I'm not willing to pay $5/month for one show. I might be willing to pay $5/month for perhaps 10 or more shows, but not $5 a piece for them. When TV+ consistently has enough new shows to watch so that I can consistently watch 10 or more per month, then I will reconsider. Currently though, $5/month to watch an occasional show or movie isn't worth the expense. I can pay other services and get a lot more bang for the buck. When TV+ has a lot of bang for the buck, then I'll consider paying for it. So far though, TV+ has not peaked my interest with any of its shows.
 
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The same writer for Man of Steel? That doesn't sound good. Hope they don't f**k up Asimov's vision like they did with Superman. Man of Steel was Zack Snyder-fied and Superman turned into an Ayn Rand emo god.
 
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Windoes said:
This could be the show worth waiting for?
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That's what I've been thinking.

Now that the trial ends for me, I'm not gonna start paying for Apple TV, as there just hasn't been anything I wanted to see, yet**.

So, Foundations is definitively one of the shows that could bring me back, but I'll wait for the reviews before I commit. The Foundations series could be very difficult to make the transition from book(s) to television, but if done right it could be epic...in any sense of that word.

** I watched one episode of that motor cycle road trip thingy with Ewan McGregor, but couldn't be bothered watching the rest.
 
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Please don't **** this up...please don't **** this up... :)

The series is not starting with the first book, because the first book is set after the fall of the empire and the death of Seldon. Which makes sense, it's better to tell a story like this in chronological order for the general audience, and they can start off with the spectacular part where the empire crumbles and Seldon sets his long term plan in motion. The rest of it, where a small number of people attempt to keep the galaxy moving forward along the plan (as well as how that changes into something different and is challenged up unforeseen events) is a smaller scale story of how to avoid the utter collapse of humanity, which will have a lot of twists and turns but probably nothing as big as a set piece as the destruction of the empire.

It will be interesting to see how they handle the end of the entire series...I don't want to spoil it but it ends by bringing in another Asimov character and before the new empire has begun. You'd think that they would want to have the entire span, since Asimov didn't write the end I expect them to extend the storytelling. Lots of things will be different, simply because Foundation was written in a far different era and people expect certain things from their sci-fi epics...if they hold onto the story and the themes then I think it will work out fine, but if it's just a clone of every other sci-fi series out there it will be really disappointing.
 
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Can anyone comment on the appropriateness of the books and potentially this series for 11-12 year old? I haven't read them myself and I struggled a little bit trying to find info. My son has heard of this and wants to read the books before the series comes out.
 
Johnny907 said:
They’ve already gone way off book, and seem to be smashing the foundation series together with the events that took place in the prequels “Prelude to Foundation,” and “Forward the Foundation.”
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If the focus is supposed to be Foundation and on they will probably have to back up a bit for the first episodes into the prequels to 'set the stage' for why everything is happening. That should cover people that have only read the three main books and people that haven't read any of them.
 
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ISmohsin said:
Or he can just wait until November when the whole season will be available as Blu-Ray torrent and download it
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I don't think ATV+ content is released as Blu Rays. Sure, some thief will offer it one way or the other.
 
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