“Foundation” discussion thread

[Smartwatchlover]

Hi everyone,

Let’s use this space to comment on the incoming TV show “Foundation” and (at least in my case) to share fears and worries about the level of deviation that this series may have compared to the original books.

When Apple announced “Foundation” I was so excited that I have read all the 7 books in a row (and completed this huge task only a couple of weeks ago) so that now I have the entire saga well clear in my mind.

Then I saw the 3 trailers…. and my reaction wasn’t positive at all.

For what I have seen till now it looks like the books were used just to inspire something which reminds - and for some extent recalls - the original story, then it deviates dramatically with invented characters, gender swap (men characters represented by women) and a lot of action (while in reality there isn’t much action in the original story).

Demerzel is a man, Gaal Dornick is a man (with a quite marginal role), brother Day, Dusk and Dawn do not exist at all in the original books….

Where is the need to represent men’s characters by women when in the books there are legendary women characters such as Dors Venabili (my favorite one), Bliss, Bayta and Arkadia Darell?

I fear that I will be hugely disappointed by watching this show and I do believe that this will end up being just a good action movie rather than the translation of the original story on the big screen.

I would love to be wrong but so far what has been shown in the 3 trailers doesn’t go in the right direction imho.

 

[Diskutant]

gender swap (men characters represented by women)

Is the gender important for the story? If not, why does it matter what gender a character has?

 

[artfossil]

I’m looking forward to anything by—or “inspired by”—Isaac Asimov. Any day with any amount of Asimov is a good day, at least for me.

I’ll watch the series without expectations and evaluate it on its own terms.

 

[Smartwatchlover]

Is the gender important for the story? If not, why does it matter what gender a character has?

It is in my opinion, just read the books and you’ll realize the same.

 

[mallbritton]

It is in my opinion, just read the books and you’ll realize the same.

I have read the books, multiple times. And I disagree that those characters MUST be men just because Asimov wrote them as such in 1950-whatever. And I suspect that Dr. Asimov would agree with me.

 

[LonestarOne]

Is the gender important for the story? If not, why does it matter what gender a character has?

Arkady is really the only character where it matters. Even the names could just as easily be female, in most cases.

When Asimov wrote the Foundation trilogy, science fiction readers were almost exclusively male. The characters reflect that. If he were alive and writing it today, it would undoubtedly be different. And the effect on the story would be negligable.

 

[plinden]

I'm with mallbrittion and LonestarOne. The gender of the characters doesn't matter.

I've read the Foundation trilogy (the original three books - I've read the additions only once) at least once a decade since I was 12. Despite that, I have to say that Asimov was not a very good writer. His grand ideas were good but he couldn't write characters, and he couldn't write women. His descriptive passages are anemic and action is almost non-existent. I've heard his writing described as "two men sitting, and sometimes standing, in a room talking" and I can confirm that having reread many of his books in the past five years or so. He's no George RR Martin or JRR Tolkien.

I feel his best writing was the alien half of "The Gods Themselves" where he wasn't constrained by how people acted in the 1950s. The original Foundation books are steeped in mid-20th century thinking. Look at how the Foundation gained control over the Four Kingdoms in his books - they provided domestic appliances to the women of the kingdoms, then withheld them when there were political disagreements. Not having their washing machines pushed the women of the Four Kingdoms into forcing their male leaders to capitulate to the Foundation. Even my teenage self, reading the books less than 20 years after they were written, found that patronizing.

The Foundation story itself can't be filmed word-for-word from the book. It would make a very boring video.

 

[trash eighty]

I'm looking forward to it though i'm glad its been a long time since i read the books (probably 30 years) so i can (hopefully) enjoy them on their own strength without comparing them to the original.

 

[mallbritton]

I'm looking forward to it though i'm glad its been a long time since i read the books (probably 30 years) so i can (hopefully) enjoy them on their own strength without comparing them to the original.

That's the way to approach any book-to-screen adaptation, I think. It's how I always try to approach something like Foundation.

 

[mallbritton]

His grand ideas were good but he couldn't write characters, and he couldn't write women. His descriptive passages are anemic and action is almost non-existent.

I believe it was a letter in Yours, Isaac Asimov that he admitted much the same thing. I believe Asimov's longevity in this fiction writing is that he did realize what his limitations were and wrote to his strengths.

I feel his best writing was the alien half of "The Gods Themselves" where he wasn't constrained by how people acted in the 1950s.

Interestingly, that novel was written as a bit of a challenge from another writer (I forget who at the moment) who commented to Asimov that his novels never contained any sex.

 

[plinden]

I believe it was a letter in Yours, Isaac Asimov that he admitted much the same thing. I believe Asimov's longevity in this fiction writing is that he did realize what his limitations were and wrote to his strengths.

Oh yeah, there's a reason I keep rereading his books, even though I know I'm going to be disappointed with the writing itself. In the past 2-3 years I've reread the original Foundation trilogy, the Galactic Empire books, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The End of Eternity and The Gods Themselves. That's a significant percentage of the books I've read in that time.

Interestingly, that novel was written as a bit of a challenge from another writer (I forget who at the moment) who commented to Asimov that his novels never contained any sex.

According to Wikipedia, he wrote "The Gods Themselves" after Robert Silverberg mentioned in passing an isotope, plutonium-186, that can't exist. Asimov then worked out the physics of a universe where plutonium-186 could exist, and that was the basis of the alien part of the book. The human part of the book was still, mostly, two men in a room talking.

I do remember reading one of his short story collections where his blurb at the start of a story said he wrote it in response to someone saying he never included sex in his writing. I don't remember the collection or the story, but he admitted he didn't succeed very well.

 

[plinden]

<deleting accidental double post>

 

[mallbritton]

I do remember reading one of his short story collections where his blurb at the start of a story said he wrote it in response to someone saying he never included sex in his writing. I don't remember the collection or the story, but he admitted he didn't succeed very well.

Ah! I obviously confused The Gods Themselves with that short story. The title of which I also do not remember.

 

[LonestarOne]

Despite that, I have to say that Asimov was not a very good writer. His grand ideas were good but he couldn't write characters, and he couldn't write women.

I don’t think you understand what science fiction is about. If you want characters who spend their time brooding about why they hate their mother, you’re looking in the wrong place.

James Gunn said, “Science fiction is the fiction of ideas. If the story is more about character, then it should probably be a mainstream story.”

(In case there’s any doubt, I’m talking about the late Prof. James Gunn, the Grandmaster of Science Fiction, not James Gunn the sleazy Hollywood director.)

As for George R.R. Martin, he’s the guy who once said that Hal Clement couldn’t write realistic aliens and now writes about aliens who look exactly like humans, ride animals that look exactly like horses, eat salmon and pork, have Anglo-Saxon names like “John Snow”, and fight a thinly disguised version of the War of the Roses — but with dragons.

 

[LonestarOne]

“He presents Isaac Asimov as ‘the purest, clearest, most fluid, most effective writer of the American Plain Style’. Asimov’s purposefully transparent language and intolerance for unexplored mysteries make his work seem artless, but his preference for the plain style of writing was fundamentally the result of expunging ‘all fanciness from his writing’ to produce a telescopically clear view of distant or fuzzy possibilities.”

Analysis of Isaac Asimov’s Gold

“Gold,” the title story of Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection, fittingly mirrors Isaac Asimov’s half-century writing career. Asimov’s work has defined science fiction as a multilayered genr…

literariness.org

 

[CWallace]

Starting the first episode now.

So hyped.

 

[X38]

First episode is out early. So far, quite different from the books.

 

[haralds]

Is the gender important for the story? If not, why does it matter what gender a character has?

The producers and director felt that Asimov followed an imbalance driven by the perceptions of his time. Having read them as a kid when they were released I have to say that I agree.
Asimov would have loved to change genders. I was a very aware person.

 

[haralds]

First episode is out early. So far, quite different from the books.

I reared the first book and it was quite plain as far as a story was concerned. But the ideas were great. I would expect them to make changes. TV today is a very different medium, especially at the scale of this production.

 

[X38]

Well, that was definitely not the Asimov story. It didn‘t completely suck, so I suppose I’ll watch the rest of the series, but ATV+ is still left looking for a reason to exist. This definitely isn’t going to be the big anchor hit that they need.
Apple’s best option for ATV+ remains to just make it a streaming service for the iTunes movie library.

 

[LonestarOne]

Not as bad as I expected. With the exception of one scene, I’d say it was not bad at all. The Emperor personally killing one of this underlings with a blaster was pretty over the top, though. A little too “Game of Thrones”.

 

[plinden]

I don’t think you understand what science fiction is about. If you want characters who spend their time brooding about why they hate their mother, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Why does it have to be either/or? A big difference between Science Fiction and Literary Fiction is that the characters in Science Fiction are usually reacting to something big outside themselves, while a lot of Literary Fiction is introspective and detailing reactions to internal stimuli.

However, the characterization of the written character is important to the story, otherwise you end up with interchangeable characters that the writer is moving into place just to further the plot, or you end up with stereotypes. When faced with a starving child in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a person who feels guilty about bullying someone at school may act differently from someone who feels no such guilt, even if both were bullies and had identical lives up to the moment they meet the child. And someone who hates his mother because she was abusive and emotionally manipulative is going to react differently from someone who hates his mother because she wouldn't let him play video games all day. Different paths through What If ... ? scenarios can be traced out depending on what the characters are like.

As for George R.R. Martin, he’s the guy who once said that Hal Clement couldn’t write realistic aliens and now writes about aliens who look exactly like humans, ride animals that look exactly like horses, eat salmon and pork, have Anglo-Saxon names like “John Snow”, and fight a thinly disguised version of the War of the Roses — but with dragons.

I came to the same conclusion as you, but a society that has access to large load-carrying animals will have horse-analogs. Replacing them with "horses" just gives a short hand way of describing the animal.

Incidentally, Middle-Earth has people, salmon, and horses too, and the Empire of the original Foundation trilogy wasn't even a thinly disguised version of the Roman Empire.

One more thing about characterization - if introspection has a place in Science Fiction, it's minor and should be shunted off to the side. Here's a 2 star Amazon review I wrote about a year ago of Embers of War -

Nothing we haven't read before

And to quote:

Worst of all was the introspection. The bloody introspection. Before every piece of action the character currently doing the narration would spend two pages reiterating how they got to this situation and wondering what everyone else thinks of them and how they don't really want to be here and how they don't really know what they're doing. Yes, I do that myself sometimes, but that's a 'waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat-in-the-middle-of-the-night' situation, not a 'facing-imminent-death-from-the-evil-bad-guys' situation, which would tend to focus the mind. And none of you want to read about *my* self-doubt.

 

[drsox]

I also reread all of them again. Bloody good TV. Some liberties with the plot but the essence (IMO) of the first chapter of Foundation is in the first TV episode. I get the same feeling with this as I had when I saw the first LOTR film - something classic from a classic source.

Well done all.

 

[drsox]

Not as bad as I expected. With the exception of one scene, I’d say it was not bad at all. The Emperor personally killing one of this underlings with a blaster was pretty over the top, though. A little too “Game of Thrones”.

True. Should have been a loyal underling.

 

[drsox]

Well, that was definitely not the Asimov story. It didn‘t completely suck, so I suppose I’ll watch the rest of the series, but ATV+ is still left looking for a reason to exist. This definitely isn’t going to be the big anchor hit that they need.
Apple’s best option for ATV+ remains to just make it a streaming service for the iTunes movie library.

Disagree completely.