I liked some of the books set earlier, and I liked the three Robots books. Did not like Gaia either.
There were some good stories in the universe, written by other writers. Easy to work with them.
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'Foundation' Showrunner Hopes for Unparalleled 80 Episodes on Apple TV+
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It's not about an old book, though, is it? It's about a new show, meaning that it is just about to reach a whole new group of people; so there's a bunch of people about be introduced to a for them whole new story.
That changes things a bit, especially when the post is made on a forum with a ducking feature specifically for hiding spoilers.
That would be the plan.
For long story arc shows, 10-13 episodes is a better length. Shows were commissioned as 13 episodes and then if that went well, they would pick up “the back 9” for 22 episodes. Given that writers often did not know if they would have a full season order, they got used to writing 13 episode arcs. In longer seasons, there would often be clip shows (to help people new to the show or season catch up), bottle episodes (all the characters stuck in one place - snow storm, elevator, flat tire, etc.) and holiday episodes (standalone episode, with no real impact on the main arc of the season/show) to fill things out.
Yes.
Not as much of an issue. Even a 22 episode season would typically take fewer than 44 weeks to film, and if an actor wanted to do a 16 week feature shoot they can work around the schedule.
Yes.
Most of the above to one extent or another. :-D
I would not limit it that way. I would look at them as a single story understanding the individual endings as smaller arcs within the larger one. That might mean 3 seasons as you suggested, but it also might be 4 or 5.
We have no idea what the plot of the new show is, so it’s impossible to spoil it.
Wow, a couple of guys single-handedly saving humanity! Sounds like a super unique, exiting story! Which one-of-a-kind genius came up with that idea? So excited! Can't wait to see it... zzz....
That’s not at all the plot. The novels span thousands of years, and are considered one of the top couple of science fiction sagas of all time.
Now don't get defensive and over-exaggerate, you know perfectly well I'm not saying that, all I am saying is that people should have a little courtesy and consideration for those people that haven't read a book yet. Unless there is a valid reason to spoil a plot point and reveal something that might spoil someone else's subsequent enjoyment in an open forum wouldn't it be better not to do so... or at the very least, as was said, just hide it behind a spoiler tag? That's why we have spoiler tags.
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Oh no... are they still doing this? I thought it had been cancelled/scrapped/shelved? How disappointing! And I speak as a lifelong Asimov fan. Perhaps that's the problem. Aside from the title and the names of a couple of the characters, who have been pointlessly gender-swapped, I can find nothing in common with the books. Band of exiles? No! The founders of the Foundation were sent to Terminus at the behest of the Empire - they were not exiled, and not on a monumental journey. Water planet? Brother Day? You what?
Shouldn't be surprised though. In his 1981 book "Asimov on Science Fiction", in the chapter 'Hollywood and I", on his resistance to 'Hollywood':
"There are two basic reasons for this resistance. First, I am not visual enough to write dialogue and events that are to be interpreted primarily in the form of moving images on a screen. I'm just a word man, and though it is a wise man that knows his powers, it is an even wiser person who knows his limitations.
Second, I am reasonably confident that in magazines and books my fiction will appear very much as I have written it. Anything I write for the visual media, however, I am certain will be tampered with by producers, directors, actors, office boys, and the relatives of any or all of these."
And so it has come to pass - someone whose claim to fame is having produced a 'Batman' movie has got his hands on Foundation, and lo - Asimovs predictions have, with depressing predictability, come true yet again. Office boys and third rate hacks have decided they could do better, have thrown out the source material and written their own thing, but tacked the 'Foundation' name onto it to give it some semblance of worthiness and gravitas, when it deserves no such thing.
"But Erny" you say, "You haven't seen it yet, give it a chance". Well, I did, right up until I heard the first description of what they were doing and all hope was lost. It might be good, it might be worth watching, but it's got nothing to do with Asimov or Foundation, whatever they say. They've changed so many things that are absolutely fundamental to the wider 'Foundation' universe that nothing that stems from that makes sense any more.
Sure I'll watch it, and I won't hesitate to review and critique it whenever and wherever possible.
Shouldn't be surprised though. In his 1981 book "Asimov on Science Fiction", in the chapter 'Hollywood and I", on his resistance to 'Hollywood':
"There are two basic reasons for this resistance. First, I am not visual enough to write dialogue and events that are to be interpreted primarily in the form of moving images on a screen. I'm just a word man, and though it is a wise man that knows his powers, it is an even wiser person who knows his limitations.
Second, I am reasonably confident that in magazines and books my fiction will appear very much as I have written it. Anything I write for the visual media, however, I am certain will be tampered with by producers, directors, actors, office boys, and the relatives of any or all of these."
And so it has come to pass - someone whose claim to fame is having produced a 'Batman' movie has got his hands on Foundation, and lo - Asimovs predictions have, with depressing predictability, come true yet again. Office boys and third rate hacks have decided they could do better, have thrown out the source material and written their own thing, but tacked the 'Foundation' name onto it to give it some semblance of worthiness and gravitas, when it deserves no such thing.
"But Erny" you say, "You haven't seen it yet, give it a chance". Well, I did, right up until I heard the first description of what they were doing and all hope was lost. It might be good, it might be worth watching, but it's got nothing to do with Asimov or Foundation, whatever they say. They've changed so many things that are absolutely fundamental to the wider 'Foundation' universe that nothing that stems from that makes sense any more.
Sure I'll watch it, and I won't hesitate to review and critique it whenever and wherever possible.
You really live for being upset and yelling at the world, right? 😂
No judging, though; we all have our weird little hobbies.
Clam down, calm down... he hasn't given anything away. In fact, you could quote whole swathes of the books, write out the complete synopsis for the entire series, and you would give away anything at all in this TV series. Go read the first line, of the first chapter of the first book, and it already deviates from what they'll be putting on screen. Don't bother - let me write it out for you:USE. THE. SPOILER. FEATURE. WHEN. POSTING. STUFF. LIKE. THAT. 😤
Now go edit your post.
"His name was Gaal Dornick, and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before."
It only gets worse from there.
You could only post spoilers for the series if you had their scripts. What's in the books is not what will be on the screen.
Eto Demerzel is a robot called Daneel Olivaw, and he's been around since the very beginning of the colonisation of the galaxy, and he has the ability to sense and adjust minds! There! Sue me!
...one of the good things to come out of the decline of the old, rigid network model, and a really good thing when it comes to telling long-form stories rather than stand-alone episodes. It's always been the norm with UK TV to have 6-13 episodes per season (apart from soaps which, for some reason, run 52 weeks a year).
2O+ episodes is too long, too expensive and too reliant on writing-by-committee to stretch out a season-long plot - you end up with padding, clip shows and silly stand-alone episodes.
Hopefully, if streaming becomes dominant, we'll see even more flexibility in season and episode length. Shows like The Expanse have been generally brilliant but have suffered from pacing problems possibly due to the 1 book = 10 episodes rule.
Agree - in fact, I think those books are (a) better than Foundation and (b) would be a lot less challenging to adapt to the screen.
At least with Foundation each book has its own, reasonably satisfying, plot arc, so 1 season per book would end each season with some degree of closure (you can always create a cliffhanger by teasing elements of the next book)... unlike a lot of modern book series/trilogies where intermediate books often just stop in mid-story. Or, if you want to really stretch it out, the first Foundation book is actually 3-4 sequential stories...
Seems pretty hard to say how closely connected the story will be until one actually sees what they have done, rather than complain about how other people are describing the show/story arc/characters.
Sorry, they absolutely were exiled after Hari Seldon’s trial for treason. Seldon may have been OK with that, but it was not exactly his choice.
Again, I have no idea whether it will be good, nor how closely it will follow the actual text or even the spirit of the text, but I know enough about the production process to ignore the descriptions of a story by marketing people.
I disagree. The padding bottle episodes in TNG, DS9 and VOY were among the most important, despite superficially not seeming important. They did little steps to drive character development. That's sorely missing from modern Trek.
Seldon convinced the Commissioners to send the founders of the Foundation to Terminus under the guise of compiling an encyclopaedia so that the knowledge they had would be preserved - which is exactly what Seldon wanted, by arousing fears of Imperial safety - the only way he could get 20,000 families to leave, as they otherwise would not go. Sure, it was called exile, but it was a deliberate manipulation by Seldon to that end. And further, not merely manipulation by Seldon, as I'm sure you know.
Also, it's not how other people are describing the show/story/characters - it's how the producers are describing them. I think we can assume that they are doing what they say they are doing, and much of it is already known.
We do have a valid reason to discuss plot points. We are discussing the difficulties and possibilities relating to an adaptation. The book was published in 1942. There is nothing to “spoil.” Objecting to people talking about plot points in books that old is stupid.
Are we still worrying about giving away the ending to Sixth Sense?
Should we not point out what happens at the end of The Natural, or why Bernard Malamud’s book differs from the movie? Keep it a surprise for future generations or something?
Such a moronic thing to worry about.
In a thread that specifically could attract a lot of people that haven't seen it? Yes, yes we are; because we would rather let people have a great time, than going out of our way to ruin things.
There's two ways Foundation on Apple TV+ will play out: it'll either flop, or it will largely attract viewers who've never read the books.
I liked the original trilogy, but I think there were lots of problems with it, and as Asimov said once he added all the books that tied everything together is that since they were not written with the vision that they would all be a single universe, there are lots discontinuities and contradictions. Those three are more consistent, more visual, less talk-y and would be easier to adapt.
The second is two story arcs, so again, easy to break up. Second Foundation would be the hardest to split.
Sometimes bottle episodes are great and give us lots of character development or back stories, sometimes they are just filler. Almost all clip shows are worthless from the standpoint of someone who has been watching the series. That is also true for most of the holiday episodes.