There was a point where the old empire was advancing on the Foundation only to have their general recalled at the moment of total triumph to prevent the general from taking over power after returning victorious. Also the expansion phase against the barbarian kingdoms wasn't completely bloodless.
But the wars and conquests were never really explicit, more described as a historian would describe it as it would happen in the Roman Empire.
Foundation and Empire has two wars in it so there would be plenty of potential for explosions. The actual fighting isn't described much in the book, but I doubt that a TV adaptation would treat it the same way.
I'm not optimistic. David S. Goyer is a hack. He likes to credit himself as the Dark Night screenwriter, but if you compare his previous body of work to Nolan's previous body of work, it's easy to see who was the talent behind the project. If you want to see what Goyer is truly like when he doesn't have a director to reel in his horrible dialogue, watch Blade: Trinity. It's the only one he both wrote and directed, and, fittingly, it's terrible.
Chris and Jonathan Nolan have their fair share of writing gaffs, but its mostly on the dialogue front. Both are brilliant worldbuilders, but don't tell me that "For you" is Oscar-tier dialogue.
His lifetime estimated global box office gross in a writing capacity is $4.8B[0]. I think "hack" may be how you see him, but the world sees otherwise. Also, he didn't credit himself as TDK's writer (screen for Begins, story for the others), the studio did. And if you think that's an easy feat, you're sorely mistaken. It's a hell of a lot easier to write an entire screenplay and not get credited than it is to not write on a project and get credited. That's why arbitration is such a big deal for professional screenwriters.
Further, Josh Friedman is a dyed in the wool sci-fi geek, hilarious guy, and great writer. I have a lot more faith than you that this might work.
Also, Goyer wrote Dark City, a sci-fi classic that tragically slipped under the radar.
Full disclosure: I work in the industry and know Josh and know a ton of people that have worked with David, but I've only met him in passing.
> Also, Goyer wrote Dark City, a sci-fi classic that tragically slipped under the radar.
I'm also a huge fan of Dark City, and unfortunately, it bears all the hallmarks of Goyer's misfires in cringe-worthy dialogue. See: a cop tracing a bloody spiral pattern left on a dead woman's breast and proclaiming, "Round and round it goes. Where it stops...nobody knows!"
>His lifetime estimated global box office gross in a writing capacity is $4.8B[0]. I think "hack" may be how you see him, but the world sees otherwise.
Michael Bay's worldwide gross as a director is 6.1B[0]. I'm going to give this one to AdmiralAsshat.
That's fair, but being able to understand and direct the popular zeitgeist, be it by instinct or intellect, is a very formidable gift indeed. It's something almost none of us can do (certainly myself included), and those who can will always have detractors. I don't see success as a zero sum game, so I'm happy for people who are successful, even if I wish I had their insight.
Total aside, you should check this out when you have time, pretty interesting analysis: https://youtu.be/2THVvshvq0Q
I'm a huge fan of the Foundation series, and I really can't see how it can be adapted for video in any sort of faithful way. For one thing it's almost all dialog. There is very little action or exposition, the former of which at least Hollywood relies heavily on.
What's even more concerning is if you look at what Goyer & Friedman have done in the past, it's almost exclusively comic book and action movie stuff (and that track record is pretty spotty).
And, worse, it keeps changing main characters. No star actors. You can't even have an ensemble cast, the protagonists constantly change as the story progresses.
To be fair, the mini-series format has recently proven to be quite successful. Examples include Fargo and True Detective.
Honestly, I'm more concerned with the scale of the Foundation universe and timeline. If it's not well written and presented, viewers will easily lose track of the where and when.
I'm trying to figure whether they would start with the main trilogy or the prequels.
The trilogy has super frequent cast changes. They might be able to do a season per book, but even then some of the books go through way too many characters to be comfortable for a format like that. Maybe do like a three-part episode per section in the books, in a sort of mini-miniseries? That condenses the dialog-heaviness and allows for some emphasis on the "action", although it would still be very cerebral compared to most series these days.
If they start with the prequels, they'd have a more stable cast. Not to mention, the prequels have a lot more action-y scenes and are a bit more fast-paced. The main downside is that they might lose audience if they go through the prequels and then do the main trilogy; many people would find the later seasons excessively boring, I think.
So I dunno. I can see ways where it might work, but it would have to be well-executed and planned out thoroughly. I think I'm going to try to be hesitantly optimistic, haha. We'll see what happens.
Everyone really hated Will Smith and "I Robot" but I've always maintained it at least captured the spirit of the robot stories, three laws, and the problems that can arise. I ask myself, what is the spirit of the Foundation series that could be captured in a similar way? I personally come up empty handed, hopefully these people can do better!
I do believe there exists some combination of format, production, and screenwriting that could bring Foundation to video. The largest problem is getting the right people to do it.
My ideal setup:
Format: Miniseries with 1-1.5 hour episodes
Network: HBO or Netflix. Mostly because I think only those would take a chance without mucking around the story.
Directors/Producers/Screenwriters: This is the foggiest in my opinion. The Nolans might do well. It would have to be directed by someone visionary but faithful, like Peter Jackson was for LOTR (a great example of a "un-filmable" story turning out well).
Whatever they create, it's something a little bit different than the source material, but will hopefully give a flavor of it.
The hardest part of the Foundation series is it's epic scope, in particular because it would be nice to integrate parts of the Robot series as well. But the essential message for me was humanity as his massive sprawling creature, slowly evolving across millennia.
> Did everyone already forget how hollywoodization of "I, Robot" turned out?
It didn't happen. An almost completely unrelated work, done almost completely without any intention of connection, got the title and a couple org/character names and other window dressing from Asimov's work added to it.
Not at all a guide to how a project setting out to adapt Asimov's work would end up. Sure, the latter might end up badly, but the former is an unrelated thing that provides no guidance.
Wow, this is topical. I'm about 2/3 through book 3 from Audible.
It will be interesting to see how it deals with so man different characters and settings. And also, if it bothers to emphasize the political and cultural differences between the Foundation, the Traders, and the Empire.
The books are very steeped in politics and could potentially make for a boring TV show but at the same time I hope they don't go full Ender's Game on it and remove politics and any form of political commentary entire. Which is why I hated the Ender's Game movie... they made it into an action flick and removed all the moral ambiguity.
I'm really curious how they could adapt Foundation to TV, I really liked the books but I think the Robot Series (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn) lend more to a TV adaptation.
It's probably a mistake, because as much as I like Foundation, it has some issues.
For starters, most of its themes have already been stolen by other works / franchises. How many kids are going to accuse Asimov of ripping of Coruscant when they see Trantor?
And it reads much like a tightly-written Dune. We all know how that turned out.
Maybe they'll go full Golan Trevize inserting flashbacks from the 3 original books for context ? So they can have action and a hero, and the full universe.
It's been a while since I read the series, but it was one of my favorites. Every time a read a story about using ML to predict human behavior I think about Foundation and psychohistory. I don't know how you could put this kind of story on screen though. Maybe it would work in an anthology style with each season having a new cast.
This is good news! If successful, it means that a new generation will learn of the Seldonian ethical imperative -- to monitor to foresee looming societal collapse into a new "Dark Age", and to then act so as to avert that collapse, or, if too late to avert it entirely, to act so as to reduce both the severity and the duration of that collapse. A group which is acting to implement this imperative in the real world is Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.], whose works are made available via www.dialectics.org .
51 comments
[ 339 ms ] story [ 2153 ms ] threadIt might be interesting if they went in more of a direction of "House Of Cards In Space" rather than "Game Of Thrones In Space".
I would love to be wrong though.
...but it might beef up a screenplay. Still, much of Star Trek manages to get by on threats alone.
But the wars and conquests were never really explicit, more described as a historian would describe it as it would happen in the Roman Empire.
And before you ask, I am a hothead.
Further, Josh Friedman is a dyed in the wool sci-fi geek, hilarious guy, and great writer. I have a lot more faith than you that this might work.
Also, Goyer wrote Dark City, a sci-fi classic that tragically slipped under the radar.
Full disclosure: I work in the industry and know Josh and know a ton of people that have worked with David, but I've only met him in passing.
[0] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Writer&id=da...
I'm also a huge fan of Dark City, and unfortunately, it bears all the hallmarks of Goyer's misfires in cringe-worthy dialogue. See: a cop tracing a bloody spiral pattern left on a dead woman's breast and proclaiming, "Round and round it goes. Where it stops...nobody knows!"
Michael Bay's worldwide gross as a director is 6.1B[0]. I'm going to give this one to AdmiralAsshat.
[0] - http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Director&id=...
Total aside, you should check this out when you have time, pretty interesting analysis: https://youtu.be/2THVvshvq0Q
My expectations are low, unfortunately.
Honestly, I'm more concerned with the scale of the Foundation universe and timeline. If it's not well written and presented, viewers will easily lose track of the where and when.
The trilogy has super frequent cast changes. They might be able to do a season per book, but even then some of the books go through way too many characters to be comfortable for a format like that. Maybe do like a three-part episode per section in the books, in a sort of mini-miniseries? That condenses the dialog-heaviness and allows for some emphasis on the "action", although it would still be very cerebral compared to most series these days.
If they start with the prequels, they'd have a more stable cast. Not to mention, the prequels have a lot more action-y scenes and are a bit more fast-paced. The main downside is that they might lose audience if they go through the prequels and then do the main trilogy; many people would find the later seasons excessively boring, I think.
So I dunno. I can see ways where it might work, but it would have to be well-executed and planned out thoroughly. I think I'm going to try to be hesitantly optimistic, haha. We'll see what happens.
http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d19127d8
Interestingly, the article discusses how the same scriptwriter was involved in a Foundation adaptation, (that didn't seem to go anywhere.)
My ideal setup:
Format: Miniseries with 1-1.5 hour episodes
Network: HBO or Netflix. Mostly because I think only those would take a chance without mucking around the story.
Directors/Producers/Screenwriters: This is the foggiest in my opinion. The Nolans might do well. It would have to be directed by someone visionary but faithful, like Peter Jackson was for LOTR (a great example of a "un-filmable" story turning out well).
https://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy
Whatever they create, it's something a little bit different than the source material, but will hopefully give a flavor of it.
The hardest part of the Foundation series is it's epic scope, in particular because it would be nice to integrate parts of the Robot series as well. But the essential message for me was humanity as his massive sprawling creature, slowly evolving across millennia.
Not every good book needs a movie made out of it.
I'm more worried it might be like Ender's Game and remove all substance from it.
Faking for getting more audience is wrong from my point of view.
It didn't happen. An almost completely unrelated work, done almost completely without any intention of connection, got the title and a couple org/character names and other window dressing from Asimov's work added to it.
Not at all a guide to how a project setting out to adapt Asimov's work would end up. Sure, the latter might end up badly, but the former is an unrelated thing that provides no guidance.
It will be interesting to see how it deals with so man different characters and settings. And also, if it bothers to emphasize the political and cultural differences between the Foundation, the Traders, and the Empire.
The books are very steeped in politics and could potentially make for a boring TV show but at the same time I hope they don't go full Ender's Game on it and remove politics and any form of political commentary entire. Which is why I hated the Ender's Game movie... they made it into an action flick and removed all the moral ambiguity.
For starters, most of its themes have already been stolen by other works / franchises. How many kids are going to accuse Asimov of ripping of Coruscant when they see Trantor?
And it reads much like a tightly-written Dune. We all know how that turned out.