A Foundation TV series… June 24, 2018
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Only learned about this the other day on MacWorld… Apple TV, a TV service from …er…Apple has a raft of shows it intends to host. Including the following:
Last year, Skydance Television landed the rights to make a TV series adaptation of Foundation from the Asimov estate. David S. Goyer (who has writing credits on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) and Josh Friedman (who is working with James Cameron on his Avatar sequel and a Terminator reboot) will serve as executive producers and showrunners.
According to a scoop from Deadline, Apple landed a straight-to-series deal for the show, but we don’t know much more about it yet.
Foundation does not yet have a release date.
I’m fond of Foundation, it’s flat stuff, like most of Asimov’s output (always found The End of Eternity to be his best along with the Caves of Steel), but it does have some curious power to it. How it could be adapted, well, that’s another issue entirely. But here’s hoping it’s at least halfway decent.
Asimov hasn’t been well served by adaptations of his work (I, Robot was so so and really went off the rails at the end).
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
‘I, Robot’ wasn’t even originally related to Asimov’s story at all. They literally just attached the IP for a PR boost. It’s like Labour (fitfully) claiming to be the Party of Connolly, in many ways 😎
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I assume that, to modernise the story, they’re going to go with Asimov’s final revelation that it was the Robots all along? If both this IP and the Culture series were in public domain, the Foundation would be a natural fit for retconning as a Culture prequel, I think.
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That’s an interesting though re the Culture as a follow on from that.
Yeah, I wonder will they get really into the weeds on this one, and not just the link with the Robot stories, but what about Bear, Benford and the other one’s ‘prequels’ and what they imply!
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I’m quite fond of the original Foundation tales. Ignore the clunky dialogue and attitudes, enjoy the retro ride. The later books were poorer because they lost the episodic feel of the original magazine stories. I’m not sure how the TV series will work, though the short story structure might suit seasonal story arcs. But then you get a new set of characters and setting each season? Sort of like American Gothic? Will that hold the loyalty of viewers who invest in certain figures and storylines each season?
The producers will struggle to find any female characters of note. So I expect some gender changes or new figures. No real objection to that, if done sensibly. It’s an adaptation so a certain degree of artistic licence is to be expected. A female “Mule” or “Hari Sheldon”? Now, that would be interesting!
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I like the way you’re thinking… seldon perhaps not but the mule that’d be cool.
Btw over half way thru Discovery and enjoying it a lot but wondering are they burning thru tropes (Klingons, mirror universe) etc at too rapid a rate of knots
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Seldon not Sheldon! Big Bang Theory is ruining my geek brain!
Not a fan of Discovery, Dislike or indifferent to the main characters, though I like the tall alien Star Fleet officer. Can’t remember the name. Reminds me of Odo from DS9. That was a great character and actor in René Auberjonois.
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though I like the tall alien Star Fleet officer. Can’t remember the name.
‘Saru’, and one of the few good things about the new TV Trek. Doug Jones plays him, whom you will recognise in retrospect from so many roles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Jones_(actor)
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R. Daneel Olivaw etc. are of course playable by the same actors.
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Which could provide a nice degree of continuity from season to season.
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Exactly. And they’re about to have the same problem with the Culture TV series (I suspect re-writing to have certain ships, robots and humans as the continuity cast).
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Interesting that Frank Herbert wrote “Dune” partly as a counter-narrative against “Foundation”.
Paul Atreides, like the Mule, is the disruptive element in a carefully-made plan by a scientific elite (Bene Gesserit /the Foundation)- and Herbert’s novel is clearly against such elites.
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