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I'm sorry but the show has only the name of the books and has very little to do with them...
I'm ok with Salvor Hardin being a woman, I'm not ok with her being an action hero with guns while in the book the dude had a motto which was "violence is the last refuge of incompetents" and was a master of talking.
There's also the bit where we have at least two "universe's most special boy/girl" characters upon whom everything hinges repeatedly when the entire point kf the psycho-history concept is that major events like that happen one way or another regardless of the specific details.
But Hari Seldon is being very clear that those characters are wrecking his psychohistorical predictions by being like that. It's perfectly fine, IMO, for psychohistory to have not been as complete and omnipotent as Seldon initially thought it was. It'd be kind of annoying if it was, frankly. I prefer stories where the characters have agency and have to make efforts for things to turn out well.
That flaw turned out to be present in the books too, BTW. The Mule was the universe's most special boy in there, the show's just added two extra ones to the mix on the protagonist side.
Exactly. Anybody like the Mule absolutely wreaks havoc.
And he even account for situations like that with a backup plan.
The entire point is that he can predict the overall movement of mankind and with it be specific to some events and some times.
So any one person who everything hinges on just undoes the entire psychohistory.
On the flip side… in the end the books show that even if you’re as good as Hari Sheldon that the universe has a way to randomly throwing wrenches in the works.
Having a category of entity that wasn't considered in the base assumptions show up and throw a spanner in the works is consistentnwith the theme.
Having a singularity or error which needs correcting works.
Having the same people be the crux of every crisis is incredibly grating.
They also done my boy Daneel real dirty.
I hated the Mule in the books. Wrecked the books from that point on in my opinion. But, loved everything in foundation before that.
You say that yet in reality, psychohistory dictates that they WILL be the universes most special people. They aren't mutually exclusive, they're patiently entwined. Not even getting into the latter books and how that shows the truth of it.
Which would be fine if the magic pixie dream girl wasn't insufferable as hell and had a terrible actress.
The needed the mystery to follow Gaal without her being in the story, just a legend they searched the galaxy for.
Honestly dude.. as someone who has read every single asimov book, and the entire foundation series and then read the entirety of the robot series, these books were my lord of the rings. The show is doing something different. I'm willing to wait and see how things go. I mean hari being an immortal consciousness and all is already completely different. I simply enjoy being in the world of the foundation at all.
The only real way I'll probably actually get to see something like the book in a non written way is as a 4x game a la crusader kings, or total war, or Stellaris. Heck or even as an RPG. I just don't think it's easily adaptable for TV or cinemas. For them attempting to do this and weaving in the foundations story is pretty commendable from my perspective and I hope they keep improving the story. Shame about Daneel olivaw.
I have entirely stopped comparing the show to the books because all it would do is frustrate me. Now I just think of it as it's own thing.
I can't do it. There's a very simple principle here that seems to escape most of hollywood lately: If you want to do something different, then call it something different! I mean at least change part of the name. Look at the first four Star Trek sequel series, they all had different names, and still were closer to the original than that crap that Abrams spewed out. Even The Orville is closer to Star Trek and it doesn't use any of the original names at all. The Gotham tv series doesn't even have the name "Batman" in it. I know they weren't allowed to but still, makes it far easier to take as its own thing. It's almost like they are trying to do it backwards, where the closer the name is to the original, the less it bears any resemblance to it.
I'm OK with salvor because she's an OK character. That red monk girl is really starting to grow on me.
I am very much NOT OK with anything having to do with Gaal, because she seems like a terrible character with a terrible actress.
Haven't seen last night but last week was great specifically because it had 0 Gaal.
Brother Constant is the most engaging character on the show now, and yeah Gaal's a bummer
Gaal: "I hate you, Hari, I don't trust you, you ruined my life, I'm not doing anything you say!"
Also Gaal: "Choke me harder, Daddy Seldon!"
I don't believe those are quotes, the first one might be paraphrase, but I can't believe the second one is.
I'm not normally triggered by characters like that, but I realized I liked the 2nd half of s1 a lot more because she finally stfu.
Her voice is beyond grating, her reactions don't seem to match her environment, shes a genius/take charge woman who is always crying because shes helpless, and even beyond that she makes me want to stop watching and I don't know why I hate her so much.
The show has nothing to do with Asimov's books. They are just using Asimov's name for marketing.
I’ve only really heard negative opinions about this show but the budget and special effects actually look beautiful. What’s the consensus here on the show? I actually have never actually read the books as reference.
Its like… actively bad.
The only parts I have actually found engaging enough to watch are the parts centered around the emperor. Unfortunately, everything to do with Hari Seldon and Salvor Hardin so far is at best kinda inconsequential, and at worst so cringingly over-acted and poorly written that I genuinely cannot understand how it got past focus groups.
Not to mention, there is SO. MUCH. Expository narration… I guess the writers didn’t get the memo about “show, don’t tell”.
Not very good. It's a mess to follow.
It really is beautiful. I'd call it the most cinematic show on the air right now. It takes paying attention to follow, but the story has been satisfying so far. The acting is excellent. I recommend it, but you have to invest yourself in keeping track of what's going on.
It's a horrible show. Don't waste your money on it.
I haven't read the books but the show is good scifi imo. The actors are solid and the story is really intriguing.
Show is ok if you don't know anything about the books. The usual action sci-fi stuff with good special effects.
Would you recommend reading the book first before going into the show?
I'm not the person you wrote to but I recommend reading the books and not watching the show at all.
I grew up on the books and I’m loving this show. First season is more about set up but season two slaps hard so far. I legit can’t wait for each new episode, whereas first season was more of a passive curiosity about where they went with it.
Imho, don’t even pay attention to the hate. Most of it is from book readers and if you haven’t read them it literally does not matter.
I think the show is worth watching for sure. The effects are top notch and when they are telling The Empire side of the storyline it can be pretty entertaining.
I never read the book/books(?), thought the first season was cool. Seems like everyone who read the book hates it.
I thought it was interesting, visually appealing, and I pretty much binged the whole first season.
It doesn't have even the vaguest resemblance to the books. They could have created their own show, but instead somehow are selling it as Foundation.
I liked the books back when I read them. But sometimes it was tough work keeping on reading, because p.e. tech references would not translate well to nowadays, and from the social structure depicted they really showed their age. Which for me works with p.e. Heinlein, but not with Asimov and Foundation.
I try to see the series not as adaption of the books, but completely apart from them. And then I have to agree with the author and with OP, its modern, engaging and really well made.
Old school scifi always has issues with weird tech hangups just throwing wrenches into huge foundational aspects of highly advanced civilizations. Thankfully most of them can be handwaved away.
Anyone expecting a very internal monologue driven book series to be translated well into the screen is just green though lol.
Remember when everyone complained about Ender's Game which was so similar with blatant storytelling in character thought? Versus the reality of what's being show in universe to a 3rd party observer? I can name very few internal monologue driven movies, let alone tv series that did well. I can't name a single one off the top of my head. Maybe Sin City and that's stretching.
Old school scifi always has issues with weird tech hangups just throwing wrenches into huge foundational aspects of highly advanced civilizations. Thankfully most of them can be handwaved away.
This is something that Dune handles really well precisely because it writes a lot of the tech out of the setting. "Thinking machines" are gone and banned, guns don't work against shields, lasers are banned because of their (nuclear) interaction with shields. Even communications are largely handled by couriers. The tech is deliberately written to be at a level where it doesn't take convenience or deux ex machina for certain situations to occur.
Anyone expecting a very internal monologue driven book series to be translated well into the screen is just green though lol.
I thought Denix Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune handled this incredibly well when Paul and Jessica used sign language to communicate while they were tied up. In the book, that entire section is told through their internal monologues and their expectations of what the other would be thinking, so translating that to sign language for the screen was clever. I'm very curious to see how the internal-monologue-heavy second half of the book will fare, though.
I never thought of Sin City being different in that way. But it is. Whole sections are just the current character talking to themselves.
I am really enjoying the second season.
Not having read the books, I'm enjoying the show very much and since The Expanse was shitcanned, this is my favorite SciFi being produced every year now. The production value is off the charts, it's excellent science fiction.
I miss when Hollywood had original ideas