this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Television
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For decades I've been a big fan of Asimov in general and Foundation in particular, and when it came to the TV adaption I kinda liked it, to be honest.
There's a reason why Asimovs works are so rarely adapted to the screen: They don't work well in a series or movie format as they stand. That's probably why I gave the series a lot of room from a personal standpoint, not being too critical from a purist point of view.
When hearing about the TV adaption I was worried that each episode would be a whole new cast due to the timespan involved. While I don't agree with every plot device they used to circumvent this, I enjoyed some of them, such as the cloned emperors, although I think too kuch of the story revolved around them.
But yes, it definitely did not measure up to the books. But TV adoptions rarely do. And Foundation is an especially challenging one.
Foundation is one of the few adaptations that I think benefits from it's lack of fidelity to the source material.
I think they actually made these changes more in an attempt to make it good than poor writing or lack of respect for the source material.
I'll be more pissed at apple not finishing the series than the writing or accuracy.
I'll agree that the clone emperors in concept, and maybe 70-80% in execution, was actually pretty cool.
Plus, Mr That-guy-who-played-in-Chernobyl was perfect for the role as Hari
Jared Harris. He was also great in the first series of The Terror. I haven't seen season 2 of Foundation yet but felt his talents were a little wasted in the first season. Season 1 was definitely carried by Lee Pace and the emperor's storyline.
Ironically they were initially serialized in magazines IIRC. But I get your point.