News Foundation Adaptation Series Officially Ordered by Apple

Apple has officially ordered a series adapting Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels from DC movie writer David Goyer and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles creator Josh Friedman, who will both serve as showrunners.
I haven't read the books, but I know they are considered classics by a lot of sci-fi fans, so it will be interesting to see how the show turns out.

 

As books, I love these stories. I'm not quite sure they would make for riveting television.

Kor

 

Naturally, the books would just be a starting point for a new version. There's no way a faithful adaptation would work, not only because of the story structure but because of the paucity of female characters and various outdated attitudes. It'd have to be something that just takes the key concepts and tells its own version of the saga.

 

Yep, I hope they don't end up with a "DUNE" like result (LOVED DUNE the novel - the 1984 film left A LOT to be desired)

 

9 hours of your life well spent.



The first three novels adapted to a huge 8 part audio (radio at the time) play in 1972.

Future names in these novels are so bizarre its almost like Asimov was anticipating an ungendering to strike sooner rather than later.

Any character could be reasssigned to another gender without much upset, and keep their original name.

 

I found they way he connected many of his works to entertaining.
I'm wondering what path this TV version will take. Foundation is a short story collection set in the same universe, with Hari Seldon connecting them all. A lot of time jumps in the stories.

 

The time jumps were my favourite part.

Meeting up with the Galactic Empire 300 years later only to find them stagnant and decayed, and 200 years after that, Trantor, a sheep farm, was a cautious look into our own future.

 

Wonderful news. I'd lost heart after the HBO series went tits up. Hope this one fares better.

 

No, no, Charlie Brown, this time I won't pull the football away!

I'd like to get excited about this, but until I see set pics, I'm not holding my breath.

 

Josh produced Cross Bones which means that he has access to John Malcovich... Although Richard Coyle would be great as Hober mallow.

 

If the series goes ahead, it'll be interesting to see the choice of design aesthetics for the sets. Hopefully, these will change over the centuries of the story. Initially, for Seldon's era, I've always envisaged something akin to Art Deco, although I've also always loved Chris Foss's ship designs from the 70's paperback editions of the trilogy.
https://www.chrisfossart.com/2012/01/foundation-and-empire/

I expect the showrunners might try to fold in the books written many years after the original trilogy, such as Foundation's Edge, Prelude to Foundation, Robots and Empire, Forward the Foundation, and Foundation and Earth.

 

The wording in the IGN article wasn't real clear to me, which is why I worded my post the way I did, but I believe this has been ordered to series, so I'm pretty sure it will happen.

 

I'd pay money to see this as an ongoing series produced and written by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan. As it's originally laid out, it's as quaint as, oh, Crichton's Westworld movie. The premise of a system capable of forecasting history using massive amounts of recorded human data as input is very contemporary, though.

 

They announced that Jared Harris has been cast as Hari Seldon, and Lee Pace as Brother Day. I haven't read the books, so I don't know how they fit the characters, but they are both good actors.

 

Don't recall a "Brother Day" in Foundation.

 

The four kingdoms were ran by priests who were too dumb to learn hard science, and had to run their technology by pretending that it is religion.

 

According to the Entertainment Weekly article I linked to, he is the "current Emperor of the galaxy".

 

It's been years since I've read the Foundation books, but I thought the Emperor was Cleon. When Foundation starts, there was a committee of Public Safety or some such headed by a dude with an Asian sounding name. Chien or something.

For myself, when I read the Foundation books, I stick to the original trilogy and ignore the rest. I found all the later books to be lacking something, and I always preferred the short story / jumps ahead format more. I've always hated that Asimov couldn't really figure out a way forward as I don't know anyone that likes where the series ended up.

I really hope they can make it work without changing too much.

 

At least one of the books is a prequel, about YOUNG Hari Seldon inventing psychohistory. Along the way, he becomes...

Spoiler

Prime Minister. Perhaps Cleon's prime Minister?