Still pretty impressive she managed to position herself within rowing distance of Gaal's landing site. Although perhaps she figured out where Gaal's house used to be and that's the link.
News Foundation Adaptation Series Officially Ordered by Apple
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Still pretty impressive she managed to position herself within rowing distance of Gaal's landing site. Although perhaps she figured out where Gaal's house used to be and that's the link.
Yeah, I'm guessing they would both have been searching for her home settlement.
Any-hoo. I've been hesitant to comment on this series so far until I've seen enough of it. FWICS, apart from the absolutely stunning production design, the adaptation process gains a lot in its departure from the books, but there's one thing it might be losing.
I love the series' invented idea of Imperial cloning. It really creates a structure and a relatable (albeit terrifying) set of characters who can embody Imperial decline. And in the last couple of episodes, we get a vivid sense of how smothering and inflexible the Genetic Dynasty really is -- it's a horrifying prospect in more ways than I can count, really -- and how it's basically built all-too-well to be impervious to reform. It will be interesting to see what happens after the revelations of the recent episode and especially a certain shocking development with Demerzel. Trantor and its politics and the various Cleons are really interesting.
I understand most of the ways the narrative is adapting and folding stories together. I'm glad to see the casting brought into a more modern and diversity-appreciative era. The only thing I find myself missing is that Salvor Hardin and Gaal Dornick are both by this point clearly coded as having Special Powers (such things did play a role in the books, but in a very different way from what's happening here), and one of the primary virtues of the Foundation books' ethos of heroism was that it was about people without superpowers embracing loyalty to humanity, rationality, and pacifism as positive principles that could be used to get things done. That's the most distinctive part of Foundation's literary heritage that may be at risk of getting lost here, and that would be a pity.
That said: it's a tremendously entertaining, thoughtful, and rousing SF show in its own right. I'm really enjoying it.
I love the series' invented idea of Imperial cloning. It really creates a structure and a relatable (albeit terrifying) set of characters who can embody Imperial decline. And in the last couple of episodes, we get a vivid sense of how smothering and inflexible the Genetic Dynasty really is -- it's a horrifying prospect in more ways than I can count, really -- and how it's basically built all-too-well to be impervious to reform. It will be interesting to see what happens after the revelations of the recent episode and especially a certain shocking development with Demerzel. Trantor and its politics and the various Cleons are really interesting.
I understand most of the ways the narrative is adapting and folding stories together. I'm glad to see the casting brought into a more modern and diversity-appreciative era. The only thing I find myself missing is that Salvor Hardin and Gaal Dornick are both by this point clearly coded as having Special Powers (such things did play a role in the books, but in a very different way from what's happening here), and one of the primary virtues of the Foundation books' ethos of heroism was that it was about people without superpowers embracing loyalty to humanity, rationality, and pacifism as positive principles that could be used to get things done. That's the most distinctive part of Foundation's literary heritage that may be at risk of getting lost here, and that would be a pity.
That said: it's a tremendously entertaining, thoughtful, and rousing SF show in its own right. I'm really enjoying it.
Cleon is pretty clearly a motherf****r as a default setting, whatever momentary concessions he's tempted to make toward mercy or good governance. He's at his most inventive, determined, ingenious, and horrific when revenging himself on someone.
This particular Brother Day is intriguingly psychopathic in his own way, because the only instinct he has toward mercy is directly tied to the reason he consigns someone to one of the closest things sci-fi can produce to actual Hell.
She deserved it though.
and it could well be those tendencies resulted from conspirators interference with the cloning process.
though it could also be influenced by experience and growing after the sky bridge fell.
Interesting thought. And exactly the kind of uncertainty the hermetically-sealed dynastic cloning system was intended to prevent. Who knows, now?
One can only hope for her sake she loses her mind quickly and won't have to suffer too long. How long can a human mind stay intact with complete sensory deprivation and the knowledge that everybody she ever met is dead because of her?
She deserved it though.
Not like this, what Day did to her goes beyond inhuman. Since she failed punishment was inevitable, i'd even settle for the death of everybody she ever met even if that is completely beyond the pale ( imagine you are a person that met her once at a party and the Emperor flicks his fingers and you simply die) but this is sadistic to the extreme. It shows how far removed from humanity the Cleon's actually are, if they were ever close, and that compassion is alien to them.
Remember his predecessor/father/brother mercilessly destroyed half of two worlds killing billions (presumably) and condemning the survivors to walk radioactive ruins. All as retribution for the bombing of the Star Bridge which was likely the fault of only one of them, and may well be the fault of neither of them. I think the Cleons are all a bit psychopathic, alteration or otherwise...
But we don't know if Dusk from the time of the star bridge had been altered with - that was left up in the air when the shadow master tells Day that he was being examined.
Overall, I actually really enjoyed this first season. It took a bit of time to warm up to, and frankly the writing has been a bit flawed in places (with some of the plot twists being obvious a mile out), but it's refreshing to have a new sci-fi series that has an original setting (for TV) and some genuinely new and unique ideas in it. The main players felt like real people with real and genuine motivations and the casting has been excellent.
Jared Harris hasn't done anything bad in his entire career, Lou Llobell was awesome, Lee Pace had incredible gravitas, Cassian Bilton was genuinely endearing, and Leah Harvey is growing on me despite my early fears she was on track to be a bit of a Mary Sue.
Definitely held my attention and made me excited for the next episode far more than ST Discovery has through its whole run so far. I think I give it a 7/10 which is more than watchable, I reckon the second season could be a solid 8 or maybe even higher once they get into their stride and shake off some of the COVID restrictions that have affected their process this last year.
Jared Harris hasn't done anything bad in his entire career, Lou Llobell was awesome, Lee Pace had incredible gravitas, Cassian Bilton was genuinely endearing, and Leah Harvey is growing on me despite my early fears she was on track to be a bit of a Mary Sue.
Definitely held my attention and made me excited for the next episode far more than ST Discovery has through its whole run so far. I think I give it a 7/10 which is more than watchable, I reckon the second season could be a solid 8 or maybe even higher once they get into their stride and shake off some of the COVID restrictions that have affected their process this last year.
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An argument could be made that it takes a psychopath (or at least a sociopath) to operate effectively in such a role. A sane and empathetic person probably wouldn't remain either of those for very long when given that level of power and responsibility. Indeed it takes a megalomaniac to even think they have any business exercising dominion over so many people.
While I agree David Goyer appears to be using Foundation to advance his own agenda, different from Asimov's original or Gibbon's, I wonder if he will take the series down the Galaxia track or go somewhere different with it. I suspect the former given that we have yet to learn anything much about the Spacer branch of humanity.
I am wondering how the Foundation plans to operate the Invictus without any Spacers. The BTS podcast explicated that ships of the Invictus's generation with the hard-wired navigators went through navigators fairly quickly. Even if the implants were done surgically and not by the interface forcing a connection, jumping a ship caused severe brain damage and a navigator only had about a month of work in them before they were either dead or too badly injured to continue (the survivorship benefits for volunteering as a navigator were substantial, though, so your family would be set for life or longer). Salvor and Gaal's ability to maintain their consciousness and sanity during a jump wouldn't help with the navigation.
On the other hand, the ship wouldn't need to jump anywhere for decades, at least, so that could give the Foundation time to breed their own Spacers or engineer their own jump-computer (I don't remember if the Spacers themselves handled the navigation or if it was an advance in computers that meant FTL jumps no longer required a human sacrifice).
And on the subject of time and distance, the show continues to be confused about both, with the mention that the Huntress's bow had been offered to Empire a century earlier, when it had only been thirty-five years since the events of the first episode. Maybe it was an Anacreon century, and thirty-five Trantor years.
On the other hand, the ship wouldn't need to jump anywhere for decades, at least, so that could give the Foundation time to breed their own Spacers or engineer their own jump-computer (I don't remember if the Spacers themselves handled the navigation or if it was an advance in computers that meant FTL jumps no longer required a human sacrifice).
And on the subject of time and distance, the show continues to be confused about both, with the mention that the Huntress's bow had been offered to Empire a century earlier, when it had only been thirty-five years since the events of the first episode. Maybe it was an Anacreon century, and thirty-five Trantor years.
That headline kinda misses teh concern....not so much about having an autocratic ruler...but that the LACK of SOME kind of government would greatly facilitate the destruction of culture (such as music, history, art, etc.), and THAT would be bad....but a move to prepare for the destruction of the EMPIRE but yet preserve the GOOD things would be preferable
"What has the [Empire] ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?"
"Because I’m one of the idiots who lives in it!"
What struck me most about that review is one point that seems right and is the core of Asimov's version - all the Foundaton crisis were solved non-violently. Either through diplomacy, religion or trade but not with military power. In fact all the leading people in each crisis deflated military power with true power, without which militaries could not exist ( such as an economy to support it).
Yet there is a noticeable departure from this core idea in the show - Salvor Hardin is a Warden as described in the article and she uses quite a bit of violence against the Anacreons and Thespineans, whereas book Hardin never even needed to touch a gun.
As i said a few times already the show has veered far off course from the source material, more so than any other show i know, so i'm curious if that aspect will come to the front or will be abandoned completely.
It is somehow disconcerting to see them use the famed "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" sentence in the show and then completely disregard it by having characters use violence.
