Apple’s Foundation TV series probably won’t stick closely to the books. That’s a good thing

Anyway, one of the most anticipated science fiction shows is for me Foundation, endowment, the upcoming Apple TV Plus series based on the books by Issac Asimov. During the company’s recent WWDC keynote presentation, we finally got that first trailer.

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If you’ve never heard of Foundation, find a sci-fi best-of list at the top. It is a staple of the genre and the series is one that I have read several times. The covers of artist Michael Whelan were so influential that I have three signed prints of them hanging in my office. You and the books opened me up to what is possible in fiction and writing in general and, last but not least, inspired me to write science fiction myself.

These books are legendary, fascinating and, as written, would really do Really boring television.

Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but there are many reasons why they have never made it onto the big or small screen in the almost 80 years since the short stories that formed the basis of the series were published. Keep in mind that Dune, another genre classic (and in some ways a counterpoint to the Foundation series), came out almost 15 years after the first Foundation novel and already had two TV mini-series (2000’s Dune and 2003’s Children) of Dune ) and a film (With another on the way).

Here’s why the Foundation’s books struggled to attract filmmakers and why I’m still optimistic.

(Follow mild spoilers if you’ve never read the books before.)

What is foundation?

The Foundation series could be exactly renamed after Gibbon’s multi-volume story of the end of the Roman Empire, which was one of Asimov’s main influences: “The story of the decline and decline of the Galactic Empire”. The vast empire in the books has existed for thousands of years and includes millions of planets. It is on the verge of collapse and leads to 30,000 years of darkness. With the predictive mathematical power of “psychohistory” developed by a character named Hari Seldon, a small group of people want to reduce it to “only” 1000 years.

The original trilogy of books actually consists of five short stories and four short stories. Three decades later, Asimov added two sequels and then two prequels.

It’s hard to overestimate the Foundation’s influence. Huge parts of Star Wars, the aforementioned Dune, and countless other fictional and non-fictional people were directly inspired by Asimov’s incredible series.

There are spaceships, robots, galaxy-wide conflicts, the fate of hundreds of billions of people at stake. What’s not to like?

The problems)

There are two main problems when it comes to adapting this series or even just the first book for a film or television series. Many smart people have been trying for decades.

The first and most obvious is the extent of the matter. The first book alone spanned almost 200 years. If you just stick to the series’ written content, it will span almost 600 years.

This works well in book form. The ideas and the setting are so convincing that a series of short / short stories with different characters is still very interesting. This is one of the reasons why the series is still popular.

However, television is a completely different medium than books. With a few exceptions, viewers want characters in a TV show. Good, bad, doesn’t matter as long as they’re convincing. Foundation naturally rules out having characters that an audience can really stick to. This is the second main problem.

In a series of interrelated stories, there aren’t many opportunities for in-depth character exploration, character growth, or, to be honest, characters. This is the culmination of old school hard science fiction. For the most part, characters are only there to advance the plot or explain an idea. Many are nothing more than names, the staged dialogue of which only conveys information. Even Hari Seldon, the only character in any form in several stories, dies early in the first book and doesn’t even have an elaborate death scene. However, he has the two precursors to rinse out his backstory. The leaps in time are so considerable that almost every character dies “off the screen” and is never mentioned again.

In other words, there is not much emotion in Foundation. It’s about things. This is also not a criticism. They are brilliant for what they are, but they are books, and by nature it will be very difficult to convert them into television. What makes them interesting will be almost impossible to translate on the screen.

A minor problem that is certainly related to the difficulty is largely avoiding action or direct conflict. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” says one character. The problem is that violence creates great television. Sci-Fi shows on a large budget essentially require some form. Huge space battles inherent in the premise of books are promised and then largely avoided. Do you remember the Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones? One of the most epic fight scenes ever shown on TV? Now imagine that this had been discussed for six years, built up by conspiracy and hype for years, and just before it starts, Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton meet in a tavern and sign a commercial contract. The is a foundation.

Foundation found

One thing emerges from the trailer: Apple throws a lot of money into this matter. It looks absolutely stunning in the teaser clip. It is clear that they take it seriously. While this type of money helps, it doesn’t guarantee quality. The eighth season of Game of Thrones was also associated with a lot of money See what happened there.

After decades of different directors and studios trying to do something with Foundation, the production company Skydance supports David S. Goyer as a producer and showrunner. Skydance has some solid sci-fi credits like Star Trek Beyond and some dubious sci-fi credits like Star Trek Into Darkness. Skydance is basically just money. Goyer writes and runs, and he seems to be navigating a story: he wrote or co-wrote Dark City, Blade and Batman Begins, and many others … well, let’s just not say overly outstanding films.

(Some mild corruption extrapolations below.)

When we dive into IMDB credits, we can make some assumptions. Jared Harris as Hari Seldon will be distinguished. He’s fantastic in everything and if you haven’t seen it Vastness, You must. He’s signed up for all 10 episodes of season one, which is a solid sign that they’re not making the entire first book. Not if there are several other actors in all 10 episodes.

Then there is the Finnish actress Laura Birn as Demerzel. It’s a bit of a weed, but Eto Demerzel is actually a pseudonym used by R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot from Asimov’s robot series (the books; unrelated to the film). This is remarkable because this character was not included in the original trilogy, but only in the prequels, which gives an indication of what is dealt with in the show. It is also a potentially practical tool for Goyer and the other creators to have an essentially immortal character that the audience can identify over several seasons. That is, if this series spanned several seasons and covered more of the hundreds of years described in the books.

Lou Llobell in the role of Gaal is a welcome hint that this production will be a more diverse depiction of the future than the proposed books – whether the TV version of Gaal, however, will preserve an expanded story arc than the character’s literary iteration remains to be seen.

How will it all work? As a big fan of the books I have to say … I hope the series only uses the books as a basis for attitudes and ideas and then runs with them. More like HBO’s Watchmen series. Otherwise it will be really boring. That would be the worst case for me. “As long as it’s not boring” is my main wish. The trailer certainly looks promising, but it’s possible to cut any film or show into a trailer that looks interesting.

If it is good and there is a second season, it almost certainly means that the mule – a key figure – comes into play, which could lead to a very interesting television.

The publication of the foundation is planned for Apple TV Plus sometime in 2021. In the meantime, I can only recommend it the books.