Reviews

Fascinating to watch the writers descend even further into well worn, familiar TV tropes. Finally, we have the ultimate Facepalm 'I can't believe they did that' moment with that staple of soap operas: "I'm your mother". Good grief. And this is the quality of story that gets 10/10 ratings? Makes me despair. Of course, this may be precisely the audience that will stomach this festival of hackneyed tripe.

So much wrong with the whole thing from start to finish. It was obvious from the outset that the only thing they wanted from the books was the authors name, to lend it a bit of credibility, and a couple of character names and concepts. So as far as sticking to the books, we have to let that go. It was never the intention. Everything they took from the books has been mangled beyond recognition into a bland, grey soup. We can tell who they target audience is from the high rated reviews. Haven't read the books, the books are boring, couldn't be filmed etc. Asimov's books don't have pictures and don't need colouring in, so that explains that.

This episode is a distillation of all that's wrong with it - the fundamental misunderstanding of absolutely everything - science, psychohistory, space travel, physics, human nature, logic... but just to take one part as an example: Robots.

The first SF writing to use the word 'robot' was Capeks 1920 play "R. U. R." In it, 'robots' are created, and then rebel against their creators. A reworking of the Frankensteins monster story. All subsequent robot stories, 100's of them, were basically the same thing. By the early 50's, Asimov, having gown bored of this, decided to write his own robot stories, but his robots were incapable of harming people, and had laws governing their behaviour which made the 'Frankensteins monster' story impossible. Being constrained in that way, he was forced to explore other possibilities, stories and ideas, which had never been done before. R. Daneel Olivaw, the central figure in the Foundation saga, is such a robot, but is also governed by the Zeroth Law, devised by Daneel and Giskard. Unfortunately, this new law restricted Daneels ability to act to the point of paralysis, as 'humanity' was undefined, and so he needed a new approach. Random murder and wholesale genocide are impossible. Fast forward to Goyers TV Foundation. They couldn't secure the rights to the Daneel character, so that whole storyline - the very core of the story - is out. Instead, Goyer replaces Daneel with Demerzel (actually an alter ego of Daneel), throws out the Asimovian robot concept and replaces it with... murder robot! Rips up everything that happened since 1950 and sets fire to it, and goes back to the 'Frankensteins monster' idea. Murder robot! Religious, emotional, unstable! Obliged, in every single episode, to peel back a patch of skin to reveal robotic mechanism! Look! It's a ROBOT! A ROBOT!

So, dear none-book readers, attempting to get around the murder robot idea by quoting the Zeroth Law, that won't work. The explanation is much simpler: The writing is rubbish. They can't tell the story in the books because they don't have the rights. They've just made stuff up, but as Goyers background is infantile, absurd, hand-waving Super Hero movie nonsense, that's the level of writing we get because he can't do anything else.

And it's the same with everything, from genetics/cloning to basic physics. Everything must go, pandering to the needs and expectations of the target demographic who won't understand anything else, books be damned. Giant space battles, crying, ridiculous hair, one-dimensional emotional turmoil, soap opera story lines, magic, religion... The reviewers who give it a bad review are correct, because they understand what is wrong with it and can recognise bad writing when they see it. The 9 and 10 star reviewers obviously can't see it, because they are the target audience. Well, at least the accountants will be happy - onwards to Season 2!

They should at least remove Asimov's name from it, as it's closed to fraud to say that you're basing it on Asimov's 'Foundation' novels, when you obviously had no intention of doing anything close to that.

Cards on the table: I've been reading Asimov since I can remember and that was a very long time ago! I'm intimately acquainted with his science fiction writing and can quote passages verbatim. So when I heard that 'Foundation' was going to be made into a TV series, I was filled with dread. This only got worse when I heard who the directors/producers/writers were.

Well, I suppose if you put a work like 'Foundation' into the hands of people who's background is Superhero movies, this is what you get, and we shouldn't be surprised. We also shouldn't be surprised that it must be pummelled into fitting the demands of a certain demographic and current social mores. Unfortunately, I don't think they were up to the task. They certainly haven't been very brave in their approach and have served up what might have been expected. Sure, the visuals are all terribly sumptuous and wonderful, and all of the money is right up there on screen, so kudos to the production team. It borrows heavily from other movies and adds stuff just for the sake of it. Example: ships with a black hole at the centre, taken straight from Nolans 'Interstellar', created by the whirling rings from Sagans 'Contact'. Lots of examples of this.

Much of what they've added is completely irrelevant to the story and could safely have been left out. Genetic dynasty of Emperors? Irrelevant. The whole religious aspect? Irrelevant. The jump ship thing? Irrelevant. Space elevator? Irrelevant. Gaal Dornicks back story? Irrelevant. In fact, the very core of the story on which the whole thing hinges seems to have been abandoned and replaced with something banal and predictable that can be depicted with giant space battles and people firing guns, with lots of fire and explosions. The difference between the original Asimov story and the new 'padding' is quite obvious.

It's not a new 'Game of Thrones' (thankfully!), it's not a new Star Trek either. If you don't know the books and have been brought up on a diet of Superhero movies, Star Wars and other TV SF, and are looking for something a bit more thoughtful, this probably hits the spot.

If you do know the books, you'll probably be disappointed and irritated by the pointless "we know best' meddling.

It isn't boring - it's not 100% action and contains 0% zombies, so a certain audience would declare that to be boring. It's not for you. Move on. It's not groundbreaking, genre defining or bold either. It could have been, had the writers/producers been a bit braver and understood the original books a bit better. Perhaps it's a low resolution depiction of the original.

Finally, what did Asimov himself have to say? From his 1981 book 'Asimov on Science Fiction', Chapter 54, 'Hollywood and I':

"I have hitherto firmly resisted the lure of Hollywood. I have refused to write screenplays even when invited to do so and even when my own stories were in question.

There are two basic reasons for this resistance. First, I am not visual enough to write dialogue and events that are to be interpreted primarily in the form of moving images on a screen. I'm just a word-man, and though it is a wise person who knows his powers, it is an even wiser person who knows his limitations.

Second, I am reasonably confident that in magazines and books my fiction will appear very much as I have written it. Anything I write for the visual media, however, I am certain will be tampered with by producers, directors, actors, office boys, and the relatives of any or all of these."