User Reviews

It is normal for the first season of a massive and complex show to start a little slow. You have to setup the characters, dedicate time to world building and effectively communicate the story setup for the audience. By season 2, you are rewarded by the unfolding of the plot with some well done plot twists.

The cast is very good, led by Jared Harris as Dr. Seldon. The Dawn, Day and Dusk of Empire are also very intriguing and make for a unique but quality villain. There is plenty of mystery, but not overdone. There isn't a ton of action, but there are still plenty of thrilling scenes and sequences. Again, it definitely takes off more in season 2.

If you are a fan of sci-fi adventures and have liked shows like The Expanse, Firefly or others like that; you will enjoy this. I actually think the depth and potential of Foundation is better than The Expanse.

Season 3 has been greenlit and we look forward to the continued adventures.

There's nothing wrong with "Foundation" as a SF series. But the showrunner's (David S. Goyer) big mistake was trying to adapt Asimov's Foundation trilogy. He just doesn't understand it.

In the series podcast Goyer explains how he came to this project. Basically Asimov's Foundation trilogy was Goyer's father's favorite books. Goyer and his father didn't have much contact while Goyer was growing up, but when his father was on his deathbed many years later he asked Goyer to adapt the Foundation trilogy if he ever got the chance. So I understand why this is a sentimental project for Goyer.

Asimov when he was alive always said that anybody who did a visual version of any of his works should always have some leeway in changing the details. But Goyer has completely subverted the core principles of the trilogy and the larger Foundation/I, Robot mashup.

It's not that Goyer changed the sex of several characters. It's not that he did things like show a terrorist attack on Trantor and other relatively minor events like the murder of Seldon that are not in the books. It's not even that Goyer apparently has changed the location of the Second Foundation. No, it's much deeper than that.

In the first place, psychohistory is a statistical mathematical theory. The idea was that nobody could predict exact details of the future, but with psychohistory Seldon was able to see that no matter what happened the Empire would fall. The statistics of what could possibly happen always led to the fall. He was also able to see how the establishment of the Foundations would shorten the fall with a high probability of success. The statistics guaranteed that. Thus even though in the books Seldon dies early on, what he predicted still happened without any effort on his part once he established the Foundations.

Asimov the scientist was well-aware of the meaning of statistics, but Goyer is not. He apparently assumes that Seldon's plan will not happen without active participation of Seldon's AI manipulating every detail. What we are apparently going to see is an epic struggle over much if not all of the 1000 years between the Cleon clones and the Seldon AI. And this is completely against the spirit of the trilogy. What Goyer seems to be doing at this point is not even as interesting. We've seen this particular story of a struggle between two adversaries many times before.

Then there's the matter of Demerzel, who we know to be R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot that has managed to survive for millennia even before the Empire was established. Asimov created his robot series by establishing his Three Laws of Robotics. Most of his robot stories were about the consequences of the three laws and how it drove robots to do unusual things. The greatest of these stories was how R. Daneel Olivaw was driven by the First Law which dictated that he protect humans at all costs to actually create and guide the Empire and to protect the human race across the galactic civilization. It was interesting because in doing so R. Daneel Olivaw had to accept allowing -- even causing -- some humans to die for the greater good. But in Goyer's version Demerzel apparently is a robot captured at the end of the robot wars and reprogrammed to serve the Cleon clones. The Three Laws don't even enter into it. Once again, a complete subversion of Asimov's Foundation/I, Robot series.

If you can stop trying to believe that Goyer has any understanding of Asimov's Foundation and instead focus on "Foundation" as just another SF series, it actually is entertaining and well-done. The characters can be subtle, the acting is generally terrific, and the CGI is impressive. But Apple and Goyer have perpetrated a massive hoax on us.

Started out with good pacing in episode 1, ending with an explosive finale.

Episode 2 makes it clear that this series is more about space travelers falling in love that it is about Harry Seldon forestalling the collapse of a galactic empire into chaotic ruin.

When modern writers proved they could captivate an audience of myriad slack jawed dolts for 11 years with a soap opera about a zombie apocalypse, they knew beyond all doubt that they could soap-op any genre.

Jesus wept.

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."

Watched E01, E02 and E03. So far the makers have made a mockery akin to blasphemy to this great epic by Asimov. Clearly gives the indication that they have not properly read Asimov's works and if so, have failed to understand them. There are countless mistakes and departures from original material and they mount to such a proportion that you cannot call this a work based on or even inspired by Asimov's works. Here is a list of unforgivable mistakes done so far. Wondering how Robyn Asimov approved of all this ???

1. Changed Gaal Dornick's gender. (Why?)

2. Created a love angle between Raych and Gaal. (Was it required, knowing that Gaal is to be jettisoned in space as she witnesses Raych murder Hari .....another gross liberty on source material taken.

3. Emperor Cleon's lineage shown as a cloned dynasty.

4. Eto Demerzel's gender change (Unforgivable)

5. Revealing who Eto really is. (Really ? What will they do in the fifth book when they meet R. Daneel Olivaw?)

6. Salvor Hardin's gender change.

7. 878 days to reach Terminus which is 50,000 light years away? That too without a jump ship ?

8. Hari Seldon leaving Trantor with Foundation exiles and being killed by his adopted son, Raych en route ??? (C'mon, who approved this ?)

I've only watched the first couple of episodes so far. And so far, I'm disappointed.

Right off the bat they changed two of the major male characters, Gaal Dornik and Salvor Hardin, into women. I think there's some law in Hollywood that every TV series today has to have women in the roles of the primary movers and shakers. This seems rather unnecessary in this case as the original novels already had a female character as the major mover for one of the three books, Arkady Darell. Well, maybe one wasn't enough. This political correctness isn't revolutionary and profound any more. It's predictable and tedious.

Some have complained that they also changed the race of many characters. Actually I don't recall the novels mentioning anyone's skin color. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been years since I read the books. So whatever.

The first episode begins with a dumb monologue by Gaal Dornik in which he/she attempts profound comments about how "this story became my story ... our story". And along the way she mentions "the Mule". Which makes no sense, as in the books anyway, Dornik died centuries before the Mule was born and the whole point of the second book was that no one anticipated the mule.

They changed the Time Vault from a simple setup where people heard pre-recorded messages from the founder of Terminus explaining his plan into some strange mystical something.

Minor spoiler here, I'll be deliberately vague: A key plot point of the first few chapters of the book is that Salvor Hardin discovers that Hari Seldon's plan was nothing like what everyone thought it was. But in the TV show, everyone seems to understand the real plan completely from go.

And, well, et cetera. This isn't one of those movies that is supposedly based on a book but in fact has nothing to do with the book. They did sort of follow the book. It's close enough to be recognizable, but different enough to be annoying.

On a different subject, I don't like the special effects. They are overly complicated-looking and very dark, so it is difficult to see what the objects are supposed to be or what is happening.