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Comment by deng | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that's a good idea.

There's not doubt that Asimov was pretty smart and there are a lot of interesting ideas in the Foundation books. However, I don't think that those will translate to the screen very well. Since the books span many centuries, characters come and go and are mostly not very fleshed out or interesting. Asimov is pretty similar to Lem in this regard, who also was much more interested in ideas than people. Of course, a good screenwriter can make up for that, but you can bet that people will be annoyed by all the additional stuff that is not in the book (like in Soderberg's "Solaris", for instance).

So I'm much more thrilled about Amazon developing a series based on Banks' "Consider Phlebas"...

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> So I'm much more thrilled about Amazon developing a series based on Banks' "Consider Phlebas"...

Wow that is big news, I did not know that! That book is so cinematic already, it leaps off the page. Should translate to the screen very well. Hope they do "Use of Weapons" and "Player of Games" also, in fact the entire Culture series is an amazing opportunity for TV conversion.

I agree that the Culture series would be perfect for TV. Banks is incredible with characters and dialogue, so I think the screenplay pretty much writes itself. His world-building is spectacular and would be a field day for any special effects studio: the orbitals, the "fire planet"... I would pay lots of money to see those on screen.

I don't see how the TV series will avoid the same problem as the books: the Culture is virtually omnipotent. Threats aren't exciting because, there is not threat (certainly none to the Culture and, as it turns out, very little to individual meat bags either).

Excession stood out in this regard, until it didn't.

(Consider Phlebas also stands out, but it's a unique culture book by a mile)

> Threats aren't exciting because, there is not threat

Thats because it's not primarily about the action but about the technological, social and societal issues and conflicts. For me at least.

Well, Hari Seldon - a recording of him at least - is a constant presence. There are lots of episodic tv series with varying cast. For example, Twilight Zone, Black Glass, etc. I'm sure all of the ages treated in the series can be fleshed out in sufficient detail to make for entertaining tv. As another example, Tolkiens original lore is not exactly ... visual ... but it gained lots of artist output in the decades between the publication of the series and Jackson's movies. Jackson's movies own cinematically almost as much to the artistic output by cadres of fantasy artists as much as to Tolkiens original work.

Also, considering the prequels and sequels canon, there is R. Daneel who, being older than the Galactic Empire (and, presumably, among its architects), is certainly one of the most interesting characters in science fiction.

Spoiler alert?

Oh yes. This. This. This.

BTW. No spoilers please - I'm re-reading in chronological order.

That goes back to a whole other series of books and small stories that many now consider part of that whole universe.

I'd say Hari Seldon is the incarnation of an idea (the idea of "psychohistory"). We barely get to know him as a character, and since he is dead after 10 pages or so, he is not important for driving the plot forward. I vehemently disagree with Tolkien not being a visual author. He spends a lot of words on descriptions, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Asimov isn't nearly as interested in surroundings. Yes, he describes lots of planets throughout the series, but they are all pretty uniform. Trantor is a grey blob, others are mostly ice or desert, and that's it. Not something that really jumps out from the page. Don't get me wrong: I like the series. I just think it is not very suited for TV. But of course, a good screenwriter might just do something great (for instance, I would have never thought that Chiang's "Story of your life" would make a great movie, but there you are).

Adaptations are never so strick. Hollywood wants original ideas they can take and craft/mold for film. A great recent example is Jeff Vandermeer's Annilation. Great book, totally different movie that is unique and stands on its own though I much prefer the original book.

Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is another great example; the book and movie are vastly different, yet both stand on there own and one could argue are great for different reasons. I'd be hardpressed to pick which I love more.

I do agree with a lot of what you are saying about Asimov's Foundation series; however I think the core ideas are what they'll focus on and most likely they'll introduce a host entirely new characters when they rework it as a screenplay.

Don't forget The Shining

I watched the film but have not read the book yet. Is the book vastly different than the film?

It is very different. I think the word vast is not too strong. They are both masterpieces.

Plenty of counter examples though, most recently "Altered Carbon" - the story was bent completely out of shape into a consumer friendly trainwreck.

100% agree. Most of the time the adaptation is not an improvement.

Maybe a better/clearer point is this: I think Foundation is actually more suited for this kind of treatment because of it's 'flaws'. Aka, the idea is great and the potential is there to make it into something successful.

Of course, we'll have to wait to see if Apple/the production company can pull it off.

On a side note: I wish someone would buy the rights and reboot Babylon 5. I'm going through it with my GF for the 4th or 5th time since it aired. Still one of the best SciFi shows ever storywise and I have a soft spot for those Amiga VideoToaster graphics. Plus Vorlons.

Those are the reasons I think it could work... yes, the stories span centuries, but they are laid out in specific chapters, which not only are short enough to work in the scale of a TV show, but would allow for cast changes on a regular basis, and could be more of a Doctor Who-style series, with different eras expressed by different show-runners, directors and casts.

And it likewise works OK for the characters to not be fully fleshed out immediately - they aren't on TV either, as the actors and writers get used to the characters.

> Since the books span many centuries, characters come and go and are mostly not very fleshed out or interesting.

Depending on how they manage it, this might not be all that much of an obstacle. Cloud Atlas faced the same problem, but I thought that their use of an ensemble cast to tell a story that spanned the several centuries worked out just fine.

I agree with what you’ve written, but I also think that Black Mirror has recently shown that there is an audience for intelligent, idea-driven sci-fi without recurring characters.

Yep, but in addition, I would like optimistic, intelligent idea-driven sci-fi that doesn't make me want to step into a euthanasia booth.

    Banks' "Consider Phlebas"

It's criminal that Banks never got to see his books as movies/series. Banks is, hands down, my favorite scifi author, so I hope the adaptation is well done.

I'd love to see a series based on the adventures/creations of Trurl and Klapaucius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad

It could potentially work if it's a series rather than a single 2hr movie. Too much to cram into a movie, but a series could develop the story and characters over multiple episodes/seasons.

I don't know about the Foundation, but I'd watch a movie based on Lem's The Invincible in a heartbeat.

>So I'm much more thrilled about Amazon developing a series based on Banks' "Consider Phlebas"...

So they're adapting the worst Culture book. It's probably the easiest to adapt, but it's by far the least interesting.

> Since the books span many centuries, characters come and go and are mostly not very fleshed out or interesting

...except for the last three, I think? They are a more typical epic space adventure that takes place within a single lifetime.

True. I'm only speaking of the "old" foundation trilogy, because I'm assuming that's what the series will be based on. I could be wrong, of course.

I'm with you. I like Foundation too much to accept anyone's interpretation but my own. But who knows? Apple's take might kick ass. I liked the Galactica reboot until the Starbuck weirdness in Season 3.

If memory serves there was a fight between the showrunners / writers and the network between season 2 and 3 of Battlestar Galactica, on top of the writers strike that happened around that time. Imo, it really dragged the quality of the show down.

Hmm... Has there ever been a great film that had no clear main characters?

Intolerance and any other anthology, Koyaanisqatsi, Last Year at Marienbad, Magnolia and other ensemble pieces, and many more.

Magic Mirror has a different cast every episode and seems to be doing rather well.

I'm probably a minority here, but I think lack of huge characters could actually be a good thing. Too many sci-fi shows use science and technology as a glorified backdrop to showcase the characters, which quite often happen to be a recollection of same old tropes again and again.

"She had a rough childhood (20 minutes of expose, plus mandatory flashbacks in every episode), her mom died when she was 9 and dad was a cheating alcoholic, but now she's a badass who will kick ass for the next 4 seasons. And oh btw look: she has a cool hoverboard and here's white platicky computers which are REALLY powerful. Also, some omnipresent AI will play God."

If you are not identifying with the protagonist, everything else is simply meh. OTOH, interesting ideas are interesting on their own.

>Too many sci-fi shows use science and technology as a glorified backdrop to showcase the characters, which quite often happen to be a recollection of same old tropes again and again.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having the setting act as a backdrop, per se. Stories set in the Wild West aren't about the technology of guns and cattle wrangling, stories set in the Middle Ages aren't about swords and battlements, so stories set in the future don't need to be about technological extrapolation.

Poorly written characters or a protagonist you can't empathize with is often the result of writers caring more about the tech and the technobabble than the human drama. Good sci-fi provides a balance of both - a plausible setting that doesn't explain too much, with stories that focus on the characters and their relationship with the setting.

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