The Kingpin of Shanghai
damninteresting.com
damninteresting.com
It has it all: war, violence, sex, destruction, decadence, fabulous wealth and grinding poverty. Half of the stories like the OP would be dismissed as implausible if written as fiction.
Look at what Apple did to Foundation... They cannot even respect their own classic...
In the first minutes it's already game over: they try to get you interested in the human characters in a book where the main protagonist is an entire galaxy over centuries. All named persons are going to die every 3 chapters, I get that you can't get ROI on your expensive hot actors faces, but that makes no sense for the material you work with!
I wager its harder for the writers to get the second partition down pat as they're still getting used to adapting a story that has to move quickly owing to the limitations of TV, but its clear they can write good material which the first partition makes clear. I think the first season will be rough for them but a second should be more promising as they should get a handle on working with a plot that spans space and time on a grander scale than Game of Thrones.
But if you are a fan of the original story, it's a spit in the face of a masterpiece.
The title, names and arcs are basically used for branding.
It was predictable, the Foundation cycle is mostly dialogs spanned over hundreds of years. Little details is given to action, and characters, which are superficially developed and serve mostly the purpose of a vehicle for history, die of old age every few chapters or so.
Very hard to adapt, and pretty much impossible to make money outside of the show, with the face of your actors, by selling toys or pretty symbols. Also, good luck keeping hooked the general public. There is no focus on sexuality, little humor, hardly anyone relatable, they talk a lot then goodbye.
So they made it a block buster. It sure can work, but it's not Foundation.
Which is actually what I hoped for, since a) the format of the books is impossible to translate closely to a TV show or movie and b) Asimov is definitely a bit high and low in his writing. The first two books of Foundation are amazing, afterwards it gets quite meandering.
My main criticism would be the mystification of Psychohistory, which is a very serious flaw, but I'm willing to overlook it due to seriously lacking good science fiction entertainment.
It's like having a Cheeseburger. Or a Banana. Not even an Apple.
(Burp)
This is a nice summary of the underlying pattern of the adaption. If they actually understand the idea, and follow the spirit, I think it's not too hard to add concrete details that substantiate the show. It is this inherent desire to not describe science precisely, but deliberately guts the details and label liberal value onto it, that causes the whole detachment of form and spirit.
I saw review saying "it's nice if not considering its connection to the books", i.e., by itself its quality is good. For how much that's true for someone, I guess it has to be discovered watching it.
There are some significant exceptions to this, however.
Chinese culture is different from American culture and much less "in your face". A lot of the scenarios are much more psychological with layers of deception, double to triple agents, betrayal, quiet sacrifice, etc.
"The communists, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, were immensely popular among China’s poorest, with the promise of land reform proving irresistible." This is also from CCP's history textbook. The Communists were never popular. Everywhere they went, they relied on force and coercion. And they repeatedly used internal purges to exterminate anyone question the leadership.
Seems like civil war is a great time to invade a country...
The truth was the National Party was even worse and much more corrupted. The poor in China near the end of WWII was simply hopeless and the elite class also distrusted the government.
Did your history book explain why or just simply put it’s magic?
So in China, the National Party was corrupt, but not really that corrupt in the context of China's history. But surely very corrupt compared to western countries. Asking China to have a clean government at the time is like asking China to develop a moon landing project at the time. Communists of course understood these but they heavily targeted the U.S. government to spread the corrupt accusations. For example: "1944年6月罗斯福派副总统华莱士访华，冀全程陪同，提供了蒋、孔家族贪污腐败情况。"[1] 冀朝鼎(Ji Chaoding) was a CCP spy.
The whole "poor was hopeless and the elite class also distrusted the government" was Communists' propaganda too.
Remember, even though Communists at the time claimed they support democracy, but none of the Communist countries even attempted to establish democracy after they took power. All straight went to authoritarian hell.
[1] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/冀朝鼎 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji_Chaoding
US helped Mao’s CCP at propaganda level at the best. I know CCP is a hell but you have to admit Chinese people landslide-ly chose CCP over national party in those years.
Again how CCP won? It’s a complicated matter that I don’t see any good explanation from “subjective” western history book
Communists always knew they didn't win people's mind, otherwise purge wouldn't be the first thing for Communists to do after took power. You think all the authoritarian things did by Communists were because they didn't know people chose them already?
The USSR didn't help them. The name of the country which helped them was... USA
Read history books
The superpower chessboard has been going on since as long as human figured the art of politics...
Not only this, Mao openly encourage US to rearm Japan to confront USSR during cold war...
And plenty more...
The conflict over China’s politics was playing out on the ground in China, but also in the ranks of America’s diplomatic corps. During the war, American diplomats who had long experience and deep knowledge of China — dubbed the “China Hands” — felt that the Communists were more popular, more competent, and better positioned to lead China post-war. One of the China Hands, John S. Service, put it bluntly: “The Communists are in China to stay and China’s destiny is not Chiang’s but theirs.” Moreover, Service and his colleagues like John Paton Davies and O. Edmund Clubb felt that it was possible for the United States to build a constructive relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, and advised their government to do so.
https://supchina.com/2021/08/25/the-last-meeting-of-mao-zedo...
Service's records (the Dixie report) are pretty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Mission clear that CCP aspires to work with US, and Mao was a US fan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/world/asia/chongqing-jose...
That didn't age very well did it?
Service were immediately demoted and labeled communist sympathizer, and lost his entire political career. And US only engage CCP after Mao died...
Then who did Nixon and Kissinger met with?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/11/some-summits-soar-some-...
Of course that wouldn't explain why the meeting happened after Mao's death, so perhaps the diplomao knocked off the real Mao, which would account for why we've never seen both Mao and diplomao together in the same photo.
Or perhaps the GP is wrong and Mao was taken prisoner by his diplomao, and it was Kissinger that, in a courageous act of diplomaocide, knocked off the diplomao and met with Mao himself, thus earning Mao's loyalty and opening up China to the West.
We may never know.
Having troubles finding an image of this... if anybody can, I'd love to see it.