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Comment by rfarley04 | Hacker News Reader

It makes me so so happy to hear someone else complain about what they've done with Foundation. Considering the ratings (both from critics and audiences) I've seen, I was starting to question if I actually read Foundation or something else because the show is NOTHING like the books. It's not all bad per se, but just give it another name because they have nothing in common.

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I’ve read 5 of the books, I’m fine with the adaptation. The books all but make it impossible to have continuity of characters in any real way, which would make for a weird show, IMO. This is fundamentally different than LOTR which does have continuity (and even the hobbit), so I feel like that explains the character smearing (Gaal, Hari, Cletus) and time compression.

The original books are great but honestly the characters aren’t even in the books long enough to really develop them beyond the crises at hand, it’s more like a collection of short stories (and I love short stories, but beyond Black Mirror I can’t think of any other sort of short stories series I like much).

> The original books are great but honestly the characters aren’t even in the books long enough to really develop them beyond the crises at hand, it’s more like a collection of short stories

The original three Foundation books are collections of short stories that Asimov originally wrote for magazines.

I can’t think of any other sort of short stories series I like much

Not even the original The Twilight Zone (which Black Mirror basically is a copy of except with cell phones and social media)?

Ah yeah, I did love twilight zone. I was thinking more contemporary though. I tried to watch a few, like this PKD series on amazon, Oats studios things, some others.

I'm with you here. I read the books so long ago I barely remember them, and I'm not that fond of Asimov as writer. But I've enjoyed the series so far.

Oh man, I would've loved an anthology version of Foundation. Each episode covering one of Asimov's airtight Foundation vignettes. Or, maybe, just don't try to adapt things that don't work for TV? There's plenty of other incredible stuff waiting to be written. Someone needs to hurry up and film Hyperion, it would be hard but more doable than Foundation.

Bradley Cooper is behind Hyperion, which he is supposedly an avid fan of and has been seeking to adapt since the 2010s. Hopefully with the success of Dune: Part Two and him wrapping up work with Maestro he can buckle down and finally make it.

Yes, Hyperion could be an amazing adaptation. So many of these execs making strange decisions when good shows are already written for them to be adapted.

Roald Dahl short stories are very fun, purposefully dark humor in several.

The books are a full of interesting ideas but as written would be terrible for television. You should just think of the TV show as an unrelated science fiction show which happens to share a name and a few plot elements.

Yeah, sometimes you can just accept the differences and enjoy both. Like "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" vs. "Blade Runner".

Honestly I'm not sure it would be terrible for television; I'm just not sure they tried. I think it would be possible to convey the grand arc of history, retain the pre-recorded nature of the Vault, show the different approaches and cultural styles in each era. The dumbest approach would just be to have one mini-series per crisis, and I think even that could work. They don't need to have the same characters throughout the whole thing.

Sometimes the adaptations are better, or more approachable. Blade Runner, Game of Thrones, Man in the High Castle, I Am Legend spring to mind.

I tried reading Foundation when I was younger and could not get into it. I think they've done a pretty good job with the Apple Series.

I like the show but it is not like the books at all.

I was pretty bitterly disappointed until I realized I could just see the show as inspired by the books. The same way I’ve written stories. I just had the respect to file the serial numbers off in editing.

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