https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/foundation-the-officia...
But then they also made other characters move through time so that... because they are special, and only they can save the plan!
It _entirely_ inverts (at least what I remember being) the entire point of the book, that individuals aren't uniquely special. It makes "The plan" look like a plan that needed to be actively managed by the uniquely special people involved - the same people, because they travel through time actively managing it - rather than an actual inevitable projection of history.
This then completely undercuts anything special about the Mule because, oops, we already gave people superpowers, so now it's just a generic action badass dude we have to fight.
At this point you aren't adapting foundation, you are fan-fictioning it. I guess attaching the name gets you money though.
It was a rather important, though not initially revealed, point in the original trilogy that the plan was a plan that needed to be actively managed, by uniquely special people (including, but not exclusively, the strongest telepaths that could be found and gathered.)
Revealing this before the Mule is a radical change to the structure of the story, sure, moreso than changing the nature of the specialness of the guardians.
It's definitely an interesting storytelling change, and probably for the better. Second Foundation in the books is very much a seat of the pants deus ex machina where Asimov seemed to write himself into a clever puzzle with no easy answer and cleverly solved it "at the last minute" with a retcon, then sort of took another trilogy and a half to complete the retcon and deal with the consequences.
The plan was managed to an extent. That was the second foundation's job. And if you read far enough, even that and the Empire before it was quietly tuned from afar by R. Daneel.
I mean, in the book series there's even the out-of-the-blue Mule without any retconning.
I haven't seen season 2 though
If 5 people are in a room during a big event, and you interview them, you will get 5 different accounts. Where they were looking when the event happened, what their allegiances are, who their friends are, their background, etc etc all results in a different takeaway.
So I'm OK with change. I can live with it.
Yet, Foundation IMO was well beyond this degree of change. And very very important things were left out, and could have been told.
For example, Asimov constantly described a broken culture of innovation. How many no longer even understood how the machines around them worked, and maintained them by rote. How scientists would merely read old books and papers, and debate that, instead of engaging in new research. This was a strong theme, and a massive reason for the Empire to fall, yet there were only hints of it in the TV series.
This could easily have been in the series, but I really don't think many people on staff even read all the books, and it shows.
It reminded me of Amazon's horrible Tolkien series (Rings of Power), that is, exceptional special effects, but everything else sucked.
People claiming that series is bad haven't read the books in a long times.
There are no characters. There are talking heads that speak at each other. Women are non-existent. Every single person is a knight without fear or reproach. Huge galaxy-spanning powers come and go in lieu of interesting ideas (first the Mule and the R. Daneel).
The TV series (at least season 1, haven't seen season 2) is the best that could happen to the books IMO.
I enjoyed the other stuff, though it was more “inspired by the foundation universe”.
If you’re going to rewrite terminus, give us a hint as to how these people are going to wind up dominating the galaxy technologically.