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It looks like HBO is teaming up with Interstellar writer and Person Of Interest showrunner Jonathan Nolan to adapt the highly revered and beloved Foundation books into a TV series. Wow.
HBO rarely makes junk though. I am interested even though I barely made it through the first book. Love the first half, disliked the second.phinds said:UGH ... by the writer who did Intersteller? That does not bode well.
lpetrich said:Something that may raise hackles with some viewers is the series's treatment of religion. Early in the original novels, the Foundation cloaks its technology in a religion that it uses to manipulate the inhabitants and the leaders of the nearby planetary systems. This includes installing a supposedly very holy "ultrawave relay" in a refurbished Imperial cruiser.
Svein said:I shudder. When the Hollywood screenwriters are finished with it, it is going to be a movie with lots of explosions and all the intelligent bits are going to be dropped. Remember what they did to "Starship Troopers"?
Yes. Thud and blunder - what you would expect for Hollywood (they are making movies for the intelligence level of the producer's pet dog).Drakkith said:I think Starship Troopers was done that way on purpose.
No, they make it for the intelligence level of the average America, who, after all, believes in ghosts, aliens, angels and other assorted crap. They do this to make money and they MAKE money. Starship Troopers was a success, but a pretty modest one since it didn't bring back a whole lot more than its production costs (which were fairly high) and it won an Academy Award for special effects.Svein said:Yes. Thud and blunder - what you would expect for Hollywood (they are making movies for the intelligence level of the producer's pet dog).
Oh, another one who did not understand the book. The book is about growing up and taking responsibility. Of course Heinlein introduces controversial ideas, how else do you get people to react - and if possible - think?Bandersnatch said:I found Starship Troopers the film much more intelligently done than the book. The book was a ham-fisted glorification of military mentality. The film is, as noted by Drakkith, intentionally subversive (look, living under a totalitarian regime is fun!).
Svein said:Oh, another one who did not understand the book. The book is about growing up and taking responsibility. Of course Heinlein introduces controversial ideas, how else do you get people to react - and if possible - think?
Bandersnatch said:Heinlein's idea of growing up is that of 'enlist in the army, they'll make a man out of you'. If that's considered profound or even smart then I'll gladly stick with the Hollywood idiots, thank you very much.
Svein said:Yes. Thud and blunder - what you would expect for Hollywood (they are making movies for the intelligence level of the producer's pet dog).
vemvare said:EDIT: Nolan worries me though, Hathaways "love transcends all" minispeech was perhaps the worst movie moment of 2014, perhaps even of the 2010's so far.
phinds said:UGH ... by the writer who did Intersteller? That does not bode well.
vemvare said:In The Foundation, at least in the beginning Terminus is a weak world, and therefore have to rely on trickery and cunning to have a chance of survival. The Empire, while not "fair" or "egalitarian" in our sense of the word, represents order while the continual dissolution of human civilization would mean chaos, starvation and wars. Sometimes there is no white and it is all about choosing the lighter shade of gray.
HallsofIvy said:Heinlein was, a little surprisingly for a science fiction writer, very "conservative". The society in the movie was, properly I think, described as "fascist". The book was not far off that either. Heinlein was the one who, in the book, introduced the idea of having to serve in the military in order to be allowed to vote or run for office.
Bandersnatch said:Heinlein's idea of growing up is that of 'enlist in the army, they'll make a man out of you'. If that's considered profound or even smart then I'll gladly stick with the Hollywood idiots, thank you very much.
It was a militaristic government with limited citizen participation. That's not a "redefinition".Pete Cortez said:Not sure how the political system depicted in Starship Troopers qualifies "facist." Not unless we're yet again redefining the term to mean something anathema to the left-wing that's presented uncritically.
HallsofIvy said:It was a militaristic government with limited citizen participation. That's not a "redefinition".
Pete Cortez said:A significant theme in the Foundation novels is the scale of the Galactic Empire, and even its "microcosm" on Trantor. Terms like "fair" and "egalitarian," which stretch to their limits on a planet of just 6 billion people, may be parochial to an absurd degree across a backdrop of millions of star systems, trillions of municipalities and a total population numbering 10 to the God knows what power.
snorkack said:And yet Asimov lacks sense of scale. Start with comparing the first two stories, Encyclopedists with Mayors. Can you see where the relative scale of Terminus to Anacreon, and Anacreon to Empire, is completely inconsistent with the descriptions?
So. If Prefect of Anacreon was rebelling, Emperor and Lord Dorwin might not have cared to lose a distant and poor prefecture if the rich interior of Galaxy was safe so far.Salvor Hardin said:For thirty years now, since the breakup of communications here at the edge of the Galaxy, the whole universe of Terminus had consisted of itself and the four surrounding kingdoms.
How the mighty had fallen! Kingdoms! They were prefects in the old days, all part of the same province, which in turn had been part of a sector, which in turn had been part of a quadrant, which in turn had been part of the allembracing Galactic Empire. And now that the Empire had lost control over the farther reaches of the Galaxy, these little splinter groups of planets became kingdoms with comic-opera kings and nobles, and petty, meaningless wars, and a life that went on pathetically among the ruins.
“On us? Are you forgetting that we are under the direct control of the Emperor himself? We are not part of the Prefect of Anacreon or of any other prefect. Memorize that! We are part of the Emperor's personal domain, and no one touches us. The Empire can protect its own."
"Then why didn't it prevent the Royal Governor of Anacreon from kicking over the traces? And only Anacreon?
At least twenty of the outermost prefects of the Galaxy, the entire Periphery as a matter of fact, have begun steering things their own way. I tell you I feel damned uncertain of the Empire and its ability to protect us."
"Hokum! Royal Governors, Kings – what's the difference? The Empire is always shot through with a certain amount of politics and with different men pulling this way and that. Governors have rebelled, and, for that matter, Emperors have been deposed, or assassinated before this. But what has that to do with the Empire itself? Forget it, Hardin. It's none of our business. We are first of all and last of all-scientists. And our concern is the Encyclopedia.”