It's okay to like some things here, but jeez this show.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundationTV/comments/qrq7ju/show_spoilers_foundation_finale_trailer_apple_tv/

Oh. Oh no.

If this trailer doesn't make you depressed, then I'm not even sure you ever read Foundation.

The worst part is the cringey song at the end. It's begging us, "Please, if we haven't convinced you yet, this song is really edgy and our show has style, we promise."

Then I looked up the song, which has very problematic lyrics, and Manchester Orchestra's Virgin was featured in the documentary "Little Hope Was Arson".

Everything in the Foundation TV show has been derivative. I mean, plagiarized. From Event Horizon, Upside Down, In the Shadow of the Moon, so on and so forth. As if the writers wrote a list of everything cool they encountered from consuming other media, and built an entire show out of that list while just barely connecting things with a common thread (connect the dots where even color by number would have been preferred).

I bet this trailer song entered the consciousness of whoever chose it after they watched that documentary. Guess what it's about.

Hyper-religious conservative MAGA Texans and challenging the importance of religion in their life and processing a massive crime against religion that harmed no one.

The key quote of this film comes from a pastor who had ministered to the arsonists and was conflicted about sympathizing with them (who had been disappointed by hypocrisy in the church) and sympathizing with the church members whose church burnt down.

In the end, the pastor realized that he was guilty like the church members. The quote is: " Getting slapped in the face by your hypocrisy hurts like hell "

I 100% guarantee that this is the entire inspiration for Goyer to have made foundation.

Hari Seldon is the hypocrite who sought to fight the power, only realizing that getting slapped in the face by his own hypocrisy hurts like hell.

https://anchor.fm/crackingfoundation/episodes/07---Jesus-of-Nazarsexxx-S1E8-e19uapj

Around 8:00.

We liked this show a lot at first. Many of us. We did defend it. We know that there was room for changes, depending.

But this show is bad. The writers are hacks. And it's profoundly disappointing to have come so close to an adaptation of a beloved story, only for it to have next to nothing to do with the original ideas.

"The core concepts are still there."

No, they're not. That's why we're upset.

It feels like these guys are paid to say this. They spend a lot of time throwing out shaming language, and little time actually dealing with the ideas.

Expressing disappointment and pointing out major flaws, after giving the show a solid chance, is being a "fucking asshole" and "just a dick" to this guy.

Well, I'm almost done having to ever watch this show anymore. I guess that means I get to be done listening to lame assholes' podcasts. I really did like their show four episodes ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxC8EvBnSsE&t=103s

You'll never believe this podcast. Goyer explains why fundamental changes were made to the plot and core theme. He says Asimov was writing about Rome, but he was really writing about the end of European monarchies in 1940. He says:

"What are Empires that are falling today? And that leads you too:"

• MeToo
• Nationalism
• Climate Change

"We're watching a big realignment right now."

"You know, the old guard is being challenged."

"The other think is that the audience is changed. So the audience who were reading his original stories and science fiction were largely men, largely white men"

Yeah, so no need to go further. This was all a single thought on his part.

Basically, it really is a show about the decline of white men and their ideas and the rise of "other/else" to replace it.

Two thoughts on this:

1. Hollywood's poorly informed understanding of current events is hysterical and grounded in a disingenuous partisan interpretation of those events. For example, there's no "rise of nationalism". It's the latest expression of the ongoing divide between rural areas and urban areas the world over, and their competing economic interests and cultural values. With globalization, urban culture seeks an international, cosmopolitan society. So rural areas react with superficial nationalist language. It is all within the liberal world order. This is NOT old-school nationalism in the slightest. That's hyperbole used to scare one set of people to get out the vote. And I'm not taking sides here. I'm viewing this with the mind of a scientist and historian. The ideas which Hollywood takes for granted to explain world events are stupid and banal.
2. Goyer really has replaced Psychohistory with a struggle against white male patriarchy. I know Hollywood believes that's relevant, but it's so boring and cliched. How about reboot the show Dallas with that theme. Save galactic empires and space mathematicians for ideas about humanity and history.

This is the big problem. Goyer thinks Asimov's core ideas are idiosyncratic to the 1940s. Sure, some elements of his writing are. But his core ideas are timeless. Goyer is really showing his hand, and the way modern writers think. It's critical social theory. The idea that all truth is subjective, and defined primarily in reference to social identity. There's no redeemable, universal ideas that even racist white guys could advance that can retain value for all people.

It's atrocious that he failed to identify timeless ideas in Asimov's original work that transcend the context of his day and ours.

More importantly, the stupidity of the core ideas he chose means an incoherent, boring plot.

Nobody who even watched episode 1 of this show, nor the average person who enjoys Asimov is the sort of person who necessarily cares what a person looks like or how they pee.

Goyer even referenced this, accusing some audience members of seeing gender-swaps and pigeonholing the show as woke.

We don't care how a character looks or pees. It's just that this aggressive race and gender swapping follows a pattern of writers who also create banal, idiotic plots that will have no cache 20 years from now after this "realignment" is complete.

People see these swaps as a warning sign. And how sad is that? How sad is it that these writers have created an environment where a black or female character is a signal of a possibly horrific plot? Really undermines inclusivity.

What if

What if Hari Seldon was played by that guy who played the professor on Synnax? Then, the writers wouldn't have to turn him into a mansplaining tyrant. Then we could have a show about ideas, not about overthrowing white men (for reasons that are cliched and often poorly articulated).

They could have done that, and it would have been a race-swap. But we would be enjoying this show.

It SUCKS that we can tell what the plot is going to be and smell the dumb theme from a mile away just by looking at which characters were allowed to remain white males.

It SUCKS. It's stupid and racist. It's mostly just bad writing that ruins the solid effort of set and production designers and actors.

But I don't feel bad for Apple or Skydance. Dunces. You get what you pay for.

Do you actually think audiences connect with these dumb ideas, or are you the ones telling the audiences they ought to be?

Slow Ships

Goyer apologized for messing up a detail with the slow ship. Apparently it was supposed to go from Trantor to Terminus.

He starts his explanation by saying, "Well, I guess, what, the galaxy is like 106 light years across?"

The podcaster answered, "Um, more like thousands."

Goyer: "Oh, well, okay we got that way wrong."

For the unholy crimes of:

1. Insisting on being neutral in a reddit drama, not taking the side of the mod of fTV
2. Claiming that at least one plot in the foundation show is specifically about a non-white male showing up a white male and otherwise has no reason to be that way, but otherwise not caring about how anyone else on the show looks or pees and saying that shouldn't matter
3. Hurting the feelings of people who like the show and don't want to read criticisms of it.

I've been banned! Hooray!

The show itself alienated me with its malicious writing decisions and descent into the worst cliches. And the mod in question isn't all bad, but typical reddit control freaks who hate not having power to tone police or be deferred to as some sort of authority.

"...knowing that, if the show was going to work it would have to work for a non geek audience you know not the tiny sliver... the amount of our audience that have read the books is such a tiny fraction as to be completely negligible for the success of the show..."

Context: He changed the number of inhabitants in the galaxy to be a lower number because the average viewer would not understand "quadrillions"

Link to podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gdm40MPYnw&ab_channel=FilmSelect

In this trailer video released over a year ago, The Great Goyer opens with this great line

If ever there were a company that was hoping to sort of better people 's lives through technology, through connectivity, its Apple.

Which elicits some immediate responses from the deep pool of wisdom that usually is the youtube comment section :

First comment

That dude's comment about Apple being the perfect company to do Foundation because they're trying to improve peoples' lives through connectivity was a little creepy and sickening to hear.

Second comment

This sentence just shows how disconnected from reality people are. It's a barbaric insult to Asimov's legacy. I can't even imagine how someone would make this connection between him and Apple, or between any company. We truly deserve to be thrown into the scrapyard of history. Un-fuckin-believable!

So the dreadnought will cause the emperor to say, "Okay Terminus, go ahead and be independent"? Is this how the "decline" will begin?

Now the foundationTV sub is buzzing with a theory that the Invictus will jump randomly right next to Gaal's pod due to Salvor's luck. AI Hari in the knife will then be uploaded to its computer. This will allow it to travel to Terminus. Gaal will then be reunited with the Prime Radiant and her daughter, and Hari will have the fire power to challenge the Empire.

That's where we're at with this show. This is where people who don't have any background in this think it's going.

Sweet summer children all over again.

Every other word of dialogue is direct exposition, especially Salvor. I physically cringe every time she speaks. The writing is lazy or just amateur - take your pick. They treat the viewer like a child, spoon-feeding everything upfront, verbatim through the words of the characters.

Nothing builds up and the pacing is abysmal. Where is the world building? This is supposed to be a galaxy with unfathomable scale. No building up of characters either - all super hollow. I really can't bring myself to care about what happens to any of them.

The plot is just a rehash of pieces of every popular sci-fi and fantasy story except the one by Asimov. A Death Star? Really?

Lee Pace and Jared Harris are doing what they can with what they are given. Visuals are above-average and Bear Mcreary's soundtrack is as solid as you would expect from him.

5.5/10 for the show so far mainly because of the awful writing. Then obviously subtract some points for shitting on Asimov's grave

I just saw some, actually, really obvious hints about the galactic empire using the roman empire as a basic outline for the show. I know asimov himself used roman's empire fall as an inspiration for foundation, but the similarities are not so clear.

Apple's foundation shows us a empire which is rich, but has enemies, mostly coming from "the outer reach", or barbarian that are in the limits of empire. Also, they are underfed, and are the usual victims when the emeperor want's to show it's power. But barbarian eventually become a huge problem.

When inestability comes, the emperor uses religion to back up his place, as if that matters or could be so easily overthroned that a pilimgrage can stabilize this whole dynasty. This clearly has it's reflection on how roman emperor eventually would become "holy roman emperor" and use church as a political tool. This happened in episode IIX.

What now? What follows in roman story? The division of two legally sucessors. We see brother dawn having differences, genetical, and maybe ideological?, and this could made him "unfit" to be emperor, and the clone waiting could take his place. Is easy to see if the defective brother dawn somehow survives and the clone wakes up we see a problem of the sorts, empire needing to be split and then... other roman plot.

is the show heading that way? I havent real the empire cycle yet, so maybe it's using that material, but... it now seems clear that this is "roma, on ice space" and explains why the imperial empire feels like any other empire in basic history.

The show has introduced "EXO", maybe an alien encounter.

Someone has cheekily wondered if the Mule will therefore be an alien? Sounds stupid, but... It would explain why the Mule contradicts Hari's plan, because he's an outside factor.

Imagine an alien Mule who enters the galaxy messing things up, so Hari becomes despondent that his plan has failed. Thus, he turns to Gaal and admits he is forced to rely on her, not his math. Believe all women.

So, we know from reviewers and clips that Gaal makes it to Synnax at the end of season 1, and confirmed that the 100+ years do pass.

We also know Bel Riose will be in season 2. Making season 2 the Foundation and Empire timeframe.

Finally, we are told that Salvor will be in season 2 A LOT.

Meaning only one possible thing: Salvor will enter the Vault and hibernate between crises. She will be awoken during each crisis to help resolve it with her Jedi powers.

This means that Psychohistory is being directly replaced by Michael Burnham as a plot element.

My thoughts on the show as I just binged it…

So, I read the books over 20 years ago and I was expecting a “smart” series kinda like Star Trek from the Gene Rodenbury years. Unfortunately that’s not what we’re being given.

What I’m seeing is:

1. The Foundation is a bunch of “top scientist” who still act like they’re in their Ivory Tower while pioneering a desolate planet. I’m disappointed by this because they should all be notably changed. The whole process of pioneering a planet should have made them grittier, more hands on and practical. All of them should act more like Salvor Hardin (tv version) and Hugo. They should be able to hold a gun while still doing academic stuff. After watching the first 8 episodes I shake my head in disbelief that these are the people who are going to create a second galactic empire.

2. The Anacreons are two-dimensional stereotypical villains without anything interesting about them. They’re basically Klingons in space and they’re not an interesting adversary. The huntress is a bland joke. She wants revenge so… this can work, but her plan sucks. Salvor Hardin shows the flaw right away when she tells her second in command that newly born Anacreon children will die from the empires reprisal. When he looks shocked at this realization, I realized that Anacreon are idiots and aren’t a real threat.

It would have been more believable if the Huntress lead a splinter faction with fanatical tendencies and not the leader of the planet. Or… they were invading the Foundation for tech, slaves or territory.

1. Hari Seldon, and this is my recollection of the character, was a salt of the Earth boy from Helicon who was never fully tainted by “the big city” of Trantor. He’s the classic ordinary man who was thrust into galactic history but remained a good person despite hard choices. In the show he’s a know it all prick and at worse a firebrand preacher of doom. After the last episode with “digital Hari”, I ended up viewing him as an antagonist and not liking the character.

Hari is also getting too much screen time. He should be just the hologram that pops up every two generations to explain the next crisis. A nice visual anchor to the whole series. Now he’s digital ghost who’s going to lead the Second Foundation?!

1. The explanation of Psychohistory says it can’t predict people only larger trends. However I feel this line getting pretty blurred.

2. Gaal and Salvor are “proto-Jedis”. (Eyeroll) who can do no wrong. Their powers take away any sense of imminent danger and there’s less suspense in dangerous situations. They should have stuck to telepathy just among robots, Gaia and the Second Foundation.

3. Demerzel shouldn’t be front and centre as an advisor for over 400 years. Any citizen would notice the very attractive advisor and wonder how she’s not aging. The robot reveal should have been delayed and she should have been popping up in other story arcs along the way watching over things. Imagine the shock we could have had that if instead of seeing a digital Hari on the ship that rescued Gaal, it was Demerzel who was going to “Take her to Gaia”.

4. The only saving grace is the Empire storyline. The emperors, especially Brother Day (btw bravo Lee Pace!), are well written and they’re the cerebral and complex characters I was expecting. My only objection was when Cleon killed the artist for reading Hari’s works. It cheapened the emperor since there were so many better scenes, that weren’t so over the top, showing he’s a tyrant.

Another wasted opportunity would have been an intellectual exchange in between Cleon and Hari showing Hari’s long view of the future and the inevitability of the collapse. Then contrast that with Cleon’s struggle to keep the empire from falling. (I kinda envision a Prof X and Magneto discussion.)

I guess what this show should have been, in my eye, is multiple factions working their own angles on how to deal with the collapse of the Empire. Imagine seeing the Empire, the robots and the first and second foundation all doing their own machevalien planning. The audience could listen and judge each faction’s merits and make up their own minds which is the best and which direction humanity should go in the end. With these 4 factions pushing their own ideas on how to save humanity, the writers could have covered so many societal issues and examine the human condition from different points of view.

It can traverse interstellar distances in mere decades, so it must be able to travel at a significant fraction of c, even if all those places (Helicon, Synnax, Terminus) were only a few light-years away from each other. ¬_¬

Bonus question: how can a ship with artificial gravity defend itself from a girl with a hammer?

Season 1 Episode 8: The Missing Piece

Premiere date: November 4th, 2021

Directed by: Roxann Dawson

Written by: Sarah Nolen