The Good News: Isaac Asimov’s seminal SF epic will be made into a TV series (quite literally the only format that makes any sense other than, well, a series of books).
The Bad News: It will be on Yet Another Streaming Service. Ugh.
The Problematic News: Has there ever been a successful adaptation of an Asimov SF work? (1988’s Nightfall is the one movie I ever seriously considered walking out of.) How will the anthological aspects of the tale, esp. in the early series, play with the audience?
Apple orders its most ambitious TV series yet: An adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation
The move follows others’ failed attempts to greenlight adaptations of the books.
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The photo, btw, is of Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov, at the Philadelphia Naval Yard in 1944.
Dang it. I’ll never be using the Apple streaming service. Hopefully they’ll pop it onto DVD one day?
+L Gorrie The problem (which I deeply regret) is that media outlets are going away from fixed media. Proposals for 4K disc players are largely going nowhere. All the players are headed toward streaming services.
+Dave Hill Yeah, and it extremely frustrating for us who only have mobile broadband. An horrendously expensive way to watch shows.
I'd love to watch this, but the model needs rethinking. People can't keep signing up for different services to watch individual shows. And they won't.
The fourth or so attempt. One quote from the adapter on this version makes me wonder if they’re actually reading the books or if we have another I, Robot situation.
I’m reading the books again. So much dialogue. So. Much. Dialogue.
The best Asimov adaptation was Harlan Ellison’s screenplay for I, Robot. Which is worth reading for the screenplay but also Ellison’s introduction as to his and Asimov’s experience in Hollywood. Almost as scary as his long introduction in Phoenix Without Ashes, the novelization (by Bryant) of The Starlost.
+Fred Kiesche I enjoyed Ellison's screenplay, but I always enjoy his introductions best.
It's not a trivial task, adapting Foundation, as it's not a personal story as fiction (esp. TV) is expected to be these days. I expect certain liberties will have to be taken to make that happen; the key will be whether Asimov' themes (to the extent he had themes in the variety of shorts that were combined to make the first book) of hubris, power, ingenuity, and the value of science and learning, come through.
The one adaptation of an Asimov work I enjoyed was Bicentennial Man. Robin Williams was an excellent robot. It has an IMDb rating of 6.8. (Nightfall has a rating of 2.4. I should have listened to the friend who warned me not to watch it.)