Asimov Foundation

[SIY]

Thanks for the clarification. Different strokes and so forth.

Speaking of which: based on the rave reviews, I jumped into the Expanse last night, and thought to myself, this isn't very good fiction--stereotypical characters and banal, predictable dialogue, but the science is terrible. All kinds of errors, and so far nothing interesting to stretch the science into something provokative. The rebels are terrorist scum, the Earthlings elitist airheads, and so far nothing much about the Martians, who seem like any maturing colony--now needing to stretch it's legs, and on the verge of revolt for want of resources. I'll ride out the season--there are many more flaws to find in the science, and am curious as to what game those dastardly Martians are about.

One thing that drives me nuts in SciFi movies is things going BOOM in space. And speed of sound equaling speed of light. 2001 was a notable exception, still my favorite SciFi movie ever.

 

[Count Arthur]

One thing that drives me nuts in SciFi movies is things going BOOM in space. And speed of sound equaling speed of light. 2001 was a notable exception, still my favorite SciFi movie ever.

The silence and the sound returning as the air pressure increases in this scene, is so effective.

 

[Matias]

Season 1 was ok. But the Expanse is a lot better.

 

[restorer-john]

Your list is incomplete. Imo, there is the rare instance of the movie being better than the book.

And all Ian Fleming's novels...

 

[nerdstrike]

I look forward to watching Foundation when it is eventually released from the exclusive clutches of Apple TV.

Loved the books, even accounting for the older and dry style of prose. Such wonderful ideas and observations on the theme of predicting the future. To be fair, it went a bit wild with the Gaia stuff. I don't think we need televise the mad end of the series.

RE: The Expanse, I think the show does an excellent job of portraying the less than excellent writing. It's rare for me to be put off, but by book 5 I had had quite enough, whereas I've really liked the show - David Strathairn was a highlight in the later series. I had a similar realisation when I read Andy Weir's The Martian, that is to say the prose ran extremely close to the screenplay, to the point where I didn't see the value in the book beyond the movie.

 

[Gorgonzola]

I finished Season 1 of the TV series and came away a vaguely disappointed. I give it a IMDB 7/10, so maybe a "Fine" in ASR parlance.

I read the first three books of Asimov's series and enjoyed them though I never bought the premise of being able to accurately predict the future, even on the large scale, to be plausible. Given it's 45+ years since I read the books, I can't compare the TV series to the original story.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Thought I'd mention that the last season of the Expanse has started.

 

[Chagall]

Thought I'd mention that the last season of the Expanse has started.

No spilers plz!!! Waiting for whole season to air.

 

[NiagaraPete]

No spilers plz!!! Waiting for whole season to air.

No I wouldn’t do that. But it was pretty exciting.

 

[Martin]

Slowly making my way through Foundation. I don’t care that they changed characters’ gender or race; that’s to be expected today. I care about the story and other than the general premise and a few characters’ names they pretty much threw Isaac’s story out the window. Sad. It could have been so much better…

Martin

 

[nerdstrike]

Well, my wife got three months free, so I am back after watching two episodes. I am THE target audience, and I hate it. The CGI shop got the brief and did well, the triumvirate of clones is a superb idea when you're planning on spanning more than one lifetime, but the writing and editing is total crap.

[Light spoilers]

Cut cut cut, tell me about things I wanted to see, cut again. Form relationships off camera, portray the protagonist as an arrogant little shit whom no-one hates, narrate narrate narrate.

Also, given that psychohistory and the Seldon plan are supposed to only work properly when the populace are unaware of the plan, why are there at least three psychohistorians on the colony ship?

Most irritating of all is where Gaal invades a committee meeting and disrupts it with a lecture on different number systems. You're a mathematician, you should know that binary or hexadecimal or whatever else are all interchangeable and equivalent and that it doesn't matter. Language on the other hand would have made her point better, but script writers go "she's a math nerd! Make her say something maths".

I can complain for as long as the runtime of the two episodes! Perhaps I should change my alias to Mr Plinket.

 

[JeffS7444]

I just finished reading Asimov's original novel Foundation - really enjoyed the sense of the empire rotting from within, knowledge of science fading away, and of the machinations used to defend the Foundation. But I also appreciate how much fleshing-out and revising the creators of the TV+ series needed to do in order to create their screenplay.

 

[Tim Link]

The silence and the sound returning as the air pressure increases in this scene, is so effective.

That was a great scene. A lot of great scenes in that movie. The part where Dave had to leave the other guy's body to drift off into space had a really profound effect on me. I feel human remains belong on earth. I have no logical argument for that, just a feeling. I wonder what sounds go on in our ears when experiencing sudden decompression. I know Dave would hopefully have allowed the breath out of his lungs to avoid rupture. He had about 15 seconds of consciousness. Eyes start to freeze dry very quickly so best keep them closed. It's a very risky maneuver. A lot of things could have gone wrong. I'd say he got lucky to catch that latch on the way out. In the book The Sentinel HAL just depressurized the ship without warning. Dave managed to get suited up quickly enough to survive.

 

[Martin]

One thing that drives me nuts in SciFi movies is things going BOOM in space. And speed of sound equaling speed of light. 2001 was a notable exception, still my favorite SciFi movie ever.

I liked that Firefly and The Expanse got that right. Star Wars and Star Trek are full of cheesy explosive sounds in space.

Martin

 

[Durnik]

I liked that Firefly and The Expanse got that right. Star Wars and Star Trek are full of cheesy explosive sounds in space.

Martin

Galactica (modern series) did it pretty well too.

 

[FrantzM]

Since I like Sci-Fi.. I'll watch it when it comes back. My hopes are not high. The show direction is already toward pompous and preposterous and frankly some sprinkling of MCU: with the projection/avatar becoming its progenitor reborn ... Stretching things very thinly if you ask me... similar to the tropes daytime soap operas were sending on their fans or ...again the MCU... with its alternate timelines, realities, universes... etc..

So far the Expanse remains the best Sci-Fi Series, I've seen. Even enjoy re-watching it.

Peace.

 

[NiagaraPete]

I finished Season 1 of the TV series and came away a vaguely disappointed. I give it a IMDB 7/10, so maybe a "Fine" in ASR parlance.

I read the first three books of Asimov's series and enjoyed them though I never bought the premise of being able to accurately predict the future, even on the large scale, to be plausible. Given it's 45+ years since I read the books, I can't compare the TV series to the original story.

You should read the other 4, much more exciting.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Foundation season 2. So far I'm enjoying, but forget comparing it to the books.