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Asimov Foundation

voodooless

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Look, it's not The expanse, but it's OK. Maybe the new version of Dune will lift our spirits.
It did! I found it quite good. Pacing was a bit slow, but also rather refreshing given the murderous pace most movies have nowadays. Too bad we have to wait so long for the next installment.

And yes, Foundation is okay-ish.. for now at least. But there is a lot more to complain about than there is to like. I hope things can still change for the better. But that hope did not save Star Trek either.. so I won’t hold my breath ;)
 
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Jimbob54

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I'm reading the books again now. I think Asimov may have like the cloned Emperor.

I actually like them too. But it makes it confusing when we time skip as to whether we are seeing the Seldon time 3 moved in time or an entirely new generation.
 
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NiagaraPete

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The Expanse is coming to an end this coming season. They say they are taking a break but I doubt it'll be back.
 

JeffS7444

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I've just completed episode 3 and am really enjoying the ride. Although I've read many of Asimov's works, I never got around to the Foundation series, so I had no expectations. I don't recall Asimov's stories having much to say about human relationships, but as screenplays, perhaps such details are too big to ignore, and if the novels were translated too literally onto the screen, maybe they would have wound up being a rather dry tale suited only for hardcore fans.

When I examine works by authors like P.K. Dick, I'm often amazed at how light on details they really are, yet my imagination fleshed them out without my noticing. But when bringing them to the screen, the viewer's imagination can only go so far, and many elements need to be built from scratch.
 

GeorgeWalk

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Agreed. I find that I am less than eager to watch it right away on Fridays. I think I am 2 or 3 episode behind. I think it is on my priority list somewhere after "The Real Housewives of Peoria" and "Chernobyl Got Talent"
 

Matias

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I guess the lack of a reaction after another episode says more than a thousand words ;)
I find its pace kind of slow, story is OK, but overall not very good. But I am watching it still, hopefully it will get better by the season end.
 

JeffS7444

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IMO, the accompanying podcasts are pretty good, as the writers make their case for changes in characters, points of view and newly-created backstory.
 

phoenixdogfan

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Now we can argue over what is "classic" scifi. :D For me, it needs to transcend eras, and that series isn't yet old enough to do so.

Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, van Vogt, Brown, Pohl, Kornbluth... that's more of my idea.
Some things can be safely labelled instant classics, and the Expanse series IMHO is one of them.
 

phoenixdogfan

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Someone put me right, but I vaguely remember Hollywood was going to have a crack at 'Rama'. That'd be so cool.
Would be timely, especially if someone were to do a fictionalized riff on a visit to Oumuamua with it turning out to be a Rama type probe.
 
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NiagaraPete

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I find its pace kind of slow, story is OK, but overall not very good. But I am watching it still, hopefully it will get better by the season end.
Have you read the books?
 

phoenixdogfan

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I'm going to spring for apple TV for hank's WWII destroyer movie, but Foundation (and a few others) help tip the scale.
Also, just got my HT system working reliably again (via Oppo player), and I see that JRiver now supports Netflix - good stuff.
Definitley will look for the new Dune movie (can't be 'worse' that the last one?).
Agree that a lot of Heinleins stuff would be hard to do visuals for well (Stranger in a Strange Land)..did anyone ever do Moon is a Harsh Mistress?

I'd love for a half way decently done Ringworld (series) - that book 'informed' my youth and got me into physics and math, thinking I might 'go there' someday (orbiting colonies were all the rage in space magazines back then), but nope, society and gov't pooped all over that idea...until now when we FINALLY have self landing rockets and at least SOME Mars goals!
(I did get to help a tiny bit on the neutrino mine experiment that won a nobel prize, and other drift chamber builds for FermiLab, tho:)

Expanse I think reset expectations about how well a hard science SF show can be done - hoping for the best, anyway.
Gotta wonder what they would do with the Kzin and the Pierson's Puppeteers. Hope they won't look too ridiculous.
 
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NiagaraPete

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He admitted it was boring but people wanted more. He then admitted he wanted more. Thus the newer books which were filled with action.

Asimov's words:

“THE STORY BEHIND THE “FOUNDATION”
By ISAAC ASIMOV

The date was August 1, 1941. World War II had been raging for two years. France had fallen, the Battle of Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had just been invaded by Nazi Germany. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was four months in the future.
But on that day, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler apparently falling over all the world, what was chiefly on my mind was a meeting toward which I was hastening.
I was 21 years old, a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University, and I had been writing science fiction professionally for three years. In that time, I had sold five stories to John Campbell, editor of Astounding, and the fifth story, “Nightfall,” was about to appear in the September 1941 issue of the magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him the plot of a new story I was planning to write, and the catch was that I had no plot in mind, not the trace of one.
I therefore tried a device I sometimes use. I opened a book at random and set[…]”

“Empires. This was to be illuminated by the science of psychohistory, which Campbell and I thrashed out between us.
On August 11, 1941, therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it “Foundation.” In it, I described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of Foundations at opposite ends of the Universe under such circumstances as to make sure that the forces of history would bring about the second Empire after one thousand years instead of the thirty thousand that would be required otherwise.
The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what he said about a series, I ended “Foundation” on a cliff-hanger. Thus, it seemed to me, he would be forced to buy a second story.
However, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had outsmarted myself. I quickly wrote myself into an impasse, and the Foundation series would have died an ignominious death had I not had a conversation with Fred Pohl on November 2 (on the Brooklyn Bridge, as it happened). I don’t remember what Fred actually said, but, whatever it was, it pulled me out of the hole[…]”

“issue. By this time, though, I had grown tired of the Foundation stories so I tried to end them by setting up, and solving, the mystery of the location of the Second Foundation. Campbell would have none of that, however. He forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I would do one more Foundation story.
Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote one more Foundation story, vowing to myself that it would be the last. I called it “--And Now You Don’t,” and it appeared as a three-part serial in the November 1949, December 1949, and January 1950 issues of Astounding.
By then, I was on the biochemistry faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, my first book had just been published, and I was determined to move on to new things. I had spent eight years on the Foundation, written nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words. My total earnings for the series came to $3,641 and that seemed enough. The Foundation was over and done with, as far as I was concerned.
In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence[…]”

Excerpt From: Isaac Asimov. “Foundation.” iBooks.
 
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phoenixdogfan

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In 2015, the Syfy channel made and aired a 4-hour three-part miniseries adaptation of Clarke's 1953 novella "Childhood's End". I did not see it, but judging from its average rating of 6.9 from 11K viewers on IMDb, Syfy must have done a decent job with the mini-series. And yes, before SIY chimes in, I know that the aliens look like they stepped out of a Bible play, which is of course integral to Clarke's story.

Heinlein has 18 writing credits in his filmography on IMDb, though several are related to the Starship Troopers franchise. There was a Japanese movie adaptation of The Door Into Summer not that long ago. One of my favorite Heinlein short stories "All You Zombies" (at least when I was a teen; I have not read any variety of book-form fiction in well over three decades) was adapted into a movie "Predestination" that I have seen, and thought was reasonably well done.

Total Recall (1990) was another adaptation of Philip K. Dick's work that was imho more entertaining than the short story. Though it is does not even come close to Bladerunner as a movie. Bladerunner is in my top five sci-fi movies of all time, and is possibly my number one. Rollerball (1975) and Soylent Green are other examples of entertaining successful adaptations of sci-fi novels or short stories. Lifeforce is another entertaining if shlocky adaptation of a shlocky novel by Colin Wilson. The Omega Man (1971) was a successful movie adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel "I Am Legend". Logan's Run was another successful movie adaptation. Some of Michael Crichton's novels are more entertaining in movie form (Westworld? Jurassic Park?).
Don't forget about The Puppet Masters (1994) which is also a Heilein adaptation.
 

Matias

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NiagaraPete

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Long time ago, yes.
Me too, now I'm reading them again. This is a story based on 50's science that spans 1k years. Now that I'm into the series I'm starting to appreciate what the new writers have to deal with.

At this point I'm pretty impressed.
 

Tim Link

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I'm still liking it. Looking forward to finding out what happens next in tonight's episode. Last episode the gal went from suicidal to enraptured in a navigational problem in a matter of minutes.

All she wants to do is math, math!

Oh girls, they want to do ma-ath!
 
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