Foundation

A big disappointment. Apple was really keen, so was I, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a book so defiled in its adaptation. The special effects are fantastic and you can see the money that they pumped into this. The problem lies in sheepish scripts that, apart from the title, have nothing to do with the Foundation. The warped psychological histories, the central character’s sex-change, including illogical behavior, and the nonsensical (for a cool mathematician and a robot) shouting and emotional outbursts so clearly demonstrate the harmfulness of our times and the artificial attempts to update (instead of decadence and decline, a dumb terroristic reason) the sub-plots of the book, which just make the movie seem laughable in hindsight. Goyer is incapable of holding our attention and is afraid of re-casting. The emperor clones (the only inventive storyline and it isn’t even in the book) are a perfect example. The Foundation, taking place over the course of thousands of years, should change out the central characters about every two episodes, with Olivaw in the first and last episodes and Seldon making frequent guest appearances. By the way, Harris plays a completely different Sheldon than is described in the book and the only good example of casting is Lee Peace as the middle Emperor. Each time I had to force myself more and more to watch the next episode and each one had me falling asleep more and more. Which doesn’t bode well. (26.11.2021)

A year before this series came out, I read "Foundation and Empire", so you can imagine how excited I was when I heard Apple TV was bringing it to the screen. The story is notoriously challenging to adapt, but I thought, if done right, it could be incredible. Unfortunately, we're stuck with "could have been," because it feels like the creators are just making a mockery out of the original material. Jared Harris as Hari Seldon was decent, but the moment they started making a mess of the storyline — jumping around with no regard for continuity, swapping characters' genders, and ticking every box on the trendy checklist — it lost me. It’s clear this wasn’t a low-budget production; the visuals are absolutely stunning. But that’s about the only thing that kept me watching. Honestly, I don’t ever want to hear about this series again. I can only wonder what Isaac Asimov would think of his daughter being involved in this mess. (24.11.2021)