Foundation

LachiusTZ said:

Are there enough BIPOC in this or am i a Nazi for watching it?

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Well, joke's on them. Black people don't watch stuff like this.

This is a good show, dont be mean.
We should be thankful to have good SF shows, even if they are not the greatest.

I'm mostly enjoying this but the one thing I find particularly jarring are the numbers they keep flinging around. Like, 100 million people died when X happened, or 30 trillion people depend on this, etc.

I get they're going for some grand scale but in case of the first example I just don't see how that figure could be possible and as to the second these numbers are just too damn large for my ape brain to contemplate so find another way to refer to it, like say 5 galaxies of something.

yeah, I don't think they did a really good job at showing Trantor as a planet that is fully covered up by tech and has dug into the Earth with multiple levels, where most people never, ever step foot on the surface or see the sun. Everyone is agoraphobic, its even a plot point how kids have to be taken up on the elevator once a year to go "outside" to be more human. In the books I don't think there is even a space elevator, instead there are thousands of elevators that takes you from the underground tiered levels up to the surface.

I don't think the bombing of the elevator is a thing in the book either, but I don't remember.

Weirdly enough Star Wars did a better job of showing how huge Coruscant was in the prequels and animated shows, how there were hundreds of levels underground where most people lived, how each level was very different from the others, etc. Foundation did a pretty bad job of that so far. Everything about Trantor was a bit wrong/off, except the space elevator was awesome and there were 1-2 shots that sorta showed how unique and central the Imperial Palace and Gardens were. But then it looked like the palace was surrounded by shanty-town, which is way wrong.

I like the show so far and am willing to roll with it, any criticisms are really minor things that are more like "...well, thats not how >I< imagined it" but that doesn't mean I was right. To see an absolute shit show of a translation just watch Y the last man, its a train wreck.

They had a little blurb about how "deep" Trantor was, including how the skies are fake.

to be the fair the robot is actually consistent with the books, except it was introduced in the 1980s, by Asimov himself, in a series of post-Foundation books he wrote to unify the I, Robot series with Foundation.

"They had a little blurb about how "deep" Trantor was, including how the skies are fake."

Yes, but show, dont tell.
The spaceships looked good, the orbital bombardment looked great, Hary Seldon role was competently played, the Emperors were good, dont know why you guys are hating on this show already.

wamphyr said:

"They had a little blurb about how "deep" Trantor was, including how the skies are fake."

Yes, but show, dont tell.
The spaceships looked good, the orbital bombardment looked great, Hary Seldon role was competently played, the Emperors were good, dont know why you guys are hating on this show already.

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No, I agree that they didn't do a great job about showing it (they did a brief showing of the "digital sky"). But, they at least sorta mentioned it.

its at the level of Expanse or Shadow and Bone. If simply having non white people in a futuristic (Foundation is set 11000 years in the future) bothers you, well, probably not a whole lot of TV is gonna be watchable. There aren't any groanable "BECAUSE OF THE PATRIARCHY" or "TRANS PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS TOO" moments so far. Its Apple TV+ so even sex is pretty defanged, the most we get is some underwear simulated sex.

I like the show so far, just 2 episodes so its hard to really get a firm opinion on it, but you can tell the million ways it coulda been better. It hasn't instantly grabbed me the way Game of Thrones or Expanse or Mandalorian did. It could get there, or it could turn into a mess. It definitely has that feel of a show that WANTS to be as big as Game of Thrones, but it feels inorganic in its rush to be "huge".

Given that huge budget sci fi shows are still a bit of a rarity, the only way to support the show is to simply watch on Apple TV+ so I'm doing that. I wish they had made season 1 about the backstory of Empire and Hari Seldon and the prodigy and the setup of the world, instead they do that bizarre thing where we see stuff happening (Salvor Hardin, gender swapped) then we flashback to 35 years in the past and its really muddled and a bit confusing. I guess the showrunner wants to tell a story in a specific way, and I hope it works out.

Apparently the show runner has 8 seasons (!!) of Foundation already mapped out.

Kiroy said:

lol I hope you're being sarcastic

"only consume, do not criticize, be thankful"

pathetic

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Uhh, I did not say that.
Criticize shows like Batwoman, aberations that do not deserve to exist.
This show is not in that category, that is all I am saying.

spronk said:

If simply having non white people in a futuristic (Foundation is set 11000 years in the future) bothers you, well, probably not a whole lot of TV is gonna be watchable.

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Its really frustrating that even the non-woke say stuff like this.

Literally no one gives a shit about or objects to having non-white people in sci fi settings. Literally zero people. We can make a poll if this is a contentious point, but I dont think it is.

I can sit here and list examples of how its been done right and how its been done wrong but we don't need a wall of text, its all really really simple: if you want to make a show about a black chick, find a story about a black chick. Guess what? They exist. If your story is about a white dude, then cast a fucking white dude.

Anything less is offensively stupid, deliberate wokeness, BIPOC for the sake of BIPOC, and should be universally condemned. As it would be by any observer whose artistic integrity is greater than their desire to look like a nice guy in front of all the woke Karens out there.

Show looks great, the scenes on trantor are all wonderful.

Aldarion said:

Its really frustrating that even the non-woke say stuff like this.

Literally no one gives a shit about or objects to having non-white people in sci fi settings. Literally zero people. We can make a poll if this is a contentious point, but I dont think it is.

I can sit here and list examples of how its been done right and how its been done wrong but we don't need a wall of text, its all really really simple: if you want to make a show about a black chick, find a story about a black chick. Guess what? They exist. If your story is about a white dude, then cast a fucking white dude.

Anything less is offensively stupid, deliberate wokeness, BIPOC for the sake of BIPOC, and should be universally condemned. As it would be by any observer whose artistic integrity is greater than their desire to look like a nice guy in front of all the woke Karens out there.

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To add to this, if anything, all they appear to encourage is further segregation. Compare Trek back in the late 60s where Kirk and Uhura kissed and present day where all black protagonists "stick with their own kind". The girl in this has a black lover, the lead in Discovery has a black lover, etc. I can't recall a time when you see a caucasian actor being a love interest for a black lead beyond maybe for eye-roll comedic effect.

That said, is that a case of the focus groups insisting on this or the studios thinking the world would lose their mind if there were more black/white pairings? If anything, the companies that make these shows are way less likely to try something risky compared to the past.

The special effects in this are surprisingly well done - movie-like quality. And the dude playing Empire (Day) is fucking killing it. I'll keep watching for now.