All of the reactions I have seen, both before and after I saw the movie, have been overwhelmingly positive in aggregate terms.  Thinking about the film now, a week after seeing it, I think it works really well as a generally faithful telling of the story up to that part of the book where the film ends.  As Roci notes implicitly upthread all of the story elements are there and are coherent so far.  We now just need to wait for the second film.


 

We are watching Apple TV’s “For All Mankind”. Alternate history of the Cold War Space Program. Excellent!

I've been meaning to watch "For All Mankind", but haven't gotten around to it yet. Expanse's last season is getting aired and I also want to watch the 3 episode Dune miniseries from 2000 that got uploaded to Youtube for free.

Foundation is another series that I've not read the book of, but the TV series fell flat for me because it gave me a bit of genre-whiplash.

The premise was Seldon's prediction for humanity based on science, and how he goes through careful planning to help humanity survive the coming dark age. 2 of the 3 storylines in the show then completely disregard his careful planning, have everyone in Seldon's program become inexplicably helpless except for 2 magical beings, and 1 uses her magic powers to perform action sequences that fix everything.

On the flip side, the 1 storyline that was 100% invented for the show ended up being the most interesting to me with the empire's heirs. No magic, no superpowers. Just ordinary (if clones can be called ordinary) human beings struggling to hold a decaying empire together while spending their entire lives emulating the emperor they were cloned from. I felt more heartbroken for the youngest emperor than I did for any other character in that show.

Last edited by Roci (12/14/2021 2:49 pm)

I am yet to take on the Foundation book series. I wasn't aware it was a trilogy though, the online vendor I use has 7 books listed. My brother, who chose to read the series before watching, agrees that what he's heard from my watching doesn't match the books any more than a few names shared between characters. I have a feeling it will be a while before he watches the series to compare.

HRHSpence wrote:

I always treat tv and movie versions of books as if they were merely inspired and not the actual thing.  That way I don't get dissapointed.

I think that's a very sensible approach, Spence.

Btw, I watched the first episode of Foundation last night (after deciding I was too tired to concentrate on a new alternate history like For All Mankind - I'd be compelled to look for the actual history pivot point).  I was ok with it and will likely watch a little more but, again, as with Dune, I haven't read the book in many years and can recall no details.  How do the books stand up after all this time?  Is it safe or sensible to try to re-read them?