Ron Unger

What a disappointment! I was so flabbergasted by this series - how virtually nothing in the original book’s theme or plot was used in the screenplay. SO perplexed that I started re-reading the original book and came across the reasons why I so greatly disliked this attempt by David Goyer! Why didn’t he actually stick with Azimov’s own plot and theme instead of writing a brand, new, incredibly slow moving screenplay about BLM, LGBTQ, etc. using just the Foundation setting and characters (eg. stealing Quentin Tarantino’s modus operandi of placing novel and outrageous stories in historical settings). To me, the key theme of the original book (and the sequels as well) was this statement by Hober Mallow: "Hari Seldon, when he planned our course of future history, did not count on brilliant heroics but on the broad sweeps of economics and sociology. So the solutions to the various crises must be achieved by the forces that become available to us at the time." And unfortunately not really once in the entire 10 episodes was this presented. Instead, we were given the same old action scenes and heroics found in every other sci-fi action movie made in the past ten years. It was like I was watching one of the (now) innumerable Star-Trek spin-off series… The irony is stunning to me - how the Salvor Hardin character in this series engaged in such constant feats of physical prowess when the “real” Mayor Salvor Hardin in the book had as one of his key mottos “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” And in closing, what a missed opportunity by David Goyer to make this series relatable to what is happening all over the world today rather than such an America centric storyline (also the way he completely skipped over the religious storyline in the original book – where Foundation created and used a fake religion to control their neighbours – I guess too dangerous a concept with the Religious Right and politics as they are in the USA)? Although first published in 1951, Azimov’s story could not be more prescient to today’s global situation. Right on the last page he lays it all out, with Hober Mallow saying “What business of mine is the future? Not doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now.” And isn’t that exactly what is happening in the world right now? It seems to me that since WWII, capitalism, free markets, global trade and free liberal democracies were dominant and growing. But now many if not most people globally feel this is no longer working / that they are being left behind. So populism is on the rise and other more autocratic political systems (China being the prime example) are in the ascendancy. What a missed opportunity to not present Azimov’s “Foundation” and highlight this, instead of what we got…