Jeremy Baker

Apple's Foundation left the door wide open for a gifted production team to recreate a memorable series based upon the work of Asimov, to do it justice. I want to see a smart film based on the books. Sad to see the heart of Isaac's keen narrative and insight whittled away so completely, a disappointment not too far away from watching a Star Trek's Strange New Worlds episode condon violent vigilante justice - a uniformed Star Fleet officer murders a Klingon, in cold blood, without being held accountable. Apple gave us a Foundation with sex, lots of combat scenes, protagonists invoking magic, mysticism, and super human powers if not plotting violent solutions, a manipulative and at times raving Hari Seldon who confesses he lied about the Foundation to reveal he is the master architect of the emerging war against the clone Empire, nonsensical mathematical gadgets/spectacles spun up by those illiterate to the art - not even a casual reference to a mew or mention of an x-bar or skew in parameters common in statistics, as well as other media content that has supplanted much of the story Asimov wrote. The director and creators of Apple's Foundation proved themselves apt at delivering the McDonalds of sci-fi, a recipe of popularity, lots of additives and calories, with poor nutritional value that nearly everybody spends money to gulp, often with rave reviews for those who don't think too deeply about what is being consumed. Fans of the Foundation know that Seldon didn't conspire to plot a war. He studied and applied statistics, which requires data and population research, to anticipate the decay of civilization and the emergence of conflict and destruction, to design a plan to expedite the recovery of civilization by seeding the Foundations, kind of like some ancient libraries in Ireland/Scotland. If memory serves me, the story infers the use of logic and reason as well as calculated risk when employing diplomacy was not an option to nurture an alliance, a story not merely to entertain, but possibly to inspire a few readers to discover a career in mathematics and sociology who might grow up to solve real-world problems, being aware of the pros/cons of ego, hierarchy, technology, faith, loyalty, and a farm. Jeremy, what about the Mule? For a story supposedly grounded on real-world phenomena, social trends, tribal loyalties big/small, the fall of the Roman Empire, invention/science, how do you resolve the mutant power of the Mule? Well, I can't find my source, but I vaguely remember reading that Isaac created the Mule as an addendum to his Foundation story at the behest of someone, and even then, the superpower of the Mule is nothing more than an exaggerated abstraction of current politics. Take Trump, he lacks superpowers to read people's minds, yet uses media to manipulate and exploit the feelings and perceptions of his gullible audience, hiring talented individuals, as noted on a National Public Radio show that interviewed a gay man who helped direct the successful election campaign, who said, "when I did field research to interact and observe the people we targeted with our media, in the public sphere, again and again I would hear what this lady said, " I didn't vote for Trump because of what he says, but he doesn't make me feel guilty for driving a (gas) car or for being me (white)."" News networks pipe different content, sometimes with unexpected impact. I'm still looking forward to watching a film series that reflects the creative work of Asimov's Foundation, perhaps without magic or superpowers, but with thought and science. Black Mirror, Hot Skull, Better than Us, Electric Dreams, 1984, Brazil sci-fi has thought and/or science.