FOUNDATION - The Apple Mini-Series

 Spoiler Alert:  This review mentions science from the series as well as plots from the book, so if you haven’t yet seen the series, but want to, skip over this essay.  You’ve been warned!

It is assumed that you have read the original Foundation Trilogy

I have seen the entire first season of the mini-series, i.e. the first 10 episodes, and now I feel, as the owner of this blog with the same name, I should reveal my take on it.  It is not what I expected, or hoped.

The series, although based on Isaac Asimov’s original novel, bears very little resemblance to the trilogy.

If you were to change the names of the main characters, and there are many, you would never even think of comparing the TV mini-series and the book.  They are two completely different stories altogether.

That said, I prefer the book.  It still has yet to be made into a movie that is faithful to the trilogy (being Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, in that order).  This isn’t it.

Let me elaborate.  The scene is set 50,000 years into the future.

The plot starts out the same.  In both the series and the book, Hari Seldon (played by Jared Harris in the movie), a mathematician, presents his thesis to the Emperor of the Galactic Empire, consisting the the entire Milky Way Galaxy.  Seldon warns that the Empire is falling, and has been for hundreds of years, but hasn’t been noticed until the present time.  Psychohistory, a concept predicting the action of huge masses of people, isn’t mentioned here.

The Empire will fall, and Trantor, the capital of the Empire, with one city covering the entire planet, will be sacked in 300 years, and there will be 30,000 years of barbarism spread all over the galaxy, before a new empire arises from the ashes.

Seldon offers a plan.  The present downfall cannot be stopped, but the period of chaos can be shortened to 1,000 years.  Seldon establishes two Foundations “at opposite ends of the galaxy,” to guide the galaxy through this chaos up to the establishment of a new empire. 

The emperor, Cleon, agrees to Seldon’s plan and sends the first batch of scientists, mathematicians, and hundreds of people of different disciplines to a planet at the far end of the galaxy called Terminus.  This is a planet out in the boondocks of the galaxy, little known with no natural resources, and this is where Seldon’s followers are to begin their project.

This is where the Apple TV Series and the original Asimov book, The Foundation Trilogy, diverge.

The rest of this review, and it is long, will be comparing the main points of the series to the book, and explain why the series doesn’t measure up to the book and how it goes completely off the track by changing the characters, the plots, and the scenery.  I will mention the actors in parenthesis next to each character’s name to make this essay look like a movie review.

The series introduces new plot lines not in the book.  They change the characters and changes the gender of two of them, Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) both from male to female.  The intention here is good, giving women more of a role and a say in the story, and it’s a leg up from the book (written in 1950), but again, it throws the story off the track.

The writers, directors, and producers also make Emperor Cleon (Here there are three, the grandfather, Terrance Mann, the father, Lee Pace, and the child, Cassian Biton) a long line of clones, each succeeding emperor with the same name.  A sub-plot is created (not by Asimov) where the boy, the clone being primed to be emperor, rebels, finds a girl who is a gardener and very attractive and seductive (named Azura, played by Amy Tyger)  and wants to go off and live a life of his own (a la Prince Harry), but is killed in the end.

There is a female robot, named Demerzel (played by Laura Birn, who greatly resembles Gwyneth Paltrow)  patterned after Eto Demerzel in Prelude to Foundation, but, in Prelude, was really the robot hero R. Daneel Olivaw in the book, himself a character in many of Asimov’s robot novels.  Demerzal in the movie is beautiful, but has lived for thousands of years, advising “Cleons” through the ages.

In the last episode, she breaks the neck of the young boy, ending the problem of the family rebel/prince.  This is one of the biggest different of all between the TV series and the book.  First, there are no robots in the original trilogy. 

Second, and most important, Asimov, in all his robot novels, and they are connected to the Foundation Trilogy, establishes the three laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the commands given to him by a human, excepts when it come in conflict with the first law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, except when it comes in conflict with the first two laws.
   

Demerzal was never to kill, let alone harm, the boy Cleon, or any other human for that matter, for this violated the three laws.

That scene alone destroy all comparisons with the book.

In addition, emperors in the book were not cloned, nor were they all name Cleon.  Each emperor had his or her own, distinct, individual name and personality.

Let’s turn to Terminus.  In the book, Seldon never went to Terminus.  He stayed behind on Trantor, where he soon died of old age.  In the TV series, he does board ship where he is killed.

Terminus, in the book, is a small city, built with proper building materials shipped from elsewhere.  That isn’t mention, but is assumed by the reader.  

The city is neatly laid out, with high quality buildings:  offices, dwellings, schools, research labs, and suburbs, with the inhabitants having a high quality of life.  

The Vault is a small auditorium in a building, with in the event of a crisis, the Vault, controlled by a timer, unlocks.  In this event, all important officials involved with the plan all go inside and watch a holographic image of Hair Seldon materialize, in his wheelchair and tells of what is happening and how to deal with it, and the plot issues.  

The characters are all different as a generation passes, but are taught of their mission and at the right time, take action when necessary.  War is avoided is possible.  “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent!”

The series couldn’t have been any more different.  The planet itself is dismal, with a cold climate.  Terminus looks like a refugee camp, with crude dwellings, like primitive huts, and its inhabitants surviving hand to mouth.  You wonder how they could carry out their mission, let alone survive.

Invading armies constantly come and go.  Two opposing armies use Terminus as a battleground, with the inhabitants of Terminus stuck in the middle.

The vault is a mysterious object, shaped like a diamond, hovering over the top of a barren hill, with a force field to prevent anyone from approaching it.  Nobody knows what it is, or why it is there, until, in the last episode, the “vault” splits in two and an image of Hair Seldon comes down and preaches to the inhabitants, and invading armies, of what is to come.  Unlike the book, he can talk to individuals personally and answer their questions, as if he is alive.

So, the series goes its own separate way, with plots and space wars between planets not in the book, and not stating the motive of these warring tribes.

Characters like Salvor Hardin and Gaal Dornick are kept alive by suspended animation for 135 years.

This is the trouble with the cast.  In the book, as time progresses, old characters die out and new characters come in as time flows, like in real life.

In the movie, the old characters remain.  Perhaps this is to keep the actors themselves employed, thus extending their characters live and giving them more parts to play, as stated, not in the book.  Time progresses in the book, but in the series, it stands still.  Where does it lead?  Probably to a plot not in the book.

This is why the series is poor.  I would give it a rating of one to two stars.  Two and one half stars would be generous, but in no way does it deserve three stars.

If this series continues to Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation, they will no doubt have to phase the present actors out and replace them with new actors playing new characters.  This is because the trilogy extends to 300 years from its beginning, so there is nothing else they can do, except end the series completely of totally different from the book.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

The series would be a good science fiction story by itself, not being based on any book or story.  However, it takes the book, a science fiction classic, dismantles it, and reassembles it in a different form, adding a few more plots, scenery, characters, special effects, to its liking.  

That is a bad idea.

If one is going to make a movie or TV series based on a book, any book, it should be faithful to the book and follow the plot lines exactly, without any additions of one’s own making.

My own take on this is that if you are a fan of Asimov’s original Foundation series, or any of his other novels for that matter, you can skip this TV series entirely.

If you have to watch it, see it on its own merit.  There is no comparison between the TV series and the book. 

Alastair Browne

Alec Baldwin and the Handling of Guns

 After the Halyna shooting, Alec Baldwin retreated to a town in Vermont.   New details from the investigation are emerging, and all in all, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

To sum it all up, a movie called RUST was being filmed.  Alec Baldwin was the star, and Halyna Hutchins was the woman behind the camera.  Mr. Baldwin was handed a gun that was supposed to be either unloaded or have blanks.  Having aimed it at the camerawoman, Baldwin pulled the trigger and “bang,” Hutchins was shot dead with a real bullet, from a real Colt 45.

Tragedy ensued, and a lot of gross negligence was uncovered.  The gun was supposed to be a prop and the bullets were suppose to be blanks.  Live ammo was not permitted the grounds, along with real guns, and nobody knew where the responsibilities lay.

It was all one big mix-up.

Who is to blame?

I hate to admit it, but Baldwin himself bears much of the blame, though not all, because of his own stupidity.  His stupidity lies in the way he handle the gun.

Yes, I’m going to say it right out, and yes, the truth hurts.

According to one attorney, checking the gun was not the assistant director’s responsibility.  Oh, yes it was!

I will cover both of these, but first, I am fully aware that this is the worst moment in Alec Baldwin’s life.  He is a world famous movie actor who accidentally shot and killed somebody, and as a result, he bears a great remorse and a very bad scar, that will stick with him for the rest of his life.

As of this writing, Baldwin is in seclusion with his wife and family, trying to sort things out in dealing with this tragedy.  No doubt, he feels very remorseful, and is probably thinking in his mind, how he could have handled the gun differently, so as not to shoot Ms. Hutchins.  A “what might have been” that will never materialize.

Baldwin knows he will have to go back and answer for his mistakes, as does the entire crew on the set.  

My heart does go out to him.  This could have happened to anyone.

Could it?  

I know that the gun has passed between hands before it reached Baldwin, but the actor was still irresponsible, careless, negligent, and foolish.  I all boils down to how one should handle a gun.

I have been taught at a very young age never to point a gun at anyone.  In the military, they extend that statement to “unless you intend to shoot that person.” 

It sank in right away.  In grade seven, a teacher that if you want to know whether a gun is loaded, you check it, meaning the compartment.  You don’t pull the trigger.

That also sank in.  Whenever someone showed me a gun and put it in my hand, I always checked the compartment or cylinder, if it’s a revolver.  In the case of a rifle, I would release the catch to see if it was unloaded, even if the owner knew it wasn’t.  I NEVER pulled the trigger.  EVER.

I also made sure the gun was pointed away from anyone before handling it.

That is the way anyone should handle guns.

The chief cause of gun deaths in the U.S. is not by murder, but by carelessness.  That is, pulling the trigger and the bullet entering into someone unfortunate enough to be in the way.  The victim is killed, and the person responsible cries out in panic, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

This is an everyday occurrence, and nobody learns from this; and so it was with Alec Baldwin.

Yes, Alec Baldwin does get the blame because he should have checked the gun before aiming it at Ms. Hutchins.  First of all, he shouldn’t have pointed it at Ms. Hutchins, period.  Second, he shouldn’t have fired it at all, even if it wasn’t pointed at anything.

If Baldwin had checked the gun, he would have found the bullets, taken them out of the gun, and tragedy would have been averted.

“Well,” one can say, “it was passed from person to person, and Baldwin assumed that the gun was safe.”  

It doesn’t matter.  He should have checked it anyway.  

Do you know what happens when you “assume?”  You make an ASS out of U and ME!  

He sure did, with horrific results.

The responsibility also lies with those in line passing the gun to Mr. Baldwin.  The attorney for the assistance is wrong.  It was his responsibility to check the gun.  It’s everyone’s responsibility who passes the gun to check it.

First, somebody had to know that the gun and the bullets were real.

What about the people in line who passed the gun to Baldwin?

If the very first person in line should have checked the revolver, he or she would have found the bullets.  What should have occurred then was to turn the bullets over to an authority and simply passed the gun, with the cylinder of the revolver open, all the way down to Baldwin, where he can keep it for a prop, safe and unloaded, and NOT point it at Ms. Hutchins, even if it was unloaded.

Hindsight is 20/20.

The investigation continues.  There was live ammo not authorized to be on the set, people were in positions of authority they had no business being in, having responsibilities they did not know how to handle, and a young woman, a wife and mother, was killed senselessly on the set.

This is human stupidity at its worst, and it is an everyday occurrence.

When will we ever learn?