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Comment by smnrchrds | Hacker News Reader

Foundation, as written, does not lend itself to any medium other than text. Dune had already been adapted to films, TV shows, and games multiple times before Villeneuve's film. Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show. I agree that the Apple TV series does not capture the essence of the books, but no series or film possibly can. Best we can hope is a loose adaptation, which is what we have gotten now.

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I don't know if it is documented or not but I would swear Asimov had aphantasia. When I was younger reading him was a revelation after getting bogged down in long winded books full of visual description which just felt like needless baggage to me.

There isn't a lot of imagery described in his books (not that I would see it anyway) but that doesn't mean it couldn't be presented visually while keeping to the spirit, just that Asimov probably couldn't have done it. Good writers and directors could.

If given the Villeneuve or Kubrick treatment it might be very different.

I still think "The Mule", AKA the second half of "Foundation and Empire", could make an excellent standalone - still one of the best sci-fi thrillers IMHO, and much more interesting characters than most of Asimov. But otherwise, there are so many better choices for translating to screen...

It was adapted to a radio drama. Pretty close to text, but also closer to an audio-visual format. And I liked it.

https://archive.org/details/foundationtrilogythe--bbc1973rad...

It doesn't matter that Dune was previously adapted and Foundation wasn't. Prior adaptations could have been terrible, and this iteration of Foundation will be seen in 2042 the way 70s Lord of the Rings animation, or 1984 Dune, is seen today. I reject the premise you put in another post that there is some "test of time", some arbitrary number of years, that a book passes that deems it unfit for adaptation.

It's one thing to acknowledge the flexibility required in converting a story from novel to film. It is another to change the entire message, character motives and morals while merely retaining the surface plotlines.

For what it's worth, having read ten chapters of Dune after watching the amazing 2021 film, I can say they did a fantastic job capturing the spirit and the core storyline of the book.

On the other hand... Dune had also been widely considered 'unfilmable' in the industry and that same thing had been said about it: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-denis-villeneuve...

But Foundation is the one that had never been adapted. It had passed the test of time for being unfilmable, unlike Dune that has been adapted multiple times to multiple media.

I think it’s comical that a group of techies make broad assertions about what’s film able and not film-able. It’s like because we’re smart in one domain then we are smart in other domains and can just make baseless claims not grounded with experience.

If an experienced film creator made such claims then it’s worth listening. Otherwise these sorts of comments are just noise.

My point is that something is only unfilmable up until the point at which someone makes a good film about it.

There's lots of literary attributes which may make a series easier or harder to adapt, but, just like Dune used to be called unfilmable for the heavy monologue, length, and nonverbal components, a director with a vision can overcome them.

I would barely call Apple TV's Foundation a loose adaptation. It's like 5% Foundation and 95% other made up stuff.

> Yet, despite its popularity, Foundation had never been adapted into another medium before the current TV show.

I believe there was a radio show adaptation done by the BBC.

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