> The only way to faithfully film the book would be to make some sort of anthology series, and I don't think that format works well for big-budget prestige drama.
It wouldn’t work on traditional TV but this is streaming on AppleTV. Budget was not a barrier AND ‘ratings’ don’t really matter for Apple either. That was the best opportunity during the period of PeakTV to just do what works artistically best for the adaptation with no constraints…
If I were the producer I would have spent Apple’s money on actors instead of special effects. Every episode ~60 mins to 90 minutes~ would end on a Seldon Crisis. Hari Seldon, the mayor, the trader, the Mule, etc would be played by the biggest movie stars (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Chris Evans, Will Smith… or Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry etc) and that’s your hook for the mainstream audience. You offer the actors movie scale pay checks for limited season requirements and thats how you attract them. That’s an easy hit.
Or hire David Simon to make ‘The Wire in space’. Update Asimov’s theory of empire evolution to acknowledge newer works like Guns, Germs and Steel. Easy Prestige TV adaptation.
Instead we got this abomination of an adaptation where it’s clear this only exists because they shopped around for IP to make an action series to fight the streaming wars
You are not going to like what I’m going to say but I think the reason they rewrote so much of it is simply that the books are not particularly good in the first place. The ideas are very interesting but that was mostly kept. The prose and characters are rather poor and the stories mostly serviceable. I do wish there was less violence and more focus on trades and exchanges however. That would have been a better show.
> You are not going to like what I’m going to say but I think the reason they rewrote so much of it is simply that the books are not particularly good in the first place. The ideas are very interesting but... The prose and characters are rather poor and the stories mostly serviceable. I do wish there was less violence and more focus on trades and exchanges however. That would have been a better show.
I like this
> The ideas are very interesting but that was mostly kept.
I disagree that the ideas were kept. For example the focus on the cloned emperor is the opposite of the ideas of the book (although Lee Pace was fun to watch)
To be honest the personality of the clone Emperor and his development is my favourite part of the show, and their best idea. It'd be much better if they could just stick to this line, with everything else being just some noise in the background - the way it should be for a man of ultimate power.
It wouldn’t work on traditional TV but this is streaming on AppleTV. Budget was not a barrier AND ‘ratings’ don’t really matter for Apple either. That was the best opportunity during the period of PeakTV to just do what works artistically best for the adaptation with no constraints…
If I were the producer I would have spent Apple’s money on actors instead of special effects. Every episode ~60 mins to 90 minutes~ would end on a Seldon Crisis. Hari Seldon, the mayor, the trader, the Mule, etc would be played by the biggest movie stars (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Chris Evans, Will Smith… or Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry etc) and that’s your hook for the mainstream audience. You offer the actors movie scale pay checks for limited season requirements and thats how you attract them. That’s an easy hit.
Or hire David Simon to make ‘The Wire in space’. Update Asimov’s theory of empire evolution to acknowledge newer works like Guns, Germs and Steel. Easy Prestige TV adaptation.
Instead we got this abomination of an adaptation where it’s clear this only exists because they shopped around for IP to make an action series to fight the streaming wars