# Asimov's "Foundation" Being developed for HBO
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 11, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302 "2014-11-11T03:25:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/1 "2014-11-11T03:25:55Z")
It looks like [Jonah Nolan is developing Isaac Asimov’s _Foundation_ series](http://www.thewrap.com/interstellars-jonah-nolan-developing-foundation-series-for-hbo-wbtv-exclusive/) for HBO and WBTV. Do you think it has a chance and, if so, where should the story start-from the first of the original three books, or from the later prequels that were written?
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/2 "2014-11-11T04:14:22Z")
Not to hijack, but who should play Hari Seldon?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/3 "2014-11-11T05:35:31Z")
Morgan Freeman would make a great Seldon. Though he might be a bit too expensive for TV.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/4 "2014-11-11T06:06:26Z")
Whoa… this would be fantastic, and I’d love to see them begin from original trilogy.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/5 "2014-11-11T13:06:26Z")
It could be done really well, or really badly. SF on TV’s track record hasn’t been very encouraging, but this might have a chance. I’d love to see the original trilogy fleshed out and presented. For my money, you can ignore all the sequels and prequels by Asimov and others. All of them, from _Foundation’s Edge_ onwards. The later books by Asimov suffered from the bloat that afflicted the SF books from the 1980s onwards, and only occasionally touched on the spark that made the first stories interesting.
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/6 "2014-11-11T13:20:31Z")
I don’t know who should play Seldon, but how about Adrien Brody for the Mule?
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/7 "2014-11-11T13:23:13Z")
I’m not sure how you can make them without some major changes. The series is very much literature of ideas, not characters, and characters are what makes a TV how work.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/8 "2014-11-11T14:33:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “Well, I fucking love the ‘Foundation’ novels by Isaac Asimov. They’re certainly not [unknown], but that’s a set of books I think everyone would benefit from reading. That’s a set of books where the influence they have is just fucking massive. They have many imitators and many have been inspired by them, but go back and read those, and there are some ideas in those that’ll set your fucking hair on fire,” Nolan told Indiewire.
I, for one, can’t fucking wait.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/9 "2014-11-11T15:21:24Z")
I guess it’d have to be at least a long mini-series to do it justice. And they’d probably fall short. Most all the action in the first of the original series is off-stage and is too cerebral for TV/film. No explosions, laser pistols going “Pew pew pew”, or shapely females in spandex or leather cat suits. Though I guess you can dress up what’s her name, from the 2nd novel, like that.
For a series based on the prequals, you’d have to introduce humanoid positronic robots. That’s difficult task. Foundation’s Edge would probably allow you enough sex, but it ends telegraphing there would be more and once you go on after FE, well, again, it becomes a Robot Novel.
Props to Isaac for managing to tie together his Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation universes together, but I can’t see it being great TV. I’d still probably watch it, though.
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/10 "2014-11-11T15:38:57Z")
I always thought that the late Vincent Schiavelli would have been a great “Mule”.
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/11 "2014-11-11T15:50:22Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#):
>
> No explosions, laser pistols going “Pew pew pew”, or shapely females in spandex or leather cat suits. Though I guess you can dress up what’s her name, from the 2nd novel, like that. .
I think Bayta Darrell could work great on film without making her all ‘action girl hot.’ Hollywood pretty, yeah, but a girl next door archetype. She was just a rebellious merchant’s daughter, married an outlaw trader, got swept up in crazy events.
Which makes her crowning moment of awesome all the more epic, since it surprises anybody who hasn’t read the book! 😃
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/12 "2014-11-11T16:38:30Z")
They can reimagine it with Tricia Helfer as R. Daneel Olivaw, and she can have sex with everybody.
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### Author:  [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/13 "2014-11-11T16:46:01Z")
I would absolutely love to see the entire arc done, chronologically, from the birth of Susan Calvin to the Golan Trevise adventures. Everything, leaving nothing out.
And Michael Fassbender would make a wonderful Daneel Olivaw.
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/14 "2014-11-11T16:58:11Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#):
>
> And Michael Fassbender would make a wonderful Daneel Olivaw.
Yeah, he was the best part of that Alien prequel thing they did a few years back.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/15 "2014-11-11T17:19:50Z")
I definitely would want them to just do the original three books. If you throw in the prequels the whole thing becomes anti-climatic. Not to mention that they’d be bored stiff by the time Foundation begins.
It will be interesting to see how they upgrade the mostly 1940s technology. Sure they have hyperspace and space ships, but not even laptops.
But I’m not too hopeful, having seen Susan Calvin turned into an action heroine.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/16 "2014-11-11T17:28:04Z")
I forget their names, but the two humans who were sort of “test pilots” for new robots back in Susan Calvin’s time, their adventures would translate well and would be fun to watch.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/17 "2014-11-11T17:48:47Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> I definitely would want them to just do the original three books. If you throw in the prequels the whole thing becomes anti-climatic. Not to mention that they’d be bored stiff by the time Foundation begins.
> It will be interesting to see how they upgrade the mostly 1940s technology. Sure they have hyperspace and space ships, but not even laptops.
Honestly, I would find it more entertaining if they didn’t “update” the tech and stuck with the source material’s vision of future tech - no televisions, paper money, physical newspapers, jump coordinates having to be calculated by hand (or with an ultra-expensive pocket calculator if you’re lucky), coal-powered starships in the waning days of the Empire, etc. The books establish that technology has been stagnant for tens of thousands of years and that there are many concepts (like thermodynamics, the 365-day calendar and 24-hour day, or the origin of species) so ancient that the actual theoretical knowledge behind them has been lost, and technologies that have been forgotten due to time or deliberate intervention by Daneel’s machinations, so there’s not really any reason that the story needs to be made more modern than it is now.
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### Author:  [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/18 "2014-11-11T18:07:06Z")
Kevin Spacey might make a good Hari Seldon.
Orlando Bloom as R. Daneel Olivaw.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/19 "2014-11-11T18:21:56Z")
You don’t need to update the technology much. The story as told would work whether people had cellphones and iPads or if they didn’t.
I attended a lecture by Asimov in the mid-1970s. He read a brief extract from Foundation, about Hari Selden using his pocket calculator with its glowing red numerals. “How about that,” he bragged, “I even got the color right.” A few years later, our pocket calculators were using LCD technology, and had gray numbers on a greenish and glowing background, and he had the color wrong.
the thing is, it’s irrelevant. What was important was that Selden had his Statistical-Mechanics-As-History “Psychohistory”, with which to predict future trends, and it was irrelevant if he did his calculations on an LED-displayed pocket calculator or an LCD pocket calculator or a laptop, a desktop, or a Tablet. Heck, he could write it out on a paper pad. The Psychohistory is what’s important, and if you show him manipulating some kind of Board seen from behind the audience can fill it in themselves.
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asimovs-foundation-being-developed-for-hbo/704302/20 "2014-11-11T18:42:09Z")
The series would age better with a retro look. In ten or twenty years our current cellphones and iPads will look dated anyway.
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