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Eh. I've been watching it, and I think it's a decent adaptation. Entirely faithful to the original? No. But the core trilogy of was written in the 1950s, and it's absolutely a product of its time. I for one am glad they left the misogyny back in the 1950s where it belongs. Also, the original books were very much in the "our friend the atom" era of nuclear power, the era where they were predicting power too cheap to meter and no one had ever heard of a nuclear plant meltdown. The inclusion of the genetic dynasty was an inspired choice. And frankly, I'm glad we're not depicting a far future where everybody is white.
But I think the TV series is faithful to the core themes of the books. It still explores the contrast between the "trends and forces" and "great man" theories of history. It still explores the fascinating concept of predicting the future mathematically. It still shows the slow and inexorable decline of a great galactic empire. And the Mule in the show is every bit a force of malevolent evil as the Mule in the novels.
Overall, is it a perfect one-to-one adaption? No, but that was never going to happen for a book like Foundation. It was long considered unfilmable. But some minor adaptations have allowed them to create a good series that explores the core themes of Asimov's work.
The core concept of the books was, that Hari could predict the future of societies in really broad strokes. Essentially how masses behave in certain situations. In order to actually make the gamble, he forced a situation where he put a group of people that could only behave in a certain way because they were lacking resources.
But, in all of the books it's quite clear that Hari couldn't make predictions for single people within a group, because there're too many variables (Asimov even created an example where Hari deliberately predicted the choices of a single person that exists in the present, and why that doesn't work for other purposes).
In the books, Hari cannot make any decisions for other people, because the solution can only come from those people (though because he setup the foundation colony like he did, the outcome was always predestined).
In the show, they don't care about the core concept. In the first season they show how psycho history is supposed to work, and partially adhere to it, but soon ignore all the limitations that it should have. It's like Hari plays those 1000 years on a musical instrument, manipulating people and situations. He tell's people the solution to the problem. He (because he's an AI) constantly interferes. That's not the idea of the core story.
Imagine it like this, in the books, a "creator" setup the world in a way where people can still make individual decisions, but only in a way that leads to a predestined outcome. Personal choices may lead to a different way to the outcome (see the mule), but in the end, it'll always come to the intended solution.
The show just has an omnipotent god that is reborn and moves people like chess pieces, constantly adapting to changing situations.
The fact that gods and magic also seemingly exist really fucks me up because its explicit in Tue original book that god is just a tool for smarter people (Foundation) to manipulate dumber people (everyone else).
Obnoxious atheist take? Sure I guess.
But it feels as if someone rebooted harry potter and made the kids saying something nice about trans people or Jews.
The religion of technology was something that I especially enjoyed in the books. There were many highlights that Goyer chose to ignore.
Does it get any better after season 1? The terminus plot was just incredibly stupid so I lost all interest. Empire was great though, especially as he didn't exist in the books
It's not a show that I wait for with bated breath, but I will usually watch the episodes and they're alright. As someone who only read part of the first book, there's nothing there to be ruined for me.
The Mule stuff is kind of interesting. I think the genetic dynasty stuff is the coolest part, and apparently that wasn't even in the books.
Couldn't agree more, it's not exactly a faithful adaptation, but I feel they did a damn good job conveying the overall message and story.