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by Olorin
So, a few more minutes to type....
Some things I've gleaned from the podcasts.
Scripts for season 3 are written, a lot of pre-production is done, and at least some locations are scouted. Goyer didn't say anything about filming having started and in fact said Season 3 technically hasn't been greenlit by Apple yet. He said he thinks Seasons 3 and 4 will be greenlit, but that Apple plays things very close to the vest. I think that's a bit at variance with 2 years ago, when they greenlit Season 2 after only an episode or 2 of Season 1 had dropped. In any case, this is at odds with what we have read, that filming for Season 3 had begun. With the strikes now going on, who knows what's going to happen.
I think I mentioned at the time of Season 1 that Goyer said when he was shopping the show to different studios that none of them would consider it being done as an anthology, like the books were. The original trilogy consisted of anthologies of short stories and novellas, with no continuing characters. However, anthology series are anathema in Hollywood now. Apparently a few years back, there were a couple of shows in the anthology format, True Detective and Black Mirror, that had great first seasons but could not replicate that success in subsequent seasons, and this totally poisoned the concept for the studios. So for Foundation, they insisted upon a non-anthological format and continuing characters. That was the genesis of the Genetic Dynasty, AI Hari, and extended snoozes in the cryo-pod, so that characters could span hundreds of years. The new info on this is that Apple also insisted that the story have an end. Isaac Asimov regrettably died without ever finishing the tale of the 1000-year rise of the Foundation. Even at the time of the final sequel, only about 500 years had elapsed. Asimov then turned to prequels for a while, because he was stumped on how to finish it. And then he died. However, his daughter Robyn, who's his literary executor and worked with him in some capacity similar to that even before his death, has provided Goyer with her dad's notes on where he wanted the story to go. So, if he gets to do the 8 seasons, he will finish out the thousand years. He also mentioned that he and Robyn have a great relationship. His production has full rights to Foundation and can change the story any way they want, but whenever he's going to do anything really wild, he consults with her as she has a good sense of whether her dad would have approved. He said she also has watch parties with her friends every week, and loves it. She has the right to watch all the dailies during filming, but she wants to see the finished product.
Goyer also clarified more about the rights status. It had been reported originally that he had rights only to Foundation, though they could reference the Three Laws of Robotics. The nuance is that it wasn't that the estate was putting things from related Asimov works off-limits, it was that other studios held the rights. Well recently Goyer was talking to Lachlan Murdoch (yes, those Murdochs) of Fox, who apparently hold the rights to the Robot novels, and Goyer said he'd really like to have the right to connect Demerzel to the identity that she (actually, he) had in the millennia before the Empire. Murdoch is apparently a huge sci fi fan and loves the show, so he had his people cut a deal with Goyer so that they have the rights to Demerzel's true identity to some extent. So I was very glad to hear that. Not being able to make that connection would've deprived the character of a great deal of its gravity and importance.
One of the podcasters asked Goyer about the population of the Galactic Empire. The show said it's 8 trillion. He wanted to know if that was an analogy to Earth, which has 8 billion. Goyer said it could work that way, but they were wanting a number non-math people could connect to. Asimov said the population of the Empire was about a quintillion people. Goyer just could imagine that most people would understand that, but since they are used to hearing trillion from hearing so much about the US economy, he felt that was more accessible. This is a small point perhaps, but I think it takes away from the grandeur and believability for an empire that spans the entire Milky Way Galaxy to have its population be only 8 trillion. Oh, here's a sidebar: It occurred to me yesterday that Asimov's Galactic Empire and Herbert's Atreides Imperium have something in common: Earth is the only planet in the galaxy that developed intelligent life. I think in Asimov's case, he didn't feel up to trying to conceptualize how aliens might think and interact with humans. Not sure why Herbert had no aliens.
The show may get released on BluRay. The Foundation and Podcast guys explicitly asked Goyer about that in the Season 2 wrap up pod and he said it was in the works. No word on when it might happen because they haven't really put together much in the way of bonus features, and the strikes keep them from doing it currently. So, I'm hopeful that discs will come. I'm still not holding my breath until I see them in my hands. Most streamers have not allowed their shows onto physical media, wanting to force people to subscribe to see the show (Paramount accepted). That stone wall is starting to fracture somewhat. Apple licensed a couple of their shows to a third party for release on disc in the UK, including the excellent For All Mankind. And famously, Disney recently announced WandaVision, Loki, and The Mandalorian for 4K disc. Goyer also said that their would be additional merchandising (to me, that's a sign of the show's success), but he couldn't say more about it other than to mention the art book coming this fall. He said it's beautiful and they hope to do additional volumes for later seasons. But in any case he hinted there might be models or replicas of things from the show. One of the podcasters mentioned the Prime Radiant. I'd totally buy one of those if it wasn't too expensive! What a paperweight!
So, that's what I can remember from the pods I listened to while I mowed last night. They were the mid-season and post-season Goyer interviews on Foundation and Podcast. Today I started listening to the official pod for Season 2.
So, what did I think of Season 2? It's hard to put into words. It's very good and pulls me right along. I'm very glad I waited until the whole season was available so that I could binge it, as it would've been torture to wait a week between episodes with some of those huge plot developments. The show also continues to look far more expensive than apparently it is. Every penny is on screen. Sidebar: Goyer told a story about being dissatisfied with Cassion Bilton's (Dawn) wig in season 1. They did some CGI touchups on it. Those cost $400,000! They also had to do some CGI touchups on the palace floor, as it scuffs easily, and those cost $200,000. This was painful because they watch their budget very carefully. He have an example of when scenes occur on a ship, they only allow so many camera angles that show a window in the background, so they don't have to pay for a starscape.
The way they are telling the story, I think it is one I would enjoy and be hooked by if I did not know the books. And since the majority of its viewers have not read the books and are loving it, that seems to be the case and ensures it will continue.
Of course, I have read the books, so I'm not in the category of going into it blind and having the luxury of being able to judge it only for what it is. I accept that changes to the story had to be made to visualize it, and not just because no studio wanted an anthology without continuing characters. The original three novels (which really were just previously published short stories Asimov cobbled together into book form) are utterly threadbare in terms of world-building and character development. Their reputation rests on the ideas: the idea that a science could predict the future, and the ways the crises are resolved. In the show, although they have portrayed 2 crises (out of about 7 from the books through this point in the storyline), the way they are resolved is somewhat different. In the books, the resolutions are typically brought about through the cleverness of the main character. I don't like to use this word, but the book's approach is maybe more cerebral? But even still, since the characters in the book are so thinly sketched, these clever resolutions have the tendency toward making the heroes seem like smart-assed Mary Sues. I think the show does a much better job of developing the character...though they often don't feel much like the character from the book. In the second season, I got very excited a few times, because in certain places the show felt a lot more like the books, in pulling in themes and plot developments. After the fact, I found myself asking myself what it said that I liked the show so much, yet got the most excited when it got closest to the books. I guess one way to look at it would be to think of the show as being like a sine wave, if you know what that is. If the baseline is the books, the show is the sine wave. It oscillates back and forth across the baseline. It gets to the same place as the baseline/book, but takes different paths to get there.
So does any of this make any sense?
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."