Hello everyone, and welcome to another issue of The Words for Worlds newsletter. What I’m Reading/Watching Last year, just before Apple TV began to release Season 1 of its adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, The Hindustan Times approached me to write an essay on the contemporary relevance of the novels, six+ decades after they were published.
Thanks for sparing me the harrowing experience of watching S2, I had trouble watching S1. Completly agree on your diagnosis of SFF mainstream trope-ification. Predictability wins in an industry where predictable profitable productions are at a premium. This might explain why the structural forces of history of "psychohistory" (and possibly it's historical materialist core?) gets displaced by a relapse into 'great man' 19th c theory of history. Possibly that is why for this Apple+ adaptation the Foundation feels more like Galt's Gulch, less Asimovian and more Randyan.
I just finished S2 of foundation as well (against my volition) and agree with your analysis. I heard an account that writing rooms in hollywood are in disarray- the smaller number of senior/experienced writers who used to maintain cohesion and keep the young writers ideas under control apparently all retired early during the covid lockdowns, and have been driven out by ongoing labour disputes. To me it felt like a story written by a committee (or maybe chatGPT) like so many modern scripts. Surely the problem cannot be a matter of money when millions are spent on these projects. Why has hollywood strangled the core of its creative ecosystem?
Thanks for sparing me the harrowing experience of watching S2, I had trouble watching S1. Completly agree on your diagnosis of SFF mainstream trope-ification. Predictability wins in an industry where predictable profitable productions are at a premium. This might explain why the structural forces of history of "psychohistory" (and possibly it's historical materialist core?) gets displaced by a relapse into 'great man' 19th c theory of history. Possibly that is why for this Apple+ adaptation the Foundation feels more like Galt's Gulch, less Asimovian and more Randyan.
I just finished S2 of foundation as well (against my volition) and agree with your analysis. I heard an account that writing rooms in hollywood are in disarray- the smaller number of senior/experienced writers who used to maintain cohesion and keep the young writers ideas under control apparently all retired early during the covid lockdowns, and have been driven out by ongoing labour disputes. To me it felt like a story written by a committee (or maybe chatGPT) like so many modern scripts. Surely the problem cannot be a matter of money when millions are spent on these projects. Why has hollywood strangled the core of its creative ecosystem?
Your analysis is cogent and also entirely correct. I feel you struck right to the heart of the issue. Well done.