Counterpoint: "Foundation" is unfilmable as-is, and what we got contains some of its DNA while actually being a good sci fi show. It gives me hope that this supposed "Hyperion" adaptation could actually work.
It would make a decent anthology show, but that doesn’t fit the prestige budget they wanted to throw at it. It’s possible that Prelude could have been a better start because it actually had action.
That could have worked. Haven't seen a good sci fi anthology in awhile. "Black Mirror" seemed to have run out of ideas, and "Electric Dreams" was of very uneven quality.
There's a bunch on Netflix right now that I haven't mustered up the interest to watch. "Love, Death & Robots" got a second season, and they also host two different sci-fi horror anthologies for short films from Neill Blomkamp and Guillermo del Toro!
The Blomkamp stuff seemed pretty terrible to me. Love, Death & Robots was hit and miss, with the misses being more regular, but the hits like Zima Blue being transcendent.
Counter-Counterpoint: You're right that Foundation was unfilmable, which is why they were wrong to even attempt it. They should have just written their own story instead of pretending to adapt another, but they're not brave enough for that. Or they knew they weren't good enough writers to come up with a story that stood on its own, without a popular legacy to prop it up.
I will say though, Foundation is more filmable than some of Asimov's other books. The Gods Themselves is truly, utterly, unfilmable.
It was first optioned over 20 years ago, and it’s currently in Bradley Cooper’s hands, supposedly. It was going to be done as a series on Syfy, but now it’s apparently going to be a big studio picture.
I think Prelude to Foundation could of been a nice mini-series, but overall Asimov's works are just too fragmented to hold up to being a series really.
