![]() However, Hari has a plan to mitigate the inevitable dark age - the development of an organization devoted to archiving as much knowledge as possible into an Encyclopedia Galactica. Ten thousand worlds reduced to radioactive cinders.” 1 The aftermath of this fall, he says, will be a thirty-thousand-year dark age characterized by a loss of knowledge that leads to severe technological regression, extensive barbarism, and associated human suffering. In response to the subsequent interrogation, Seldon explains: “The Empire will fall. ![]() After being arrested for this treasonous proclamation, he - along with Gaal Dornick, a young female protégé he has just recruited from the distant anti-intellectual planet of Synnax - is brought before an imperial tribunal. Through his calculations, he predicts that the galactic Empire, which has endured for 12,000 years and includes trillions of people, will lie in ruins within five centuries. The central premise of Foundation involves preeminent mathematician Hari Seldon, a professor of probability theory who has developed a scientific discipline known as “psychohistory.” Psychohistory is an integration of psychology, history, and mathematics that allows Seldon to model and forecast the dynamics of human history on a broad scale (the behavior of large populations but not individuals). Be forewarned: significant spoilers lie ahead. These include intergenerational justice (specifically, our moral obligation to people of the very distant future), the existence and nature of the soul, and our longing for a grand narrative that gives life significance and makes sense of the human condition. Throughout the premiere season of this thorough revamping (dare I say, enhancement?) of the Foundation saga, several interesting philosophical themes are explored. ![]() Ultimately, what Goyer, Friedman, and their team have produced is not a faithful adaptation of the source material the broad strokes of the story remain, but it has essentially been reinvented with engaging human complexities, intriguing subplots and backstories, and diversification of the characters. Another challenge for the writers is that while Asimov was a brilliant science fiction world-builder, his plotlines - though at times riveting - do not achieve the humane depth required for inspiring significant admiration, empathy, or repulsion toward any of the characters. The production itself is an impressive feat Asimov’s mythology is remarkably expansive, encompassing an entire galaxy over the course of a millennium and including a host of characters and locations. Goyer and Josh Friedman for Apple TV+, season one of Foundation recently concluded with its tenth episode, and seven more seasons have been proposed (season two is already confirmed). Nearly thirty years after his death, Isaac Asimov’s acclaimed Foundation series - long deemed unfilmable - has been adapted for the screen.
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