I would love to see somebody take a game of thrones sized budget and do 8 seasons of china during the 20th century. The Clavell novels give a tiny sliver of what might be possible with this story.
It has it all: war, violence, sex, destruction, decadence, fabulous wealth and grinding poverty. Half of the stories like the OP would be dismissed as implausible if written as fiction.
Please don't. It will just become the usual Americanized trope filled insult to the original story. Stick with Marvel to produce your generic entertainment.
Oh boy, it's not just unentertaining, but a grotesque farce of what you get when you want to check all the bingo boxes for making something bankable, and in doing so, completely destroy the original content.
In the first minutes it's already game over: they try to get you interested in the human characters in a book where the main protagonist is an entire galaxy over centuries. All named persons are going to die every 3 chapters, I get that you can't get ROI on your expensive hot actors faces, but that makes no sense for the material you work with!
Is it bad? I never finished the novels and was looking forward to the show, just haven't had time to pick it up. Should I skip it entirely or is a 'it isn't great, but watchable and you will understand the story' adaptation?
The story is split in two and thus far spans some 30 - 40 years, where one part has been able to focus and develop the same characters and themes over that course owing to a quirk in how those characters work into the plot, while the other part has been hurriedly shuffling characters, motivations, and mysteries on and off the stage to keep pace with that same timespan.
I wager its harder for the writers to get the second partition down pat as they're still getting used to adapting a story that has to move quickly owing to the limitations of TV, but its clear they can write good material which the first partition makes clear. I think the first season will be rough for them but a second should be more promising as they should get a handle on working with a plot that spans space and time on a grander scale than Game of Thrones.
Probably nice if you haven't read the books, because the direction is spotless.
But if you are a fan of the original story, it's a spit in the face of a masterpiece.
The title, names and arcs are basically used for branding.
It was predictable, the Foundation cycle is mostly dialogs spanned over hundreds of years. Little details is given to action, and characters, which are superficially developed and serve mostly the purpose of a vehicle for history, die of old age every few chapters or so.
Very hard to adapt, and pretty much impossible to make money outside of the show, with the face of your actors, by selling toys or pretty symbols. Also, good luck keeping hooked the general public. There is no focus on sexuality, little humor, hardly anyone relatable, they talk a lot then goodbye.
So they made it a block buster. It sure can work, but it's not Foundation.
It is amazing, by far the best Science Fiction TV show in years. But it isn't really doing justice to the books, more using them as a lose focus point to spin their own story. They take things that are mentioned as a side note in a chapter and do a whole storyline of it.
Which is actually what I hoped for, since a) the format of the books is impossible to translate closely to a TV show or movie and b) Asimov is definitely a bit high and low in his writing. The first two books of Foundation are amazing, afterwards it gets quite meandering.
My main criticism would be the mystification of Psychohistory, which is a very serious flaw, but I'm willing to overlook it due to seriously lacking good science fiction entertainment.
I've seen nothing which amazes me in it. The last thing which came near to amaze me was the SFX in the intro of Raised by Wolves where the ship suddenly pops out of hyperspace through a suddenly appearing disc-like membrane, stretching it until it bursts, to speed down to the planet, and membrane vanishes. Just a few seconds. The rest? Utterly forgettable.
It's like having a Cheeseburger. Or a Banana. Not even an Apple.
This is a nice summary of the underlying pattern of the adaption. If they actually understand the idea, and follow the spirit, I think it's not too hard to add concrete details that substantiate the show. It is this inherent desire to not describe science precisely, but deliberately guts the details and label liberal value onto it, that causes the whole detachment of form and spirit.
I cannot judge that since I love the books so much that I already stopped watching TV series after watching episode 2.
I saw review saying "it's nice if not considering its connection to the books", i.e., by itself its quality is good. For how much that's true for someone, I guess it has to be discovered watching it.
I have seen a bit of it in China, although to me it looked a bit like soap operas featuring oppressive japanese occupiers. A bit hard to fathom if you only speak english.
It isn't impossible for foreign language media to become popular in English speaking countries. One of the most popular Netflix titles this week, Squid Game, is Korean language with English subtitles.
They are not dull and budgets are not always small, certainly recently.
Chinese culture is different from American culture and much less "in your face". A lot of the scenarios are much more psychological with layers of deception, double to triple agents, betrayal, quiet sacrifice, etc.
"In the eight years preceding their defeat, Japan’s most effective opponents had been the same communists suppressed by Chiang and Du 20 years before." This is just plainly laughable. The author must grow up in reading CCP's history textbook. The CCP's strategy has always been hiding behind to avoid confrontation with the Japanese army and let the Nationalist Party fight the Japanese. The only real battle they did is the Hundred Regiments Offensive, but the back story is more complicated. This wikipedia page is a fun read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Regiments_Offensive
"The communists, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, were immensely popular among China’s poorest, with the promise of land reform proving irresistible." This is also from CCP's history textbook. The Communists were never popular. Everywhere they went, they relied on force and coercion. And they repeatedly used internal purges to exterminate anyone question the leadership.
Chiang avoid fighting the Japanese because of his calculation allies will fight the Japanese in China. And his real war is with Communist. Chiang is a cunning politician.
Your point is so funny, Mao’s army was very small to start with and you are saying through force and coercion they grew exponentially and turned the civil war 180? So it must be Soviet Union who’s helping them or communism is just magical?
The truth was the National Party was even worse and much more corrupted. The poor in China near the end of WWII was simply hopeless and the elite class also distrusted the government.
Did your history book explain why or just simply put it’s magic?
The corruption accusation is a common playbook of Communists around the world, like in China, Vietnam, Korea, etc. All the power establishment were accused of being corrupt. The matter of fact is that in those countries, the power has always being deeply corrupt, because they never had a constitutional republic / democracy, which are later western inventions.
So in China, the National Party was corrupt, but not really that corrupt in the context of China's history. But surely very corrupt compared to western countries. Asking China to have a clean government at the time is like asking China to develop a moon landing project at the time. Communists of course understood these but they heavily targeted the U.S. government to spread the corrupt accusations. For example: "1944年6月罗斯福派副总统华莱士访华，冀全程陪同，提供了蒋、孔家族贪污腐败情况。"[1] 冀朝鼎(Ji Chaoding) was a CCP spy.
The whole "poor was hopeless and the elite class also distrusted the government" was Communists' propaganda too.
Remember, even though Communists at the time claimed they support democracy, but none of the Communist countries even attempted to establish democracy after they took power. All straight went to authoritarian hell.
We are talking about what happened in 1945-1949 and how communist won the civil war started from obviously the much weaker side. Do you think the people in China at that time believed both parties are corrupted and they just wanted to change? (It feels like same question how Trump won! Lol)
US helped Mao’s CCP at propaganda level at the best. I know CCP is a hell but you have to admit Chinese people landslide-ly chose CCP over national party in those years.
Again how CCP won? It’s a complicated matter that I don’t see any good explanation from “subjective” western history book
No. Chinese people did not landslide-ly chose CCP. Unless you meant won the battle == won the mind.
Communists always knew they didn't win people's mind, otherwise purge wouldn't be the first thing for Communists to do after took power. You think all the authoritarian things did by Communists were because they didn't know people chose them already?
The conflict over China’s politics was playing out on the ground in China, but also in the ranks of America’s diplomatic corps. During the war, American diplomats who had long experience and deep knowledge of China — dubbed the “China Hands” — felt that the Communists were more popular, more competent, and better positioned to lead China post-war. One of the China Hands, John S. Service, put it bluntly: “The Communists are in China to stay and China’s destiny is not Chiang’s but theirs.” Moreover, Service and his colleagues like John Paton Davies and O. Edmund Clubb felt that it was possible for the United States to build a constructive relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, and advised their government to do so.
The CCP was and is very good at propaganda, U.S diplomats and the State Department were its major target. John S. Service was one of many fall for it. https://archive.is/S8owH
Well, I always tell people that CCP loved US more than USSR, but were rejected by US on ideology reasons. Then everyone just plainly cannot wrap their mind around the fact that working with CCP would more likely to create a less socialism country...
Mao actually agreed to assign communist army under Stillwell to fight Japanese
Joseph Stilwell is still well respected in CCP China. CCP has a museum for him.
> Moreover, Service and his colleagues like John Paton Davies and O. Edmund Clubb felt that it was possible for the United States to build a constructive relationship with the Chinese Communist Party
Of course that wouldn't explain why the meeting happened after Mao's death, so perhaps the diplomao knocked off the real Mao, which would account for why we've never seen both Mao and diplomao together in the same photo.
Or perhaps the GP is wrong and Mao was taken prisoner by his diplomao, and it was Kissinger that, in a courageous act of diplomaocide, knocked off the diplomao and met with Mao himself, thus earning Mao's loyalty and opening up China to the West.
If you're interested in learning more about Du, I recommend the biography of General Joseph Stilwell (Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945) which covers the political rise of Chiang Kai-shek and his thrall to Du. Stilwell, as the senior American military officer in China, was constantly frustrated by Chiang's connections, obsessions, and obligations to underworld and warlord figures, and the book covers these intrigues very well.
It has it all: war, violence, sex, destruction, decadence, fabulous wealth and grinding poverty. Half of the stories like the OP would be dismissed as implausible if written as fiction.