> The only somewhat valid criticism I've read is that it's not exactly like the book
The Foundation TV show did not even have the same ethos, the same world-view, the same philosophical view of history as the books.
Apple wanted a big dumb heroic VFX-driven sci-fi saga TV show; and we can understand why. However, the source material that they chose is about history, and is actively hostile to the "heroic" view of history. It actually seems to be a critique of the heroic derring-do sci-fi of the day and the "great man" theory of history. (1)
It's like the showrunners did actually understand what the books were _about_, but decided to deliberately do the opposite. Maybe they actively hated the books.
I could not care less if they change skin colour or gender; or spice up the action scenes, updates like that are good, but IMHO this is by far the least of the problems with the _Foundation_ TV series.
A lot of Season 1 and Season 2 have been showing Hari and Gaal making huge mistakes. The Second Foundation is way behind schedule and probably going to be founded "in the wrong place" versus the books and almost seems like it won't be strong enough when it is needed to face The Mule. The "real" Hari ("Knife Hari") is shown to be a fallible slimeball just as much as the religion around the "fake" "Prophet Hari" gels around his seeming "infallibility".
I think to some extent the TV show is showing a variation of the timeline with respect to the rules of psychohistory: it doesn't account for individual actions (including/especially mistakes). I personally don't think it is trying to be a "Great man theory" version of Foundation, because so many of the "changes" are mistakes from the seemingly more "pristine" timeline of the books (or at least how we perceive them from how the Encyclopedia Galactica documented them).
I can definitely appreciate where that criticism comes from though, I appreciate that it is a valid point of view of the show. I just find it worthwhile to point out that I don't feel like the showrunners are as oblivious as that and I don't think they are intending a "great man" take on the show and at least in my reading of the show so far I do think there are other ways to read what they are trying to do, plus or minus the format constraints of trying to do it as a TV show with the contractual and budget/production reality of needing to keep some cast member stability from episode to episode and season to season.
The Foundation TV show did not even have the same ethos, the same world-view, the same philosophical view of history as the books.
Apple wanted a big dumb heroic VFX-driven sci-fi saga TV show; and we can understand why. However, the source material that they chose is about history, and is actively hostile to the "heroic" view of history. It actually seems to be a critique of the heroic derring-do sci-fi of the day and the "great man" theory of history. (1)
It's like the showrunners did actually understand what the books were _about_, but decided to deliberately do the opposite. Maybe they actively hated the books.
I could not care less if they change skin colour or gender; or spice up the action scenes, updates like that are good, but IMHO this is by far the least of the problems with the _Foundation_ TV series.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory