Krugman is just too emotionally invested in the book, so nothing comparable to the book. If the show is not called foundation, he will probably enjoy it.

> If the show is not called foundation, he will probably enjoy it.

It wasn't about Foundation, then why call it "Foundation"?

It's like that Will Smith movie called I, Robot: why did they bother calling it that?

You can create a new sci-fi show or movie without the 'false marketing' of referencing previous source material: that's what the original Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars did in the 1970s. Or you can try to faithfully use the source material as much as possible as The Expanse show has done, and what Villeneuve has generally done with his Dune.

There are plenty of both sci-fi and fantasy works available for adaptation into shows and movies. And if (general) audiences expect action-y stuff in their sci-fi/fantasy, then pick one in which the source material is more action-y.

Don't try adapting Waiting for Godot into the next Die Hard.

I, Robot is significantly harder to adapt than Foundation. The former is like a book of little logic mysteries. The film turned the setting concept into one big murder mystery to appeal to modern audiences. It was a drastic tonal change, but preserves some of the concepts of Asimov, even including the Zeroth Law at the end.

The movie was an already written script paired with the title and some characters renamed. It was not made (the script) with the intention of adapting the book (which is a series of short stories with a common framing story). I, Robot, like World War Z, needs an anthology or serial format to be properly presented as a show or film.

Saying Krugman is too emotionally invested in the book is an understatement. This is the man who claims to have wanted to bring about psychohistory itself as the natural evolution of economics.

He may be the only neoclassical economist to admit that, but most of them have the hubris to think it. I almost suspect Asimov intended a satire: "Humanity is complicated, but fear not! I have numbers, and those allow me to completely ignore humanity!"

>If the show is not called foundation

I don’t think it is unreasonable for someone watching an adaptation of a book to expect that the central themes of that book to be central to the adaptation, or at least not have the main themes of the adaptation be a direct contradiction to the source material.

The central themes of the original series are certainly present in the series. I think people -- including Krugman -- are occasionally missing the forest for the trees, because the show is radically restructuring and revising the story in order to make it more compelling as TV drama (at least in the eyes of the showrunners). I'm not sure I like all of the changes, but I just don't agree with critics who say that the show is missing the thematic point of the books.

> If the show is not called foundation, he will probably enjoy it

I don't think so. If it wasn't called Foundation, or if I, Robot wasn't referencing Asimov's stories, or if Brave New World was called something different, they would all be lost in the quagmire of new 'blockbuster' TV shows that all the streaming networks are pushing hard. Because they're all very formulaic, optimized things where they took inspiration from endless A/B testing online, doing everything by the book, as in, there's probably a book / guide out there on how to make a TV show.

Without the name, they are bland and anonymous shows.

Meanwhile there are plenty of shows that stand on their own - this year there was Queen's Gambit, the book on which it was based on never showed up on my radar so (anecdotally) it's not carried by having a Name / Reputation. That one has been nearly 20 years in the making, too.

> So how does the Apple TV series turn this into a visually compelling tale? It doesn’t. What it does instead is remake “Star Wars” under another name. There are indispensable heroes, mystical powers, even a Death Star. These aren’t necessarily bad things to include in a TV series, but they’re completely antithetical to the spirit of Asimov’s writing. Pretending that this series has anything to do with the “Foundation” novels is fraudulent marketing, and I’ve stopped watching.

This translates to an assessment of too emotionally invested?

Name calling and gas lighting seem to be the natural way of some people's narrative approach of discredit the person without offering counter point to the statement (or rather, not able to).

You're allowed to feel pissed at being tricked. I also almost closed the laptop when I saw Daniel. But in the end I abandoned it because the story was just not compelling, except the emperrors subplot.

I am wondering if SyFy's The Expanse succeeded completely in their adaptation of novels that were written in contemporary times. Apple's Foundation is awkward at times and its writers seem to believe that they needed to correct and reinvigorate books that were outmoded, but, apparently, the production itself is said to lack real faults. It's really easy to kill a franchise these days because you want it to speak to your audience, but it is seen as much less aspirational with its mixed messages. Of course, that's just my general impression, and I could be talking about any franchise that starts with "Star".

> I am wondering if SyFy's The Expanse succeeded completely in their adaptation of novels that were written in contemporary times.

As per a sibling comment: the original authors were involved. But:

It depends on style of the show material and the style of the new medium. If the original is cerebral and low-action, can you make a commercially successful adaptation with the same qualities?

There's also the fact that one of the authors of the Expanse series is closely involved with the creation of the show (and the reworking of characters/arcs to fit the medium better).

There's also the fact that the authors of the Expanse were professional movie script writers before writing a book series :)

The Expanse, like virtually all sci-fi and fantasy narratives, follows the Hero's Journey. It's a pattern that is familiar to virtually everyone and it's already proven commercially successful.

As Krugman himself writes, "[Foundation] mostly involves people talking, and its narrative inverts the hero-saves-the-universe theme that burns many acres of CGI every year."

It is hard to film faithfully while attracting and preserving a large audience.

Krugman has stated in the past that the entire reason he became an economist is because it was the closest real world profession to being a psychohistorian.

Amusing considering economists care more about their precious numbers than sociology, psychology and history.

In the ad for his MasterClass, Paul Krugman says (~25s):

> Doing economics requires stepping back from all of the details to say "What is the essential here? What is the story?". It's about people. It's not about money. It's ends up about what people do.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJEszZK54dw

I think you're confusing economists with economic policy makers. Economics is a science. The study of scarcity. It's not about money.

I love that Paul Krugman implies that Foundation copied Star Wars. (Ie Foundation was the original Empire Space Opera from which many Sci Fi authors cribbed including George Lucas)

I read it completely differently. To me it seems he’s saying the show Foundation is copying Star Wars, which in his opinion is completely antithetical to the novel and so therefore he’s stopped watching the show.

That is indeed what Krugman is saying. It's pretty clear:

> "How does the Apple TV series (of Foundation) turn this (the novel, Foundation) into a visually compelling tale? It doesn’t. What it does instead is remake "Star Wars"

And having seen the Foundation show, having read the Foundation book and seen the Star Wars movie, I think he (Krugman) has a point.

Nope. Foundation was first published in 1942, and is something of an alternate take on the Space Opera w Evil Empire genre, which came earlier, with the first prominent example being E.E. "Doc" Smith's Galactic Patrol in 1934. Smith previously wrote the Skylark series of space opera stories, first published in 1928.

And while not identical, Smith's Lensmen and Lucas' Jedi Knights have a great deal in common.

No, he is implying they "Star Wars"-ified it; that they made it a show that is 'good vs evil' and all problems are solved by laser guns.

I don't see how he implies that at all.

Is it? There was a lot of space opera and space adventure and space imperialism in the 1940s and 50s. Claiming to be the original is a big claim.

Mind you, Lucas cribbed from everything in sight; samurai movies (Hidden Fortress), Westerns, war films (the trench run is from 633 Squadron). Partly why it was so successful.

> Mind you, Lucas cribbed from everything in sight;

Cause in point, Lucas cribbed Coruscant from Trantor