Hands up those who have been enjoying Season Two of Foundation! We certainly have and if you’re anything like us and can’t wait for each episode to arrive on Apple TV+, we have a sneak peek into Episode 9 with our exclusive clip before it airs!

For those in need of a quick recap – Episode 8, ‘The Last Empress’ not only saw us starting to realise a few unsettling thoughts about Demerzel (Laura Birn), but after the botched assassination attempt on Poly (Kulvinder Ghir) and Constant (Isabella Laughland), Brother Day (Lee Pace) has vowed to visit Terminus to extinguish the Foundation and take all their technology.

This is something that hasn’t been done before, but Day is determined, and perhaps even a little curious about the religion that Foundation has become…

In our exclusive clip taken from Episode 9 – ‘Long Ago, Not Far Away’ – we see Day angrily confront [Vault] Harri Seldon (Jared Harris) and subsequently Harri offering him something extraordinary: psycho-history.

Watch the clip here…

Based on the classic sci-fi books by Isaac Asimov, Foundation has always been said to be unadaptable. But after a successful Season One, Season Two has continued that impossibility and has become one of the most successful shows for Apple TV+.

We sat down with the series’ showrunner David Goyer recently to discover how…

“I think the secret to that, and it’s why I’m so excited about season two and why I think we’ve improved upon season one, is by making the themes as accessible and universal as humanly possible,” Goyer says. “It’s one thing to have grand ideas about the future of civilization, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t actually care about who lives and who dies.

“So something that we were very cognizant of when we were adapting the show was making sure that this would appeal to people who haven’t read Asimov, who don’t consider themselves to be fans of science fiction, just making sure that the characters are vivid and that we care about their fates.”

We know that Season Three is already in the works for Foundation, and with six Foundation novels from Asimov to play with, Goyer knows a way to stop the show from going too wayward or off pace – he writes the season endings first.

“It’s a trick that I picked up from James Cameron,” he nods. “He likes to come up with a really crazy idea and then write towards that. So I like to say to my fellow writers ‘what’s something that would seem to absolutely break the story?’ Something just wild like the dissolution of the genetic dynasty at the end of the first season. And we’ve done a few things like that at the end of season two of Foundation.”

Can’t wait for the season finale of Foundation? The last episode will air on 15 September on Apple TV+ and you can catch up with all episodes here. Read our FIVE STAR review of Foundation Season Two here.

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The reason we’re musing over that question is because Goyer did what has always been thought of as impossible – he successfully adapted Asimov’s seminal works in the form of a TV series for Apple TV+ back in September, and now he’s back for season two.

But seriously, how did he do it? 

“I think the secret to that, and it’s why I’m so excited about season two and why I think we’ve improved upon season one, is by making the themes as accessible and universal as humanly possible,” Goyer says. “It’s one thing to have grand ideas about the future of civilization, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t actually care about who lives and who dies. 

“So something that we were very cognizant of when we were adapting the show was making sure that this would appeal to people who haven’t read Asimov, who don’t consider themselves to be fans of science fiction, just making sure that the characters are vivid and that we care about their fates.”

Indeed, we do care about the fates of our characters, especially after the jaw-dropping ending to season one, which saw Gaal (Lou Llobell) wake up over 100 years in the future on her home planet of Synnax, only to find out that the daughter she never knew existed, Salvor (Leah Harvey), was there too – and she’s physically older in age than Gaal is. With both ships crashed, are they stranded? And how will their strange new relationship work?

Meanwhile, Hari Seldon, the creator of psycho-history (and pretty much the reason this whole thing started), has been split in two, with one being exploded after Gaal abandoned her ship to return to Synnax and the other trapped in a Vault. 

We also found out the purity of the great genetic dynasty of the Emperor Cleon had been sullied – what does that mean for Brothers Dawn, Day and Dusk?

Well, as we enter season two of Foundation, that means a great deal: Brother Day is planning on ending the genetic dynasty by getting married and starting a dynasty of his own. 

Lee Pace plays the latest incarnation of Brother Day (and, indeed, all the incarnations of Brother Day) with Cleon the 18th in Season Two. In fact, Cleon 18 is a character that’s never really delved into in Asimov’s books. “My character doesn’t exist in the novels,” Pace says. “Well, he does exist, he’s referenced, but that’s part of what David [Goyer] has added and elaborated upon on the Asimov novels.”

Season One wasn’t a great time for Emporer; his great Starbridge on his home planet of Trantor was destroyed by terrorists, Hari’s psycho-history predicted the end of him and his dynasty, his genetics had been altered and he was forced to take part in a ritualistic spiral walk to prove his right as ruler.

“In the last season, the character received a very strong message at the end of the spiral, that he’s just a human, like everyone else,” Pace continues. “He’s not a God, he is a human and he’s got the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. He’s not a part of this dynasty of cloned Emperor Gods. He’s just a man. And the rest of it is a fantasy. 

“So that vulnerability, I think, is like a seed that was planted in that first season. Now over a century later, it’s grown into a great big tree, and inside Cleon the 18th is a real panic that it’s all going to fall apart on his watch.”

Pace isn’t the only actor on the show to play multiple versions of the same character. Season One of Foundation saw Hary Seldon, the human, die and his consciousness be split into the Vault on Terminus and as part of a ship awaiting the arrival of Raych Foss (Alfred Enoch). Though the ship version of Hari gets destroyed, we will see two versions of Hari Seldon in Season Two. 

“There are two versions of the character,” Harris nods. “One of them takes the more personal journey. We discover him right at the beginning of episode one [of Season Two]. He’s been trapped in a pretty hellish situation for 130 years and he’s fairly psychologically damaged from the result of it. 

“Then the other version is the Hari that we met, that came out of the vault, and he’s in slightly better shape. Things look like they’re going according to plan.” 

Something that isn’t going according to plan is the original Cleon’s aim of keeping his clones as Emporer until the end of time. 

We begin Season Two with the announcement of Cleon’s marriage to Queen Sareth (Ella-Rae Smith), who is another character not in Asimov’s books but is a way for Cleon to deal with the impurity of his genetics, and a way to carry on his dynasty. 

Just his actual dynasty, mind you, not the original Cleon’s…

“He is planning to marry so he can end the genetic dynasty,” Pace affirms. “He believes he’s the biggest, the strongest, one of the greatest of the Cleons. As there was the first Cleon, he’s going to be the last Cleon. That’s his solution for Hari Seldon’s prophecy that this genetic dynasty will run it all into the ground. 

“Now, he’s not marrying for love. He’s marrying for political purposes. The person he loves is Demerzel, who is this robot super intelligence that has raised him and all of his brothers. I think he feels that she’s his soulmate, that she’s the only person that matters or exists in the galaxy. So it creates a contradiction. But that’s part of the messy riddles that make Foundation work.” 

Speaking of Demerzel, Season Two will give audiences a little more insight into the incredibly complex character, and Laura Birn, who plays her, loves that she’s a mystery. “She’s written to be this enigma that you start to understand little by little,” she says. “I remember David [Goyer] saying to me in the beginning that this is a slow burn character, but I learned to be patient because in season two, we get to explore interesting sides of her…”

Playing an AI robot that’s lived for thousands of years means adding a few physical elements to the character, but it’s another part of Demerzel that Birn: “The physicality I love, I think it resonates with the thing that she holds everything inside. She’s lived for 25,000 years, she’s seen everything. She’s seen humanity go through a lot of things – the most evil and horrible of it all and the most beautiful, and she has all that knowledge inside her, she doesn’t forget anything. 

“So she holds herself together, all that information, all that she ever saw. Then there’s also the beautiful costumes, my season one costumes also defined the structure and the posture, and then we get to reveal the story of the posture later in Season Two.”

AI robots, genetic alteration, space travel, multiple planets… Foundation is certainly a high-concept sci-fi, but surprisingly enough, for Goyer in adapting the novels, he didn’t want to rely on those famous science-fiction themes and instead focused on what everyone can relate to. “Every time we come up with a story strand I try to say ‘well would this story work if you removed all the science fiction tropes?’ If it doesn’t, then I’ll kick it back to my fellow writers.

“The tropes are amazing, and they’re fun, but it’s got to work without the science fiction. It’s got to work without the spaceships and the various alien flora and fauna. The themes are amazing and highbrow, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t care about the characters and their interior lives. It doesn’t matter if we don’t care who lives and who dies and who’s going to fall in love and who won’t. 

“That’s something that Asimov’s first book was a little thin on,” Goyer continues. “It was much more so a book about ideas, rather than characters. Light certainly on characters and their backstories, and strengths and weaknesses, at least until you get to the second half of the second book. But TV is about that, and so that’s something that we felt we really had to flesh out.”

Goyer tells us that TV series like Stranger Things and Game Of Thrones really paved the way for a show like Foundation to be created. “I think they taught audiences that they could really dig into novelistic shows; shows that grow over years and take a slower pace,” he says. “It’s actually a preferred medium for me. For me, there’s nothing better than returning to a show that just keeps building and building. I love to really sink my teeth into something that’s going to run for 10 episodes and hopefully will run for three or four or five seasons. So long as there’s a plan and they’re not just winging it.…”

Speaking of which, we know that Season Three is already in the works for Foundation, and with six Foundation novels from Asimov to play with, Goyer knows a way to stop the show from going too wayward or off pace – he writes the season endings first. 

“It’s a trick that I picked up from James Cameron,” he nods. “He likes to come up with a really crazy idea and then write towards that. So I like to say to my fellow writers ‘what’s something that would seem to absolutely break the story?’ Something just wild like the dissolution of the genetic dynasty at the end of the first season. And we’ve done a few things like that at the end of season two of Foundation.”

With wild endings and new characters, Goyer has certainly strayed from Asimov’s original works, but as a fan, he’s making sure the divergences still stay true to the writer’s works. Plus he has a family member on board to make sure things don’t go too far off the Asimov track… 

“I’m a fan and so it’s important to make sure that we’re not betraying the DNA of the source material, in this case, Asimov’s writing,” he says. “Before he died, [Asimov] was asked about Foundation being adapted and he imagined that much would have to be changed because it was a different medium. His daughter Robin is an executive producer on the show. So the closest I can get to Isaac Asimov is by bouncing ideas off his daughter and she has said many times that she felt her father would have approved of the various changes and adaptations that we’ve made. 

“We had to run all of those things past her. So I trust that she has a good sense as the keeper of the Foundation lore.”

Asimov wrote Foundation during the forties, and with corrupt governments, power-hungry leaders, and the feeling of inevitability of the end of civilisation as we know it, the novels certainly reflect the war-torn era. 

Though the show is being made over 80 years later, a lot of the themes are still relevant. “Sadly Asimov’s whole premise of psycho-history is that humanity tends to be cyclical in its process,” says Goyer. “When we were preparing for Season One, the world dealt with a global pandemic. In the wake of World War I we never imagined that we would be dealing with a pandemic like that again, but here we were. 

“He was writing in a post-World War II environment, a kind of Cold War environment and yet here we are again, with different forces challenging NATO and the old order, being upset and realigning itself. So everything old is new again, and I would argue that Foundation, this show, is even more relevant today than it was when Asimov wrote it, and when our first season came out.”

Asimov sure knew what made good science fiction. And isn’t great science-fiction something that holds up a mirror to society but does so in a digestible way…?

“Science fiction works best when it works as an allegory,” Goyer says. “I think people don’t like to feel that they’re being preached to. But when you do show like Foundation, you can talk about all of the issues that are affecting society today, but approach them in a sideways way. I think it’s important to entertain people first and to not stand on a soapbox. 

“If you’re not entertaining people, then whatever message you’re trying to get across is just going to become completely lost.”

Yes, this isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s about entertainment. In fact, now that Season One has completed laying the groundwork for introducing the characters and world(s), Season Two can really lean into the fun part. 

“They did all the heavy lifting last season in terms of the world-building and explaining the broad outline of the show,” says Harris.”I think this one is a little bit set free from those responsibilities. So it’s a little bit more of an adventure.” 

For Goyer, that fun lies in keeping the audience guessing. That though Foundation’s structure, characters and themes are incredibly broad, everything still ties in together in the end. And he’s even more excited to see how audiences will react to those little story strands that seem so far away from each other will come back together for Season Two.

“I think that’s part of the fun,” Goyer nods. “I think audiences were wondering how in the hell we were going to pull it off in season one and how all of these strands were going to connect, and I think most of them were delighted in the way that we did pull it off.

“There’s something that happens at the end of the second episode in Season Two, where a name appears on the vault. [But] psycho-history is meant to predict the broad movements of society, not individuals. So why would the vault come up with an actual name of a human? It seems to break one of the central tenants that we set up in season one, but hopefully by the end of the season, the audience will understand that and it will be surprising to them.”

Foundation Season Two is out now on Apple TV+. Read our review here.

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Good news Foundation fans! The second season of Apple TV+’s hit sci-fi series – which is based Isaac Asimov’s award-winning stories – will be released this summer PLUS we’ve been given a fresh look at the series with a brand new teaser.

Watch it here…

Apple TV+’s adaptation of Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their unprecedented journey to rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire. Crucial individuals transcending space and time are faced with deadly crises, shifting loyalties and complicated relationships that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity.

The next installment of the epic saga produced by David S. Goyer and Skydance Television will make its debut this summer on Apple TV+.

“It’s considered the greatest science fiction work of all time… so there’s no pressure there!” Goyer told us when we spoke to him last year about creating the series. “Asimov was the grandfather of science fiction. Even working with a character like Batman or Superman, at least there have been previous versions of something, there’s some kind of framework for the wider audience.”

The series stars Jared Harris (Carnival Row), Lee Pace (Guardians Of The Galaxy), Lou Llobell (Voyagers), Leah Harvey (Fighting With My Family), Laura Birn (Purge), Terrence Mann (Sense8), and Cassian Bilton along side a whole host of new stars, including Isabella Laughland (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1), Kulvinder Ghir, Sandra Yi Sencindiver (The Wheel Of Time), Ella-Rae Smith (The Stranger), Dimitri Leonidas (The One), Ben Daniels (Jupiter’s Legacy), Holt McCallany (Nightmare Alley), Mikael Persbrandt (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies), Rachel House (Cowboy Bebop) and Nimrat Kaur (Wayward Pines).

Find out all about the new characters for Season Two here.

Foundation Season Two will be released on Apple TV+ on 14 July. Season One is available now. Read our full interview with David S Goyer and Lee Pace here.

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There’s a new crisis in the first sneak peek at the highly anticipated second season of the global hit series Foundation.

Check it out here…

Based on Isaac Asimov’s award-winning stories, Apple TV+’s adaptation of Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their unprecedented journey to rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire. Crucial individuals transcending space and time are faced with deadly crises, shifting loyalties and complicated relationships that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity.

The next installment of the epic saga produced by David S. Goyer and Skydance Television will make its debut this summer on Apple TV+.

“It’s considered the greatest science fiction work of all time… so there’s no pressure there!” Goyer told us when we spoke to him last year about creating the series. “Asimov was the grandfather of science fiction. Even working with a character like Batman or Superman, at least there have been previous versions of something, there’s some kind of framework for the wider audience.”

The series stars Jared Harris (Carnival Row), Lee Pace (Guardians Of The Galaxy), Lou Llobell (Voyagers), Leah Harvey (Fighting With My Family), Laura Birn (Purge), Terrence Mann (Sense8), and Cassian Bilton along side a whole host of new stars, including Isabella Laughland (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1), Kulvinder Ghir, Sandra Yi Sencindiver (The Wheel Of Time), Ella-Rae Smith (The Stranger), Dimitri Leonidas (The One), Ben Daniels (Jupiter’s Legacy), Holt McCallany (Nightmare Alley), Mikael Persbrandt (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies), Rachel House (Cowboy Bebop) and Nimrat Kaur (Wayward Pines).

Find out all about the new characters for Season Two here.

Foundation Season Two will be released on Apple TV+. Season One is available now. Read our full interview with David S Goyer and Lee Pace here.

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An adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s seminal work Foundation was a long time coming and we were treated to a lavish adaptation from Apple TV+ last year with a series based on the books. Now, Foundation will be coming back with Season Two and we have been given a first look (above) PLUS some new additions to the cast!

Based on Isaac Asimov’s award-winning stories, and featuring an international cast led by Jared Harris and Lee Pace, alongside rising stars Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey, the adaptation of Foundation chronicles the stories of four crucial individuals transcending space and time as they overcome deadly crises, shifting loyalties and complicated relationships that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity. The Apple Original drama also stars Laura Birn, Terrence Mann and Cassian Bilton.

“There’s a reason why Foundation hasn’t been made over the last few decades,” co-creator and executive producer David S Goyer told SciFiNow now last year when we spoke to him about the first season. “It’s been long regarded as notoriously hard to adapt. The story is supposed to unfold over 1,000 years. It’s anthological in nature. There are these big narrative leaps, very few characters continue on from one story to the next. They are brilliant books, but they’re books largely about ideas rather than characters or action.

“I myself was offered the opportunity to adapt it a few times as a feature, and I didn’t think it could be done as a feature, and I turned it down. It’s only now that I think the medium has matured with streaming, where we’ve seen some of these big novelistic shows that unfold over multiple seasons, that I think that the audience and the medium have matured to a point where I thought adapting Foundation would be possible.”

Now, Foundation is returning for Season Two, and with it a whole host set of stars to join the cast, including:

• Isabella Laughland (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1) as ‘Brother Constant,’  a cheerfully confident claric whose job is to evangelize the Church of the Galactic Spirit across the Outer Reach. Constant is a true believer, whose courage and passion make her hard not to love.
• Kulvinder Ghir (Goodness Gracious Me) as ‘Poly Verisof,’ – High Claric of the Church of the Galactic Spirit. Whip-smart and sardonic, he’s also a terrible drunk — intelligent enough to see the path he’s on, but too cynical to change.
• Sandra Yi Sencindiver (The Wheel Of Time) as ‘Enjoiner Rue,’ the beautiful, politically savvy consigliere to Queen Sareth. A former courtesan to Cleon the 16th, Rue parlayed her status to become a royal counsellor.
• Ella-Rae Smith (The Stranger) as ‘Queen Sareth’ of Cloud Dominion. Used to being underestimated, Sareth employs it to her advantage, charming her way into the Imperial Palace with biting wit, all while on a secret quest for revenge.
• Dimitri Leonidas (The One) as ‘Hober Mallow,’ a master trader with a sarcastic personality and questionable morals, who is summoned against his will to serve a higher, selfless cause.
• Ben Daniels (Jupiter’s Legacy) as ‘Bel Roise,’ the last great general of the Superliminal Fleet and would-be conqueror of the Foundation. Bel is noble to a fault, but his fealty to the Galactic Empire is waning.
• Holt McCallany (Nightmare Alley) as ‘Warden Jaegger Fount,’ the current Warden of Terminus and guardian of its citizens against external threats.
• Mikael Persbrandt (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) as ‘The Warlord of Kalgan,’ a monster of a man, coiled with muscle and possessing powerful psychic abilities, and fueled by hate in his quest to take over the galaxy.
• Rachel House (Cowboy Bebop) as ‘Tellem Bond,’ mysterious leader of the Mentallics.
• Nimrat Kaur (Wayward Pines) as ‘Yanna Seldon’

“I’m a big fan of sci-fi, specifically this kind of sci-fi, speculative fiction about what happens to humans off-planet, which is very different than some of the genre stuff I’ve done in the past,” star Lee Pace told us last year. “I think what Isaac Asimov comes to this with is a truly cerebral picture of what is a way to look at a human’s survival in our reality. He takes that reality off-planet and expands it throughout the entire Milky Way galaxy, and that’s the canvas we’re working with.

“Reading David Goyer’s scripts, I think he really solved the unfilmable elements of Foundation by creating some characters that have, in very different ways, figured out how to cheat death and take us through what could potentially be a 1,000-year story.”

Foundation Season Two will be released on Apple TV+. Season One is available now. Read our full interview with David S Goyer and Lee Pace here.

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Isaac Asimov’s Foundation is set to be rediscovered as his notoriously unfilmable space opera is adapted by David S Goyer for a new Apple+ TV series, so now is the perfect time to say hello to Hari Seldon with The Folio Society’s trilogy box set.

Drawing on contemporary politics, ancient history and mathematics, Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction epic, The Foundation Trilogy, explores the decline of the Galactic Empire; a civilisation that ruled nearly 25 million inhabited planets.

“First of all, it’s considered the greatest science fiction work of all time!” said David S Goyer when we spoke to him about his adaptation. “Asimov was the grandfather of science fiction. There’s a reason why Foundation hasn’t been made over the last few decades. It’s been long regarded as notoriously hard to adapt. The story is supposed to unfold over 1,000 years. It’s anthological in nature. There are these big narrative leaps, very few characters continue on from one story to the next!”

Now, you can revisit Asimov’s original works as, back by popular demand, The Folio Society releases a unique three-volume edition, which includes an introduction by leading economist and Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman.

“I grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilization,” economist Paul Krugman says in his exclusive introduction for this edition, where he goes on to describe how The Foundation Trilogy inspired him to study economics, since it was the closest thing to the ‘psycho-history’ of the novel.

Meanwhile, the futuristic artwork for this edition has been created by talented British illustrator Alex Wells. His series of dazzling images feature over all three volumes, each beautifully capturing Asimov’s multi-layered story. The three books in the series, Foundation, Foundation And Empire and Second Foundation each include seven colour illustrations and have three unique binding designs, all in striking metallic and all colour-coordinated inside a black blocked slipcase (with its own out-of-this-world image on the front).

You can check out Alex Wells’ amazing artwork with our sneak peek into the books with our gallery here…

The Folio Society edition of Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy, illustrated by Alex Wells and introduced by Paul Krugman, is available exclusively from www.foliosociety.com.

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Such an undertaking was certainly not for the fainthearted. Well-versed in working with existing properties (his repertoire includes The Crow, Blade, Batman and Superman), co-creator and executive producer David S Goyer nevertheless saw this project as the greatest challenge of his career.

“First of all, it’s considered the greatest science fiction work of all time… so there’s no pressure there!” Goyer laughs. “Asimov was the grandfather of science fiction. Even working with a character like Batman or Superman, at least there have been previous versions of something, there’s some kind of framework for the wider audience. For this show to work, it has to appeal to people that haven’t read the books, people that aren’t even necessarily fans of science fiction.

“There’s a reason why Foundation hasn’t been made over the last few decades. It’s been long regarded as notoriously hard to adapt. The story is supposed to unfold over 1,000 years. It’s anthological in nature. There are these big narrative leaps, very few characters continue on from one story to the next. They are brilliant books, but they’re books largely about ideas rather than characters or action. I myself was offered the opportunity to adapt it a few times as a feature, and I didn’t think it could be done as a feature, and I turned it down. It’s only now that I think the medium has matured with streaming, where we’ve seen some of these big novelistic shows that unfold over multiple seasons, that I think that the audience and the medium have matured to a point where I thought adapting Foundation would be possible.”

The visual register for the show is drawn from a diverse range of sources: “Cinematically, I would say it was David Lean, John Houston, Terrence Malick,” Goyer continues. “Certainly not anything from science fiction. We probably filmed 60% of the show on location, as opposed to on a set in front of a green screen. That was very important to me. I never wanted to feel sci-fi. I wanted to feel classic. I wanted to feel timeless. I wanted to feel lived in.

“I was very concerned with shapes and forms. So I would say, ‘just show me the silhouette of something first. I want to see the silhouette of the ship and see if I can, on a story level, understand what it is’. Because I want to understand its form first and then we’ll put all the filigree on. So I would say that we often look to the past much more than we look to the future. I didn’t want to reference what we thought might exist 25,000 years from now. I wanted it to feel ageless, timeless, classic.”

This approach to futurity also allowed for an open approach to the casting, although a couple of actors were on Goyer’s radar right from the start: “I had Lee Pace and Jared Harris in mind. It never happens that you get the person that you’re writing it for! I knew from the very beginning that we wanted to gender flip the roles of Gaal and Salvor [both men in Asimov’s stories], and that was something that I approached the Asimov estate with at the very beginning, to make sure that they were comfortable with that.

“I would say virtually every other character we cast gender or race blind completely. So that was freeing. The people that are watching this show are 70 years removed from the audience that would have been consuming Foundation in the late ’40s or early ’50s, so it was important to me that the show reflect the audience of today.’

In a lead role created for this adaptation, Lee Pace plays Brother Day, one of three clones of Emperor Cleon, alongside Terrence Mann as his elder Brother Dusk and Cassian Bilton as younger Brother Dawn. Pace has form when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy, memorably leading Bryan Fuller’s wonderful and much-missed Pushing Daisies, as well as playing Thranduil In the Hobbit films and Ronan the Accuser for Marvel.

“I’m a big fan of sci-fi, specifically this kind of sci-fi, speculative fiction about what happens to humans off-planet, which is very different than some of the genre stuff I’ve done in the past,” says Pace. ‘I think what Isaac Asimov comes to this with is a truly cerebral picture of what is a way to look at a human’s survival in our reality. He takes that reality off-planet and expands it throughout the entire Milky Way galaxy, and that’s the canvas we’re working with.

“Reading David Goyer’s scripts, I think he really solved the unfilmable elements of Foundation by creating some characters that have, in very different ways, figured out how to cheat death and take us through what could potentially be a 1,000-year story. If we’re lucky to get many more seasons, we might be able to tell that whole story!”

“What drew me really to this character is the riddle of him,” Pace continues. “It’s like this riddle of inherited power. We live on a planet where we have monarchies, and we have various ruling classes and stuff. There have been plenty of stories told about them, but it’s interesting to me to abstract that concept in this idea of a cloned emperor.

“When I think about this role that I play, I’m not really playing a man. I’m playing a series of men who for a time in their life are the emperor of the fucking galaxy. It’s an outrageous idea that they would have control over trillions of humans spread out through 10,000 planets through the whole galaxy. They’re the person who sits in that seat, and that person is a three-dimensional, complicated, flesh and blood, soft-skinned human.”

Beyond the complicated storyline which Goyer had to corral, the visual identity of the show also required a lot of thought: “One of the things that was really challenging about the show was we were trying to do an epic science fiction space opera,” he says. “For the mainstream audience, people that aren’t fans of science fiction, you’ve got these pillars of science fiction. You’ve got Star Trek, Star Wars, maybe a little bit of Alien. And most of their conception of how science fiction should look has been shaped by those two or three franchises. I was constantly having to push back and say, ‘That reminds me too much of Star Wars. We need to chart our own path. We need to make our holograms look different’. We need to have our spaceships function in a different way, which is why the Imperial ships have this donut hole that generates a singularity’.

This unique visual approach extends into the costumes, including a fantastic imperial outfit that Lee Pace dons: “I’ll be honest with you, they’re extraordinarily uncomfortable!” laughs Pace. “I’ve worn some uncomfortable costumes in my career. These are not nice. But half the time I’m wearing the robes and half the time I’m basically wearing really comfy sweats.

“When we’re off the thrones and in our own world, it’s the most comfortable costume I’ve ever worn. Kurt and Bart, who designed that costume, one of their inspirations was this small piece of Roman glass that had survived, I guess, 2,000 years, at least, if not older. It was a picture of this little, tiny vase, probably a little perfume bottle, and it was that blue opaque glass, and it looked like just about the most fragile thing I’ve ever seen.

“That they made the connection between that fragile piece of glass and this armour that looks imposing and powerful, I think really unlocks what the Empire that we’re trying to depict in Foundation really is.’

This meeting of distant past and distant future, with clear relevance to the present, marries nicely to David Goyer’s understanding of the core theme of Foundation.

Whilst he has spoken of hope being the key message, there is also a warning: “Look to the past,” he says, emphatically. ‘If we’re not careful, history is doomed to repeat itself. We can learn from our past mistakes. I say all the time – and  I didn’t coin the phrase – the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Nothing’s new. All of the challenges that society is encountering today, we’ve encountered before.

“That doesn’t mean that we won’t arrive at a new form of innovation, but history and humanity is cyclical’.

Foundation is out on Apple+ on 24 September

The post Foundation: Adapting the impossible appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.

A brand new teaser has been unveiled for Apple TV+’s Foundation, an epic saga from showrunner and executive producer, David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Man of Steel).

Watch it here…

In Foundation, revolutionary Dr. Hari Seldon predicts the impending fall of the Empire, so he and a band of loyal followers venture to the far reaches of the galaxy to establish The Foundation in an attempt to rebuild and preserve the future of civilization. Enraged by Hari’s claims, the ruling Cleons — a long line of emperor clones — fear their grasp on the galaxy may be weakening as they’re forced to reckon with the potential reality of losing their legacy forever. 

This ten-episode series marks the first-ever on screen adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s iconic, award-winning novel series of the same name.

“In the decades since the ‘Foundation‘ series first saw print, Asimov’s prophetic science-fiction work has never been more relevant than it is now,” said Goyer. “Growing up, I devoured ‘Foundation‘ and dreamed of one day seeing it on screen – but a feature film didn’t seem big enough to embrace the ambition. 

“Thanks to the broader landscape of streaming and a valuable partnership with Apple and Skydance, we are able to bring the series to the screen in a way that truly does it justice. ‘Foundation’ has always been at the top of my bucket list and I’m honored I get to play a part in finally bringing it to life. Whether you’re a fan of the novels or simply someone craving a mind-blowing epic, I’m excited to share with you what we’ve created.” 

The series Jared Harris (Carnival Row), Lee Pace (Guardians of the Galaxy), Lou Llobell (Voyagers), Leah Harvey (Fighting with My Family), Laura Birn (The Innocents), Terrence Mann (Sense8), Cassian Bilton and Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away with Murder).

Foundation will debut globally on Apple TV+ on September 24, 2021 with the first three episodes, followed by one new episode weekly, every Friday.

The post Foundation: Take a sneak peak at the new sci-fi series appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.