Awesome, but I have a hard time believing that it won't be so watered down as to be unrecognizable if they want to put it on a mainstream channel or service.
Amazon seems to be the production company that lets the writers/editors have the most creative control.
I hate to say it, but I hope Amazon picks this up.
Yeah, we'll see. I can't remember the last time I saw an Anarchist character portrayed in a positive light.
I predict there will be a huge amount of rage threads over how the soviet union analogue in the story is portrayed, followed by a bunch of more awkward rage threads as people realize it's all the same as the book.
The scene where he chooses not to help the communist by giving them the technology they need to defeat space US because they are too authoritarian is going to send people through the roof.
Yeah, the thing that's going to get people is that it's played as if betraying the communist is part of the anarchist walking the path to true freedom. Which is where you can see why capital would look at the story and think they can get some use of it in regards to China. It's also being produced by the company that used anarchism in that way with Mr.Robot.
On the one hand, Shevek gives the token gommie a patronizing speech about how Thu didn't just press the communism button, but on the other there is some mention of Thuvianists collaborating with the anarchists.
The book is weird on this. Yeah right at first, Shevek slaps down the Thuvian ambassador. But then for the rest of the book the Thuvians are portrayed as the good guys and help Shevek along the way.
Oh god, first Apple ruined Foundation, now someone else gets to ruin The Dispossessed. Please, just leave my sci-fi books alone!
oh idk, i haven't seen anything since the initial announcement. Bezos posted about it on twitter and a bunch of people started calling him Jolier Veppers
I've read foundation but it was a while ago and I forgot practically everything, so idk how apple ruined it
I called it quits after two episodes, but (obvious spoilers) they changed a bunch of shit:
- The Vault on Terminus has some magic forcefield that keeps everyone away except for Salvor Hardin
- Gaal Dornick is psychic
- A trio of clone emperors are in charge, rather than the council led by Eto Demerzel
- Terminus has some sort of killer alien living on it
- There's a (muslim-coded) terrorist attack on a space elevator on Trantor by Anacreon + some other province
- This terrorist attack is the only reason the Encyclopedia Galactica project is allowed to proceed
- Anacreon gets orbitally bombarded by the Empire
- Hari Seldon's adopted son kills him en route to Terminus (rather than him dying of being old on Trantor)
- Gaal Dornick is put into cryosleep and launched into an asteroid belt en route to Terminus
- The existence of robots is common knowledge, and the emperor knows that Demerzel is a robot
Other really minor decisions I just don't care for:
- People have to be drugged unconscious during hyperspace travel, except for what I'm assuming are mutated humans who pilot ships
- The Imperial Library is full of paper books rather than digital spacebooks
- They have a holodeck where they simulate fighting the killer Terminus alien. The two main characters later fuck on the (public) holodeck.
- Terminus seems to be an ice world, rather than mostly water-covered with little landmass
- The Prime Radiant looks wrong; instead of projecting equations onto walls, it's just a weird magic space ball of light
I understand that they'd have to add stuff (the books are pretty lacking in characterization or women characters, for instance), but it felt like they gave up on adapting the book and just started writing fan-fiction. Also for some reason they plan to do fucking 8 seasons, which means they're going to have to stretch the material ridiculously thin.
I guessed the series starts with prelude to foundation which I did not read, so idk if that's correct
Hmm I'm not surprised, before I saw the first episode I made a post on the mega asking how apple would fuck it up lol
Nah, it starts with the first short story of the first book, they're just fucking it up bad.
In the books, the anarchist society is more or less portrayed as veryy functional and good. Le Guin isn't shy about showing where her sympathies lie, it's not subtle. Anarres is good, with some challenges. A-Io, a transparent stand-in for the USA, is pretty awful. Yeah, Anarres has problems but personally I got teary-eyed reading it, it made me sad thinking we could maybe if we're very lucky, get something like what Anarres has. But I sure won't see it in my lifetime.
My prediction is they'll both sides it. Anarres will be portrayed as having a collapsing economy because communism no food; while A-Io will be shown as unequal but having more material wealth, even for the poorest.
Edit: Jfc this is gonna be bad, how can you read the book and come away with THIS conclusion: "David Levine added that the novel was “[…]a well-crafted exploration of the current schism in our society and can offer us a path of reconciliation without accusations, condescension, and judgement"
Edit2: I'm getting angry now. They're portraying it as "two worlds at odds who hate and distrust each other, but they can come together with the power of love". That's some bullshit right there, the two planets are barely aware of each others' societies! Shevek has no idea what life is like outside of Anarres, that a HUGE part of the story dammit.
Annares is extremely impovrished in the book, I'm sure they'll fuck it up but it is materially very far behind Urras
Yes, very impoverished. They even have a huge famine. But importantly, it's not because of the economic model, it's very clearly because of the harsh environment they live on. Le Guin talks about how they basically have no trees or animals other than some fish in the oceans, and that stuff is hard to grow there. And what little natural resources they have get shipped off to the other planet in trade (and IIRC Le Guin implies if they didn't trade, they would likely find themselves invaded). I fully expect this TV to find a way to blame the anarchist economic model for the impoverished conditions, not the natural environment.
Yeah I think they will fuck it up, you are right. But I think you are recalling Annares overfondly. It is paradise politically by comparison to its mirror (or the Terrans), but the Annaren system is still viewed pretty critically by the main character, who sees it destroy artists and coldly separate lovers, and crush the spirits of misfits. I think the ultimate take of the book is Annares, like Urras, also needs another revolution in conciousness. The journey to change Urras cannot be complete until Annares also changes
Yeah I think the problem is, I'm admittedly very sympathetic to the Anarresti society, and those issues don't particularly bother me. Of course I'm not saying I'm right, just that that's my own bias in reading the book.
Are the earthsea books good? Been getting into fantasy and I vaguely remember reading the first one at some point as a kid. Was thinking about grabbing some used copies of the first couple for some easy reading.
Nice, thanks. Was gonna buy the books but the illustrated edition is a bit pricey.
lol, welcome. I went looking for it for me too. I've read the Hainish cycle, but haven't touched on Earthsea yet. So thanks for asking about it. 🙌
they're great. pretty much everything she wrote is, find a lot of sci-fi fans tend to ignore her career after dispossessed and they're missing out enormously.
I think the annals of the western shore YA series she did in the 2000s is much better than earthsea tbh.
fucking love earthsea though don't get me wrong
Hope they can show how the Odonian philosophy was successfully implemented on Anarres though a combination of crypto and gaming
