The Genetic Dynasty storyline is entirely original and it’s easily the best part of the show, one of my favorite sci-fi concepts ever. Lee Pace is just so fucking good as Empire in all seasons. Demrezel is also right up there as the best character in the show.
Just can’t get enough of this.
Season 3 is streaming rn and it’s amazing so far. Absolutely phenomenal performances from Lee Pace and Laura Birn. I highly recommend watching it if you like sci-fi.
It sucks in a cool way.
The original book is basically “hey I’ve invented mathematical space materialism, and also great man theory is dumb, it’s all people at large scales.”
The TV series needed characters so now everyone is super special, magical, and important to history.
It’s dogshit but it’s pretty dogshit, with some original cool concepts like the genetic dynasty on Trantor. Literally I think the writers just misread “Cleon dynasty” as “clone dynasty” a few too many times and decided to roll with it.
But yeah the series has the opposite message of the books.
lmao we have essentially the same opinion on it. I also thought the clone thing was cool. If they just did that it would have been a great addition to the book plot, honestly.
Honestly I agree, I’d swallow that change entirely. Problem is a TV show needs super special characters that do things.
Normal people running a marxist institution designed to endure the fall of space rome and preserve knowledge isn’t interesting TV.
IT IS TO ME!!!
interesting in real life: sure; but not on tv.
Maybe it could be done as fictional documentary?
it’s pronounced “annie may”
I’d do it Inside Out style with the institution represented by a metaphorical character doing the interesting TV things but then we also see the actual people inside the institution interacting with each other to make the machine run.
i’m going to be real, 10000000% pin me to the cross and make sacrilege of me if i’m wrong but the only reason it’s any different on TV is because Americans can’t be fucked to learn who new characters are every other episode at a rate that would make The Walking Dead ashamed at its turnover
that and the showrunner explicitly was like “I wanna do my own sci fi schlock lol i’m doin’ it”
I bet you could do it sort of like those anthology shows where its the same cast but a different set of characters. Like, each generation/era you recycle the cast into new roles that either complement or contrast their role in the previous generation/era. It would still have some wiff of “Great Man” to it, but at least you could probably get closer to the actual themes of the book.
uh that’s an opinion and a shit one imo
It absolutely could be interesting TV, but under the capitalist organisation of the creative industries, certain ideas become structurally unimaginable.
Think about pitching a story where a Marxist mass is the hero to the average American television executive/sex-pest. You’d be thrown out of the room. That executive doesn’t give a shit about making “interesting” television.
I have absolutely separated this show from the book in my mind.
Wise. You’re having more fun than me.
In the grand scheme of things it still follows the same principle except for the Mule. Demrezel can not stop Empire’s decline, Gaal just fucks around mostly and while Hari does somewhat guide the foundation, his actual influence is minimal. In the scope of thousands of years, they literally don’t matter as much.