I've watched the first two episodes of the new adaptation of Foundation. It surely looks gorgeous, though there are some script challenges (even apart from the challenge of trying to adapt an enormous book series that was always long on ideas and short on character development). The issues I've spotted seem mostly to be ones of poor script editing for consistency. (The emperor of the Galactic Empire says in the first episode that the imperial population is 8 trillion, and then in the second episode a character says that the core worlds alone have a population of 40 trillion. The latter number is more reasonable, given the size of Asimov's empire.)
Watching this, I again think it would be great fun to do scientific/technical consulting for TV, movies, and even books. I'm on the list for the Science and Entertainment Exchange, though all I've ever done is give a tiny bit of feedback to a would-be author. (My expertise probably looks too narrow, and not living in southern California seems to be a major filter.)
It feels like there are some similarities to the role of science in public policy. In the creative productions, science can contribute (and these media can be a great way of getting scientific ideas out into the public), but in the end plot and what can practically be implemented will always drive the final product. In policy, science and technical knowledge should definitely factor in when relevant, but fundamentally there are social and political factors that can overwhelm those influences in decision-making. Now back to our regularly scheduled psychohistorical crisis....
2 comments:
Psychohistorical Crisis is actually a really good novel, riffing on Asimov.
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