MovieChat Forums > Foundation (2021) Discussion > The story does not translate well to ear...

The story does not translate well to early 21st century wokeness


A lot of money wasted here. Don't they know who watches Scifi by now? Hint: it's not the Apple fanboys..

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What the hell is 21st century wokeness?

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I guess he just means Wokeness. There's no XIXth century Wokeness or anything similar, since it's a new religion/ideology that didn't exist a century ago. 21st century Wokeness is simply Wokeness.

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So how is this woke (aware?)? A book with very little in the way of physical descriptions other than gender is being raked over the coals (in other threads) for not having enough white actors in it. Have the complainers even watched the show?

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No. The book is not being raked over the coals at all. Only the producers of this series. The idea that these characters need to be black and female is pure wokeness. Are you feigning ignorance?

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I meant to say that a TV series based upon a book with very little in the way of physical descriptions other than gender is being raked over the coals for not having enough white actors in it.

Why were the characters in the book or the TV series not supposed to be black? I think you are making things up. Where are you getting your information from on the racial characteristics of the cast of characters in the Foundation Universe?

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I doubt any person who has ever read the Foundation series thought the characters are anything other than white. Did you? Can you tell me why you would assume they are anything other than white?

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This is the worse argument I've seen against wokewashing.

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Why? Do you mean to tell me that Asimov intended for certain characters to be other than white? Can you cite a line in The Foundation series that shows otherwise? Please do so.

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I have no reason to believe that Asimov assigned any of his characters a certain race in the Foundation novels.

In his novel Nemesis, race was a significant part of the plot, so various characters were described as being one race or another.

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Nemesis was written 40 years later. You have to be smarter than this.

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No, I just need to not be a racist.

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I just need to not be a racist.

If you weren't a racist, you would notice how modern Hollywood blackwashes positive characters while keeps negative characters as white males.

If you weren't a racist, you would notice that you can't find another period in cinema where there was such a clear distinction between good characters belonging to an ethnic group A and evil/stupid characters belonging to an ethnic group B. Even Nazi movies were more moderate than modern ones: you had some propaganda movies pushing the agenda "good Germans vs evil Jews", but those were a few ones, not each and every fucking one.

You're not a, let's call it, "traditional racist". You're a neo-racist. A woke racist. A racist 2.0. A racist with steroids and modern marketing. You have evolved from traditional racism to a more progressive racism: same size, more racism included.

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NO...YOU ACTUAL RACISTS AHEV JUST DECIDED TO MUDDY THE WATERS BY CALLING ANYONE WHO OBJECTS TO YOUR CLEAR RACISM AS THE TRUE RACISTS....THAT IS ALL.

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I said that white skin was not the default skin color of characters in a book. This does not make me a racist of any kind. You are just trying to cloud the issue.

I know that film producers will change the race or gender of a character at times according to their wishes. This does not mean that the default skin color of a character in a book is white.

What is your best example of Hollywood blackwashing a positive character while keeping negative characters white males?

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Why do you think Asimov intended the characters to be anything other than white?

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Because in other Asimov books I've read, if skin color helped drive the plot, then it was mentioned. As far as I know, if Asimov did not make his character's skin color an issue, then it was left up to the reader.

The problem is that YOU have assigned a certain physical characteristic to various people in a book that you did not write and are upset if anyone else does not see these people in the same way you do.

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I am being logical. Have you ever read Peter Pan? Does the author go out of his way to explain all the white characters, meaning that they are white? Or does he usually only explain if they aren't white, like the Indians, or if a pirate is black? Why do you think he would do this? Maybe because his audience was almost entirely white? Just like with Asimov? Not a lot of black people reading SF in the 1940s and 50s. You are trying to compare a novel he wrote 40 years later, and then rationalizing changing some key characters into black women when there is no indication they were anything of the kind. For those of us who are fans of the original story, this is a slap in the face. Not to you. But to fans who really did want to see a true adaptation of it instead this monstrosity, it certainly is an insult.
Just like The Twilight Zone. Can't create a new anthology series. Gotta steal from a past successful one by a white guy. The Wonder Years! Since black people do nothing but bitch and whine about how bad it has always been in America, when were there any WONDER years for them? They have no problems stealing ideas from white people, like this tv series. Should there be a Wonder Years for every skin color? Or maybe, just maybe, show some innovation and creativity and make something new on your own? Instead of this constant stealing from white people.
Asimov didn't steal his ideas, his characters. He came up with them on his own. Is that so hard for black people do to? Are they so creatively bankrupt?

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You are not logical, you are racist. I guess you did not read Nemesis either? Several characters were described as asian, white or brown.

What is your evidence for "not a lot of black people reading SF in the 1940s and 50s"?

I understand that you are trying to make hay out of being a victim here. Do you get dental with that?

How is it that you seem to be completely unaware of black writers in the USA?

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Again, Nemesis was written many decades after Foundation, during the period when America was just beginning to turn into the mess we see today, where we are forced to have diversity in everything.

And white people were the consumers back during that period. In everything. Movies were mostly white because most of the people who bought tickets were white. I know that comes as a shock.

Have you ever noticed that only white countries must be diverse? Have you ever seen anyone complain that China isn't diverse? That Nigeria isn't? That Iran isn't? What about Brazil? Nah. Only white countries. Why is that?

And white people did invent almost all the things we enjoy today. Why wouldn't they also enjoy the fruits of them? And they did share them with the rest of the world. Do you think anyone in Africa today would even begin to understand flight if not for others? Lots of people in the Congo working on rockets, were they? Or on computers? Cars? They didn't even understand how to make drinkable water. But white people were more innovative and creative and pushed the boundaries of science and technology. For that sin, they must be punished.

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The Foundation novels were published in the early 1950's, Nemesis was published in 1989. Racial relations have been a mess for far longer than you think. You still haven't explained how you know that blacks were not reading SF back then.

So you're saying that because blacks are, in your opinion, inferior, books are written with the default position that their fictional characters are white? This is very stupid; probably comes as shock to you.

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your view of the world is really really sad.

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Because you're assuming that everyone has to assume that a character is white if they aren't described as white. It's an incoherent position.

I'm not going to cite a line that suggests that the characters, because I obviously wasn't claiming that they aren't white. I'm not even sure why you'd even ask me that. This just reinforces the fact that your opinion is nonsense. Your argument is nonsense.

You're demanding people to provide proof for something you yourself don't need. You need people to prove that the characters are not white, because you believe that there is weight in your position that they are white, when really, the whole thing is irrelevant.

You're trying make a stance against wokeness, yet you're the one who's racebaiting here. I've also seen your continued responses to the other guy. I cannot stand wokewashing, but you just keep on piling on irrelevant information with your points...information you haven't fully understood either. Hell, you suddenly throw in random examples...but Twilight Zone, Wonder Years, and this show are all different situations. You don't (or unable to) differentiate them because you haven't evaluated them conscientiously enough to criticize them properly.

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Because they would be white. LOL Have you ever read Tom Sawyer? Does Mark Twain describe any of the white characters? Does he? But they are white characters.

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When I read the series I was not assigning skin color to any character. I don't have a default skin color for characters in a book that does not describe them in any manner that would lead one to make any assumption like that.

Did you read Starship Troopers? What color did you assign to Juan Rico?

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Sure you do. The story was written by Asimov over half a century ago and we can certainly understand who the core audience was (by and far for a white audience) and therefore the characters in the story, unless stated otherwise, were white. You would have to be incredibly naive to believe otherwise. Or ignorant. Which do you prefer?
Changing characters, condensing several into one, are not new to adaptations but do not pretend to sell the idea Asimov intended the characters to be anything other than white. And it is a slap in the face to fans of the original trilogy to change them in the name of the vile woke culture.
I think you resent white people because they are responsible for every single great piece of literature and film and tv and virtually every single household amenity, cars, tv, computer, internet, planes, all things you take for granted. But you owe them all to white people.

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You're lying when you claim that white people are " responsible for every single great piece of literature and film and tv and virtually every single household amenity, cars, tv, computer, internet and planes".

Even a tiny bit of honest research would reveal just how stupid your claim is.

Some stuff invented by non-white people include,
Arabic numbers
Gunpowder
Printing press
Paper
Ink

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So, basically the contributions of black people to the world are almost nothing. Africa would likely never understand how to fly, how to make electricity, the combustion engine, computers, steam propelled trains and ships, advances in medicine, all of which they owe to people from outside their continent. Let's not even talk about splitting the atom to release slow neutrons and use them for energy production.
Don't get me wrong. I firmly believe in equal opportunity based on merit. Not skin color. Not gender. And I do not believe in equal outcomes to appease political correctness.
White people made the ultimate sin of being far more innovative than anyone else. When black people saw this, they wanted in on that, too, without doing any of the work to get there. It's like when someone wins the lottery and suddenly everyone wants a piece.
The problem is America's education system is not working for black people because don't need to work in order to succeed. Standards are lowered because of them and instead of learning applicable skills they are instead taught divisions based on skin color and/or gender. Or sexual preference.
It should not shock anyone America is falling behind academically.
This is why I do not believe diversity works. Not in America, it doesn't.

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So you went from "owing everything to white people" to "almost nothing" with just a tiny little list from me. How much further will you move the goalposts if someone actually puts some effort into debunking your foolish rant?

You are basing the worth of all people on their skin color. You are very stupid.

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No, actually I am basing it on the facts. You are basing it on skin color.

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STUPIDEST SHIT I HAVE SEEN IN A WHILE.🙄

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whoosh.
Did you notice how his ethnicity wasn't revealed until late in the book.
That wasn't an oversight, that was by design.

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Yes, I read the book so I noticed when Rico's ethnicity was revealed. Tell me more about Heinlein's design for Rico's character.

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A book with very little in the way of physical descriptions other than gender is being raked over the coals (in other threads) for not having enough white actors in it.

The society portrayed in the books is clearly rooted in North-European protestant one. Different ethnic groups behave in different ways.

But let's say you want a multiracial approach. Well, the show is still wrong. Seldon picked the most brilliant minds. Even if he accept he picked a multiracial group, that group would have been mostly white or East-Asian, which are the groups with the highest IQ.

Not to say that after some generations and due to interbreeding, the Foundation would have zero diversity. The group would have become genetically homogeneous again.

The worldbuilding doesn't make any sense... other than political/religious woke agenda.

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IQ is not a respectable measure of intelligence or brilliance. Researchers have known this for several decades.

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IQ is not a respectable measure of intelligence or brilliance.

On average, it is. And when we're talking about groups and populations, that's what matters.

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On average, it is. And when we're talking about groups and populations,


That actually has nothing to do with what I said. I didn't say that IQ was inaccurate. I didn't talk about variance.

Again, my claim is not a novel one. It's a known fact for anyone who's actually studied or worked in the field.

You understanding of IQ tests is what ppl get off of memes and infographics and armchair analysts talking on a forum.


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That actually has nothing to do with what I said.

Then what you said is irrelevant in the context of this conversation.

That was what I was talking about: the influence of IQ and culture in a community. It was you who decided to answer that comment of mine in first place. If you decided to talk about some other topic, well... that's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, but doing it in a reply to my comment is absurd, since (as you kindly agreed) what you replied had nothing to do with I was talking about.

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It's not irrelevant.

This is what you wrote:

Seldon picked the most brilliant minds. Even if he accept he picked a multiracial group, that group would have been mostly white or East-Asian, which are the groups with the highest IQ.


You're claiming that the most brilliant minds would be white or east Asian because those groups have the highest IQ.

That sentence is literally untrue, and that is what I pointed out. You can't determine if any one group is more brilliant than another, using IQ.

I have brought up nothing but a criticism over something you wrote. I have not introduced anything off topic.

You made a claim that is factually false for anyone who actually knows anything about the subject.

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You would have to admit there is some correlation between IQ and how advanced/developed a society is.
Did any sub Saharan African countries even develop a written language before it was introduced by whites?.

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To use a very cliche example, there's also a correlation between ice cream sales and increased murder rates.

But at any rate, if you want to make the argument that whites are smarter on average because they developed a written language before blacks did in sub Saharan America, by all means, go ahead.

I don't have any interest in suggesting that white didn't develop written language first, nor am I interested in suggesting that the development of written language isn't related to intelligence. (I do disagree with you here fundamentally that the advanced/developed nature of a society has anything to do with intelligence, but I don't have strong enough of a background to reply competently. From what I understand, genetically, man's intelligence has been more or less stable for the past few hundred thousand years or so, let alone these alleged disparities between different geographic regions in the modern era.)

But the other fellow made a very specific claim: a very specific supposition that IQ could be used to measure brilliance. Despite its name and what pop culture would have you believe, IQ has not been regarded to be a valid measure of intelligence for quite some time. His further claim that

On average, it is. And when we're talking about groups and populations, that's what matters.


show that he has no idea what he's talking about. Something can't be valid "on average". It's either a valid measurement or it isn't, and no one outside armchair theorists puts any weight on such an antiquated tool.

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But at any rate, if you want to make the argument that whites are smarter on average because they developed a written language before blacks did in sub Saharan America, by all means, go ahead.

That's not difficult.

High average IQ and productive cultural values as meritocracy and professionalism form a model which is a good predictor of a thriving society. Sub Saharan Africa has very low average IQ and lacks productive cultural values, the model predicts that they will barely have any progress, which is what actually happened.

But the other fellow made a very specific claim: a very specific supposition that IQ could be used to measure brilliance. Despite its name and what pop culture would have you believe, IQ has not been regarded to be a valid measure of intelligence for quite some time.

No, that's not what I said. I quote what I said: "On average, it is [a good predictor of intelligence]". Since it seems you failed to grasp it, I repeated it, and I quote again: " IQ is a good predictor of intelligence on average".

show that he has no idea what he's talking about. Something can't be valid "on average". It's either a valid measurement or it isn't

Wrong. I already explained that in this comment:
https://moviechat.org/tt0804484/Foundation/614e2d94e92069453bce6578/The-story-does-not-translate-well-to-early-21st-century-wokeness?reply=615e7792ff052e5f4da51d39

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You're claiming that the most brilliant minds would be white or east Asian because those groups have the highest IQ. That sentence is literally untrue, and that is what I pointed out.

You can't determine if any one group is more brilliant than another, using IQ.

Actually, you can.

You confuse what works in an individual and what works in a group. IQ is a good predictor of intelligence on average. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a close predictor of intelligence in an individual, but it is in a group. When we're talking about groups, average matters. I'll repeat it in bold letters, in case you missed the importance of that sentence: when we're talking about groups, average matters.

I'll explain it with an easier example.

On average, having healthy habits is a good predictor of being healthier. However, having healthy habits is not necessarily a close predictor of being healthier in an individual. You take a random individual who has healthy habits, that won't mean he's necessarily healthier. Maybe you picked an individual who had healthy habits, but he had terminal cancer.

However, if instead of one individual, you take a sample of enough random individuals, then it becomes a closer and closer predictor. If the majority of the group has healthy habits, then you can say that the majority of the group will be healthier. The larger the sample, the better it works as a predictor. That's what you fail to understand.

Another example.

Japanese are short on average. Does that means that if you pick a random Japanese individual, he'll be necessarily short? Well, it's likely he'll be, but maybe he won't. You can pick a random Japanese and maybe he'll happen to be tall. However, if you take a random sample of enough Japanese individuals, you'll be able to say that the majority of them will be short.

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> IQ is not a respectable measure of intelligence or brilliance.

Only Marxist scum believe that lie. IQ correlates with school performance, as long as you ignore all the bullshit woke department that will never get you a job. Even the military will not accept the bottom 10% because they put the rest of the troops at risk.

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You HAVE to check boxes in today's entertainment industry. So, yeah, the genders are switched to female, and the races are switched to black. But I am concerned more about whether the characters are good or not. And so far, I think they are doing fairly well. How that will work throughout the series, we will see.

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You should read the books, since you have little care for the visual aesthetics of the human body.

Normal people like to see the beautiful/handsome people on the screen.

Most black women are both masculine and ugly because:
1) hair (natural receding hairline with thick curly pubes on their head)
2) head shape (the jaw sticks out strangely far)
3) noses (flat and large)

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That's harsh but unfortunately it has been proven by Dating app stats.
I think Indians (fron India), rank lower than blacks.
I think that is why I just can't get into Star Trek SNW.
A show needs at least to have either good stories or an attractive cast for me to watch.
It sounds shallow but it's true and unfortunately ST-SNW has neither.

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There are few attractive characters in SNW ...

Nurse Chapel as an example. Or even Pike (although I don't really understand his role on the ship, is he a captain or a mediator???).

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SNW Chapel is hot compared to TOS Chapel. 7 of 9 was hotter than any TOS woman.

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wow, a new low even for braindead bigoted racists

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My dad told me of a quote that fits this dumpster fire of a show perfectly: "It was little known and even less remembered."

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