‘Chaos Has a Name’ | Apple Releases New ‘Foundation’ Trailer
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Apple’s most ambitious sci-fi series, Foundation, is set to launch into its third season four weeks from today, and Apple is whetting our appetites with a full two-minute trailer that shows the stakes for the Foundation and Galactic Empire ramping up to a whole other level.
When Apple announced the season 3 premiere date last month, it shared a slightly shorter teaser that provided a look into the new season without revealing too much. However, today’s trailer dials things up and sets a higher bar for what looks to be a pretty action-packed third season.
As most of us could already surmise from the events of season 2 and the previous teaser, the next installment in Apple’s take on the Foundation saga will focus on the Warlord of Kalgan, better known as The Mule. Much like the gap between seasons 1 and 2, Season 3 will skip more than a century ahead — 152 years in this case — to a time when the Foundation is more firmly established, and the Galactic Empire is a shadow of the all-powerful regime we saw in season 1.
In the Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov that loosely inspired the series, the first Galactic Empire had effectively fallen by this point. The Mule is a powerful ”mentalic” mutant who rises from the ashes of that chaos to try to fill the power vacuum, subjecting the universe to his whims through physical, military, and psychic force.
However, it’s harder to know where Apple’s version of Foundation will go from here, as it’s more loosely based on Asimov’s works.
Despite the incredible production quality and storytelling in Apple’s Foundation, the series has met with a lukewarm reception from many Isaac Asimov fans who can’t get past how much it differs from the books that inspired it. It’s fair to say it’s more of a series set in the “Foundation Universe” than something entirely faithful to Asimov’s original novels.
In putting Foundation together for Apple TV+, Executive Producer David S. Goyer had to take some creative license to make the series work for a visual storytelling medium. Many other studios tried to create a version of Foundation that stayed closer to Asimov’s books. HBO even took a stab at it years ago, tagging Jonathan Nolan, the writer and product behind Interstellar and Westworld, to try to put something together. However, no one was able to develop something that worked.
When Goyer came up with the project for Apple TV+, he cast aside the notion of diligently following Asimov’s narrative, deciding that a thousand-year concept-driven story covering a galaxy-sprawling empire of 500 quadrillion people across millions of inhabited worlds was too big to put on a screen — especially as a TV series where you want a cast of characters that remain consistent throughout the entire story.
Asimov wrote Foundation to explore larger and deeper concepts, and his books are required reading for any serious science fiction fan. However, Asimov also treated the characters in them as pieces on a chess board — smaller and mostly disposable players for the broader narrative he wanted to explore. That may work when writing a historical documentary, but it doesn’t make for good drama.
Goyer had to play with things to create a layer of continuity that wasn’t in the original novels. In one notable diversion from the books, he turned Emperor Cleon, a single individual who only appeared in Asimov’s prequels, into a “genetic dynasty” of emperors that would persist over the centuries. Lee Pace, who stars as the presiding Galactic Emperor, Brother Day, is portraying a new clone of his character in each new season.
Pace is naturally returning for season 3, as are Lou Llobell (“Gaal Dornick”), Jared Harris (“Hari Seldon”), Terrence Mann (“Brother Dusk”), Cassian Bilton (“Brother Dawn”), Laura Birn (“Demerzel”), and Rowena King (“Kalle”).
While Mikael Persbrandt played the Mule in his brief season 2 appearances, that role will go to new cast member Pilou Asbæk for season 3, where the character will have a much more prominent presence.
Other actors joining Foundation for season 3 include Emmy Award winner Cherry Jones (The West Wing, 24), Brandon P. Bell (Mission: Impossible III), Synnøve Karlsen (Last Night in Soho), Cody Fern (Fairyland), Tómas Lemarquis (Waiting for Anya), Alexander Siddig (Star Trek: Deep Space 9), plus Academy Award winner Troy Kotsur (CODA).
It took Foundation a while to hit its stride in its first season, but by the time season 2 ended, it had scored a remarkable 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Season 3 will premiere on July 11, followed by a new episode each week until September 12.
