...according to the Hollywood Reporter. I wonder if they'll tap into the current climate of declinism.
Hari Seldon is oddly reminiscent of Osama bin Laden in some ways: an inaccessible, charismatic figure who is likely dead but periodically resurfaces in the form of video recordings in order to encourage his followers and utter oracular pronouncements. The difference is that Laden is a bit more proactive in bringing about the Fall of the Empire. (Also, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult was a total fan of the Foundation novels and apparently used them as a blueprint for the group's command structure and long-term plans.)
My favorite moment in the novels is when everybody in the First Foundation expectantly awaits the day when a new Hari Seldon recording is scheduled to play. They hope that Seldon's address will offer solutions to the current problems facing the polity, and reassure them of their predetermined destiny of prosperity and greatness. (The comfort, the respite from the terror of history afforded by the Seldon Plan is not unlike the one peddled by Marxism. There are also shades of Manifest Destiny.)
The grand day arrives at last. However, as the tape plays and they listen to Seldon's speech recorded centuries earlier, an horrific realization slowly dawns on them: Seldon is wrong this time. The current situation in nothing like the one he prophetised. The Seldon Plan has been derailed by The Mule, and the citizens of the Foundation are left adrift on a sea of uncertainty.
I'm not exactly a fan of Asimov's writing, but that is a truly sublime moment of cognitive dissonace. I hope they'll do it justice in the movie.
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