Talking to Emmerich about his plans for Foundation, you can’t help but feel that he isn’t particularly enthused about the technology. Reports from those who attended the Avatar screenings were also mixed between indifference and positive impressions, but perhaps the main problem underscoring the director’s ambitions is that, for him, he just doesn’t seem all that convinced by any of the material released so far. “In truth I’m not really a big fan of 3D at all, that’s my problem, and I know that I’ll have to do a 3D movie one day, because the studio will ask for it. But I can always watch my 2D version and be happy, right? I’m interested in how these two great directors will solve the problem. Or not solve it, of course. I’ve been a little underwhelmed by the Avatar trailers so far, I have to say.”
In terms of the property itself, to 3D or not to 3D is the least of the director’s worries. Foundation itself is a tough series to convert to the screen, at least without hours and hours of verbatim transposition due to its very nature as an epic, fragmented novel. Asimov’s science-fiction saga spans 15 novels and dozens of short stories, as well as numerous novels written by other authors following the iconic master’s death in 1992. For those who aren’t familiar with the story, the premise follows a number of threads that centre on a philosopher and scientist named Hari Seldon, who spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, which is used to accurately predict events in the future on a large scale using the behavioural predictability of large groups of people. Seldon predicts the fall of the vast Galactic Empire, and a dark age that will last tens of thousands of years until a second Empire arises. In order to shorten the length of time humanity will spend isolated and cut off from each other, he established two Foundations, which are styled as havens of knowledge. The original trilogy focuses on the Foundation on Terminus, which is building a galactic encyclopaedia, and will serve as a springboard for the next empire in 1,000 years as opposed to 30,000.
Given such a wide-ranging storyline that covers hundreds of years, Foundation has long been grouped into the elite collection of literary titles that have been deemed unfilmable. Emmerich, however, believes that he and his scriptwriter, Robert Rodat, have found a solution. “I’m waiting every day for my script to arrive,” Emmerich answers quickly. “I worked very intensely with Bob Rodat, the scriptwriter of Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot – I worked with him on The Patriot – and he just had the best take on it. He read all the books four or five times, he knew every character, and he had a really good idea of how to solve it. Foundation is difficult, because Asimov wrote them as short stories for magazines like Amazing Stories, and because of that, only in the second or third book he started to realise that he’s writing a science-fiction epic, so it’s very, very hard. But we’ve figured out a way to write this movie.”
Although Emmerich refused to budge on what that formula was, his enthusiasm for the material shone through far more than his muted admission of possibly using 3D technology. “I’m really curious to see what Bob’s come up with,” he said simply, with a smile.
This article originally appeared in the print edition of SciFiNow, issue 34. To buy a copy and read our full interview with Roland Emmerich, go to www.imagineshop.com, or see your local newsagent.
