chronicles frozen
Some rumors claim that the next world blockbuster will be the movie adaptation of Asimov’s trilogy: Foundation. This would be a titanic project. Yet, whether it is true or not, Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, who originally thought about it, sparked off thousands of comments on the Internet.
For the science-fiction lovers, Star Wars is a copy of Asimov’s work. If Asimov has always maintained he had been inspired by the Roman Empire, nevertheless, Georges Lucas has always denied having taken inspiration from Asimov’s work.
Only too many hints show the Star Wars director’s bad faith. I’m not the only one to believe that.
To sum up, the plot of Foundation takes place at the beginning of the third Millennium. Hari Seldon, who created the psychohistory (which enables to foretell the future), announces the end of the Empire. Worried, he thus creates and manages Foundation: an institution in charge of collecting all the human knowledge from the Origins.
Yet here comes the Mule, a mutant capable of getting into the human mind to manipulate it. He wants to conquer the Empire. He wants to make the human race his. Except that Seldon is supposed to have created a second organization, a second foundation, hidden in the edges of the cosmos, capable of training the human beings to resist the Mule and the mental alienation.
The fight between the second Foundation and the Mule will be merciless. Maybe the scenario is nothing more than the illustration of the fight between the free men and the alienated men (Nazism, Stalinism, Salazarism, etc.). Never mind if the director of Star Wars was indeed inspired by Foundation. Oddly enough, we can notice that:
The robots R2D2 and C3PO remind of the three Laws of Robotics from Asimov. Yoda, the wise man in Star Wars reminds of Seldon the wise man in Foundation. The topic of the empire, the confederation and the cosmic universe is tangible in Asimov’s work.
I’ll stop here for I’m not the Holy Inquisition (holy by the name only!)
Both works declare the victory of the Good over the Evil; nevertheless, in Star Wars, if the Good triumphs thanks to the sword (or the light saber), on the contrary, in Asimov’s text, the Good triumphs thanks to knowledge.
Nuno
