The Man in the High Castle

Cybsled

Cybsled

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3.00 star(s) Rating: 3.00/5 1 Vote
Title: The Man in the High Castle

Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

First aired: 2015-01-15

Creator: Ridley Scott

Cast: Rufus Sewell, Luke Kleintank, Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, DJ Qualls, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Joel de la Fuente

Overview: Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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[SERIES][TVPOSTER]View attachment 98549[/TVPOSTER][SERIESWRAP][EPISODENAME]The Man in the High Castle[/EPISODENAME]

Genre: [GENRE]Drama[/GENRE]

First Aired: [RELEASE]2015-01-15[/RELEASE]

Overview: [PLOT]Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States.[/PLOT][/SERIESWRAP][/SERIES]

Amazon.com: The Man in the High Castle [HD]:AmazonInstant Video

This flew totally under the radar for me, even though I'm familiar with the Philip K Dick novel of the same name.Amazonjust released their new line of show pilots and this was one of them.

As a background, the book is essentially an alternate history/reality novel in which the main story takes place in the 1960s, but one in which Germany and Japan won WW2 (think Wolfenstein: The New Order). The US is basically split between the two nations, with Germany controlling most of it. However, relations between Germany and Japan aren't the strongest, especially with Hitler rumored to be in very poor health.

While some of the CGI was a little iffy in a few spots, overall it was a really solid pilot and made me want to see the rest of the series. If you have anAmazonPrime sub, it is worth checking out, especially if you love "what if?" historical scenarios.
 
Qhue

Qhue

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I am a total sucker for Alt-History sort of sci-fi (Crimson Skies, Deadlands, Temeraire etc) so I may be a bit biased, but I found this to be exceptional. While parts of the setting seemed a bit over the top (the hospital bit for example) the overall theme and portrayal of what an alternate version of 1962 would be like had the Axis won seemed quite fascinating. At the heart it is essentially a Cold War setting but with the flip to Germany and Japan instead of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I found it amusing that in this alternative portrayal that german engineering has proceeded quickly along the tech curve while Japan is seen as much less technologically advanced and more spiritual. Naturally we find it amusing to think of Japan as anything other than a technology powerhouse, but most of that development came about as part of the U.S. led reconstruction of Japanese industry. In the 60s people still thought of Japanese products as cheap and shoddy even though that was soon to change (Mad Men did a nice bit about this with their Honda ad campaign in season 4 I think it was)

I voted for it on the Pilot Season web page and the overall initial results show that people are flocking to it more than the other shows... but I wonder ifAmazonwill lean more towards serious / edgy subject matter following the success of Transparent rather than going for the obvious popcorn appeal of this show.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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Well, you have to have a good mix of shows to attract a wide audience. Netflix didn't make a bunch of House of Card clones after the success of that show and found success in other types of shows (like Orange is the New Black).

In any case, I hope it gets a full season order. I do wonder how many seasons you could realistically squeeze from the source material and avoid answering the main mystery in the show for as long as possible...you obviously want to avoid a 'Lost' scenario (ie, 3 seasons of the hatch bs), although the advantage of this over a show like Lost is the world this takes place in has a lot more material to expand and explore (politics/world building/etc), but eventually people would want answers about the core mystery/plot line.
 
Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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I watched this and really liked it. I hope it gets picked up. I keep thinking that I've seen the woman before. She looks like the woman who played Jack in the movie The Chronicles of Riddick.
 
khalid

khalid

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Really enjoyed this. I picked up the book it is based on, but now not sure I want to read it and spoil the show.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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AmazonOrders Full Season Of (Video) | Deadline

Amazonpicked it up for a full season. The fact it was their most watched pilot episode will hopefully convince them to spend some money on it
wink.png
 
Leadsalad

Leadsalad

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I'm hoping it turns into an excellent miniseries to cover the book. Then they could potentially go forward from the source. Dragging out the book though would be awfully boring.
 
Qhue

Qhue

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Oooo nice! Looking forward to this. I do like how the whole nature of 'TV' programming has changed now with these new content producers.
 
cabbitcabbit

cabbitcabbit

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Pretty different from the book but I really enjoyed it.

I'm wondering how they'll finish it though because that book gets SUPER fucking strange near the end.

Edit: At least strange if you're not familiar with how Philip K. Dick operated in his writing.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Was disappointed this was only a pilot, fully prepared to binge watch this while not being able to sleep. QQ will have to wait. Was really good though.
 
KCXIV

KCXIV

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Intrinsic_sl said:
Was disappointed this was only a pilot, fully prepared to binge watch this while not being able to sleep. QQ will have to wait. Was really good though.
Click to expand...
Amazonis doing it right, letting the people decide if the show should be a go or not before proceeding. I love that they do that.,
 
iannis

iannis

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It would be really hard to make a good miniseries on that book. And it would kinda be racist as fuck, too.

Not saying it CAN'T be done, because it could.

Honestly from the trailer it looks like they've fucked with it too much. It was an extremely subdued story.

1/2 of the entire book was told from the perspective of that one Japanese guy. And that's a really important perspective to have in the story. And I didn't see it at all in the trailer.
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And they didn't even picture the I Ching... which is what PUT the man in the High Castle to begin with.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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Iannis, there is a thing called "adaptation". It is the magical process by which you take a source material and can adapt it for TV, which allows one to remove outdated or unwanted materials (ie, racism)!

The pilot came out last year on Amazon and you can watch it if you look around hard enough.
 
iannis

iannis

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Yeah, that's true.

But the entire point of the story was racism. So it's hard to take that out and keep anything about the work which was important. Then it just becomes another "What if Hitler won?" story. Which, if you read Dick's notes on his own story, is something he did not want it to be.

If you're gonna do that it's perfectly fine. It just seems like it would be more respectful to leave his name out of it.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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Well, in the pilot we didn't see much because it is establishing the main characters. However, Japan was content to allow most of the non-Japanese people leave and travel to the "Neutral zone" area. It was telling that the main heroine character was pretty much the only white person on the bus.
 
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