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The Man in the High Castle (WW2 Alt History, Ridley Scott. Need I say more?)

the atom

the atom

Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
Location
Comfortably numb
I noticed that there was no thread for this rather fantastic show. Let's fix that shall we?

The general premise is (mercifully vague), but it goes loosely something like this: Basically Roosevelt is assassinated in 1933, and is replaced with a more isolationist president who ignores the Japanese threat until they annihilate the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. Meanwhile, Germany's nuclear weapons program is far, far more competent than it was in real life, and it wins the war through atomic firepower.

In the end the Axis conquers most of the planet, including the continental United States, which is split between the Greater Nazi Reich and the Empire of Japan.
 
I saw someone bitch about it over a Skype chat the other night. Torture. And cops with Nazi armbands. Apparently he found it ridiculous.
 
the atom said:
I noticed that there was no thread for this rather fantastic show. Let's fix that shall we?

The general premise is (mercifully vague), but it goes loosely something like this: Basically Roosevelt is assassinated in 1933, and is replaced with a more isolationist president who ignores the Japanese threat until they annihilate the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. Meanwhile, Germany's nuclear weapons program is far, far more competent than it was in real life, and it wins the war through atomic firepower.

In the end the Axis conquers most of the planet, including the continental United States, which is split between the Greater Nazi Reich and the Empire of Japan.
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Up to episode 4 or 5, had to take a break. Genuinely kind of unsettling.

What sold me on it was that Burn Gorman, as the self-styled marshall, would be in any other show a horrid cartoon of a villain. Here, he's an uncomfortably plausible grotesque.

So far it's juggled it's many interleaving plots with alacrity, hopefully that continues to be the case.
 
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the atom said:
I thought that was a great touch honestly. The way the show subverts American symbology is incredibly eery
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Take the cop who flags Joe down. Barring the armband and the colour of the thing, his rig is basically what one might expect a contemporaneous Massachusetts State trooper to wear, for example.

MissingJimbo said:
Yet to see it myself, so I'm reserving judgement here.
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Even if I didn't like it, I'd suggest that you give it go to the tune of a couple of episodes.

e: content
 
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On a tangential note, it was a bit disorienting to see Nazi flags up in the middle of the University of British Colombia when I visited while they were filming. I'll have to check out the show.

 
....

No, not really buying it. Even if the US stayed isolationist in total until the start of 1942, there's just too much industry. Not gonna watch it, I'd be nitpicking it from the start and I don't want to put up with that.
 
Richardson said:
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No, not really buying it. Even if the US stayed isolationist in total until the start of 1942, there's just too much industry. Not gonna watch it, I'd be nitpicking it from the start and I don't want to put up with that.
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What part of 'being nuked into submission' was unclear to you? In any case, the show is extremely vague about how the war actually occurred. It's only ever alluded to in the rare off hand remark and takes up basically none of the focus.
 
the atom said:
What part of 'being nuked into submission' was unclear to you? In any case, the show is extremely vague about how the war actually occurred. It's only ever alluded to in the rare off hand remark and takes up basically none of the focus.
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The fact that there are so many factors that have to go 'work of god' right for germany to get a bomber to the US in a timeframe before the US can build up its own nuclear arsenal and find a way to strike back? Or the fact that even if they pull that off, Germany can't land a beachhead of sufficient size to actually manage to invade the US while holding onto continental eurasia, what with the US being something like 5 times its size (conservatively), across a goddamn ocean, and they're busy trying to keep their own backyard down?

It's basically a big enough suspension of disbelief issue that I'm just never going to be able to get into the series, and despite being interesting at first glance this doesn't really do me anything.
 
There is a timeline in which the Nazi are ridiculously fucking lucky, going far further than they realistically could've hoped for. Its called canon, also known as Real Life. Moreover some of the major screw-ups that helped bring the Nazis down were driven by the same insane chutzpah that allowed them to get anywhere in the first place. They kept pulling "you'd have to be crazy to do X" until it finally started blowing up in their faces.
 
Richardson said:
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No, not really buying it. Even if the US stayed isolationist in total until the start of 1942, there's just too much industry. Not gonna watch it, I'd be nitpicking it from the start and I don't want to put up with that.
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The series is an adaptation of a novel by Philip K. Dick, and while we can easily acknowledge that Dick's worldbuilding is quite distant from actual reality, it really must be noted that prior to 1962 - the year the book was published - a lot of the actual historical records and materials on World War II had not yet been declassified, so Dick - being a civilian author with no official clearance - was working off a very limited pool of information. This isn't a man who didn't do his homework, but a man who was writing a work of speculative fiction about a historical event, the details of which had not been made public record at the time. ^_^;

It's okay if you'd still be nitpicking and if that'd still cut into your enjoyment of this show (I've only watched the pilot so far, liked it for what it was worth), but do please understand the OOC context. ^_^;
 
Finished watching the first season, and what a ride it was! While it is a bit of a leap for the Nazis and Imperial Japan to invade and divide America like that in the first place, I found exploration of the consequences of such a victory quite interesting.

I really enjoyed how immersive the worldbuilding was. Not spelling it out, but forcing you to watch and interpret what you see to understand how its an alt history in more ways than one. The way Imperial Japanese and Reich culture is interwoven into America is damn creepy, surreal, and quite a feat of cinematics. Also liked all the old-fashioned cars around, nice touch.

Kinda found the center-stage plots of personal dramas and romances to be slightly detracting from the series though. What is going on with those films?!? Its been 10 episodes and we barely got any clues or straight answers about any of them.

Looking forward to season two regardless. This is a really well-made show and I bet its going to win a lot of awards.
 
Richardson said:
....

No, not really buying it. Even if the US stayed isolationist in total until the start of 1942, there's just too much industry. Not gonna watch it, I'd be nitpicking it from the start and I don't want to put up with that.
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The show is not a documentary. The events are fictional.

Ironically this sort of reaction is why the common 'America invaded' stories are generally so lame: America is so unassailable that any such story has to include elaborate and silly stuff about how it happened in the first place. This makes it difficult for art to actually explore those themes, or use stuff like the Nazis to view our own society.

Whether the story is good is only somewhat related to how 'realism history' it is. That book about the Nazis controlling Europe into the 60s by covering up the Holocaust and the dirty secret coming out was great because of what it said, regardless of how much it isn't 'realism'.
 
So since you guys have left this thread sit very idle.

What we think season 2 will be like if(a very likely if granted) when Season 2 occurs?
Sublink said:
The show is not a documentary. The events are fictional.

Ironically this sort of reaction is why the common 'America invaded' stories are generally so lame: America is so unassailable that any such story has to include elaborate and silly stuff about how it happened in the first place. This makes it difficult for art to actually explore those themes, or use stuff like the Nazis to view our own society.

Whether the story is good is only somewhat related to how 'realism history' it is. That book about the Nazis controlling Europe into the 60s by covering up the Holocaust and the dirty secret coming out was great because of what it said, regardless of how much it isn't 'realism'.
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That....and well.... while the books never mention a detailed reason for Nazi victory...The Boundaries are not 100% there. Sometimes, you might fall a bit too far to the side when all you have don is look at something. Who knows what wunder weapons Sqaur Mustache Man obtained that the book or shows never mention.
 
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So, how are people liking season 3?

I feel it's not as strong as season 2, but it's nice that we actually get some answers for a change.
 
Not going to lie, as sad as what happened to Thomas was; I can't stop thinking "well what the fuck did you expect?" whenever John Smith is upset about it. :V

Also, yeah, I think it's weaker than season 2 but still pretty decent. I'm ignoring my own boredom with bland WW2 alt-histories as this is sorta the Ur- version so it gets more of a pass.
 
I'm betting we get Alt-Frank and/or Alt-Joe next season.

Wish that they would remember that Juliana was depressed at the start of the series, and actually adress it.

That said, they actually addressed Therapyshaming as an issue with helen's subplot, which is great.
 
1: Sorta wishing we had a little more worldbuilding on the Japanese side. We see the inner machinations of both the GNR and Germany itself. We see San Francisco and the highest ranking Japanese authorities we're familiar with are a Chief Inspector and a Trade Minister. We know very little about the government of the PSA and we haven't even seen Tokyo, much less know what's going on there beyond a minor liberalization.

2: I love how clownshoes these specially bred Nazi super soldier assassins are.

3: I'm more than a little irritated how Mengele is portrayed as this great mad scientist rather than the deranged sadist he actually was. His idea of 'science' was closer to a grade schooler pulling the wings off of flies than anything resembling even the most unethical medical practices.
 
the atom said:
1: Sorta wishing we had a little more worldbuilding on the Japanese side. We see the inner machinations of both the GNR and Germany itself. We see San Francisco and the highest ranking Japanese authorities we're familiar with are a Chief Inspector and a Trade Minister. We know very little about the government of the PSA and we haven't even seen Tokyo, much less know what's going on there beyond a minor liberalization.
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What about this map that was showed in season 3.

 
The easing off of Hitler in this fictional work and showing him as the lesser of two evils is interesting to say the least.

He is implied to have done bad things, but it is all off screen.

It isn't really surprising, but I feel its a bit disturbing, if expected, that some fans of this series are real life Neo Nazi fans who use this fictional portrayal of Hitler to show what a 'great and wise man' they think he was.

Seeing people on some sites talk about him is a good reminder how such ideas aren't as uncommon as they seem sometimes.


The history of the verse is interesting. In this world, many Allied nations were so poorly run they had no economic or other ability, or political or general morale in the rest of society, to fight back.
The Axis powers are thus not just able to win the war, but conquer and occupy the entire world, and find many collaborators and other people who support them.

I wonder what the world population looks like in this verse, and if the dictatorships are a reason things seem to stagnate compared to IRL in many fields. I think tech overall might be advancing slower due to less social mobility, spending time and manpower oppressing populations (even if not in a comical comic book supervillain way, its still doing this in a villainous way), and probably worse organizational structure.
Dictatorships often like to present themselves running like a well oiled machine, but not only does this usually stifle things like creativity, usually the well run part is just surface appearance, and inside is fully of inefficiency and corruption.

I do wonder if they'll focus more on things like the Holocaust, or Japan and Germany's purge plans they had post war, some of which got enacted during the war.
 
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I like how John Smith is rising through the rank while his family is falling apart.

Hope Himmler die. The actor is really great at making me hate him.
 
sapphirenebula said:
The history of the verse is interesting. In this world, many Allied nations were so poorly run they had no economic or other ability, or political or general morale in the rest of society, to fight back.
The Axis powers are thus not just able to win the war, but conquer and occupy the entire world, and find many collaborators and other people who support them.
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Considering the basic premise of the Amazon series, it only makes sense that things turned out the way they did.
 
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