This series is confusing and nothing like the book. It is also hard to follow, and
pointless. The book was confusing too, but in an entertaining and interesting way.
This second season is not as good as the first where there was kind os iterest
buiding while watching and tryingt to figure out what is what,
Too bad because a ot of meny and time in this ... it just comes off as dense and
too complicate.
I agree. I watched the first season because I thought the overall concept was intriguing. But the second season was pretty awful all around. I won't watch a third season.
shareAs a reader of alternative history I like the concept but I find the show to have so many problems.
The source material for one is OK, certainly not Philip K. Dick's best work. It is a short book that has an interesting premise and that's about it. It doesn't translate well to a TV series.
The Man in the High Castle is first, a confusing title that doesn't attract the masses, and as source material is kind of light on details.
Personally I think Amazon would have been better off adapting Turtledove's series where the South won the Civil War and the USA and CSA fought on opposites sides in WWI. That could have been Amazon's Game of Thrones. It has multiple characters to follow, different settings, etc.
The other option would have been to just call it "American Reich" and make up a fully original story. That wouldn't have painted the writers into a corner. I mean if you're going to do an original story why bother with such weak and confusing source material?
The best part of the book is the "feeling" of it, and that sort of translated
into parts of the first season, but the writing is not good and the characterizations
are flat ... there is nothing to recommend it, but again the special effects.
There were certain parts of the arcs of different characters that they would
have done well to keep, but ... well, I don't really know what they were trying
do to with this series but exploit P. K. Dick's name.
I think "It Can't Happen Here" would have translated better into a tv series.
shareI just finished watching Season 2. I thought it rescued the series a little
bit, that is there was more solid plot and a point to it.
Will there be a season 3 or is all that needs to be said been said?
There was one really good scene in the book that I liked that they completely
omitted, and that was a shame. It was an attack on the Japanese trade
bilding and Tagami's office. They never had Tagami buying the revolver,
but they were all shooting Nazis together.
Who knows maybe that shows up in Season 3, but this show did not
really have the feeling of the book. It could have been good, even better
than the book.
That was a great scene where he shot the Germans when they made it up to his floor.
The problem I have with the book is the ending. Juliana visits the man in the high castle, harasses the guy about where he got the idea from the book, then decides she doesn't care and walks off.
I would have liked an explanation. I guess PKD decided to leave it open. Though I read somewhere he thought about writing a sequel. Don't know if that's true or not.
PKD was going to write a sequel, but couldn't due to the horrible nature of the NAZI's. He thought, perhaps he might co-author a sequel, but nothing came of it.
sharePersonally I preferred season 2.
Clearing up the alternate reality storyline actually made the show more acceptable for me to watch, because the premise of a Nazi America seemed a little ridiculous and hard to take seriously. Of course it was the main draw/premise of the show, but it's an ambitious concept perhaps best suited for a novel or a big-budget film, not a TV series with a more average budget.
Seeing everyday New Yorkers adopt the Nazi society so seamlessly (within 1 generation) didn't sit right. I get that 50s-70s America was racist, chauvinistic, etc. but embracing foreign fascist principals (Nazi youth upbringing) .... It just wouldn't happen in 'cowboy America' of all places, especially it relied on American military hierarchy (since Germany's native population was so much smaller and across the ocean) to enforce the principals locally.
The supernatural elements shifted my focus from trying to accept this alt.-history premise, and just made it a fascinating backdrop for an interesting story with many layers. Granted, I know that multi-verse jumping is even more sci-fi and unbelievable, but it made it feel more like a Star Trek concept than a style-piece, and it worked better for me this way.
Also, I think it took pressure off the actors, because I wasn't impressed with the main characters' acting and dialogue the first season (besides Smith, of course -- who seemed like a crazy enough bastard who'd carry on the Nazi agenda as America's leader). I don't think there were any bad actors in the series, but Joe/Juliana in particular just seemed to have a tall order, with mediocre dialogue to work with.
By adding more and more surprises and crazy layers to the story, IMO it saved the show and gave the actors less pressure.
> Seeing everyday New Yorkers adopt the Nazi society so seamlessly (within 1 generation) didn't sit right.
That was something maybe the series did not present right.
In the book they talk about how ruthless the Nazis were in the invasion
of America, killing all non-Aryans, and then the mentioned even worse
with Africa where it was written they killed everyone and and used
nuclear weapons indiscriminately. What we see in the series is the
relatively tame part after a peace had been established and going for
a while.
I thought it was kind of interesting how they used the term "pons"
for the Japanese, which I imagine was chosen so that it was not insulting,
like japs or nips or some other pejorative would have been on American
TV.
But, look at what they did to Juliana's sister and her children for nothing. I think
people would knuckle under and be glad to be alive after something like
that, or to avoid that. People are easy to terrorize truth be known. Look
at how scared America got after 911 which was dramatic for its effects,
but surprisingly minor damage.
I never really thought about or cared how much pressure the actors are
under when I watch a movie or TV program.
All in all I did not care for this series much, except for the Phillip K. Dick
byline just because as a kid I liked his stories.
I thought it mentioned in the book that they were doing medical experimentation on the people in Africa.
I think you meant Frank's sister and her children.
People talk about not liking Joe and Juliana's characters on the show which I agree with, but if you read the book I cared even less about either of them.
Yeah, the sister.Juliana's sister was shot in the first episode,
You had to go looking for something like about the book characters,
that's true. Mr. Tagami seemed OK in both the book and the series,
but he was a main character in the book, and in the movie he was
too, but they hardly focused on him. The series are schzoid or something,
it was just bad. There were a lot of things included that were never used.
Like the detour with that agent guy, who was just killed and that was
it. Joe's part was enlarged, and that plot was pretty good, but there
was not much or a relationship point between him and Juliana.
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Don't lecture me, it is not true to the book either,... who do you think you are, Perry Mason or something?
Get lost!
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