Started to watch "The Man in the High Castle"

Started watching "The Man in the High Castle" and have to say i have thoroughly enjoyed the show. On the last episode now and was just wondering if any of the other members of ATS have been watch and what your opinions are regarding the program? I love anything alternate history orientated and enjoy the scenarios portrayed in the show.

Certainly makes one think as to how different the world could be should things have transpired differently during world war two. Considering CERN are apparently experimenting with contacting another parallel universe one has to wonder could there really be other reality's where significant historical events have played out differently, and if so what would be the implications of actually contacting and/or interacting with them?

Edit: Finished the 10th episode, generally quite liked the ending but a few things i dont quite understand. The Japaneses trade minister appears to somehow travel from the Nazi/Japanese reality to what looks like our own, i can live with that, mind over matter and all that jazz. But how on earth did the news reals from our reality travel to the Nazi/Japanese reality?

Guess its time to read the book.

a reply to: andy06shake

i watched the first 2 but i need to grab the rest.
so far i think it is pretty good. i hope it lives up to what i hope it will be.
great idea for a show.
pretty stunning visuals. big ass swastika in time square. weird

Just watched the 1st episode and can't imagine that just the dropping of a bomb in washington would in a few years lead to such a state but as i said to the mrs...just consider this to be an alternative reality where who knows how many different things happened as well, looks good for a watch so far

Hahah trust me, discovering the truth about our history is like bumping into a parallel dimension.

a reply to: 0hlord

Well that is also very true, shades of grey and all that jazz.

The main problem being our historical events are recorded by the victors. That being said the information age in which we live offers somewhat more hope regarding multiple perspectives actually being recorded for posterity.

As a big fan of Dick (but I'm a straight male, for the record... sorry, I crack myself up sometimes), I wonder if it will be comparable to the book... but I'm not very optimistic...

most of the screen adaptations of PKD's work don't translate well, and I can't see how they could get the internal dialogues and psychological angst properly presented on a screen...

but I will watch it, anyway... because it's PKD... not to mention dealing in alternate timelines/realities, Nazi's and such.

Hmm another PKD adaptation well at least they can not mess up worse then both Total Recall's

Neither of those are IMHO even close to "We Remember it for you, Wholesale."

Just Remember Soy-lent Green is Peoples....

a reply to: andy06shake

Just watched the first episode so far, planning to continue. My brother watched more but said it got slow for his taste. I already ordered the book, as I feel it's a story that lends better to book than show, but I believe I'll enjoy both.

If a media service were started offering exclusively alternate realities and dystopian worlds, I would subscribe.

I thought it was a great first series.

Very well done however i do have one little peeve that made me sad, all the sets and clothes are brilliant and accurate for the time period - yet with all this attention to detail the boom mic drops into shot on the very first episode. Such a shame the editing didnt catch that, kinda let the team down, i feel bad for them.

aaaaaaaaaanyway, great show, mind bending theme and plot - definitly highly reccomended.

+1

a reply to: Biigs

All in all i was quite partial to it myself. Certainly going to give the book a try. I had a quick glace at it just after i downloaded the show and found it to be rather dry to begin with, only got about 20-30 pages in before i decided to just go with the series. Hopefully that will have changed somewhat.

a reply to: andy06shake

If you like alternative history science fiction, look up Harry Turtledove. He wrote an excellent series about aliens landing during ww2, and how that changed the course of history. He also wrote a what if about napoleon if he had become a monk, vs soldier, as well as a very excellent series about what if the south won there independance during the civil war and the ramifications on ww1. Another book he wrote was what if neanderthal had moved south early, and and what would the ramifications have been with 2 seperate human species fighting for control of earth.

Overall he is an excellent author right up there with asimov. If you like this series, you will love his books.

Camain

a reply to: camain

I read some of Harry Turtledove works while still in school, reptilian invasion being the premise of such. Loved his stuff, might give it another go. Thanx

a reply to: Baddogma

There are some key differences from the book but I don't think it detracts too much from the story. First change is that instead of books movies are being circulated. Also all of that crap about the "resistance" is not in the book either. I actually found that aspect to be disappointing. I think people unfamiliar with the book will be expecting some type of good/evil type of set up but its not really that way. The resistance is more or less used as a vehicle to explore the setting and such.

Overall I found the series enjoyable but mostly due to the care taken in world building. I think most people will miss the greater realizations such as the ending.

a reply to: camain

There is a comic series called "The Manhattan Projects" which deals with some interesting alternative history concerning WW2 and the cold war. It doesn't contain the depth of a novel but I found it interesting. Essentially the Manhattan project becomes a cover for a lot of high science weirdness.

Here is a brief view of some of the Characters and how they have changed from their historical counterparts

Joseph Oppenheimer, an American physicist with multiple personalities; Robert Oppenheimer's evil twin brother
Albert Einstein, a German physicist and barbarian
Albrecht Einstein, a German physicist and alcoholic from an alternate reality
Richard Feynman, an American physicist and wormholer
Enrico Fermi, an extraterrestrial disguised as an Italian physicist
William Westmoreland, a US Army general and butcher
Harry Daghlian, an irradiated American physicist; the "Atomic Messiah"
Wernher von Braun, a German rocket scientist with robotic prosthetic limbs
Leslie Groves, a US Army general who constantly smokes cigars and prefers the use of bombs in combat
FDR: A.I., the artificial intelligence of the deceased American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Lyndon B. Johnson, an American president from Texas
Harry S. Truman, a Freemason and American president
Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and hero
Laika, a Russian space dog who can speak and is much smarter than people think
Helmutt Gröttrup, a German rocket scientist and slave
Dmitriy Ustinov, a Russian Minister of Defense
John F. Kennedy, an alcoholic, drug-addicted, womanizing American president

Finished watching the fourth and final season and I am pissed. The ending is inexplicable.

They sent John Smith to the dark side. I thought for sure he'd see the way forward was to destroy Nazism in the US.

I really wanted Rufus Sewell to end on a positive note. I wonder how he feels about how it ended.

Sad, really. There was so much blown potential storyline.