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LinkesAuge posted:My assumption is just that while he can't trust his own people 100% it's still better than not using them at all. I will admit that using both sides can have the opposite effect but there is a certain logic to it and some adverse is simply something he accepts in the bigger picture. Real‐life Hitler liked to give his underlings overlapping duties and have them compete with each other. Don’t like the way the army (Wehrmacht) is acting? Expand you person bodyguard into a full army (Waffen‐SS).
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Dec 6, 2015 02:22
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Blackchamber posted:And when the one resistance guy examines the films to verify them... whats he looking for exactly? All the films are different, its not like hes seen them all and can identify every scene and thing in them that holding a magnifying glass up to one or two cells hes going to be able to say for certain if the film is what they are looking for, genuine, or if its some fake nazi film or some guys home movie. I'm sure if it shows anything military without prolpgamda title cards before i it must be banned, therefore must be the film they want. drunkill fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 06:43
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i think he just has a transdimensional time camera and gets really bored
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Dec 6, 2015 20:57
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drunkill posted:Making sure it isn't just a reel of popeeye. That wouldn't be good enough. If the Nazis are trying to find the resistance (why they sent Joe) so they can get at the man in the high castle, they could use raw footage without propaganda title cards and use it as a fake to at least get past a cursory examination. Given the value the films hold, I'm surprised they even let Joe have it and make him drop it off somewhere if they didn't plan on letting him use it the way he did.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:19
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Abel Wingnut posted:some of the goddamn dialogue is awful and a lot of the acting is just hamfisted, like i can't tell if it's trying to be noir or realistic or what, but i'm interested enough in the premise to keep along. and there's something about the way it's shot that really annoys me. This has been quoted already so I'm thirding the sentiment. One of my friends said it feels like a BBC drama inspired by a book. The dialogue just doesn't have that secret sauce of realistic human interaction. So many scenes that made me go "They went with that take?" I love the premise, though.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:12
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BottledBodhisvata posted:There's no reason to not keep going, the first season has a real ambiguous ending and you never even meet the Man in the High Castle! Or did you? Looked like a castle in the alps to me. I suppose they are going to do a second season but, it's Amazon so that's not a given. If they don't, then overall I have to say is was a very unsatisfying show for me. I liked the premise and it had plenty of action but, it was depressing and I just don't enjoy shows that leave me depressed or with high anxiety. The only bright spot was that the Trade Minister found his happy place; I can only imagine how he will feel when he discovers the history that made it happen. Outside the Trade Ministers group of conspirators, everyone else was an opportunistic dick; and I'm including Juliana in that. Honestly, I don't think the premise or the storyline is worth more than another 10 episodes at the most. Dick's novels are not very long and many of them leave the reader hanging in the end. Always leave your audience wanting more I guess.
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Dec 7, 2015 10:23
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:This has been quoted already so I'm thirding the sentiment. One of my friends said it feels like a BBC drama inspired by a book. The dialogue just doesn't have that secret sauce of realistic human interaction. So many scenes that made me go "They went with that take?" I can't find anything indicating how popular this show is. I'll be gutted if it doesn't get at least one more season 
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Dec 7, 2015 10:47
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radical meme posted:Or did you? Looked like a castle in the alps to me. Fun fact, in the book the man in the high castle is Hitler. And you never get to see him either (or even be on the same continent as him).
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Dec 7, 2015 12:14
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feedmegin posted:Fun fact, in the book the man in the high castle is Hitler. And you never get to see him either (or even be on the same continent as him).
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Dec 7, 2015 13:06
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feedmegin posted:Fun fact, in the book the man in the high castle is Hitler. And you never get to see him either (or even be on the same continent as him).
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Dec 7, 2015 13:12
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radical meme posted:it was depressing and I just don't enjoy shows that leave me depressed or with high anxiety.
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Dec 7, 2015 14:29
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i like nice words
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sinking belle posted:Funny thing, it was originally gonna be a four-episode BBC show that would have culminated in Juliana and Joe meeting Hawthorne Abendsen before that fell through and it got shopped to SyFy. Which also fell through. It seems like the pilot was the same, but then they pulled back. Juliana and Joe go back to their hometowns, Frank gets released by the Japanese, etc. resetting the world state so they can add a bunch of filler to stretch the show out to 10 episodes and end with one of the last scenes from the book. I was looking forward to this show and don't really care if it got picked up for season 2, I doubt Amazon is going to say "OK do one more season to wrap things up"; the show creator (I believe) was quoted saying he wants to make it three or four seasons, and at some point you can't just keep jerking around the audience.
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Dec 7, 2015 16:07
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Anne Whateley posted:"What if the Nazis won" probably isn't a great premise for you, then. Granted those generally take the "Nazis won" premise and then immediately dive into "...and then the good guys start blowing poo poo up and killing as many motherfucking Nazis as they possibly can" right from the get-go.
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Dec 7, 2015 16:32
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Anne Whateley posted:"What if the Nazis won" probably isn't a great premise for you, then. True enough but, there was still opportunity, even in this story, for some hopeful feel good moments. One of the story lines that I actually appreciated, because he was consistent even though he was a consistent dick, was Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith. I mean the guy could have easily been a character in Nazi Mad Men. He was living the american dream until that doctor kicked him in the nuts and the way he ultimately handled that news could have been revealing; a game changing event that yanked him away from the dark side but, we'll probably never know. My personal thought is that Amazon will not approve a season 2 just because it's Amazon and they haven't shown they are as adept at this as Netflix. Plus, I'm thinking Philip K. Dick would have fully approved of how this season ended and would have left it alone himself, not trying to tie up anything because tying up loose ends is the audiences responsibility.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:20
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The money that was sunk into building a compelling world and the cliffhanger ending all but beg for a second season, and I think this is the only well-received original show that Amazon Prime has produced, right? So, there's a lot of incentive to make this a killer app for them. The story as it stands feels sort of unfinished, and it would be unfinished from about episode four or five onwards. The whole momentum of the plot gets lost when Juliana and Joe go back home. I know this isn't the hero's journey or whatever, but having them out and about and going around and doing stuff kept the show engaging, and all the parts people complain about come from when they are back at home doing their boring poo poo. Also, ditto on the outcome with the Marshal. At first I thought Joe HAD killed him. I mean, a pipe to the back of the head will do that, but nope, he's perfectly fine two scenes later. There's no reason they wouldn't kill him, and no explanation at all. It's pure script stupidity. I can only assume they had a planned scene for some kind of car chase/shootout or something to conclude the Marshal, but they leave him alive to have a pointless subplot in season 2 or whatever I dunno. How the gently caress does one man with a shotgun manage to terrorize an entire lawless community? Like, even hard-nosed sheriffs in Westernville got lynched, and they usually had deputies. This guy is literally a prick with a shotgun enforcing laws in a lawless land. This is America, everyone has guns. Shoot him in the back! That albino kid from the Lana Del Rey music videos randomly having a bit role was neato.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:41
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feedmegin posted:Fun fact, in the book the man in the high castle is Hitler. And you never get to see him either (or even be on the same continent as him). Just an FYI for the people saying "no that's not what happens in the book", you're right, but there is another alt-history novel out there where this does happen (kinda). I'm forgetting the title, but the basic gist is that Hitler becomes a painter, WWII never happens, and later in his life Hitler dabbles in writing sci-fi and writes an "alternate history" (from his point of view) story about a Second World War ands triumphant Germany, if I remember right. It's a sort of inverse High Castle, kinda. I'll post the title when I remember it. Edit- The Iron Dream, by Norman Spinrad Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 22:56
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I actually tried to look up whether it'd been smuggled out or gifted or whatever and wasn't able to find a satisfactory answer, but I guess it's not like they're giving it back anytime soon... Buddhism happened and they needed to write some stuff down, China had already made up a bunch of stuff to do that so.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:10
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Stalin-Chan posted:Buddhism happened and they needed to write some stuff down, China had already made up a bunch of stuff to do that so. Philip K Dick wrote this long and kind of rambling essay about how schizophrenics would and should find great value in consulting the I Ching and that it's quite scientifically and spiritually sound and accurate. Considering that it is still used to this day by Rich Chinese Businessmen is proof of its effective longevity, but its presence in the show is likely a nod to Dick.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:44
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I really like the show, but your protagonists aren't very good when a high ranking Nazi officer is the most sympathetic character. I hope it gets a 2nd season since it really blew the lid off the underlying story in the last 30 seconds that made me feel more favorably about it the more I've mulled it. It's sci fi, not just revisionist history I think opened a lot of interesting plot threads beyond what they'd focused on to expand upon in a second season. I think the intrigue of the show gets more interesting when its about potential universe altering travel than about the films themselves, they did a great job hiding their true value/concern until the very end. It also suffered from some weird production quirks, where it felt like info was skipped or scenes lost, that didn't pull me too far out, but Amazon has some work to do to catch up to Netflix. It also felt like they shot and paced it for TV broadcast when they released it entirely at once which left a bunch of cliffhangers when they probably didn't need to edit it that way. Although reading through this thread that may have been a creative homage to the original author? I really want to see them explore some of the interesting plots in another season, but if this is all we got I'd still think of it positively. I'll be honest Joe had some of the most potential to be interesting, and I feel like they wasted him to the point where the authors weren't sure which side they wanted to have him on so they left it open enough to play it either way down the line. I'm fine with us being in the dark, or characters being in the dark, but it's very underwhelming when I'm not sure the author's/directors know what to do either and are in the dark. Frank and Jules I'd be glad to never see again though, uttery boring. The show did spend way too much time on a love triangle that never really existed either. Jules reminded me too much of Kate from Lost; making all the worst decisions, for the dumbest reasons, explicitly to stretch the plot instead of like doing anything useful. She's always causing problems for everyone, even the people she's trying to help. e: Most of the Japanese characters were wonderfully done. Chief Inspector and the Trade Minister were awesome start to finish. The Notorious ZSB fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 00:04
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Yeah I didn't really like Jules or Joe. I did like Frank, the Trade Minister, the Chief Inspector and Nazi Smith tho. I wonder what will happen to DJ Qualls. It was funny seeing him go from Z Nation to this.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:13
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BottledBodhisvata posted:How the gently caress does one man with a shotgun manage to terrorize an entire lawless community? Like, even hard-nosed sheriffs in Westernville got lynched, and they usually had deputies. This guy is literally a prick with a shotgun enforcing laws in a lawless land. This is America, everyone has guns. Shoot him in the back! The worst part is that he leaves a lot of people around that know he’s got it in for them. They don’t have much to lose in attempting to kill him first.
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Dec 8, 2015 03:36
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BottledBodhisvata posted:The money that was sunk into building a compelling world and the cliffhanger ending all but beg for a second season, and I think this is the only well-received original show that Amazon Prime has produced, right? So, there's a lot of incentive to make this a killer app for them. Transparent is one of the most critically-acclaimed shows out there, and it's an Amazon show, IIRC.
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Dec 8, 2015 05:31
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Platystemon posted:The worst part is that he leaves a lot of people around that know he’s got it in for them. They don’t have much to lose in attempting to kill him first. He literally just rolls around straight-up murdering people and everyone just cowers. It was the most unrealistic part of a show that's based on America being partially conquered by Japan. It's especially goofy when it shows that Lemuel Washington can call on a loving commando squad to intimidate Joe & Jules but apparently all of these rifle-armed guys are on break when the Marshal is wandering about bullying and murdering people and then displaying their corpses. Joe & Jules didn't even grab his gun after knocking him out, they just knocked him out and then hauled rear end. Grabbing the gun isn't even "tactical realism," sheer fear for your life would result in just about anyone having the presence of mind to get the weapon away from him.
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Dec 9, 2015 02:21
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I keep waiting for a show where someone knocks out the bad dude, takes his gun and blows his brains out while he's still unconscious.
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Dec 9, 2015 10:45
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JonathonSpectre posted:Joe & Jules didn't even grab his gun after knocking him out, they just knocked him out and then hauled rear end. Grabbing the gun isn't even "tactical realism," sheer fear for your life would result in just about anyone having the presence of mind to get the weapon away from him.
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Dec 9, 2015 11:38
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Ok, so I don't know what to think of this show at all. I watched the first two episodes at a time where that's all there was, and I binged through the rest in the last week or so. At the end of episode 9, I was really hoping that finally loving Jules would realize Joe was scum and kill him. Of course I was denied that pleasure, because Jules is a terrible character. Like I really don't understand her motivations at all or her stupidity. Repeatedly, Joe messes up and it's clear he's a spy but I guess the show was trying to give some ambiguity to his character. There isn't any, he just likes this one girl he's still a loving Nazi who has no loving problem helping the Reich. It kinda feels like the whole first season of Agents of SHIELD where the girl (who's name escapes me) is also wonderfully stupid about her constantly believing the traitor there, even after he betrays them multiple times. There's stringing out a story line for drama and there's being ridiculous. Also lol at her keep denying that there's nothing between them to Frank. Frank I like but his love for Jules is ultimately self-destructive. She clearly loves Joe, and he knows it. I started to read the book because of this show, but holy God that first chapter is slow as poo poo. A full chapter of Trade Minister consulting the Oracle and agonizing over what antique to get for someone. poo poo. I'm also really not very motivated to read the book if it's just more of the same drivel of an idiot who keeps trusting this spy who just happens to keep showing up at the right moment. loving hell. Also yes, I agree, the most sympathetic character in the whole goddamned show right now is a literal nazi officer who is loyal to Hitler, but will likely die at some point protecting his sick child. EDIT: Also, what is the spoiler policy in this thread?
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Dec 9, 2015 17:24
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JetsGuy posted:Ok, so I don't know what to think of this show at all. I watched the first two episodes at a time where that's all there was, and I binged through the rest in the last week or so. Its been a while since I read the book but I remember the Jules/Joe arc being very very different from the show.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:27
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Like what really frustrates me the most about this show is it has so much potential to be a wonderful show, but they suffer entirely too much from ~main character immunity~ poo poo to actually do really interesting stuff.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:28
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JetsGuy posted:EDIT: Also, what is the spoiler policy in this thread? I believe that spoilers ceased to be required 72 hours after the show became available. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:36
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I can't help myself, but every time Tagomi is on screen, I think "YOUR SOUL IS MINE!".NowonSA posted:(1x2)The worst moment so far for me was Frank's sister and her kids dying, though I still have lots to catch and that's probably trumped later. It's messed up because they probably would have killed them anyway even if he'd told them what he knew, but just the casual nature of the Japanese authorities after the fact. "We found out too late, but you're off the hook. We're not monsters! See, I think that was one of the strongest and best parts of the series, really. The show has so much potential to display the casual brutality that the axis powers had towards human life. Frank's sister and children were nothing more than vermin to them, and it really is driven home in 1x3 where they tell him as enemies of the state, they are to be cremated and given no honors. The show has a couple moments like that where it's brilliant. It's just the right tone of barbarism without being completely just them executing everyone. We're not monsters! and letting Joe go is exactly the kind of thing they'd want. Obey us and you have your peace, disobey and you are ended. But instead the show focuses entirely too much on Jules and her stupid crush on Joe Blake and it blinding her to him being a literal Nazi. I really hope Joe Blake is loving killed horribly early in S2. The character's presence really hurts the show and I think Jules would probably be better without him. That or Frank needs to find his balls and leave her.
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Dec 9, 2015 18:27
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" So messed up. It made me feel bad for letting my general love for Japanese culture shine through when we had our first shots in San Francisco and I was like, well this isn't so bad.
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The show takes the story quite differently but I'll spoiler it anyway since I'm sure some will want to read the book and this is a major spoiler. The plot for Joe and Jules in the book has Jules kill Joe in the mountain states when she realises he's a Nazi spy and he's just using her to get to the man in the high castle.
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Dec 9, 2015 18:46
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In this fictitious universe, "being a literal Nazi" is not really worse for the average person than "being a literal FBI agent" in our world. The Reich is the legitimate super power.
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Dec 9, 2015 18:50
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Mike the TV posted:In this fictitious universe, "being a literal Nazi" is not really worse for the average person than "being a literal FBI agent" in our world. The Reich is the legitimate super power. Which is also the most interesting facet of the show, and what they should probably have actually focused on (vs. "the resistance," as if resisting the Nazis isn't one of the most familiar premises for a WW2 narrative ever.) This is an incredibly subversive show when it DOESN'T go out of its way to remind us how evil the Nazis are. The "normalcy" of OGF Smith's lifestyle - the fact his family is straight out of Mad Men or that his loyalty is treated as a virtue - is damning because it makes the case that his relationship to state power is no different from our own. Remove the swastikas, and the military chauvinism of V-A Day is indistinguishable from the 4th of July, etc. etc. At its best, Man in the High Castle's argument is humanist, not patriotic. In Tagomi's vision of Allied San Francisco, we see an American flag and also the Cuban Missile Crisis. If the Greater Nazi Reich is a dystopia, so is our world, because it's built on the same hostilities, the same drive for supremacy, and the same potential for apocalyptic violence. The resistance plot interferes with this, by boringly suggesting that if only the Nazis lost, everything would be fixed.
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Dec 9, 2015 20:27
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JetsGuy posted:
Your doing just fine son.
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Dec 9, 2015 22:37
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Xealot posted:Which is also the most interesting facet of the show, and what they should probably have actually focused on (vs. "the resistance," as if resisting the Nazis isn't one of the most familiar premises for a WW2 narrative ever.) That is a really cool part of the show too, I agree. I do like the casualness of the brutality though because they just see us all as inferior. The way Smith's wife just casually says, it's good we eliminate these people so they don't suffer is just so well done because of the way it was delivered. Many of them have normal lives and it's *not* too different from us in terms of day to day goings on.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:02
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Pierogi posted:That's an interesting interpretation (or you don't know what you are talking about). You're right. I really need to re-read that book. In the book, Hitler is dying, and it's likely World War 3 will ensue when he does die. Hitler's historical chill out spot was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghof_%28residence%29 - literally high up, pretty much a castle. I'd forgotten that the Grasshopper Lies Heavy author's house was specifically referred to as such in the book, though. Sorry guys! 
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Dec 9, 2015 23:45
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I rewatched a scene from the finale and I saw something that cleared up a question I saw earlier in the thread. 1x10 Hitler is most definitely the man in the high castle as far as the show is concerned. The film he's watching is the same one that Jules and Frank watched in the first episode and both movies focused on the Swastika being destroyed atop the Reichstag building. There's no reason to believe that there are multiple redundant films in the universe and of the three instances we see a film played two of them are from the same universe whereas every other instance is a different universe (Russia rules the world/San Fransico is nuked). This link means that Hitler is actually in complete control of the Resistance and he used Rudolph to flush out Heydrick's betrayal to secure his grasp on power internally. In doing so, however, he's exposed the Reich to a Japanese nuclear attack and has likely doomed his world to an even more destructive World War than if he never allowed Rudulph to finish his mission. In attempting to preserve peace Hitler has doomed himself and put the Reich in tremendous danger. It's a very good show with an unfortunate amount of filler. I was literally applauding at several of the finale's scenes. I was drunk
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Dec 10, 2015 17:30
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Brother Friendship posted:It's a very good show with an unfortunate amount of filler. I was literally applauding at several of the finale's scenes. I was drunk I dunno, I rewatched 1x10 last night and I just get increasingly angry at Jules' naivety. Christ on a cracker. Do you believe the tapes or not? Because your whole character's motivation is that these tapes are REALLLLL but not for this guy because reasons. Like seriously, the Joe-Jules dynamic really hurts the show to me. I like it overall though, so I'm just still at "I don't know"
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Dec 10, 2015 18:28
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I'd use this show to demonstrate fascism to kids in school. It's one thing to tell students what complete submission to the State and its authority looks like. It's another to see if so clearly put to screen in the first two episodes. It's also such a weird moment now since police shootings are very much in the current zeitgeist but here we see a police shooting and it's treated as a side effect of everyday life. "That person must've been disloyal and the authorities shot them. No need to look further into it."
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Dec 10, 2015 19:44
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JetsGuy posted:I dunno, I rewatched 1x10 last night and I just get increasingly angry at Jules' naivety. Christ on a cracker. Do you believe the tapes or not? Because your whole character's motivation is that these tapes are REALLLLL but not for this guy because reasons. That's the unfortunate filler I mentioned. I can understand how the writers felt it was necessary to go that route because they provide the better characters with their best scenes and motivations but the white people suck up too much oxygen for too little output. 1x6 John Smith using his family to interrogate and test both Rudolph and Joe at the same time was the highlight of the series for me. He's just so loving menacing and every scene ratchets up the tension until you see Joe pouring over blank pages when the lights turn on and Smith is leaning against the doorway with an angry look on his face. 1x10 The Japanese secret police chief is amazing from start to finish but his willingness to sacrifice himself to prevent war while delivering justice to the Prince's attacker was spectacular. He's the inverse of his Nazi counterpart in that he's genuinely a good person who feels his duty is bound up with ruthlessness and he actually winds up living up to what he told Frank in episode 2 that he wasn't a monster, even though he just murdered three innocents. There's no specific scene that for the trade minister that comes to mind but his actor sucked me in every time.
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Dec 10, 2015 20:03
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