The Man in the High Castle is Awesome
- Thread starter Robert Hedrock
- Start date
Alsos
Kingfisher
Resurrecting this thread, as I figure by now anyone who was interested in watching the latest season has done so and won't mind spoilers.
The good: The John Smith arc continues to be interesting, especially his dethroning of George Lincoln Rockwell and the fact that he's apparently being groomed and guided by Himmler personally. The Hawthorne Abendson arc heated up towards the end, and some interesting things are revealed about the source of the films and how the parallel histories work. VTOL airplanes. Kido remained enjoyably menacing. The arc following Helen's murder of Alice, which unlike most situations involving primary characters in a TV series, you were never quite sure how it was going to play out. I half expected Smith was going to have her suicided to protect himself and the children. Best part of the season: Frank gets killed at the end. (Was I wrong to cheer that scene? Man, I despise that character.) Rockwell as a character, and his ultimate fate (didn't see that squirm-inducing situation nor its climax coming at all). Hoover's portrayal was enjoyably slimy and weasely, whether or not it was fair to the historical figure.
The neutral: My second-favorite character, Tagomi, was underutilized this season apart from a bad-ass takedown of a couple of Nazi assassins and despite a good bit of screen time. The new Irish character from the Neutral Zone starts out as a cliche, then comes into his own after the raid on the coal mine when he uses his network to distribute the film, then out of nowhere he pulls a 'Day of the Jackal' (the book version, except he both succeeds and gets away), which seemed implausible since we'd been shown nothing (that I recall now) to establish that he had that specialized skill set or that any preparations for the hit had been made beforehand. On the other hand, they did show Julianna learning to fire a handgun, but of course she was being taught by a woman. It took me three episodes to figure out the two characters were actually Rockwell and Hoover - I liked their inclusion, but their introduction at the memorial service should have been a little clearer (they were just George and Edgar).
The bad (about 2/3s of the season): Ed's gay. Nicole's bi. Hoover's gay. The propaganda lady's a lesbian. Her husband is gay. Rockwell's...who knows what. Jeebus, Helen, cut back on the strudel already. Frank survived the bombing at the end of Season 2, now with yet more to whine about. That flushing sound in the bathroom was Joe's entire character arc. Brokeback Neutral Zone. Nazis kill Jews, we get it, let's explore some of the story's novel elements, hey? You can see Julianna gradually morphing into a standard-issue bad-ass girl-character. Ed's gay? Really? I hadn't noticed on the dozen or so occasions he hoovered Jack's tongue, totally missed that. Frank's no Sabo. Ed's gay, yet again. Alternate-reality lesbians are less cant-addled and butch than ours, but vaguely creepier. More gay Ed. Gestapo raid! Looks like Nazis hate the gays as well as the Jews. Mengele was a missed opportunity, while Raeder was completely thrown away. Childan betrays Frank to his death, and can't not realize it later, but doesn't seem to react to it at all - is he a sociopath or is it just lousy writing? Doesn't matter that Kido beheaded Frank, you just know that that twat will be back in the next season. Helen's female solipsism overriding her survival instinct and the welfare of her family may be a surprisingly realistic portrayal normally, but in that context "I'm not haaaaaaaappppppyyy!" is laughably and jarringly implausible. Oh, and by the way, Ed's gay.
The good: The John Smith arc continues to be interesting, especially his dethroning of George Lincoln Rockwell and the fact that he's apparently being groomed and guided by Himmler personally. The Hawthorne Abendson arc heated up towards the end, and some interesting things are revealed about the source of the films and how the parallel histories work. VTOL airplanes. Kido remained enjoyably menacing. The arc following Helen's murder of Alice, which unlike most situations involving primary characters in a TV series, you were never quite sure how it was going to play out. I half expected Smith was going to have her suicided to protect himself and the children. Best part of the season: Frank gets killed at the end. (Was I wrong to cheer that scene? Man, I despise that character.) Rockwell as a character, and his ultimate fate (didn't see that squirm-inducing situation nor its climax coming at all). Hoover's portrayal was enjoyably slimy and weasely, whether or not it was fair to the historical figure.
The neutral: My second-favorite character, Tagomi, was underutilized this season apart from a bad-ass takedown of a couple of Nazi assassins and despite a good bit of screen time. The new Irish character from the Neutral Zone starts out as a cliche, then comes into his own after the raid on the coal mine when he uses his network to distribute the film, then out of nowhere he pulls a 'Day of the Jackal' (the book version, except he both succeeds and gets away), which seemed implausible since we'd been shown nothing (that I recall now) to establish that he had that specialized skill set or that any preparations for the hit had been made beforehand. On the other hand, they did show Julianna learning to fire a handgun, but of course she was being taught by a woman. It took me three episodes to figure out the two characters were actually Rockwell and Hoover - I liked their inclusion, but their introduction at the memorial service should have been a little clearer (they were just George and Edgar).
The bad (about 2/3s of the season): Ed's gay. Nicole's bi. Hoover's gay. The propaganda lady's a lesbian. Her husband is gay. Rockwell's...who knows what. Jeebus, Helen, cut back on the strudel already. Frank survived the bombing at the end of Season 2, now with yet more to whine about. That flushing sound in the bathroom was Joe's entire character arc. Brokeback Neutral Zone. Nazis kill Jews, we get it, let's explore some of the story's novel elements, hey? You can see Julianna gradually morphing into a standard-issue bad-ass girl-character. Ed's gay? Really? I hadn't noticed on the dozen or so occasions he hoovered Jack's tongue, totally missed that. Frank's no Sabo. Ed's gay, yet again. Alternate-reality lesbians are less cant-addled and butch than ours, but vaguely creepier. More gay Ed. Gestapo raid! Looks like Nazis hate the gays as well as the Jews. Mengele was a missed opportunity, while Raeder was completely thrown away. Childan betrays Frank to his death, and can't not realize it later, but doesn't seem to react to it at all - is he a sociopath or is it just lousy writing? Doesn't matter that Kido beheaded Frank, you just know that that twat will be back in the next season. Helen's female solipsism overriding her survival instinct and the welfare of her family may be a surprisingly realistic portrayal normally, but in that context "I'm not haaaaaaaappppppyyy!" is laughably and jarringly implausible. Oh, and by the way, Ed's gay.
I'm surprised nobody commented about the most prominent feature of the series.
At least everybody smokes cigarettes continually. They must have made all the actors get hooked on cigs too, because they like to show them up close, where you can clearly see they are inhaling, and not just puffing. I imagine cigarette stocks went up slightly while each season was being filmed.
I binge watched the first three seasons for the first time over the past week, and I am a couple episodes into the fourth season. It's interesting to see how many times they've made the alternate history parallel our timeline. They made the threat of nuclear war in the first two seasons parallel the Cuban missile crisis in ours. They are having this Jahr Null story line which closely parallels the Cultural Uprising in China, with revolutionary youth denouncing adults in everyday situations and beating them to death in random public places, all with approval from the central government. Very interesting stuff.
It's clear that starting with season 3, they brought in a lot of SJW story lines, with teh gay, and fat positivity, and all kinds of other multi-culti angles. They thing is, these elements did arise during this period in our timeline, so it makes sense to portray them cropping up under the Nazi regime. It's not just America. Berlin is a known center of this kind of decadence, so it would certainly have come up if the Germans had won WWII.
I'll post more after I finish Season 4.
At least everybody smokes cigarettes continually. They must have made all the actors get hooked on cigs too, because they like to show them up close, where you can clearly see they are inhaling, and not just puffing. I imagine cigarette stocks went up slightly while each season was being filmed.
I binge watched the first three seasons for the first time over the past week, and I am a couple episodes into the fourth season. It's interesting to see how many times they've made the alternate history parallel our timeline. They made the threat of nuclear war in the first two seasons parallel the Cuban missile crisis in ours. They are having this Jahr Null story line which closely parallels the Cultural Uprising in China, with revolutionary youth denouncing adults in everyday situations and beating them to death in random public places, all with approval from the central government. Very interesting stuff.
It's clear that starting with season 3, they brought in a lot of SJW story lines, with teh gay, and fat positivity, and all kinds of other multi-culti angles. They thing is, these elements did arise during this period in our timeline, so it makes sense to portray them cropping up under the Nazi regime. It's not just America. Berlin is a known center of this kind of decadence, so it would certainly have come up if the Germans had won WWII.
I'll post more after I finish Season 4.
Barron said:
I put my review on the TV series thread.
Season 4 is in some ways the best season. All of the characters that didn’t work in the earlier seasons are dead, and the plot moves. Little time is wasted on world building, the season is all plot. The ending is abrupt and the final scene confusing, but at least all of the arcs of all of the characters are complete.
If you could make it past season 3, which is bad, you will enjoy season 4.
MovingForward2050
Pelican
I enjoyed The Man in the High Tower, and am now very excited that it's producers are behind the upcoming Warhammer 40K- Eisenhorn television series, which is about the iconic inquisitor, who roots out heretics and servants of Chaos for the Imperium of Man. This awesome W40K book series is fortunately in good hands for a proper adaptation to the screen...
io9.gizmodo.com
The Creator of Man in the High Castle Is Bringing Warhammer 40,000 to Live-Action TV
The grim dark future of the 41st Millennium is coming to live-action television for the first time—and Games Workshop has recruited the creator behind Amazon’s Man in the High Castle adaptation, Frank Spotnitz, to do so.
io9.gizmodo.com
Last edited:
Forget what they're made with but there are fake cigarettes (no nicotine or tobacco) used in movies and shows where the actor doesn't want to smoke actual cigs. The dude who played Cancer Man in the X-Files used to always talk about them in interviews (he refused to touch a real cigarette)
I started watching this series a couple of months ago and I have to say, I've never had such a love/hate relationship with a TV show before. All in all, I'd say it was a great series...but of course it was also tainted with Globohomo bits, especially in season 3.
My thoughts (spoilers ahead):
- I went from liking Juliana in season 1 to hating her by season 4.
- Seasons 1 & 2 were excellent. Season 3 was slightly boring and rife with faggotry. Season 4 was right up there with 1 & 2 but there was too much go-girl crap which turned me off at times.
- Kido became one of my favorite characters by the end of the series, partly due to the show's creators expanding his character beyond his job duties.
- John Smith was a boss. I could almost see the wheels of his brain turning when he looked out an open window, planning his next steps to keep ahead of others who meant to do him harm.
- However...he should've known something was up when Helen didn't board the train with the kids. He was always one step ahead of his enemies...but never considered that his wife might do him wrong.
- Other than smug Juliana, the other thing I hated about season 4 was the show's creators trying to make the audience root for a bunch of black commies. You can't help but compare them to Black Lives Matter...black, commies, don't trust whites, etc. That whole storyline felt like predictive programming of what's happening in our world today. I was bummed that they didn't have bombs dropped on them by the German Luftwaffe.
- It took me all 4 seasons to finally accept the fact that the sci-fi element of the show was needed. At first, I was pissed that they didn't just make a show about alternate history. However, the parts with John Smith traveling back in time seemed to work very well.
If you haven't seen this yet, go get yourself an Amazon Prime subscription.
My thoughts (spoilers ahead):
- I went from liking Juliana in season 1 to hating her by season 4.
- Seasons 1 & 2 were excellent. Season 3 was slightly boring and rife with faggotry. Season 4 was right up there with 1 & 2 but there was too much go-girl crap which turned me off at times.
- Kido became one of my favorite characters by the end of the series, partly due to the show's creators expanding his character beyond his job duties.
- John Smith was a boss. I could almost see the wheels of his brain turning when he looked out an open window, planning his next steps to keep ahead of others who meant to do him harm.
- However...he should've known something was up when Helen didn't board the train with the kids. He was always one step ahead of his enemies...but never considered that his wife might do him wrong.
- Other than smug Juliana, the other thing I hated about season 4 was the show's creators trying to make the audience root for a bunch of black commies. You can't help but compare them to Black Lives Matter...black, commies, don't trust whites, etc. That whole storyline felt like predictive programming of what's happening in our world today. I was bummed that they didn't have bombs dropped on them by the German Luftwaffe.
- It took me all 4 seasons to finally accept the fact that the sci-fi element of the show was needed. At first, I was pissed that they didn't just make a show about alternate history. However, the parts with John Smith traveling back in time seemed to work very well.
If you haven't seen this yet, go get yourself an Amazon Prime subscription.
Last edited:
The cigarette smoking man from X files smoked clove cigarettes, as I recall. Essentially herb sticks.
I watched I believe the first two seasons of High Castle and heard that it got really bad after that. I read that people were "enjoying" German occupied America too much, so they had to stop making an ordered, safe, high trust, stable, non-democratic, fascist, prosperous, stable, well dressed, moral, and fit society so appealing, and so introduced I guess gay and fat people and Go Girl superwoman characters. I didn't bother watching because I didn't want them to ruin the greatness of the first two seasons. I've seen this happen to many series, and even when it's not SJW garbage, sometimes they just can't keep up the momentum of a good series.
The pilot episode to Raised By Wolves was some of the best science fiction I've ever seen. The rest of the season isn't really worth watching and at the end it's just bizarre flying snake Harry Potter shenanigans.
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian future story that is both interesting and humorous from a manosphere perspective, in that it is a feminist fantasy (written by Margaret Atwood) of what an out of control patriarchy would be like, and it's laughably absurd in places (there is a reproductive crisis, and instead of having some ordered system for childbearing the way Abraham's wife Sarah consented to Moses bearing a child with a younger fertile woman, married partners do a weird threesome rape ritual with a sex slave!). It's also similar to High Castle in that they portray what is supposed to be this evil, horrible dystopian world but it's hard for the viewer to put a finger on what's so bad about it other than it is "Nazi" or "patriarchy". But this series was also only good for a couple of seasons and then the sex slaves start to become superwomen.
I watched I believe the first two seasons of High Castle and heard that it got really bad after that. I read that people were "enjoying" German occupied America too much, so they had to stop making an ordered, safe, high trust, stable, non-democratic, fascist, prosperous, stable, well dressed, moral, and fit society so appealing, and so introduced I guess gay and fat people and Go Girl superwoman characters. I didn't bother watching because I didn't want them to ruin the greatness of the first two seasons. I've seen this happen to many series, and even when it's not SJW garbage, sometimes they just can't keep up the momentum of a good series.
The pilot episode to Raised By Wolves was some of the best science fiction I've ever seen. The rest of the season isn't really worth watching and at the end it's just bizarre flying snake Harry Potter shenanigans.
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian future story that is both interesting and humorous from a manosphere perspective, in that it is a feminist fantasy (written by Margaret Atwood) of what an out of control patriarchy would be like, and it's laughably absurd in places (there is a reproductive crisis, and instead of having some ordered system for childbearing the way Abraham's wife Sarah consented to Moses bearing a child with a younger fertile woman, married partners do a weird threesome rape ritual with a sex slave!). It's also similar to High Castle in that they portray what is supposed to be this evil, horrible dystopian world but it's hard for the viewer to put a finger on what's so bad about it other than it is "Nazi" or "patriarchy". But this series was also only good for a couple of seasons and then the sex slaves start to become superwomen.
Season 3 got worse, but season 4 made up for it.
I can totally see why people watching the show championed the new German-occupied US in this series. It reminded me of America in 1985 when everything was great, the economy was booming, and people were optimistic about the country's future.
Well...we can't have that, can we? So in response, the creators spent less time on Nazi world-building and more time on promoting faggotry and go-girl themes by bringing Ed out of the closet and making the women the star of the show.
I'd still encourage you to watch the last two seasons (cover your eyes when the gayness presents itself). Once you get to season 4, it gets exciting again. And while there are the occasional scenes that bothered me, it's still well worth watching.