Just watched it today. Here’sa link to it on Amazon.
To summarize : probably some of the strongest parts to the pilot is when they show all of the interesting vehicles from Nazi designers, some of which were never made. There’s a supersonic airliner similar to a Concorde, and all sorts of cool cars.
The other interesting things is that while the show doesn’t mince words - being occupied by the Axis powers is bad, they are very evil - it also isn’t completely black and white. The conquerors have given Americans some genuine improvements over the real timeline. The U-baun, Japanese culture, etc.
What’s with The Grasshopper Lies Heavy? I suspect there’s a gigantic divergence from the source Phillip K Dick novel here, that the existence of this movie, which contains footage that could not have been convincingly faked with 1963 movie technology, means that there’s something interesting going on here.
I’m not sure that this is what you’re asking, but The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is a book within a book in the original novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. The Man in the High Castle postulates that Germany, Japan, and Italy won World War II. Within that alternate history, someone has written an alternate history novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy where Germany, Japan, and Italy lost World War II. However, this alternate-history-within-the-alternate-history is not the same as our real history. Many things in it are slightly different from our history:
Yes, Wendell, I read the same wikipedia page. The thing is, it’s a book, not a movie. 1963 special effects technology could not possibly replicate the scenes in the show.
This means :
It’s really a film copied from an alternate universe or timeline, copied or made through some kind of occult or technological means
The show scriptwriters are stupid and think that you could somehow create a good fake of V-J day, in total secrecy, with 1960s movie technology
The show is another Lost and will never make sense
You didn’t explain yourself very well there, Habeed.
For those following along: in the amazon show, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is not a book; it’s a film.
I watched only the first 20 minutes of TMITHC but so far I think it’s pretty stupid. Characters constantly initiate contact only to immediately say “I’m leaving” and depart. And the whole concept of a subversive movie, that takes expensive equipment to watch and cannot be done with reasonable stealth, is in no way comparable to the presence of a subversive book, that can be perused at leisure by each individual in both the physical privacy of a home or room and the mental privacy of one’s own mind.
I’m not sure I’ll watch any more than I already have, unless others here are overwhelmingly impressed with the 40 minutes I have not seen.
As I said, I wasn’t sure what you were asking. There’s no description of this new movie anywhere. It sounds to me like the filmmakers for the Amazon film version of The Man in the High Castle are idiots and are convinced that their viewers are idiots. They wanted to use the subplot about their being an alternate history within this alternate history. However, they didn’t want the alternate history to be a book.
I presume that they argued to themselves, “Hey, nobody cares about books these days. We can’t have a subplot where everyone gets riled up about a book being published and some people are trying to stop it from getting distributed further and thus want to kill the author. Our viewers won’t understand that. We have to make this alternate-history-within-the-alternate-history a movie. Now movies people care about. Our viewers will be able to imagine people killed because of the movie they made.” When somebody told the filmmakers, “Yeah, but this movie is set in 1963. In 1963 people did care about books. Besides, they couldn’t have made such a film in 1963 even if they had wanted to,” the filmmakers replied, “Yeah, but our viewers are too stupid to understand that attitudes in 1963 were different. They think that people in 1963 were just like them except that they dressed a little differently. The viewers are too stupid to understand what the level of film technology was in 1963.”
In other words, what the filmmakers have done is typical of what a lot of filmmakers do these days when they adapt a book that they don’t really understand (or they think that their viewers will be too stupid to understand). They use most of the major plot points of the book, but they feel free to throw in elements that make no sense because they are convinced that nobody cares. They think that it’s better to throw in modern attitudes because stories are not whole units that can’t be easily tampered with. Rather, they think that any offhand idea they come up with can be tossed into the plot.
In both book and film, the story-within-the-story has a mysterious origin and gives people who encounter it an uncanny feeling of reality breaking through which may be mere wish fulfillment.
Have you considered that this is a deliberate decision the scriptwriters made because of the dictum “Show, not tell?”. In a TV show, you’d have to describe the contents of a book or do a cheesy voiceover. It’s easier to show a movie within a movie and not worry too much about where the footage came from.
The Man in the High Castle was the first Philip K. Dick book I read back in 1963. It blew me away and led me to become a lifelong fan. Even his early stories of the 50s, from Beyond Lies The Wub onwards, were wildly inventive and readable. Then came Hollywood …
Most of the film adaptations of Dick’s work are dire. When I heard Amazon were producing this one, probably his best work and certainly one of his most complex, thoughtful and rewarding. I had very low expectations. I began to watch, hoping I was wrong. Then came the projection of the film (!) The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. My heart lay heavier. A shot of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at Yalta? Not only had they absurdly changed the book-within-a-book into newsreels, they had completely altered Dick’s vision. There was no Roosevelt at Yalta in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, he’d resigned after two terms. Dick envisaged a world in which the Axis had won WW2 and another world in which they had lost. But that latter world was not our present world. It was very, very different, as a glance at the Wikipedia entry will show. Clearly the producers figured the audience wouldn’t be able to cope with two alternate worlds, neither of them our own. Or, more likely, the producers themselves couldn’t get their heads round it. I’m willing to bet that few if any of them read Dick’s book other than in synopsis anyway.
I hadn’t the heart or stomach to put up with any more of this travesty of Dick’s work. Enough already.
Yep, I did. The fact that this was produced by Ridley Scott didn’t go unnoticed either.
I don’t know. I really enjoyed it. Some really interesting world-building going on. Strong production values. Well written, acted and directed.
I’ve never read the book, but The Grasshopper Lies Heavy being depicted as an 8 mm film accomplishes a few things for me:
–As Finagle states, it shows us stuff that would have to be a megaton of dialog and exposition otherwise.
–If it’s an 8 mm film, this means it’s harder to produce/watch copies, harder to smuggle, and increases rarity, which ups the stakes for the Resistance and puts much greater value on a reel.
–Since the point is brought up (within the show) that the imagery shown, not to mention its very existence, is practically impossible it hammers in the idea there’s something extraordinary/eerie about this contraband film.
–It serves as a good MacGuffin for all sides and characters to revolve around.
That said, I’m rooting for this pilot to go to series.
I won’t be able to watch it after Monday, when my Amazon Prime thing runs out.
I could nitpick the hell out of it (A fully ADA, er, JDA-compliant elevator in 1962? Ditto for electronic police sirens?) but I went along for the ride. Didn’t start the book (I’ve only finished one Dick; can’t stand him and prefer the movies) so I wasn’t bothered with how it differs. Didn’t find it the slightest bit confusing, either. An underground film being passed around is technologically difficult to swallow, but it’s more visual so I’ll accept it.
As pilots go it was real good. Not renewing my membership/$100 upfront good, but good.
I really enjoyed this but due to starting it late on a long day I fell asleep with about ten minutes left. Would a kind soul please summarize what happened in a spoiler box? Thank you.
So how long are we going to have to wait for following episodes?
I watched the pilot to The After like a year ago and I’m STILL waiting for the following episodes! (And yes, The After got the green light.)
