The After was not picked up, sorry. Or, more accurately, the pick up was taken back.
Not enough for braille tags and wheelchair-accessible button heights in the elevators. But it was in the part of the continent held by those decadent, mollycoddling Japanese. Just wait until the Fuhrer dies!
Hey, new here. Googled for discussions about the show and came here.
I think the conversation is missing the point a bit:
The choice of using a film reel instead of a book may be a concious choice about the meta-narrative meaning of Grasshopper in the context of the novel.
TMitHC is a novel. Dick consulted the I Ching as part of writing the novel. The eponymous Man in the High Castle consulted the I Ching in order to write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. A recurring theme in the works of PKD, including this one, is exploring the difference and boundary between, and nature of, the real and unreal, real and fake, perception and reality.
The show creators made a good choice in having Grasshopper be a film as they are using the film medium to tell this story. Since this is a TV/filmic adaptation, it follows that The Grasshopper Lies Heavy should also be a film.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense that the film contains actual footage from WW2. I expected it to be a studio-set film using the technology of the era (or at least, the technology available as portrayed in the alternate history of the novel).
No?
Good point. 
OK, it is fitting with other PKD themes, but not this novel in particular.
Now I’m interested to know if they’ll fit in ideas from other stories to explain that bit (if it’s explained at all).
Watched it…
It was pretty bad. Not for any changes with the book (honestly I read the book 15+ years ago and don’t remember that much), but because it’s just not a good pilot.
Turns out it was the most watched pilot, so Amazon has picked this up along with a few others I don’t really have an interest in.
Can’t wait to watch the series!
Awesome! I liked it!