Exactly. For example, for many seasons (until they decided to stretch it waay out the last 2-3 seasons) the crank yanking of “How I Met Your Mother” was actually quite amusing and enjoyable. It’s when it was used too frequently that it got irritating.
This show has one season under its belt. It’s kind of strange to me that people are demanding answers to the question of the films. That is a sort of thing that seems to be would be a great end reveal (it really is a MacGuffin in the book though).
This completely. At least I enjoyed two days at work looking forward to coming home and watching the show. Episode 10 shit all over the whole series. Might as well have been Inglorious Bastards with the ending.
And during those two days, when my girlfriend asked me to do something I said “Yes, Obergruppenführer.”
She was not nearly as amused as I was. 
Agree completely with this. They could have done the exact same show without the mysterious films, with the same characters getting involved in the underground resistance or whatever. And I think I would have liked it.
I don’t think the films qualify as a MacGuffin. Unlike say, a briefcase that’s never opened but motivates the characters to do what they do, the films were extensively described and we actually see the images and their strangeness raises a lot of questions. Pulp Fiction would have been different if the characters had opened the briefcase and we saw it was something bizarre, and they kept showing it to us and challenging us to figure out what it was.
This show could have had the same characters trying to get something, anything, to someone in the resistance and not made a big deal about what it was. It could have been an envelope or even a film, without telling us what it contained. That would have been enough to drive the narrative, and though we might be mildly curious what was inside, we’d assume it was just some important information. That’s a MacGuffin and could go unexplained without much complaint from most viewers, including me.
If they bring The Marshal back for this hypothetical 2nd season, I hope it is just long enough to kill him off. He was such an utterly ridiculous character that he seemed to belong to another movie entirely. I halfway expected Arnold or Bruce or Chuck to show up, kill him, and deliver a cool one-liner. I mean, really, in a place like the neutral zone we are to believe that nobody would bushwwack such an odious little man?
I wonder how many of the film haters ( as a plot device ) would have preferred the book version ( wherein The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is an illicit novel rather than a film )?
Ultimately of course this is an adaptation of an explicitly science fiction novel and as Edward the Head noted:
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature :D.
So, in reading the AV Club’s review of the 9th episode there was an interesting discussion in the comments. Wegener gives the Science Minister schemes to the “Heisenburg Project”. Now I think most of us saw that as the bomb. I mean Heisenberg was involved in the nuclear program of Nazi Germany, but more in building nuclear power than in weaponizing it. However, Heisenburg was also one of the founders of quantum mechanics and building on that, Hugh Everett, posited a multiple universe theory (saying that observation of quantum matter doesn’t stop that matter from behaving in multiple forms - what Heisenberg and Bohr thought happened is when you observed quantum particles they basically ‘chose a form’ and the wave that made up these particles collapsed into that form). That sort of idea fits quite interestingly into the narrative they’ve created, especially with the films.
The Heisenberg device may indeed allow for reaching through multiple universes. Though, granted, it probably fits more into an H-Bomb type of device.
I just finished watching this today and while I like it overall, it has a ton of room for improvement. The Joe-Jules-Frank love triangle seems to exist solely to give those three characters a reason to constantly make the dumbest decisions possible. That’s not very good writing and they need to either fix it or drop that part of the story. There were so many good characters (I thought Ed, Kido, Tagomi, Smith, Wegener, and even the antique store guy were all great) but the three main ones were just too stupid to care about after a while. It’s not the actors’ fault either, it’s just dumb writing. If they can stop making those three ‘horror-movie protagonist’ levels of stupid, I think season 2 might be pretty good.
You should watch The Americans if you want to see that concept represented well.
It’s been renewed for a second season. Link
I’m looking forward to seeing where they take it. Many unanswered questions!
I kind of wish they’d do like American Horror Story and True Detective and tell us the story of a different set of characters in season 2.
Considering how Season 2 of True Detective went, I hope not ;). And I want more Obergruppenfurher Smith.
Smith was about 85% of what was good about that show with the shopkeeper accounting for most of the rest. Even so, the whole Joe-Juliana-Frank story was very close to enough to make me stop watching. I honestly don’t want to know any more about those three characters.
On the whole, Man in the High Castle is probably an above-average show. Its alternate history certainly isn’t plausible but neither are the physics of Star Wars. There was a fairly decent amount of worldbuilding to make clear it was an Axis-victory world-the hybrid Japanese/American culture of San Francisco was especially interesting. On the other hand there were a few times where the producers seemed forced to shoehorn the fact that this is an Axis-victory world (I mean Hirohito Times wtf lmao). The biggest problem in terms of setting and worldbuilding is that the relationship of the American states/areas to the German and Japanese Empires are never made clear-are they still under military occupation? Have they been directly annexed to the sugoku/vaterland? Are they satellite states akin to the various members of the Warsaw Pact? This is especially apparent with John Smith and the Nazis in New York. Not only is the American branch/version of the SS exactly the same as the German one but so are the brownshirt goons who would presumably been members of the SA and thus marginalized by 1962 anyways if not outright abolished. Apparently, even though in every other German-occupied/allied country down to Slovakia and Hungary the Nazis encouraged a native fascist movement we seem to simply have directly imported German symbolism, uniforms etc. instead. Certainly it would be far more chilling to portray a native American fascist regime collaborating with the Germans.
The story’s quite different from the novel but I think that’s natural considering Dick’s plot doesn’t translate well to screen and they did a good job of incorporating many of the important scenes from the original. There is much I can say about the characters: in general the German and Japanese characters were quite interesting and plausible, behaving in a realistic fashion. However our lovely little love triangle of Juliana, Frank, and Joe were some of the annoying characters I’ve seen on screen. Especially Frank who is possibly one of the biggest cucks I’ve seen in the entirety of the Western literary/cultural canon. I mean for Christ’s sake handing over 46,000 of your hard-earned yen for your “girlfriend”'s new Aryan boytoy who might or might not be a Nazi agent after you got arrested and tortured and had your *sister and her two children gassed *in cold blood for the sake of protecting her. Unless Frank ends up piloting the plane that drops a thermonuclear bomb on Berlin or Tokyo in Season Two, I don’t see me having any respect for Mr. Frink in the future. Also Frank’s friend is hilarious and infuriatingly annoying-his signature “Hi Frank” is practically comparable to Tommy Wiseau’s legendary “Oh hi” in the Room. Fortunately I saw enough of the acting of some of the more interesting minor characters such as the Marshal, Lemuel Washington, and Ed McCarthy’s manga-reading angry old coot of a grandfather to balance out my general annoyance and even disgust with our triad.
Ding ding ding! Winner! My thoughts exactly.
It turns out that the films were cinema’s biggest Maguffin. We are led to believe that the films are important to the resistance; that their existence somehow will inspire, or give a means to overthrow the fascist overlords. The resistance goes to great lengths to transport the films, and the SS and the Kempeitai turn over every rock to stop them. It turns out that Hitler is collecting them for his viewing pleasure. How does that even work?
And in hindsight, there was soooo much filler. Everything to do with The Marshall was utterly irrelevant, for example.
Like everyone else, I really like the look. I relished the alt-reality details (the one that stood out for me: if the Nazis won, popular music would really really suck.) But the plot was complete nonsense.
This is mostly an attempt to wrap my own head around the story.
In hindsight, the plot threads that actually move forward in a sensible fashion are the Big Picture ones, concerning Japan-Nazi relations, and the power struggle in Berlin. To quote a better film on the subject, the problems of 3 little people don’t amount to a hill of beans.
So here’s my summary.
Q: What was going on with Trade Minister Tagomi, and Wengerer?
A: These are the good guys. Wengerer is giving atomic secrets to the Japanese, to achieve parity between their empires and avoid a war. Wengerer succeeds, but Obergruppenfuhrer Smith catches on that he’s a traitor (through some means that aren’t clear to me) and turns him in. Wengerer becomes a pawn in a Hitler assassination plot.
Q: Who shot the Crown Prince?
A: A Nazi agent, in an attempt to provoke a war. He was apparently supposed to get caught (“I’m prepared to make a full confession”) although he did a good job of hiding the weapon, and was only caught through magical information provided by the Yakuza. Inspector Kido can’t reveal who the true assassin is (to avoid the war the Nazis hope to start) but he lucks out and finds a scapegoat, in Frank’s friend Ed. Even though Ed doesn’t match the description of the guy with the gun at the Prince’s speech, and the gun wasn’t fired at the Prince. But I imagine the Japanese aren’t too concerned with details like that.
Q: What is the meaning of Tagomi’s vision in the final shot?
A: Your guess is as good as mine. Either the dystopian alt-history was a bad dream, or he’s died and gone to rock 'n roll heaven. Or something else. Who knows.
Q: Who tried to kill OGF Smith?
A: Reynhard Heydrich, with the help of one of Smith’s aides.
Q: Why?
A: Beats me. But when the plot fails, Heydrich attempts to recruit Smith in his plot to kill Hitler. The plot apparently was hatched instantaneously when Wengerer is turned in, and hinges on Hitler keeping a loaded gun in his room, even though Hitler somehow knows that an assassin is coming to kill him with it. Wengerer fails, Smith captures Heydrich and sides with Hitler.
Q: Is Joe really a Nazi agent?
A: Yes, but a very bad one. He keeps finding films but giving them away.
Q: Speaking of the films…who made them?
A: We don’t know.
Q: What do they contain?
A: Apparently some kind of alternative history of the war, that looks more closely like our real-world history.
Q: Why are they important?
A: Dunno.
Q: Where do they go?
A: Hitler. He’s the MitHC. Why?..who knows. Hitler says he learns something from them.
Q: So the Resistance is feeding the films to Hitler?
A: Apparently.
I like the reason, posted upthread, that Hitler has been using the films from “our” time to win the war in this alternate timeline. How they have been acquired, we don’t know yet.
The last film though, showing Joe shooting Frank wouldn’t seem to advance much knowledge, for Hitler anyway. I also want to know who is the person that Juliana thought she recognised.
Wegener was my favorite character, amazing actor who really fit the part. His suicide might have left his family vulnerable though, I wish he’d asked Hitler for help there. His farewell visit to their apt was one of the best scenes in the show.
They weren’t cinema’s anything, because The Man in the High Castle isn’t a movie. I point this out not to be pedantic (well, I am a Doper, so partially to be pedantic) but because it seems like some people are not getting that these ten episodes were not supposed to be a complete, stand-alone work. This was the first season of a television series. While it’s possible (even likely, based on other TV shows with long-running mysteries) that future revelations about the films will be disappointing, it seems certain that future revelations are indeed planned.
Wengerer was spotted by another Nazi who knew him while leaving the hotel in San Francisco. Since Wengerer was traveling under a false identity and had been rubbing elbows with Japanese officials it wouldn’t have been hard to figure out that he wasn’t just sightseeing.
I thought this was fairly obvious. He saw, or actually traveled to, an alternate world – either our reality or at least one where the US was on the winning side in WWII. His vision or journey was apparently accomplished through meditation; we certainly saw him practicing meditation often enough in the series.
Again, it seems like you’re missing the obvious here. The films seem to be actual news footage from alternate realities, and thus indicate that parallel worlds exist and that it’s possible for objects to be transported between them. Beyond that, since they are from relatively similar parallel worlds they also provide potentially valuable information about the world of the series – what the outcomes of particular decisions are likely to be, where people’s loyalties lie, etc.
How and why the films are being brought into the world of the series isn’t clear. Tagomi’s “vision” suggests that some people can travel between the worlds, and there were a few hints earlier in the series that Trudy (or an alternate world version of Trudy) may have traveled between worlds as well. So it seems to me like the films are probably deliberately being carried across the “border” of reality, but we don’t have any information about who’s behind this or what their motives are.
We do know that Hitler has been obtaining these films, presumably for strategic purposes, but this is happening in such a roundabout way that it seems unlikely that Hitler himself knows how the films are first being brought into his world. (ETA: It may be that the information Joe was gathering about the Resistance was ultimately supposed to help Hitler get the films more directly, but that’s a total WAG.) So I’d guess that it’s not any version of Hitler or the Nazis who are bringing/sending the films into the world of the series.
Interesting…
Your insight is informative and helpful; but your definition of “obvious” is certainly different from mine. 
If Tagomi’s meditation led to some sort of astral projection, they picked a bad time to introduce that concept.