The Man in the High Castle is an American dystopian alternate history television series produced by Amazon Studios, Scott Free Productions, Headline Pictures, Electric Shepherd Productions and Big Light Productions. The series is loosely based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick. In the series' alternate version of 1962 America, the Axis powers have won World War II and divided the United States into two puppet states: the Greater Nazi Reich and the Japanese Pacific States. The series follows characters whose destinies intertwine after coming into contact with a series of propaganda films that show a vastly different history from that of their own.
Premiering in January 2015, the pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began." The next month Amazon ordered episodes to fill out a ten-episode season, which was released in November, to positive reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, with a third season announced a few weeks later to be released in 2018.
Video The Man in the High Castle (TV series)
Background
On an alternate Earth, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt was assassinated by Giuseppe Zangara in 1934 leading to the continuation of the Great Depression and U.S. isolationism during the opening of World War II. Adolf Hitler led Nazi Germany to conquer most of Europe and the Soviet Union, murdering Jews, Roma, Slavs, and other groups. Meanwhile, Imperial Japan occupied China, before taking control of India and Oceania. The Nazis then helped Italy conquer most of Africa. As Japan invaded the U.S. West Coast, Germany invaded the U.S. East Coast and most of South America. By 1947, the U.S. and the remaining Allies surrendered to the Axis, ending the war.
By the 1960s, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are the world's competing superpowers, with Japan establishing the "Pacific States of America" (P.S.A.) from the former Western United States, with the remaining Rocky Mountain States now a neutral buffer zone between the P.S.A. and the Nazi-occupied former Eastern United States. For unknown reasons, Canada remains independent. Historically, Hitler had expressed respect and reverence for Canadian soldiers, even ordering that the Vimy Ridge Memorial site not be bombed. However, it is never revealed if this was the reason, or one of the reasons, for Canada's continued independence.
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Synopsis
Season one
The central characters are Juliana Crain, Frank Frink, Joe Blake, John Smith, Nobusuke Tagomi, and Takeshi Kido. The series takes place in an alternate 1962.
Juliana Crain is a San Francisco woman who becomes entangled with the resistance when her half-sister Trudy is killed by the Kempeitai, just after giving Juliana a film reel that contains newsreel-style footage depicting an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II and Germany and Japan were defeated. The film is entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and is part of a series of similar newsreels being collected by someone referred to as "The Man in the High Castle". Juliana believes the newsreel reflects some sort of alternate reality and that it is part of some kind of larger truth about how the world should be. Her boyfriend, Frank Frink (who keeps his Jewish roots hidden in order to avoid extradition and death at the hands of the Nazis), believes that the newsreel has no relation to real-life events. Juliana learns Trudy was carrying the film to Canon City, Colorado, in the Neutral Zone, where she was going to meet someone. Juliana decides to travel there in Trudy's place to find out what her half-sister's mission was. When she arrives in Canon City, she encounters Joe Blake.
Blake is a 27-year-old New Yorker who is a double agent working for the Nazis under Obergruppenführer John Smith, a former US Army officer who joined the Nazis and rose through the ranks to become a senior officer in the SS. Blake is pretending to be a member of the resistance while he searches for the resistance contact in Canon City, which is Juliana, substituting for Trudy.
Nobusuke Tagomi is a high-ranking Japanese official (the Trade Minister) in San Francisco. He meets in secret with Nazi official Rudolph Wegener, who is traveling incognito as Swedish businessman Victore Baynes. Tagomi and Wegener are concerned about the power vacuum that will exist when the Reich's Führer Adolf Hitler dies, or is forced to step down due to his worsening Parkinson's disease. Wegener explains that Hitler's successor will want to use the Reich's nuclear bombs against Japan to gain control of the rest of the former United States. Currently, however, Japan and the Third Reich are engaged in a cold war full of tension but no open warfare, with the Japanese lagging behind the Germans technologically.
Frank Frink ends up being arrested when the Japanese and the Nazis become suspicious of Juliana's activities. Not having the information they seek, he is unable to give the Japanese what they are looking for, and they kill Frink's sister and her two children in retaliation, using their Jewish heritage as an excuse for their executions. This leads Frink to plan to kill the visiting Japanese Crown Prince and Princess, but he ultimately decides against going through with his plan.
Season two
Season Two of the show broadly encompasses Frank Frink deciding to forgo his hesitancy and relative pacifism and choosing to become a committed member of the American Resistance to the Japanese Empire inside the Pacific States, eventually participating in a successful terrorist bombing of a central-command building of the Pacific States government in downtown San Francisco. The attack kills many members of the Japanese military and other top-level leadership.
Juliana Crain claims asylum in the Nazi Reich using their San Francisco Embassy so she can escape Japanese soldiers who hold her responsible for at least one murder. John Smith, seeing that her asylum claim is unlikely to succeed, steps in to the interrogation room and assumes command of her claim himself, ensuring it goes through, and he takes her to New York without Joe Blake's knowledge. Joe Blake himself discovers he was a product of the Lebensborn programme, and also that he is the sole biological son of a top-ranking Nazi official in Berlin, Martin Heusmann. Eventually Blake reconciles with Heusmann on the personal level and, in so doing, becomes second-in-command of the Chancellorship after Adolf Hitler dies and the Nazi leadership in Berlin grants Heusmann the Reich's Acting Chancellor title, which they do quickly and almost by default.
Hitler's death is abruptly pinned upon Japanese spies, and Heusmann suddenly announces on television that the Japanese agents whom he claims assassinated the Führer will be brought to justice by any means necessary, including war. John Smith is the only high-ranking Nazi official to be suspicious of the nature of Heusmann's sudden announcement. To gain insight in to why it has happened, he interrogates another high-ranking Nazi, Reinhard Heydrich, who reveals a far-reaching conspiracy led by Heusmann designed to result in a Nazi nuclear onslaught against the Japanese Empire that will kill tens of millions of Japanese, decimate their Empire, level Tokyo, kill their Emperor, and force the surviving Japanese to permanently absorb themselves in to a global Nazi Reich. John Smith undertakes carefully-calculated stealth actions to disrupt and dismantle the Heusmann conspiracy and, as a final act, travels to Berlin and informs Heinrich Himmler -- the Nazi Reichsführer and not involved in the conspiracy -- of the existence of the conspiracy. Audiotapes, together with physical and written evidence reaching too deep within the existing Reich's power structure to be dismissed as hearsay, are handed personally by John Smith over to the Reichsführer, who then angrily leads Smith and several of his closest Berlin subordinates in to the late Führer's office occupied by the Acting Chancellor. He arrests Heusmann for high treason and the murder of Adolf Hitler, detains Joe Blake along with Heusmann, and then addresses the Volkshalle packed with hundreds of thousands of Reich civilians and uniformed stormtroopers, nixing the war-declaration speech meant to have been delivered by Heusmann and instead informing the Reich of Heusmann's conspiracy and John Smith's exposing of it. Upon learning this, the entire Volkshalle erupts in to a celebratory mood marked by repeated mass Nazi salutes of Himmler's men in general and then John Smith in particular.
The second season ends with Himmler and John Smith implicitly assuming command of the Reich, and an implied new era of peace and tranquility between the Japanese Empire and the Greater Nazi Reich. Juliana Crain continues to live out her asylum claim inside New York Nazi territory, and the final few minutes of the final episode of the second season show Trudy (or an alternate-universe version of her) alive and well. In a basement somewhere, John Smith is given access to a room filled to bursting with reels of films watched by the late Führer.
Cast
Main
- Alexa Davalos as Juliana Crain, a young woman from San Francisco who is outwardly happy living under Japanese control; she has become an expert in aikido and is friendly with Japanese people living in San Francisco. Her mother harbors hatred of the Japanese, as they killed Juliana's father during the war.
- Rupert Evans as Frank Frink, Juliana's boyfriend. He works in a factory, creating replicas of pre-war American pistols that are prized by the Japanese, while on his own time he creates original jewelry and sketches. When Juliana vanishes just after the police kill her sister, Frank is taken into custody, which is particularly dangerous since he had a Jewish grandfather and would face execution if this fact were exposed. His experience with the Japanese causes him to turn against the state.
- Luke Kleintank as Joe Blake, a new recruit to the underground American resistance who is actually an agent working for the SS under Obergruppenführer John Smith. He transports a copy of a reel of the forbidden film The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the neutral Rocky Mountain States as part of his mission to infiltrate the American resistance.
- DJ Qualls as Ed McCarthy, Frank's co-worker and friend. He closely follows politics and cares very much about Juliana and Frank's well being.
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister of the Pacific States of America. His true loyalties are ambiguous throughout the first season.
- Rufus Sewell as John Smith, an SS Obergruppenführer investigating the Resistance in New York. He is a natural-born American who previously served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and lives a comfortable suburban life with a wife and three children. It is implied that he embraced Nazism because he grew up in poverty as a result of the Great Depression.
- Joel de la Fuente as Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido, the ruthless head of the Kempeitai stationed in San Francisco.
- Brennan Brown as Robert Childan, an antique store owner who makes secret deals with Frank. (recurring, season 1; main, season 2)
- Callum Keith Rennie as Gary Connell, leader of the West Coast Resistance movement and enforcer for Abendsen. (season 2)
- Bella Heathcote as Nicole Becker, a young Berlin-born filmmaker who will cross paths with Joe. (season 2)
Recurring
- Carsten Norgaard as Rudolph Wegener, a disillusioned high-ranking Nazi official who trades secrets with Tagomi.
- Rick Worthy as Lemuel "Lem" Washington, owner of the Sunrise Diner in Canon City and member of the Resistance.
- Camille Sullivan as Karen Vecchione, a leader of the Pacific States branch of the Resistance.
- Lee Shorten as Sergeant Hiroyuki Yoshida, Inspector Kido's right-hand man.
- Arnold Chun as Kotomichi, Tagomi's assistant.
- Hank Harris as Randall Becker, a member of the Pacific States branch of the Resistance
- Christine Chatelain as Laura Crothers, Frank's sister.
- Allan Havey as the Origami Man, a Nazi spy sent to Canon City to eliminate members of the Resistance.
- Burn Gorman as the Marshal, a bounty hunter searching for concentration camp escapees.
- Shaun Ross as the Shoe Shine Boy, a young albino man living in Canon City.
- Rob LaBelle as Carl, a bookstore clerk in Canon City who is revealed to be a concentration camp escapee named David P. Frees.
- Geoffrey Blake as Jason Meyer, a Jewish member of the Resistance.
- Michael Gaston as Mark Sampson, a Jew living in the Pacific States; he is Frank's friend
- Louis Ozawa Changchien as Paul Kasoura, a wealthy lawyer who collects pre-war American memorabilia.
- Tao Okamoto as Betty, Paul's wife.
- Daisuke Tsui as the Crown Prince of Japan
- Mayumi Yoshida as the Crown Princess of Japan
- Amy Okuda as Christine Tanaka, an office worker in the Nippon building.
- Hiro Kanagawa as Taishi Okamura, the leader of a Yakuza based in the Pacific States.
- Stephen Root as Hawthorne Abendsen/The Man in the High Castle. (season 2)
- Sebastian Roché as Reichsminister Martin Heusmann, Joe Blake's estranged father and high-ranking member of the Reich. (season 2)
- Cara Mitsuko as Sarah, a Japanese American Resistance member, confidante of Frank and survivor of the Manzanar concentration camp. (season 2)
- Tate Donovan as George Dixon, a mysterious friend of the Crains (season 2).
- Michael Hogan as Hagan, an ex-preacher and leader in the San Francisco resistance. (season 2)
- Tzi Ma as General Hidehisa Onoda, a leading member of the Japanese military. (season 2)
John Smith's family
- Chelah Horsdal as Helen Smith, John's wife.
- Quinn Lord as Thomas Smith, John and Helen's son and the eldest child. A member of the Hitler Youth, it is later revealed that he has inherited a form of muscular dystrophy from his father's side of the family.
- Gracyn Shinyei as Amy Smith, John and Helen's daughter.
- Genea Charpentier as Jennifer Smith, John and Helen's daughter.
Juliana Crain's family
- Daniel Roebuck as Arnold Walker, Juliana's stepfather and Trudy's father.
- Macall Gordon as Anne Crain Walker, Juliana's mother who is still bitter about losing her husband in World War II.
- Conor Leslie as Trudy Walker, Juliana's half sister who is shot dead by the Kempeitai. However, she is shown alive at the end of the second season.
Nobusuke Tagomi's family
- Yukari Komatsu as Michiko Tagomi, Nobusuke's wife. (season 2)
- Eddie Shin as Noriaki Tagomi, Nobusuke and Michiko's son. (season 2)
Historical figures
- Wolf Muser as Adolf Hitler.
- Ray Proscia as SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.
- Kenneth Tigar as SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler (season 2)
- Peter Anderson as Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda (season 2)
- Lisa Paxton as Eva Braun, Hitler's wife (season 2)
Episodes
Season 1 (2015)
The pilot and the second episode were screened at a special Comic-Con event. The season premiered on November 20, 2015.
Season 2 (2016)
The second season was released on December 16, 2016.
Production
In 2010, it was announced that the BBC would co-produce a four-part TV adaptation of The Man in the High Castle for BBC One together with Headline Pictures, FremantleMedia Enterprises and Scott Free Films. Director Ridley Scott was to act as executive producer of the adaptation by Howard Brenton.
On February 11, 2013, Variety reported that Syfy was adapting the book as a four-part miniseries, with Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz as executive producers, co-produced with Scott Free Prods., Headline Pictures and Electric Shepherd Prods.
On October 1, 2014, Amazon.com began filming the pilot episode in Roslyn, Washington, for a new television drama to be aired on their Prime web video streaming service. This has been adapted by Frank Spotnitz and is being produced for Amazon by Ridley Scott, David Zucker and Jordan Sheehan for Scott Free, Stewart Mackinnon and Christian Baute for Headline Pictures, Isa Hackett and Kalen Egan for Electric Shepherd and Spotnitz's Big Light Productions. The pilot episode was released by Amazon Studios on January 15, 2015. Amazon Studios' production process is somewhat different from those of other conventional television channels. They produce pilot episodes of a number of different prospective programs, then release them and gather data on their success. The most promising shows are then picked up as regular series. On February 18, 2015, Amazon.com announced that The Man in the High Castle was given the green-light along with four other series, and a full season would be produced.
Production for the pilot episode began in October 2014. Principal filming took place in Seattle, with the city standing in for San Francisco and locations in New York City, as well as Roslyn, Washington, which was the long-time shooting location for Northern Exposure. Sites used in Seattle include the Seattle Center Monorail, the Paramount Theatre, a newspaper office in the Pike Place Market area, as well as various buildings in the city's Capitol Hill, International District, and Georgetown neighborhoods. In Roslyn, the production used external shots of the Roslyn Cafe which featured prominently in Northern Exposure along with several local businesses and scenery.
In April 2015, filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the downtown area of West Georgia Street, along the promenade of the Coast Capital Savings building. In May and June 2015 filming also took place at the University of British Columbia. Exterior shots of Hohenwerfen Castle in Werfen, Austria, were filmed in September 2015 for the tenth episode of the first season.
Amazon announced that they were bringing on new executive producer and showrunner Eric Overmyer for season three to replace Frank Spotnitz after his sudden departure from the show during the middle of season two.
Reception
The first season of The Man in the High Castle received acclaim from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives season 1 an approval rating of 95% based on reviews from 58 critics, with an average rating of 7.54 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "By executive producer Ridley Scott, The Man in the High Castle is unlike anything else on TV, with an immediately engrossing plot driven by quickly developed characters in a fully realized post-WWII dystopia." Metacritic gives the first season a score of 77 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Meredith Woerner from io9 wrote, "I can honestly say I loved this pilot. It's an impressive, streamlined undertaking of a fairly complicated and very beloved novel." Matt Fowler from IGN gave 9.2 out of 10 and described the series as a "a superb, frightening experience filled with unexpected twists and (some sci-fi) turns." Brian Moylan of The Guardian was positive and praised the convincing depiction as well as the complex, and gripping, plot. The Los Angeles Times described the pilot as "provocative" and "smartly adapted by The X-Files' Frank Spotnitz." The Daily Telegraph said it was "absorbing" and Wired called it "must-see viewing." Entertainment Weekly said it was "engrossing" and "a triumph in world-building," cheering, "The Man in the High Castle is king."
After its first season, Rolling Stone included it on a list of the forty best science fiction television shows of all time.
Amazon subsequently announced it was the service's most-streamed original series and had been renewed for a second season. Season 2 was met with mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the second season an approval rating of 63% based on reviews from 19 critics, with an average rating of 6.86 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "Although its plot is admittedly unwieldy, The Man in the High Castle's second season expands its fascinating premise in powerful new directions, bolstered by stunning visuals, strong performances, and intriguing new possibilities." Metacritic gives season 2 a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from ten critics.
Accolades
Advertising controversy
As part of an advertising campaign for the release of the first season, one entire New York City Subway car was covered with Nazi and Imperial Japanese imagery as seen in the show, including multiple American flags with the Nazi eagle emblem in place of the 50 stars and multiple flags of the fictional Pacific States. In response to criticism from "state lawmakers and city leaders", the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) released a statement saying that there were no grounds to reject the ads due to the fact that neutral content subway ad standards only prohibit advertising that is a political advertisement or disparages an individual or group. MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz stated that, "The MTA is a government agency and can't accept or reject ads based on how we feel about them; we have to follow the standards approved by our board. Please note they're commercial ads." Spokesperson Adam Lisberg said, "This advertising, whether you find it distasteful or not, obviously they're not advertising Nazism; they're advertising a TV show." After complaints from New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, initial reports indicated that Amazon pulled the advertisement from the subway. It was later announced that it was the MTA, not Amazon, that pulled the ad, due to pressure from Governor Cuomo.
See also
- SS-GB, 2017 TV series
- Fatherland, 1994 TV movie
References
External links
- Official website
- The Man in the High Castle on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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