However, “The Man in The High Castle” did not really satisfy me at all. I recall reading Philip Dick's novel back in my early high school days but damned if I can remember much about it other than I also found it lacking even though it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. My best recollection is that I thought it was stogie, long winded and way overwritten by Dick while I did not find this in his other writings which I really enjoyed.
The Amazon Series is severely updated and “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” by Hawthorne Abendsen novel in the original has become cans of films. The plot has also been greatly rebooted with Hitler's syphilitic incapacitation of the novel totally gone and he is now very spry and rather elegant in speech and movement living in his castle high in the German Alps. Lastly, the final ending scene is a very, very large jump requiring an even vaster leap in suspension of belief by the viewer. Perhaps this is to whet the viewers’ appetite for Season Two if it comes about.
That said, the acting was superior, as was the particular eccentricities & tensions of each totalitarian occupations and the production elements (i.e. cars, buildings, aircraft, weapons, etc) were fantastic with a few really jarring boo-boos. Such as SS Stormtroopers armed with modern machinepistols while their ‘Y’ strap load bearing gear had on the back a single triple ammo pouch for 8mm Mauser rounds not used in the MP5s they carried.
Also, of the many, many Nazi Decorations displayed on the many different versions of German uniforms, I did not see one Iron Cross but there was a plethora of a revised version of the Nazi War Merit Cross 1st Class (Rebooted in black with silver outlines) & Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross hung on both Obergruppenführer John Smith & Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich necks. In reality, Heydrich was posthumously awarded this after his assassination in 1942.
I say watch the series even if you are a nitpicking old military/history buff like me, the ten hours you spend will not be wasted.
Now, Netflix's “Jessica Jones” is 13 hours of pure enjoyment with lots of overt/obscure cameo roles in a sexy, snarkily funny, well crafted dark plot with very real stunts (& VERY little CGI) and just a touch of secondary Liberal Hollywood PC Crap.
While not a real Marvel Comic fan (I was born too early for them and was a Superman/Boy/Girl, Batman, Sgt. Rock DC Comic fans up to I discovered Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke in 1957) I do find the acting of Krysten Ritter to be so damn beguiling that I would watch her read the Dallas phone book. Of course, in my old fart defense, her sultry, smoking hot looks and poetry in motion gate have nothing to do with this—
Yeah, and I'm sticking to it!
As to the 2nd banana lesbian angle driven to beyond a dull point, I did not realize Carrie-Anne Moss was so damned bowlegged. In her short dresses, it became comically distracting ever time she walk into a scene.
Okay, both series were well worth the effort with “Jessica” being the better of the two.
“Krysten Ritter “
My cousin was dating a chick that looked like her, only she was fairly short. Mmm.
Anyway, I’ve seen the ads for “The Man in The High Castle”, might check that out if the pirate videos work. ;d