Dude's 80 years old and only had 3 more years to live, there's no way he'd be up to that.
He did in the book. I have read it.
Dude's 80 years old and only had 3 more years to live, there's no way he'd be up to that.
A man wearing a gray business suit is walking down a dark hallway. He is followed by four guards dressed in gray military uniforms and World War One-era doughboy helmets. This man is President JAKE FEATHERSTON of the Confederate States of America. The sound of cheering is getting louder and louder.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Imagine a world where the South won the American Civil War.
As the announcer is speaking, images of the past flash for several seconds: images of McClellan surrendering to Lee, the Confederate flag flying over the White House, soldiers in blue and gray clashing, and American barrels fighting in the Great War.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Imagine a world where the United States was put between two hostile nations. Imagine a world where the Allies lost the First World War.
JAKE FEATHERSTON finally exits the hallway and is standing on a balcony overlooking a huge crowd. Thousands fill the plaza, with guards in gray uniforms and holding Freedom Party flags are in the front. The crowd goes wild as they see FEATHERSTON. He snaps off a clean Bellamy (Nazi) salute. The camera pans around and we see the massive crowd responding in kind. Large cries of “Freedom!” ring out.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Well, stop imagining.
JAKE FEATHERSTON
My name is Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth!
The crowd, which had quieted down, explodes into applause and more shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard.
The shot changes to that of SCIPIO, his wife BATHSHEBA, and their two children running down a dark street. Buildings are on fire and shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard in the background. The shot then changes to that of camp guard JEFF PINKERTON watching as a truck drive up.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Dive into a world filled with hate and violence.
A guard in gray steps out of the truck and walks up to JEFF PINKTERTON. Several more guards open up the doors of the truck and empty out its passengers: black prisoners in chains.
TRUCK DRIVER
I’ve got you another batch.
JEFF PINKTERTON
I’m over my population limit. What I am I going to do with more niggers?
TRUCK DRIVER
That’s your problem.
The image turns to a shot of the battlefield in Ohio. Confederate barrels are charging past the burned out wreckage of their American counterparts. We see more images of war.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
And into a world gone mad with war. Presenting Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, the groundbreaking movie based off the best-selling book by Harry Turtledove. Coming to a theater near you on May 10th. Rating pending.
The screen goes black
CROWD (v.o.)
Freedom!
FADE IN . . .
The scenes are of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century: Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the fine houses of Upper Manhattan, the teeming communities, the family neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens; couples walking in the streets, children playing on the beach, a fine society party, a laughter-filled tavern.
"It was a new century and a great nation. The Full Dinner Pail was the rule of the land. The country had won its splendid little war. This would be America's Century."
Grimmer music, the scene of a convoy of ships. As the camera pans in we can see a few soldiers on deck, wearing picklehaubes . .
"But others also wanted a place in the sun. They envied and resented our rise, and hoped to cut it down."
Gunfire and fighting. German soldiers march through the streets of New York City. The camera pans in on an American flag that has been torn down and trampled.
"Our nation was attacked, our people put under foreign dominion."
The same flag, flying over Washington. The camera pulls back to two men standing before the White House before a large crowd, shouting "Pete! Pete!" In the background a band is playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever".
"In this time of crisis a new president was faced with the ultimate challenge."
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
"I give you the new General in Chief of the U.S. Army --- General James Longstreet!"
The cheers of "Pete! Pete!" rise to a new crescendo.
General Longstreet turns to face the flag and salutes it. He is in Union blue, with four gold stars on his epaulets. As he salutes we can see a tear in his eye.
GENERAL LONGSTREET
"Americans from North and South, together as one now! America will fight --- and America will win!"
The band breaks into "Dixie"
FADE to Title Card
1901
Coming to a theater near you on 19th January
The "Idealist Movies" logo appears, followed by the WB logo.
NARRATOR
Imagine...
The WB morphs into a sun, and the camera moves down to rest upon workers standing angrily beyond a metal gate. They are waving picket signs with slogans like "IWW WILL TAKE CONTROL" and "DOWN WITH THE ROBBER-BARONS". They can be heard screaming various things, while nearby police watch on nervously.
NARRATOR
...a world where things are different.
The sound of horses trotting can be heard. The camera moves to one of the horses' head, and then moves to it's owner. He has a somewhat portly face, and has brownish-gray hair, a short mustache, and round spectacles. He is Theodore Roosevelt, President-elect of the United States. He begins to speak, but his voice cannot be heard over the protestors.
NARRATOR
And it just so happens...
Behind Roosevelt, there are many other horsemen, all with shotguns at readyness. On the ground next to Roosevelt, a Pinkerton (Samuel Hammett) draws his revolver and looks at the crowd as Roosevelt continues to speak.
NARRATOR
...that on this world...
Roosevelt stops speaking, and him and the other horsemen begin to advance towards the gate, even as the protesters start chanting a slogan repeateadly and begin to try and climb the gate. The police begin to take action, rattiling their clubs on the bars of the gate and yelling orders to cease and desist.
NARRATOR
...a change has happened...
The horsemen aim their guns at the gate, which is weakening under the pressure. Roosevelt raises his hand, apparently ready to order a charge, when a gun firing is heard. His mouth opens, and he says one last word.
ROOSEVELT
(softly)
Bully.
Cut to spectacles hitting the ground and shattering, and then to the Pinkerton's face, watching in shock as shotgun blasts are heard.
NARRATOR
...that was heard 'round the world.
Cut to a scene in Washington, with several notable landmarks visible. It is snowing slightly. The camera zooms to a scene on the Capitol, where a man has his hand on the Bible and is speaking.
CHARLES FOSTER KANE
...So help me God.
NARRATOR
And this change...
Cut to a shot of Lincoln's statue in the memorial. Icy tears fall from his eyes. Then, suddenly, the camera is filled with a crimson hue, with a hammer-sickle symbol expanding from the center.
NARRATOR
...would make America go red.
The Beatles' "Back in the USSR" plays, but a similar toned "A" has been spliced into the song in place of the "R". Meanwhile, there is a montage of scenes from the movie, from the sinking of the Titanic as seen from the eyes of Houdini in the water, to soldiers fighting in a trench-crossed France while shells burst, to another scene of Washington with a huge group waving red flags and chanting, to a smartly-dressed Alphonse Capone walking down a White House corridor with his cronies following.
NARRATOR
This fall...
The screen turns to black, and the words First Part of the "Back in the USSA" Trilogy" appear.
NARRATOR
...revolution is in the air.
The words Red Revolution Rising appear in a way that makes it seem as if they have been written in paint... or blood. They then disappear, and "10.13.05" appears to end the trailer.
Scene opens with black and white, vintage film footage of war, bombings, no sounds. Pearl Harbor. Sea Lion landings. Then, attacks on the U.S. Zeros over San Francisco, Golden Gate hit. Panzers rolling into New York. Finally, silent, cheering German troops.
Screen Text
If history had lost a leader
SFX: A gunshot.
CUT TO: Zangara assassinates FDR
SFX: Tense music, or possibly drumbeats
Quick-Cuts: inauguration, Newspaper with headline “President Bricker declares neutrality!” A fictional conference with smiling Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini, then colored versions of the earlier scenes of an invasion of U.S.
Screen Text
What would result?
SFX: Sad, patriotic music.
CUT TO: Defeated, dirty American troops standing in the bombed-out ruins of Chicago. Patton ceremoniously hands Rommel his sidearm/sword.
Screen Text
If evil had triumphed
SFX: Again, tense music/drumbeats
Quick-cuts: Images of the Todt Plan, American working on reconstruction under Nazi overseers, refugees running through a dark city, millions of Luftwaffe jets fly over an African savannah, Japanese officials shaking hands with new PSA puppet gov't, German soldiers (actually the SD from the scene late in the book) storming an office building, final shot is of rebuilt New York City, with Nazified architecture
SFX: Shifts, holds a note, makes an odd ethereal sound
CUT TO: Pan over the length of the Nazi Space Rocket, magnificently huge, zoom out until you realize that its launch pad isn’t on Earth.
Screen Text
Who could oppose it?
BAYNES (in hushed tones)
And there are others of us. Do you hear? We did not die. We still exist. We live on unseen.
Screen Text
If hostile nations had conquered America
SFX: No sound, tense silence
Hold shot for 1.5 seconds: Map of U.S. divided into Pacific States, Rocky Mountain States, and the United States
Screen Text
Where would we be?
SFX: Once again, tense music/drumbeats
Quick-cuts: Juliana leading a class of judo students; Frank Frink kneels in front of a I Ching oracle book and tosses sticks into the air, prompting the camera to zoom onto them momentarily; Mr. Tagomi peeks out from behind a wall that has an American Civil War recruiting poster prominently displayed; Ed McCarthy holds up something shiny in his hand though we can't see it clearly; an ornate jewel box opens to show a Mickey Mouse wristwatch on a bed of plush velvet; slaves take Childan's luggage as he disembarks from a rickshaw.
NARRATOR (v.o.)
In this world we see not only the horrors of totality...
SFX: Tenseness/drumbeats near a crescendo of intensity
Quick-cuts: Imperial Japanese troops execute a Japanese man (profiteer mentioned in the novel), a Nazi rocket passes over the Rockies as Juliana watches, an army of SS troops carrying huge portraits of Heydrich marches towards an army of blackshirts carrying huge portraits of Goebbels into an inevitable fight, "Joe" kills a British officer in North Africa.
CUT TO: Two American cops, one holding Frank Frink.
COP #1
Back to Germany.
FRANK FRINK
I'm an American!
COP #2
You're a Jew.
NARRATOR (v.o.)
...But the shame of normality.
SFX: Nostalgic music, slowly fading and becoming more sinister
Quick-cuts: 1950s suburbs, mixed in with some '30s Gernsback-styled art deco technocratic futurism in a way Ray Bradbury would have approved. Kids playing on lawns with hula hoops, roller skates, dressed in odd khaki uniforms. Pan across city, showing well-kept lawns, happy people, neoclassical civic buildings, then...
Shot: The city is surrounded by scorched earth, hundreds of acres of cleared rainforest, images of burnt villages, and as you drift further away, you can see flat, square factories with tall smokestacks spewing out the ghosts of billions of people in the form of midnight-pitch smog.
[[[In the actual film, a caption would be on the bottom left of the screen: Dakar, Senegal]]]
NARRATOR (v.o.)
A shadow of the truth is awaking.
SFX: Desparate, dramatic music
Hold shot for 1.5 seconds: A hardcover book with a picture of a grasshopper prominently displayed.
Cut to: Juliana puts hand on cover carefully, picks the book up and looks at it carefully, curious look on her face.
Quick-cuts: A crowd of Japanese and Americans walk out from a bookstore displaying copies of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, Wyndan-Matsom throws his head back in loud laughter as he drives, Childan (in the Kasouras' living room) flips the cover over, Reiss angrily throws the book across the room, Mr. Tagomi sits on park bench in a trance
HAWTHORNE ABDENSEN (darkness hiding his face)
I'm not sure of anything.
Juliana
Believe.
Fade in and out for each different line
Screen Text
Based on the alternate history classic about the nightmare of a Nazi victory.
The Man in the High Castle
Directed by Stephen Spielberg
HAWTHORNE ABDENSEN (v.o., passionately)
Germany and Japan lost the war!
Screen Text
A Philip K. Dick Story
Fade to black
A man wearing a gray business suit is walking down a dark hallway. He is followed by four guards dressed in gray military uniforms and World War One-era doughboy helmets. This man is President JAKE FEATHERSTON of the Confederate States of America. The sound of cheering is getting louder and louder.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Imagine a world where the South won the American Civil War.
As the announcer is speaking, images of the past flash for several seconds: images of McClellan surrendering to Lee, the Confederate flag flying over the White House, soldiers in blue and gray clashing, and American barrels fighting in the Great War.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Imagine a world where the United States was put between two hostile nations. Imagine a world where the Allies lost the First World War.
JAKE FEATHERSTON finally exits the hallway and is standing on a balcony overlooking a huge crowd. Thousands fill the plaza, with guards in gray uniforms and holding Freedom Party flags are in the front. The crowd goes wild as they see FEATHERSTON. He snaps off a clean Bellamy (Nazi) salute. The camera pans around and we see the massive crowd responding in kind. Large cries of “Freedom!” ring out.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Well, stop imagining.
JAKE FEATHERSTON
My name is Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth!
The crowd, which had quieted down, explodes into applause and more shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard.
The shot changes to that of SCIPIO, his wife BATHSHEBA, and their two children running down a dark street. Buildings are on fire and shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard in the background. The shot then changes to that of camp guard JEFF PINKERTON watching as a truck drive up.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Dive into a world filled with hate and violence.
A guard in gray steps out of the truck and walks up to JEFF PINKTERTON. Several more guards open up the doors of the truck and empty out its passengers: black prisoners in chains.
TRUCK DRIVER
I’ve got you another batch.
JEFF PINKTERTON
I’m over my population limit. What I am I going to do with more niggers?
TRUCK DRIVER
That’s your problem.
The image turns to a shot of the battlefield in Ohio. Confederate barrels are charging past the burned out wreckage of their American counterparts. We see more images of war.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
And into a world gone mad with war. Presenting Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, the groundbreaking movie based off the best-selling book by Harry Turtledove. Coming to a theater near you on May 10th. Rating pending.
The screen goes black
CROWD (v.o.)
Freedom!
The "Idealist Movies" logo appears, followed by the WB logo.
NARRATOR
Imagine...
The WB morphs into a sun, and the camera moves down to rest upon workers standing angrily beyond a metal gate. They are waving picket signs with slogans like "IWW WILL TAKE CONTROL" and "DOWN WITH THE ROBBER-BARONS". They can be heard screaming various things, while nearby police watch on nervously.
NARRATOR
...a world where things are different.
The sound of horses trotting can be heard. The camera moves to one of the horses' head, and then moves to it's owner. He has a somewhat portly face, and has brownish-gray hair, a short mustache, and round spectacles. He is Theodore Roosevelt, President-elect of the United States. He begins to speak, but his voice cannot be heard over the protestors.
NARRATOR
And it just so happens...
Behind Roosevelt, there are many other horsemen, all with shotguns at readyness. On the ground next to Roosevelt, a Pinkerton (Samuel Hammett) draws his revolver and looks at the crowd as Roosevelt continues to speak.
NARRATOR
...that on this world...
Roosevelt stops speaking, and him and the other horsemen begin to advance towards the gate, even as the protesters start chanting a slogan repeateadly and begin to try and climb the gate. The police begin to take action, rattiling their clubs on the bars of the gate and yelling orders to cease and desist.
NARRATOR
...a change has happened...
The horsemen aim their guns at the gate, which is weakening under the pressure. Roosevelt raises his hand, apparently ready to order a charge, when a gun firing is heard. His mouth opens, and he says one last word.
ROOSEVELT
(softly)
Bully.
Cut to spectacles hitting the ground and shattering, and then to the Pinkerton's face, watching in shock as shotgun blasts are heard.
NARRATOR
...that was heard 'round the world.
Cut to a scene in Washington, with several notable landmarks visible. It is snowing slightly. The camera zooms to a scene on the Capitol, where a man has his hand on the Bible and is speaking.
CHARLES FOSTER KANE
...So help me God.
NARRATOR
And this change...
Cut to a shot of Lincoln's statue in the memorial. Icy tears fall from his eyes. Then, suddenly, the camera is filled with a crimson hue, with a hammer-sickle symbol expanding from the center.
NARRATOR
...would make America go red.
The Beatles' "Back in the USSR" plays, but a similar toned "A" has been spliced into the song in place of the "R". Meanwhile, there is a montage of scenes from the movie, from the sinking of the Titanic as seen from the eyes of Houdini in the water, to soldiers fighting in a trench-crossed France while shells burst, to another scene of Washington with a huge group waving red flags and chanting, to a smartly-dressed Alphonse Capone walking down a White House corridor with his cronies following.
NARRATOR
This fall...
The screen turns to black, and the words First Part of the "Back in the USSA" Trilogy" appear.
NARRATOR
...revolution is in the air.
The words Red Revolution Rising appear in a way that makes it seem as if they have been written in paint... or blood. They then disappear, and "10.13.05" appears to end the trailer.
A man wearing a gray business suit is walking down a dark hallway. He is followed by four guards dressed in gray military uniforms and World War One-era doughboy helmets. This man is President JAKE FEATHERSTON of the Confederate States of America. The sound of cheering is getting louder and louder.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Imagine a world where the South won the American Civil War.
As the announcer is speaking, images of the past flash for several seconds: images of McClellan surrendering to Lee, the Confederate flag flying over the White House, soldiers in blue and gray clashing, and American barrels fighting in the Great War.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Imagine a world where the United States was put between two hostile nations. Imagine a world where the Allies lost the First World War.
JAKE FEATHERSTON finally exits the hallway and is standing on a balcony overlooking a huge crowd. Thousands fill the plaza, with guards in gray uniforms and holding Freedom Party flags are in the front. The crowd goes wild as they see FEATHERSTON. He snaps off a clean Bellamy (Nazi) salute. The camera pans around and we see the massive crowd responding in kind. Large cries of “Freedom!” ring out.
ANNOUNCER (cont’d.)
Well, stop imagining.
JAKE FEATHERSTON
My name is Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth!
The crowd, which had quieted down, explodes into applause and more shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard.
The shot changes to that of SCIPIO, his wife BATHSHEBA, and their two children running down a dark street. Buildings are on fire and shouts of “Freedom!” can be heard in the background. The shot then changes to that of camp guard JEFF PINKERTON watching as a truck drive up.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
Dive into a world filled with hate and violence.
A guard in gray steps out of the truck and walks up to JEFF PINKTERTON. Several more guards open up the doors of the truck and empty out its passengers: black prisoners in chains.
TRUCK DRIVER
I’ve got you another batch.
JEFF PINKTERTON
I’m over my population limit. What I am I going to do with more niggers?
TRUCK DRIVER
That’s your problem.
The image turns to a shot of the battlefield in Ohio. Confederate barrels are charging past the burned out wreckage of their American counterparts. We see more images of war.
ANNOUNCER (v.o.)
And into a world gone mad with war. Presenting Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, the groundbreaking movie based off the best-selling book by Harry Turtledove. Coming to a theater near you on May 10th. Rating pending.
The screen goes black
CROWD (v.o.)
Freedom!
Choose your favorite AH novel (preferably something that would be good for a movie adaptation, I'm thinking A Man in the High Castle Here), and write a short script for the trailer you'd create to promote it.