The Man in the High Castle somewhat misses the mark

There are a few awesome things within the Man in the High Castle, such as when the Japanese fleet is shown steaming in and out of San Francisco Bay, or when the Capitol Mall is depicted several years after a nuclear attack, but for the most part, there are too many plot holes to make it possible to suspend disbelief and to really enjoy the story.

For example: In the Man in the High Castle, a resistance fighter located in the American Reich can pickup the telephone and call someone in the Japanese Pacific in order to discuss an up coming resistance operation. Also, I'm no expert on Nazi-era weapons, but it seems that if the Nazis had won the war, that they would have developed more modern looking uniforms, handguns, and sub-machine guns, and the same goes for the Japanese. Would the Japanese still be steaming large WWII style battleships in and out of San Francisco during the 1960s?

Additionally, one of the plot devices entails the Nazis sending agents through a portal into our world. Didn't the writers miss an opportunity by having at least one of these agents go rouge in our world, and possibly defecting to our FBI?

Also, during the final season the storyline becomes completely cliche and predictable, and the Japanese are forced to withdraw from North America due to the Black Communist Rebellion centered in Oakland, California. The Black Communist Rebellion depicted in the Man in the High Castle is somewhat similar to the Congaree Socialist Republic, but it is hard to believe that the Imperial Japanese Army would be cowed by such an organization, given the way that the Japanese in our timeline dealt with uprisings in Shanghai and Nanjing. By this time the Japanese have their own a-bomb, San Francisco and Oakland are on opposite sides of the Earth from Japan, so why wouldn't they detonate a thirteen kiloton device over one or both cities? Or, they could firebomb Oakland, as the allies did to Dresden in our timeline. The Japanese are depicted as bumbling inept stormtroopers who get bested at every turn by a ragtag group of rebels, and such a depiction doesn't seem very plausible or entertaining.

Rather than have the Japanese withdraw with their tails between their legs, I think that a much more interesting storyline would have been if the Americans living in both occupation zones came to view themselves as the real Americans, and that the people living in the other half of the country weren't really American's anymore, and that both sides wanted to reunite the country under their particular ideology. Perhaps similar to the way hardliners in East Germany wished to conquer West Germany, and visa-versa.

However, there are somethings which the Man in the High Castle gets right, such as the deceptions of a Japanized Geary Blvd and Mission Streets in San Francisco, and also the fact that everyone seems to have shabby clothes and furniture left over from the 1930s and 40s. Although the 1956 Chevy's which have been aged to make them seem part of a dystopian society seem to be a bit out of place.

Overall I would say that Man in the High Castle is worth watching, but don't expect it to be very awe-inspiring or breathtaking.
 
I generally enjoyed it, but there were so many missed opportunities and weird little details that kept it from being great. One thing that really bothered me was the naming. The German-occupied zone being the "Greater Nazi Reich," and the Japanese zone being the "Japanese Pacific States," was so stupid. I could buy those being nicknames, but seeing GNR painted on Nazi vehicles was immersion breaking for me.
 
I generally enjoyed it, but there were so many missed opportunities and weird little details that kept it from being great. One thing that really bothered me was the naming. The German-occupied zone being the "Greater Nazi Reich," and the Japanese zone being the "Japanese Pacific States," was so stupid. I could buy those being nicknames, but seeing GNR painted on Nazi vehicles was immersion breaking for me.
For me, "Black Communist Rebellion" was dumber. The idea itself made a great deal of sense, actually, in-universe--California becoming locally-majority-black is actually quite sensible if you have large numbers of blacks fleeing Nazi occupation trading places with whites fleeing Japanese occupation. So a Black nationalist/communist movement becoming a major player is actually a brilliant possibility (though an even smarter idea, IMO, would be for the Japanese to play blacks and whites off against one another). But aside from coming out of nowhere with no buildup in the last season, the name is just plain dumb.
There are a few awesome things within the Man in the High Castle, such as when the Japanese fleet is shown steaming in and out of San Francisco Bay, or when the Capitol Mall is depicted several years after a nuclear attack, but for the most part, there are too many plot holes to make it possible to suspend disbelief and to really enjoy the story.

For example: In the Man in the High Castle, a resistance fighter located in the American Reich can pickup the telephone and call someone in the Japanese Pacific in order to discuss an up coming resistance operation. Also, I'm no expert on Nazi-era weapons, but it seems that if the Nazis had won the war, that they would have developed more modern looking uniforms, handguns, and sub-machine guns, and the same goes for the Japanese. Would the Japanese still be steaming large WWII style battleships in and out of San Francisco during the 1960s?
To be fair, the US was doing just that with the Iowa class until the 1990s. Actually, I was rather charmed by the updated Yamato we saw in that one scene.
Additionally, one of the plot devices entails the Nazis sending agents through a portal into our world. Didn't the writers miss an opportunity by having at least one of these agents go rouge in our world, and possibly defecting to our FBI?
An interesting premise, but the entire world-hopping plot was developed way too late to develop it that way. And the "you can only dimension-hop if your counterpart is dead" thing also constrained those possibilities (frankly, I was hoping for a Smith meets Smith scene).
Also, during the final season the storyline becomes completely cliche and predictable, and the Japanese are forced to withdraw from North America due to the Black Communist Rebellion centered in Oakland, California. The Black Communist Rebellion depicted in the Man in the High Castle is somewhat similar to the Congaree Socialist Republic, but it is hard to believe that the Imperial Japanese Army would be cowed by such an organization, given the way that the Japanese in our timeline dealt with uprisings in Shanghai and Nanjing. By this time the Japanese have their own a-bomb, San Francisco and Oakland are on opposite sides of the Earth from Japan, so why wouldn't they detonate a thirteen kiloton device over one or both cities? Or, they could firebomb Oakland, as the allies did to Dresden in our timeline. The Japanese are depicted as bumbling inept stormtroopers who get bested at every turn by a ragtag group of rebels, and such a depiction doesn't seem very plausible or entertaining.
The entire final arc with the Black Communist Rebellion is downright nonsensical, given all the emphasis on Japan wanting to hold onto its American possessions for oil in the previous seasons. And frankly, I'm not sure how China can possibly still be in the game in a world where Japan is strong enough to invade California--they weren't exactly shining examples of competence IOTL.
Rather than have the Japanese withdraw with their tails between their legs, I think that a much more interesting storyline would have been if the Americans living in both occupation zones came to view themselves as the real Americans, and that the people living in the other half of the country weren't really American's anymore, and that both sides wanted to reunite the country under their particular ideology. Perhaps similar to the way hardliners in East Germany wished to conquer West Germany, and visa-versa.
In a sense, this is what they seemed to be leaning toward when Smith became Fuhrer and plotted the final conquest of California. But that was aborted. I actually did like how deep-rooted the show portrayed American Nazism, and think that developing the American Reich could have been interesting--but very far from the upbeat ending the writers seemed to want.
However, there are somethings which the Man in the High Castle gets right, such as the deceptions of a Japanized Geary Blvd and Mission Streets in San Francisco, and also the fact that everyone seems to have shabby clothes and furniture left over from the 1930s and 40s. Although the 1956 Chevy's which have been aged to make them seem part of a dystopian society seem to be a bit out of place.

Overall I would say that Man in the High Castle is worth watching, but don't expect it to be very awe-inspiring or breathtaking.
The show was definitely a mixed bag, but I generally set a lower bar for televized AH, so I enjoyed it while it lasted. But yes, I agree that it could have done some things better.
 
To be fair, the US was doing just that with the Iowa class until the 1990s. Actually, I was rather charmed by the updated Yamato we saw in that one scene.
I guess I cannot argue with that, but would have it really been that difficult for the GGI animators to create a Japanese aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to the USS Enterprise or the USS John F. Kennedy in our timeline?
 
Not to beat an already dead horse, but I just finished watching the final episode of Man in the High Castle, and now as a result, my respect for the show has just cratered. If I had to guess, I'd say that a bunch of studio executives must have busted into the writer's room and hijacked the show. Nothing in the final episode is really congruent with with previous episodes, and the oddest unexplained twists is how one of the female main characters suddenly switched from being an ardent Nazi to a resistance supporter overnight. So, after viewing the final episode, I would have to say that the Man in the High Castle is at best below average entertainment.
 
And frankly, I'm not sure how China can possibly still be in the game in a world where Japan is strong enough to invade California
That really threw me for a loop.
And the "you can only dimension-hop if your counterpart is dead" thing also constrained those possibilities (frankly, I was hoping for a Smith meets Smith scene).
It was different, but not in a way I particularly liked.
Not to beat an already dead horse, but I just finished watching the final episode of Man in the High Castle, and now as a result, my respect for the show has just cratered.
It was just so bizarre and out of nowhere.
 
Honestly I don't think its as good as the book, but besides the size of the subtitles I loved the take on the classic story.
 
There are two things that absolutely destroyed Man in the High Castle. The Portal Plot and the lack of a Season 5.

The fact that there's no Season 5 made them rush and underdevelop many of the ideas that they started and speedrun throughout Season 4, for example, the whole Japanese situation in the West Coast. You can see the inklings of a wider plot with some officers being unwilling to continue the occupation, interservice rivalry, the rebels, even the Yakuza playing a role (the scene where the Yakuza boss explains to the rebels that it's easy to be a rebel but really hard to govern is one of my favourite scenes in the series). The same can be said about the machinations around John Smith and his side of the continent.

The Portal Plot was given the attention and screen time of a Deus Ex Machina without having that Deus Ex Machina fix anything. So a few thousand people came through the portal... And? The Nazis have exterminated millions already, you're not making a difference guys. The wacky Interdimensional bullshit came to dominate the show, removing the interest from the actually good parts of the show. The only time it was used effectively was during the finale of Season 2 and that was only because it was in service of the Alternate History Cold War/House of Card-esque part of the show. If it had stuck with that, I have no doubt that the entire show would have remained around for more.
 
I thought it was visually stunning and the music is at least equal to Bear McCreary's BSG soundtrack-which is a huge thing for me to say. Rufus Sewell can also show more emotional turmoil with a clenched jaw than many actors can in a three minute monologue.

The plot is good in the first 2 seasons then kind of goes haywire after that. I think throughout there are probably a few too many threads and in S3 when they no longer have either the mystery of the filmmakers's identity or the looming threat of prophecied nuclear war there isn't enough to tie them together.

By S4 the whole plot was a mess- I didn't really have any idea what the Nazis could accomplish by world hopping and this why, besides Smith wanting to escape, they were putting so much effort into it. The Japanese looked completely inept and the BCR and their plotline came out of nowhere and were squeezed in between too many other things to be interesting. Smith's rise to power copied some of the imagery of the much better S2 finale without really earning it and did it all with barely any time before he died. Tagomi died off screen to start some rushed political drama on the Japanese side. Etc

But I liked it a lot in general.
 
A guerilla war against genocidal nuclear powers is impossible. They had to make the occupiers evil and incompetent but not evil enough to respond to a rebellion effective enough to push them out of a continent by nuking the civilians or wholesale camps. Some scenes were interesting for visual aspect of it, like Yamato in SF but the naming conventions are cringe. Greater German/ic Reich us too complicated, maybe people won’t get it. I know. Make it a Nazi Reich. What if they don’t get the rebels ideology. Oh I know! Black communists. As an official name 😂
 
I have to agree. The first two seasons were good, after that it started downhill and the final season was a mess. A successful rebellion against a genocidal, nuclear-armed state is highly unlikely to succeed, unless some other nuclear power constrains its actions. The Japanese Empire demonstrated their willingness to use any methods available to gain/maintain control. If a city rose in rebellion, they would either isolate that city and starve it into submission or burn it to the ground to denmonstrate the Empire's resolve. What the series needed was some experienced science fiction writers to shape the overall arc of the story.
 
Overall, I enjoyed High Castle, but it had a lot of silly stuff. S4 had some good ideas, but was really rushed and the happy ending was forced and implausible. Let's not mince words, the Japanese Empire would not hesitate to commit genocide. Also I can't see the American Reich suddenly democratising. They've spent almost 20 years doing Nazi things and are run by people who have a ton of blood on their hands and profited from it.

Moreover, the Nazi power structure is weird. It's like all competing centres of power just vanish and everyone is fine with the SS running everything.
 
I have to agree. The first two seasons were good, after that it started downhill and the final season was a mess. A successful rebellion against a genocidal, nuclear-armed state is highly unlikely to succeed, unless some other nuclear power constrains its actions. The Japanese Empire demonstrated their willingness to use any methods available to gain/maintain control. If a city rose in rebellion, they would either isolate that city and starve it into submission or burn it to the ground to denmonstrate the Empire's resolve. What the series needed was some experienced science fiction writers to shape the overall arc of the story.
The writers of Season 4 really went "Ah yes, that pillar of restraint and humanism, the Japanese Empire. They've never went off and just executed thousands of civilians in an orgy of violence"
Also I can't see the American Reich suddenly democratising. They've spent almost 20 years doing Nazi things and are run by people who have a ton of blood on their hands and profited from it.
I used to joke with a friend of mine that if there ever was an episode 11, it would begin with John Smith's friend being executed while his successor continues the invasion. The generation born in the 40s, that's getting into the military, university, the various others services and jobs are thoroughly Nazified while the vast majority of their parents are either well adjusted or passive. I always thought that it was a clever piece of writing that the resistance in the East Coast was carried by much older and fewer people exactly because they were having a good time. Meanwhile the West Coast Resistance is more numerous, more determined, brutal and relatively younger because the Japanese came in with a sledgehammer and the local Americans found themselves colonized in their own country.
 
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I didn't really have any idea what the Nazis could accomplish by world hopping
Their economy was dependent on looting new conquered territories and the entirety of their earth was already divvied up into nuclear superpowers and the conquests of nuclear superpowers. The only question being, why go for parallel earths with people? Invade worlds with earlier PODs where humanity never evolved in the first place and they'd get entirely intact environments, untapped natural resources, nobody shooting at them and they could send anyone they liked without worrying about counterparts.
So a few thousand people came through the portal... And? The Nazis have exterminated millions already, you're not making a difference guys.
More to the point, how the hell did the society on the other side of the portal convince anyone to go? 'A TL where a regime genocidally opposed to your existence which already killed their TL's alternative version of you is the superpower' doesn't sounds like an appealing vacation spot and a few thousand people with comparable technologies to their opponents aren't enough to launch a proper invasion.
 
More to the point, how the hell did the society on the other side of the portal convince anyone to go? 'A TL where a regime genocidally opposed to your existence which already killed their TL's alternative version of you is the superpower' doesn't sounds like an appealing vacation spot and a few thousand people with comparable technologies to their opponents aren't enough to launch a proper invasion.
That would require thinking and not going for a "poetic" ending in a sci-fi/soft realistic story. I don't think half of the thought that's been put in this thread was made by the writers.
 
That would require thinking and not going for a "poetic" ending in a sci-fi/soft realistic story. I don't think half of the thought that's been put in this thread was made by the writers.
There is canonically a holiday called "Reichsgiving." By season 4, they were just fucking with us.

By S4 the whole plot was a mess- I didn't really have any idea what the Nazis could accomplish by world hopping and this why, besides Smith wanting to escape, they were putting so much effort into it.
I think they could have made some sense of that plot by referring to the fact that, ITTL, Germany won because Hitler had foreknowledge he got from the filmstrips. They could have decided to run with that idea--outsource their R&D to alternate timelines, for example. By the 1960s, the Reich doesn't have hydrogen bombs, for example--send someone to another timeline to steal Teller's and Ulam's notes.
I used to joke with a friend of mine that if there ever was an episode 11, it would begin with John Smith's friend being executed while his successor continues the invasion. The generation born in the 40s, that's getting into the military, university, the various others services and jobs are thoroughly Nazified while the vast majority of their parents are either well adjusted or passive. I always thought that it was a clever piece of writing that the resistance in the East Coast was carried by much older and fewer people exactly because they were having a good time. Meanwhile the West Coast Resistance is more numerous, more determined, brutal and relatively younger because the Japanese came in with a sledgehammer and the local Americans found themselves colonized in their own country.
That is a probable ending. Given that Smith's friend was already something of a war hero for conquering the neutral zone, having him change his mind at the last moment was dumb.

But all the executions and palace coups in both Germany and America are going to take their toll sooner or later--they've already got a pair of relative nobodies running both Reichs. What's to stop another nobody from thinking, "if I kill enough people, I'll definitely be secure in my rule!", and this process repeating over and over and over until the you just get Nazi civil wars? Japan can probably end up winning by default.
 
I think they could have made some sense of that plot by referring to the fact that, ITTL, Germany won because Hitler had foreknowledge he got from the filmstrips. They could have decided to run with that idea--outsource their R&D to alternate timelines, for example. By the 1960s, the Reich doesn't have hydrogen bombs, for example--send someone to another timeline to steal Teller's and Ulam's notes.
Ι think I had spotted a prop magazine or file about the hydrogen bomb from some returning agents so your theory probably checks out.
 
TMIHC is fiction, is to be a shocking tale what 'THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED HERE' that a serious exploration, enjoy it for what he is
 
We're going at it all wrong. The ideal ironic twist ending to all these interdimensional shenanigans would've been for Germany to fire up their portal machine and suddenly get invaded by Draka.
 
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