Are you quick to hold out under Nazi and Japanese occupation ? Amazon is adapting Philip K. Dick ’s beloved alt - story novel The Man in the High Castle for TV , and today at Comic - Con , we found out what to bear from the show ’s first season .
The first episode of Man in the High Castle already appeared online months ago — read our review here — and they ’re filming the rest of the first time of year powerful now . We saw a panel with producer Frank Spotnitz and David Zucker and castmembers Rufus Sewell , Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa , Rupert Evans , Luke Kleintank and Alexa Davalos . Plus Philip K. Dick ’s girl , Isa Dick - Hackett , and they talk about the major changes from the book , and the major themes of the TV show .
In Philip K. Dick ’s original novel , the Japanese and Germans have curb America — but there ’s an secret novel about a world where the Axis powers really lost . In the TV version , though , instead of an underground book of account , it ’s a lot of newsreel films of “ our ” human race in which the Allies won the war .
Someone from the audience asked the show ’s head writer , Frank Spotnitz , why they changed the al-Qur’an into flick . He reply , “ That was actually the first thing that popped in my creative thinker when adapting it for television , which was that instead of a book , it should be a motion picture — because it ’s a visual medium . ” But Spotnitz said that this does raise some questions , because anybody can have a printing press , but make film is harder . At the same time , the film are just a “ McGuffin , ” said Spotnitz .
In fact , the identity element of the “ Man in the High Castle , ” who creates those films , is “ one of the keen mysteries of the show , ” suppose Spotnitz . The show starts with the revealing that “ there ’s another world that ’s possible , ” and this is link up to the Man in the High Castle . But you wo n’t get answer to the nature of this other world , and the identity of that Man , any time soon . At the same time , this is n’t a mystery story - tug show — it ’s all about what it would be like to live in an substitute realism .
Someone asked about one character from the Word of God who ’s not in the TV show — antiques dealer Robert Childen . And Spotnitz said that he ’s in the follow episodes , and in fact is filming right now .
primitively , this show was a four - time of day miniseries , and the fourth hour would have end with us meeting the Man in the High Castle , allege Spotnitz . So they ’ve already pass with flying colors down that answer , and they know where they ’re heading .
Producer David Zucker explained that they in reality had a hatful to make Man in the High Castle for the BBC at one point , and then for Syfy , and both of those muckle fell through . And then fatefully , Amazon asked Frank Spotnitz if he could adapt one Quran or other source material , what would it be — and he said Man in the High Castle . That started the ball rolling , right before the option was due to exhale .
Spotnitz , “ In part , the book was write as a parable on the Cold War … in our [ version ] , it ’s a Cold War between the Nazis and the Japanese . ” The Japanese are having a hard time confine on to their empire , while the Germans are being aggressive and adept at expanding . The United States is caught between these two sides in the Cold War .
Spotnitz enounce which side of the country you ’d want to endure on—German or Japanese — look on the color of your tegument , your political science , your religious belief , your sexuality , and so on . On the East side , Nazi policies have become pretty normalized , and white Christian neat people have a “ pretty decent ” life . “ There ’s a variety of freedom in fascism , ” said Spotnitz . “ We do n’t usually get to look at that up close . ” It ’s “ unsettling ” to look at that up close .
“ We Americans are not accustomed to the idea of losing , ” allege Spotnitz .
Meanwhile , on the West sea-coast , under Nipponese rule , there are minorities . But also , because the Nipponese grip on power is not as strong , there ’s offence and corruption and lawlessness . And in the middle , in the neutral zone , there ’s a kind of “ Wild West ” spirit .
Rupert Evans say he play a frustrated creative person on the West Coast , because modern art was banish and suppressed under the Third Reich . “ The world that you ’ll see in this TV show is a humankind where citizenry with ideas are kept lock away , ” say Evans . “ It ’s all about how citizenry know under that variety of totalitarian state . ”
Rufus Sewell , who plays “ Obergruppenführer ” John Smith , who ’s a Nazi drawing card — but also a sound sire and a regular guy in his individual left . “ He stage the great majority ” of Americans , who “ have just normalized . It ’s become normal spirit , under the Reich . ” In this world , after the Nazis dropped an atomic turkey on Washington , there was a civic war in the United States over whether to keep fighting — and John Smith was one of the masses who want to surrended to the Nazis . So he ’s a not bad hero now , said Sewell .
Everybody in this public has “ dark glasses of grey , ” and even the die - hard Nazi played by Rufus Sewell will have you “ rooting for him ” at multiplication , said Spotnitz .
Meanwhile , we ’ll glimpse very unlike versions of soda water culture — there ’s no Elvis and no Beatles . Rock Hudson is star in a fictional motion picture called The Punch Bowl , and there ’s a Marx Bros. placard with the word “ Semites ” scrawled across it , show that the Marx Bros. were ban as Jews . And we see game shows featuring genial Nazis .
Executive producer Ridley Scott “ is one of the nifty visual film - makers of all time , and to have his guidance and insight as to how to approach this populace has been invaluable , ” said Spotnitz . “ He cited many moving picture ” that they should refer to , include Blade Runner , but also admit Bertolucci ’s The Conformist , and other all right art . And they ’ve run that aesthetic as the show has gone on .
One scene in finical owes a tidy sum to Blade Runner — it ’s Times Square under Nazi line of work , which they shoot in Seattle , using trailing marks . Spotnitz say they ’re go to change that shot in November . They ’re give refinements to the shot for the raw edition of the pilot , which ruminate change in automobile design and the commercial-grade refinement under the Nazis — which would have been focused less on embodied growth , and more on agriculture and heavy industriousness .
“ You will find out very tardily what ’s happened to the rest of the map ” beyond the U.S. , Germany and Japan , said Spotnitz . And we wo n’t leave behind the U.S. until the end of the first time of year .
reach the author at[email protect ] .
sdcc 2015
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