Ridley Scott Adapts Philip K. Dick's 'Man in the High Castle' For Amazon

An anonymous reader writes with word of an adaption of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. Ridley Scott is the executive producer for the adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel that's one of 13 new TV shows from Amazon Studios. There's also a video adaptation of The New Yorker magazine, and all 13 pilots are available free online. Votes of viewers will help decide which ones get picked up for a full season, and Amazon is promising customers that they've assembled "some of the greatest storytellers in the business with works of novelty and passion."

Comments

Colour me apprehensive.

[newcastlejon]

I'd be a lot more excited if Sir Ridley hadn't disappeared up his own fundament shortly after Gladiator. He has a lot to do to make up for Prometheus.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[andersenep]

Prometheus was light years better than Gladiator. I enjoyed it immensely. If there is any movie in the Alien franchise that absolutely sucked, it was Alien 3.

I am looking forward to 'Man in the High Castle'. Watching episode 1 now.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[wiredlogic]

Nothing better that two crewmen in a first-contact situation taking their helmets off, running off like ninnies, getting lost, and contaminating themselves. Top notch writing that.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[andersenep]

Yeah, I suppose the critters should have instead launched out of eggs and melted through their helmets. /sarcasm

All movies require a certain suspension of disbelief. Still, I will take "two crewmen in a first-contact situation taking their helmets off, running off like ninnies, getting lost, and contaminating themselves." over "Roman emperor fights a gladiator."

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[chuckugly]

True but the whole 'let's take our hats off' shtick is closely related to the 'why do our helmets have lights that shine in our own eyes' one; It's about showing the actors faces, and as such I have decided to sigh and try to accept it for what it is, as long as their hats being off isn't a crucial plot point or something.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Chris Mattern]

All movies require a certain suspension of disbelief. Still, I will take "two crewmen in a first-contact situation taking their helmets off, running off like ninnies, getting lost, and contaminating themselves." over "Roman emperor fights a gladiator."

Even though the latter actually happened? Granted, the fights were always fixed, but still...

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[andersenep]

Look, every sci-fi fan is in the same boat. However I don't understand the level of vitriol towards Prometheus. It's not like every other movie in the Alien franchise didn't have parts that sucked. Molecular acid...xenomorphs...the entirety of Alien 3....I thought Prometheus was a step back in the right direction after Alien 3 and Resurrection (which was at least better than 3). I am continuously amazed at the hatred towards it. It's a great movie.

Ridley Scott has been one of the few movie directors/producers to embrace sci-fi with any amount of success. He is clearly a fan of Philip K. Dick. Let him do his thing and give it a chance.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[TWX]

He's no fan of Philip K. Dick. If he were, he wouldn't have gone on trying to claim that Deckard is a replicant, and he wouldn't have claimed in an interview that he never read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? before making Blade Runner.

Don't get me wrong. I like a lot of Scott's movies and TV shows that he's been involved with, but being good at making adaptations or good with stories doesn't mean that he's interested in maintaining the feel of the author's work.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I didn't like Resurrection. The first three each had an other viewpoint:
1. Small number of people and without weapons running away from just a few aliens. The people are stuck in a situation that they can't get out of.
2. The marines and modern weapons against a whole lot of aliens. The marines choose to get into this fight, well sort of.
3. A large population who are stuck in a situation without many weapons against a few aliens. But in difference from number 1, here the population fights back.

At the fourth movie it became redundant, it could have redeemed itself if it would produce some lore. Instead it is a pretty mindless action movie, which we already had in Aliens (2).

Prometius is what the fourth movie should have been, going back to the original planet and find the origin of the aliens. Lots of lore and exploration which really helped.

As they say with science fiction, an audience can accept the impossible but they can't accept the improbable. This is where Prometius fails, how the crewman where exploring and acting was highly improbably. Scientist, who are lost, see a life form decide to take a closer look instead of being a bit more careful and run the hell away (improbable behaviour, especially for those characters).

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[bruce_the_loon]

A lot of the Prometheus complaints seem to originate from the concept that the crew should have been a 100% perfectly professional team that knew exactly what to do in all situations. Given what Weyland was trying to accomplish, it's not surprising that some of the crew weren't up to the job.

Vickers' team was intended to die to hide what Weyland was up to, so the "exploration" specialists that weren't critical to the process were chosen to be expendable and characterized as such. They were stupid idiots because they weren't professional explorers, but lured there by money to fill an gap in the roster. If they had pulled in a completely professional team, Weyland and David wouldn't have been able to get the situation to the state they needed it.

I'm constantly amused by the number of people who get so upset when a movie portrays characters this way. It isn't a failure of the writers, it's a success in portraying an imperfect, greed-motivated person who thinks they are in the position they are in because they are the best, but actually aren't. Maybe that hits a little close to home for some.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[wisnoskij]

Well we all know how much your opinion is worth then. The only thing possibly worse than Prometheus would of been the the suggested sequel to Gladiator, but then I doubt Ridley would of had anything to do with that.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[andersenep]

Quite honestly, I don't see how it's possible to travel to another star system (let alone back). So I guess sci-fi audiences should write off any sort of movie involving interstellar travel. Even if it were possible via wormhole or warp drive or whatever other invention, the relativistic effects are pretty much never accounted for.

But instead we're quibbling about how scientists would act on another planet.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend you read the original Aliens : Engineers script by Jon Spaihts.
A lot of the foolishness from the movie actually doesn't happen here:
- Travel based on only a picture of 5 stars: in the script they find engineer writing containing detailed stellar coordinates and directions.
- Take helmets off: they actually keep them on for most of the time
- Biologist playing with space cobra: in the script it's more like a worm or centipede, and they note the suits are virtually impenetrable, so they pick one up for a closer look. That should have been perfectly safe, were it not for alien acid.
- Getting lost: both men are sent to deploy more probes, and they both assumed the other one took the mapping computer console with. There are a lot of similar corridors. Before they track their way back, they are attacked.
- Etc

You can thank Damon Lindelof and Ridley Scott for dumbing it all down.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[newcastlejon]

Since I've apparently offended both of the fans of Prometheus I suppose I'd better elaborate on a few of the things that made it such a disappointment. Insofar as Scott himself is concerned, I suggest you (not the parent, just folk in general) watch/listen to any of his recent interviews and see the smugness and dismissiveness of the fans' criticisms for yourselves. Anyway, back to the film. We had:

-An alien astronaut that was single-handedly responsible for all of human evolution, while handwaving over all the other flora and fauna that populates the Earth.
-An insufferable man-child anthropologist who throws his rattle out of the pram when faced with the revelation that a race from eons past don't instantly greet the explorers on their arrival on a world that was apparently pinpointed using only a handful of dots painted on a wall by cavemen.
-A crew so unbelievably stupid that it's a wonder they were able to don their spacesuits at all.
-An android whose actions are never explained, just followed by a lot of shouting and loud sound effects in the hope that no-one would notice.
-A leading character whose sterility is drummed into the audience with as much subtlety as her involuntary pregnancy (Prometheus has nothing to do with Alien, honest!), to say nothing of the major surgery that is seemingly no impediment at all when running and jumping about just when the action was drying up.
-An antagonist whose appearance and behaviour run counter to what was explicitly stated previously, simply because Scott didn't want to or couldn't use the original Alien again.
-A disembodied, reanimated head. One of many shout-outs to a franchise that is both shit-upon and declaimed as having nothing to do with with the film at hand.

I would go on but the hour is late and I can't help but think that the only reason that Scott's only other watchable film since Alien was so because the source material (Hannibal) was two inches thick and that left little room for "vision". Whatever skill Scott possessed back in the 70's has apparently deteriorated into a sense that he can do no wrong and to hell with the people who actually watch his style over substance dreck. Suspension of disbelief is a thing to be used sparingly, not as a catch-all to excuse a myriad of plot-holes and unexplained character motivations.

I would dearly love to see Man in the High Castle adapted for film; it's a good story that deserves Hollywood treatment but, frankly, Ridley Scott has had his day and there are any number of film-makers who could do it better.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[newcastlejon]

But instead we're quibbling about how scientists would act on another planet.

Sci-fi lets writers hand-wave technical things like FTL travel, a common trope, with the goal of exploring how people would react in the situations that technology would open up. Whether you choose the hardest or softest sci-fi story you can find, you'll most likely find that the plot revolves around people and not technology.

In short, sci-fi isn't about the science, it's about the effects that it has on the human condition.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the Prometheus complaints seem to originate from the concept that the crew should have been a 100% perfectly professional team that knew exactly what to do in all situations

Big difference between "100% perfectly professional" and "absolute fucking retard".

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really flamebait when he speaks the truth. The problem is too many fanboys around here. Face it Prometheus was just a horribly rushed movie.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[chuckugly]

Yeah I'm OK with that, and for whatever it's worth I liked Prometheus. Was a couple hours of fun, I'm perfectly OK with that.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[pepty]

I will take "two crewmen in a first-contact situation taking their helmets off, running off like ninnies, getting lost, and contaminating themselves." over "Roman emperor fights a gladiator."

How about "the crewman in charge of making maps, the one controlling the little map making drones, the one who presumably has a friggin' map gets lost" followed by " the biologist decides to pet a snake" Lots of stories require designated idiots in order to be told, but this one would have been less frustrating if the designated incompetence extended to their pilot accidentally crashing their ship into the star at the beginning of the movie.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

But instead we're quibbling about how scientists would act on another planet.

If you want me to believe the big lies, you better make the little lies at least a little bit plausible.

That was Coleridge's whole point when he talked about the willing suspension of disbelief.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[garyisabusyguy]

All of Dick's writing contains a great deal of self-doubt and delusion, it has to do with Dick's own mental state and I believe that stating that Deckard did not even understand what he was fits with Dick's other work

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[garyisabusyguy]

I am willing to accept that humans are fallible and likely to make horrible mistakes

The fact that Ripley did not make many mistakes is why she was a hero, everybody else working for Weyland Industries can be expected to act like a mindless sycophant because that is what corporations support

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you worked much in the corporate world?
Truly competent people are are hard to find, the idiots rise to the top

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[garyisabusyguy]

I got a really stupid script for you

Deep space ship is called on to land on a planet
Somebody sticks their face into an opening egg
The person is brought back on the ship and they somehow miss that they have an alien embryo in it
Ships computer and an android attempt to kill a crew member, by stuffing a rolled up magazine down their throat
Alien pops out, grows without any food and kills most of the crew while they flail about the flamethrowers in a closed environment
Hero runs around with fog machines and strobes flashing
Hero escapes exploding ship (kaboom!)
Hero fights off alien in their undies and drifts into space

Yep, that is Alien, a summer slasher flick stuck in space, but somehow everybody wants the same damn movie made over and over and will not accept when a new movie is made in the same franchise that attempts to draw the viewer further into a story

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[dbIII]

A lot of the Prometheus complaints seem to originate from the concept that the crew should have been a 100% perfectly professional team that knew exactly what to do in all situations.

Hollywood seems to have given up on that sort of environment some time after "The Thing From Outer Space" - where the only guy that seemed anywhere near inept was the journalist, until the end and his "watch the skies" speech.
Even the Apollo 13 movie suffered from Hollywood deciding that a the real life crew that was 100% perfectly professional needed a bit of conflict to add excitement or something.

I think it's part of the disaster movie formula where a few characters have to do something stupid and die to show how dangerous the situation is - a formula that looks a bit stupid creeping into other things IMHO.
I disagree with the "just filling a gap in the roster" bit above and see that as fairly thin justification for applying formulaic plot elements with a spatula. It requires a bit of extra suspension of disbelief. A third-rate test pilot is still going to outclass a typical pilot in a major way and we're describing similar highly contested positions.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[BlackHawk-666]

Prometheus went full retard in every single way possible. Irredeemable excrement.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[quintessencesluglord]

No, actually my complaint with Prometheus was that it was poor storytelling across the board. It seemed to purposely tell half a story in an attempt to hide this under the guise of interpretation, or possibly a Prometheus Mark II.

It may be I am like those naysayers that panned Blade Runner upon release, and only some time after have come to see its true merit, but I don't think so. At least with Blade Runner there were reasons to view it multiple times, and that definitely can't be said for Prometheus.

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[shutdown -p now]

All movies require a certain suspension of disbelief

Yes, but this one required constant suspension of disbelief. It was like, every other thing they did was utterly idiotic.

Roman emperor fights a gladiator

You do realize that it was actually a real thing that existed? You can find some examples in the "Decline and fall of the Roman Empire".

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[hawkinspeter]

Nope, Alien makes a lot more sense than Prometheus no matter how you try to spin it. At least when they stick their face into an opening egg, they've still got their helmet on. The overall plot (evil company wants to smuggle an alien back to earth by flesh-wrapping it in a crew member) at least makes some kind of sense whereas Prometheus just doesn't (dying man decides to visit alien planet who had something to do with early humans so that they can keep him alive for some reason).

I don't even understand what the Engineer at the beginning was doing. His DNA somehow spawned humans except that we're clearly evolved from other life-forms on Earth, so maybe the Engineer spawned all life on Earth. Except, that would mean that he spawned all the dinosaurs and just got lucky that mammals ended up becoming the dominant life-form to eventually evolve into humans. How is that even supposed to work?

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[garyisabusyguy]

Gotcha, every story has to be wrapped up in a bow and dropped in your lap with no loose ends in a 90 minute running time.

I'm glad that Ridley Scott's other works like Blade Runner made it so easily digestible

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[hawkinspeter]

I don't mind occasional loose ends, but Prometheus was nothing but badly thought out loose ends that made no sense. It was a real shame as I love Ridley's other films and was really looking forward to Prometheus.

Re: Colour me apprehensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prometheus was light years better than Gladiator
Using distance as a measure of how good something is... yeah, definitely a Prometheus fanboy.

Re: Colour me apprehensive.

[cthulhu11]

The one with Chris Holmes drunk in his pool?

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[lucien86]

The way it seems with alien 3 was that someone didn't like the original script, and so replaced it with the abomination we know. Sigourney Weaver may have had something to do with it - originally she wasn't going to do Alien3 and so the original wasn't going to include Ripley. The main characters included Newt and I think Hicks - and the story was basically set on Earth about 18 years after the film 'Aliens' ends. The bio-division basically catch an alien inside a host, take it to Earth, it escapes, and soon the whole Earth soon gets taken over and the remains of humanity have to evacuate.. In a fourth part (I think) the humans find a way to exterminate the aliens and retake the Earth.
There still exists a modified version published in the 'Aliens' comics series.. I once had a comic with the original version, but its been out of print (I think) since Alien3 came out.. Be worth a lot of money now. :(

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[lucien86]

Ok a lot wrong with Prometheus, lets make it shine like something beautiful.. Lets look at some really bad movies.

The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. - (Never in all of history has such promising source material lead at such cost to such a bad movie. Wooden boards in place of actors, Space ships should not be cubes, 'brain the size of a planet' was not meant literally, original Slartibardfarst was funnier, directors should not be made out of packing cases, overall design, etc, etc.)
Battlefield Earth. - (Travolta's Lament, Travolta's worst movie. )
Alien Vs Predator. - (Plot?, logic?, alien survival instincts? background story? Slow Stupid easy to kill aliens.)
Ghost Rider.. - (computer SFX can be worse than string, tape, and used toilet rolls! SFX worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space)

Half Bad, redeeming features.
Alien 3 - (In total deviation from any logic or 'psychological' consistency on plot..)
Star Trek, First Contact - (crappy misuse of time travel)
Star Trek, Remake - (crappy misuse of time travel, NIS does not look anything like the interior of an advanced spaceship.)
Star Trek The Search for Spock - (stretches credulity.)
Star Trek Generations - (Just horribly wrong.)
Terminator Salvation - (Good up to last 30 minutes, total plot fail. Sickening moral message at end.)
Star Wars - Preludes 1, 2, 3 - (R2D2 and C3P0 stretch credibility, computer effects already look a little dated - slight visual unreality, Jar Jar Binks (worked in stories something went horribly wrong there). )

See now Prometheus looks pretty good.. (I was only going to write a couple of lines - verbal diarrhoea strikes again..)

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[lucien86]

Stupid typo correction - NIS should be NIF (National Ignition Facility). :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[mjwx]

Prometheus was light years better than Gladiator. I enjoyed it immensely. If there is any movie in the Alien franchise that absolutely sucked, it was Alien 3.

Blame the bean counters for that.

Alien 3 was meant to be a different film altogether with the Xenomorphs making it to earth, but the budget for that got canned so they made Alien 3 (whilst the weakest of the 3 alien movies, is still better than a lot of crap made these days with 10 times the budget).

Re:Colour me apprehensive.

[mjwx]

A lot of the Prometheus complaints seem to originate from the concept that the crew should have been a 100% perfectly professional team that knew exactly what to do in all situations. Given what Weyland was trying to accomplish, it's not surprising that some of the crew weren't up to the job.

Beyond that, think about the kind of person who signs up to do a job with a 10 year round trip most of which is spent in suspended animation.

The worlds most competent and intelligent people are hardly going to be first in line. The kind of people who are first in line will have dollar signs in mind and little else.

Free?

[Anonymous Coward]

The service looks to be DRM encumbered to me.

Stupid Amazon

[mykepredko]

Can't watch the free preview in Canada.

I was going to say that I would think that the novel (my favourite Philip K. Dick novel/story) would probably be best suited for 3-4 episodes? Definitely longer than a feature length film but not so long as a typical 13 episode "premium" season.

The setting would be interesting because I always imagined the USA of the book to be worn out and dust blown. Probably as failed a society as "Blade Runner" but not as dense or monolithic. Hopefully a story that reflects that it takes place just a few years after the end of the war and not in a Sci-Fi future.

Anyway, would love to see it with Ridley Scott at the top of his game,

myke

Re:Stupid Amazon

[Noah Haders]

The setting would be interesting because I always imagined the USA of the book to be worn out and dust blown. Probably as failed a society as "Blade Runner" but not as dense or monolithic. Hopefully a story that reflects that it takes place just a few years after the end of the war and not in a Sci-Fi future.

why do you hate america? getting pleasure from imagining america in ruins. sick, man.

Re:Stupid Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Australia... we never get nice things down here :'(

In the words of the wise: "Fuck it, pirate time!"

captcha: copied

Re:Stupid Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Australia... we never get nice things down here :'(

In the words of the wise: "Fuck it, pirate time!"

^^This^^

I always try give big media a chance but when I am regionally locked out of something that's them basically telling me I'm not in their demographic.
So as far as I'm concerned finding an "alternative" source isn't stealing since they shot themselves in the foot in the first place by denying me the ability to give them my money.

Sucks to be them, I guess.

Re:Stupid Amazon

[drinkypoo]

getting pleasure from imagining america in ruins. sick, man

It's called plausibility, and it aids with the suspension of disbelief.

Dear Slashdot,

[fustakrakich]

You know, product placement is valuable stuff. I see you recognize that. I sincerely hope you were paid for such a blatant advertizement.

Re:Dear Slashdot,

[Richard_at_work]

Perhaps you could ask for a refund...

Re:Dear Slashdot,

[fustakrakich]

Time is refundable now?

I just come here to look at the centerfolds.... Maybe they're in the next aisle

Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[mpthompson]

I really wanted to like the adaption of "The Man in the High Castle", but was dissapointed it went in directions greatly different than the book. One example is "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy". It is is no longer a book, but a 16mm movie filled with images of the Allies winning WWII including scenes from VE and VJ day. How did this movie physically cross from our reality to their reality? As a book, the alternate reality was about ideas and imagination, not a physical reality to be escaped to. This could lead the series into well worn SciFi time-travel and alternate universe trope that wasn't what the PKD story is about.

I thought the visuals and atmosphere of the show were good, but the characters seemed to bland vanilla versions of the rich and colorful characters in the PKD source material.

If Amazon picks it up, I'll give it more of a chance, but I didn't enjoy the show as much as I wanted to. I remembet it taking me a little while to get into the book so perhaps I have to do the same with this adaption.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[Noah Haders]

spoiler alert!

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[Anonymous Coward]

All the interesting intellectual and cultural parts from the book are not present in the adaption.
I am thinking, that the adaption goes the "kick the jap and nazi ass ..." in the end, and thats no good.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[MrHanky]

Eh, it's not like Blade Runner was a faithful adaptation either. For one, its theme is completely different from the book. Still, it's one of the best SF movies and one of the best adaptations ever.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[mpthompson]

Well, I did indicate I would continue to watch to give the show more of a chance.

Blade Runner, by changing the name of the movie to something which didn't reference the book, at least gave a big clue that it would only be loosely based on the source material.

Philip K. Dick was very enthusiastic about the adaption of Blade Runner from his story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" As far as we know, perhaps he would like this adaption as well.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[tlhIngan]

All the interesting intellectual and cultural parts from the book are not present in the adaption.
I am thinking, that the adaption goes the "kick the jap and nazi ass ..." in the end, and thats no good.

No, you cannot just take a book and translate it directly to TV. Or a video game. Or a movie.

They're all different media, and different media has different requirements, and different ways of presenting.

For example, in a book, you can spend a LOT of time going into lavish detail. You can't do that on TV or movies, because you'd bore the audience. So you basically have to skip all that and just show it and make reference to it, but what took half a chapter is basically over in 10 seconds on screen.

It also applies to things that may take a big set up - like say a car accident. Well geez, on screen that's only a few minute scene in slo-mo, even though that might make up a major plot point. And even details like something flying off the car can be missed in all the action.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[drinkypoo]

Eh, it's not like Blade Runner was a faithful adaptation either. For one, its theme is completely different from the book.

I've read the book, and I've seen the movie, and I don't agree that the theme is totally different from the book at all. Visual vs. textual is enough to explain any difference in where the emphasis is placed. The same underlying themes were present.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[MrHanky]

Blade Runner is a Frankensteinian tale about creation revolting against its creator, questioning the meaning of death, whereas Do Androids ... is about empathy as an essential human quality in a world where everything is artificial. Much of the novel is about Deckard's desire to buy a pet, required for spiritual fulfilment according to the religion of Mercerism. Death is as unimportant to the book as Mercerism is to the film.

Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed...

[TechNeilogy]

I haven't seen the movie, but the book is one of my favorites. One of the things that worries me is that the book is one of those rare, so self-contained and complete pieces of art that it seems anything added or deleted -- even a single word -- could spoil it.

This video is not available due to geographical ..

[RichMan]

This video is not available due to geographical licensing restrictions.

That is a lie.
It is available. Availibility is a technical issue.
it is just not allowed to be presented which is a formality issue.

Nice twisted use of the words there to disquise that fact that market segragation is being done.

What happened to 2013's winners?

[Rick Zeman]

Amazon is promising customers that they've assembled "some of the greatest storytellers in the businesswith works of novelty and passion."

I'm still waiting for the Harry Bosch show starring Titus Welliver that "won" in 2013. Hello, Amazon?

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Early 2015.

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[swb]

And the Chris Carter sort of post-apoc sci fi thing, too, Which will probably suck and be like everything else, with predictable, formulaic episode structures where *tiny* amounts of the bigger conspiracy are revealed, stringing viewers along forever and then never really having a point, like "Lost".

Anyway, the pilot at least held my interest and binging without commercials makes it somehow less annoying. And the Bosch series looks good, too. The books are above everage mysteries and Welliver is pretty perfect for Bosch.

I don't understand Amazon's long window between pilot and series, though. It seems that traditionally when a pilot was aired if new episodes were to be aired, they aired fairly closely. Maybe traditional pilots and series' had long windows, too, you just didn't know about them because only TV suits saw the pilots and Amazon had that voting scheme.

Or maybe this is tech industry hubris, where they think beause they have a handle on cloud computing and fulfillment logistics that they can just step into making TV shows, too, and then find out that everything they think they know is worthless.

I kind of hope it's the latter; not for the comeuppance, but maybe there's some slim chance that an application of money and disconnection from traditional media can kind of reinvent the process for making filmed entertainment.

And while I'm ranting on the topic, I wonder why they stick with the traditional 60 minute episode. If people can binge watch it anyway, why not 7 two hour episodes instead of 13 hour episodes?

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[drinkypoo]

Maybe traditional pilots and series' had long windows, too, you just didn't know about them because only TV suits saw the pilots and Amazon had that voting scheme.

I'm not an expert on TV shows, but in casual browsing around I've seen examples of both.

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[swb]

Regardless of the reason (Amazon's missteps or typical TV timelines), it's kind of problematic. A year turnaround kind of kills momentum and interest, although given the thin creme at the top of the shitpile that is a streaming content catalog, maybe it won't matter because streamers will watch almost anything even if its not that good.

It could also be a limitation of the "instant binge" model where the entire series is available at once versus a weekly release that allows them to actuallly shoot the series as it runs.

Maybe they could do some kind of combination, shooting 3 episodes of every series they ballot and then actually starting production on the rest of the series immediately after the voting window ends. In theory, a 60 day delay between the end of balloting and the "start" of the series should allow them time to shoot an additional two episodes, and the whole thing could be setup to be released in 4 episode batches every 90 days.

They'd end up shooting episdes they don't need, but pehaps they could structure the 3 episode narratives in a way that made them more or less complete even if they didn't get voted for a season. A three-episode triptych could become some kind of new streaming-only format and maybe it would serve as some kind of an incubator for new talent or genre fiction.

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[JackieBrown]

The Chris Carter show was canceled

http://variety.com/2015/digita...

Re:What happened to 2013's winners?

[will_die]

Bosch pilot has been released and 10 more episodes, the season, will be released on Feb 1.

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[Noah Haders]

it can't be presented due to contractual issues, not formality issues.

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[PTBarnum]

I hate geographic restrictions also, but you are taking a very narrow definition of "unavailable" that defies common usage. If there is no legal way to acquire something, it is not available. The fact that this is a choice Amazon is making and could make differently does not change the fact that it is not currently available to you.

US only and needs MS Silverlight ..

[lippydude]

US only and needs MS Silverlight ..

Re:US only and needs MS Silverlight ..

[danknight48]

US only and needs MS Silverlight ..

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/ph...
Amazon’s First Pilot Season of 2015, Featuring Slate of 13 Original Comedy, Drama, Docuseries and Kids Offerings, is Now Available on Amazon Instant Video in the US, UK and Germany

And yeah, Silverlight :S . Amazon must be getting some £££££ from Microsoft, either that, or their video/web department is run by 16 year olds that never heard of flash.

Re:US only and needs MS Silverlight ..

[jwdb]

Well it works on a Chromebook, and I didn't think those had Silverlight...

wtf is an adaption?

[rewindustry]

the word is adaptation, surely?

only the bbc, so far, has shown the ability to adapt anything with any degree of responsibility.

perhaps i do not understand merkin manglish - maybe adaption means "convert to a drug"?

Re:wtf is an adaption?

[Anonymous Coward]

adaption |dapSHn|
noun
another term for adaptation.

English is hard, yeah? Better to assume that the OP is wrong than that you are ignorant.

Re:wtf is an adaption?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't seen HBO's adaption of Game of Thrones.

Great show

[FreeUser]

I just watched it on my Roku3, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Hopefully it will get enough votes for Amazon to make the rest of the series.

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[jtownatpunk.net]

I'll bet it's available thru the 'torrents.

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[Anonymous Coward]

it can't be presented due to contractual issues, not formality issues.

The Man in the High Castle is a brand new pilot made and paid for by Amazon. Exactly what contractual issues are preventing them from allowing people in Canada to watch? No broadcasters up here even know this pilot exists, let alone own the broadcast rights. So WTF are we being denied?

US only

[Anonymous Coward]

The previews seem to be available in the US only. Why have you posted this story to an international forum?

Re:US only

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon’s First Pilot Season of 2015, Featuring Slate of 13 Original Comedy, Drama, Docuseries and Kids Offerings, is Now Available on Amazon Instant Video in the US, UK and Germany

Dick? lol

[Anonymous Coward]

funny name. Who names their kid dick?

Re:Dick? lol

[Applehu Akbar]

Could it be that this was what warped the Nixon administration?

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[tlhIngan]

I get those from time to time so I accidentally give them the wrong name and address. I wonder who they sent out to the apartment complex.

And why would Amazon do that? This is an Amazon-sponsored, Amazon-paid-for, Amazon-produced, Amazon-distributed show. Amazon owns the bloody thing!

Amazon could easily make it available to anywhere Amazon has a country presence.

I presume Amazon is producing those things for their Prime service, so they'd have exclusivity over the produced materials (otherwise I'm sure Ridley Scott will sell it to Netflix too).

Netflix makes their shows available in all regions since they make the show.

tried to see the "free" episodes

[ruir]

"Please install SilverLight" "it will only take a minute" Fuck you amazon.

Re:tried to see the "free" episodes

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with loading SilverLight it didn't work for me. Typical Amazon!!

Re:man ih hi castle

[hawkinspeter]

I really enjoyed it, but then I'm a big fan of PKD. What aspects of it don't you like or was it his general writing style rather than the content? (I didn't know it was planned as 2 novels - I wasn't aware that PKD actually planned his writing that much).

Re:This video is not available due to geographical

[oDDmON oUT]

"This is an Amazon-sponsored..."

You could have fooled me, with that 30 second Geico commercial prefacing every Pilot offering I was sure the Gecko was sponsoring everything.

heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Wolfenstein The New Order...... ok.

Re:man ih hi castle

[umdesch4]

I will attempt to answer. I went through a period over the last 3 or 4 years where I read a dozen PKD novels, and all 4 of the short stories collections. I have to say that MitHC was my least favorite of all of that. It was extremely bland for the most part, drawn out, and lacking in plot. The one idea it had that was interesting was the "alternate history where real history is a subversive work of alternate history fiction". But that certainly didn't carry the story through 275 pages. I read it under 2 years ago, and I've already forgotten most of it, as have most people I've talked to about it. Even his really obscure works like "Eye in the Sky" were far more memorable and interesting.

Alien 3

[wisnoskij]

Is probably my favourite entry in the series. There I said it.

fuck amazon

[sproketboy]

Won't let me watch it in Canada.