Amazon has apparently gotten into the TV game with their 10 part production of Philip K. Dick's novel. I can only begin to wonder what this might mean in terms of media...
But anyway...
Two of the four executive producers hired on include Ridley Scott, and one Frank Spotnitz, who was also involved in the production of the X-Files, Lone Gunmen and Millennium.
Anyway...
Holy smokes!
This is an extremely well-made series. Very powerful stuff!
I've not read the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, so this whole story came as something quite fresh for me.
It's an alternate history story, where Germany got to the bomb first, won WWII, and between itself and Japan, divided up the United States.
There are some sci-fi elements, where these rogue film reels are being smuggled through various groups, films which depict alternate realities where the war came out differently. Veeeerry interesting.
I think the real value of the series, however, was as a depiction of life under pathocratic rule, particularly for those of us who live in the West and who have not had the dubious benefit of such an education in survival under such dour circumstances. There have been many excellent depictions in literature of what it is like to live within a full-blown pathocracy, but none I know of where we see it quite so acutely realized on Western soil, where the viewer is invited to bend his/her mind to the problems of dealing with pathocratic rule in our own lives.
It was instructive. And bloody depressing.
"Wise as a Serpent, Gentle as a Dove"
I fear I would not do well under such circumstances. I'd be hopelessly tempted to speak my mind.
Pathocratic systems are goddamned nasty things, where everybody is terrified of not playing along because to not do so is to invite total destruction. One thing, however, I think this production might not quite have captured was how the ponorized sharks circle in glee, eagerly waiting for somebody to trip up precisely so that they can swarm can attack. Pathocracies are nasty, horrid things which take hold almost anywhere when the requisite conditions are met.
Anyway.., that may not sound like much of a ringing endorsement, but I found this series fascinating and extremely well-made.
And the question of alternate realities is absolutely intriguing, though not particularly well fleshed out in this series, or probably even particularly well understood. -The C's mentioned once that Philip K. Dick was not altogether sane, after all.
But anyway...
Two of the four executive producers hired on include Ridley Scott, and one Frank Spotnitz, who was also involved in the production of the X-Files, Lone Gunmen and Millennium.
Anyway...
Holy smokes!
This is an extremely well-made series. Very powerful stuff!
I've not read the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, so this whole story came as something quite fresh for me.
It's an alternate history story, where Germany got to the bomb first, won WWII, and between itself and Japan, divided up the United States.
There are some sci-fi elements, where these rogue film reels are being smuggled through various groups, films which depict alternate realities where the war came out differently. Veeeerry interesting.
I think the real value of the series, however, was as a depiction of life under pathocratic rule, particularly for those of us who live in the West and who have not had the dubious benefit of such an education in survival under such dour circumstances. There have been many excellent depictions in literature of what it is like to live within a full-blown pathocracy, but none I know of where we see it quite so acutely realized on Western soil, where the viewer is invited to bend his/her mind to the problems of dealing with pathocratic rule in our own lives.
It was instructive. And bloody depressing.
"Wise as a Serpent, Gentle as a Dove"
I fear I would not do well under such circumstances. I'd be hopelessly tempted to speak my mind.
Pathocratic systems are goddamned nasty things, where everybody is terrified of not playing along because to not do so is to invite total destruction. One thing, however, I think this production might not quite have captured was how the ponorized sharks circle in glee, eagerly waiting for somebody to trip up precisely so that they can swarm can attack. Pathocracies are nasty, horrid things which take hold almost anywhere when the requisite conditions are met.
Anyway.., that may not sound like much of a ringing endorsement, but I found this series fascinating and extremely well-made.
And the question of alternate realities is absolutely intriguing, though not particularly well fleshed out in this series, or probably even particularly well understood. -The C's mentioned once that Philip K. Dick was not altogether sane, after all.