San Diego Comic Con 2015: Amazon Impresses with ‘The Man in the High Castle’ Screening

Jul 16, 2015

One of the more impressive things about hitting San Diego Comic Con is the sheer amount there is to do outside the convention center. Since I travel around the country on a regular basis, I tend to chat with strangers a lot and when I fly into SD before the con I end up talking with plenty of the natives. I’m always surprised how many San Diegoans don’t head down to the Gas Lamp District during the show. Of course I understand most folks don’t want to deal with the huge crowds (I honestly can’t blame them since we’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of 125k attendees or more every year) but they’re only missing out on plenty of giveaways and screening tickets.

Since TGG has been attending SDCC for a while now, we’ve come to have a few favorite eateries and watering holes which are a bit off the beaten path of most con-goers. It was while we were on our way to one of these out of the way places we were approached by a group of young ladies dressed as flight attendants circa 1960. They were handing out tickets for an advanced screening and, when it turned out to be for Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, we scooped them up. We were going to be treated to the pilot as well as the previously unseen second episode. The tickets also indicated complimentary beer and saki. Hey, after a long day of hitting a con there’s nothing the gang likes better than to kick back with a few cold ones.

The screening was held Friday night at the San Diego Civic Theater and a good crowd had assembled awaiting entrance. Upon walking through the door it was obvious to Greg, Dion, Elliott, and I that Amazon was pulling out all the stops; The folks behind the concession stands were practically forcing as much saki, white and red wine, Warsteiner and Sapporo into our hands as we could carry. Funny enough Greg and I had been joking previously how appropriate it would be – given the premise of the show – if the beers were German and Japanese. And so they were.

Heading into the theater we also noticed under every seat was a copy of Philip K. Dick’s famous novel on which the show is based. Keep in mind this wasn’t the usual “shmoozing the press” treatment we’re blessed to enjoy at a lot of events but something that was for anyone and everyone who had a ticket. Talk about Amazon going all out!

On a quick sidenote one of the ushers, seeing we were the press, tried to seat us in the first row. Thankfully, we didn’t take those seats and sat a few rows back as it turned out that row was reserved for the cast and producers of the series. I can only imagine how embarrassing it would have been for us to be kicked out of the front row as if we were a bunch of doofuses…

The evening began with a quick overview of the show provided by producer Frank Spotnitz as well as an introduction of executive producers Isa Dick Hackett, David W. Zucker, actors Alexa Davalos, Luke Kleintank, Rupert Evans, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Rufus Sewell. Then it was on to the festivities.

Online viewers got to enjoy the first two episodes of The Man in the High Castle through a live stream by way of Amazon and Entertainment Weekly. Those of us in the theater sat back for a state of the art digital presentation. Having already seen and reviewed the pilot episode, I did notice a few changes to the initial offering. Nothing exceptionally major outside of some additional CGI work – especially in an early scene taking place in Times Square – and a bit more focus of Rufus Sewell’s character John Smith; an American SS-Obergruppenführer.

The pilot episode has intrigued plenty of SF fans to the possibility of a series based on the classic Dick novel and the second episode really stood out for me; while the pilot got my juices flowing for seeing the series come to fruition, it was the second episode which gave me confidence the series will be in good hands. The Man in the High Castle is certainly not an easy novel to adapt to the screen, by any stretch, due to its story within a story nature and the heavy reliance on elements of the I, Ching weaving throughout the tale.

I’ll guess the “meta” nature of the novel won’t be too heavily emphasized in the series; even though Amazon is producing much more niche series than one would find on network or cable tv one can’t help but think delving too deeply into the philosophical angles of the novel would turn off more casual viewers.

The second episode draws the audience further into the series’ alternate history while also driving home the point Japanese masters following WWII wouldn’t have been any less monstrous than German. We’re just talking about horror of a different stripe. We also begin to see more of the dystopia and rot which would have settled into America after two decades of occupation; this is surely a series which might put Amazon programing on the map.

I can say I was plenty interested in The Man in the High Castle prior to catching the SDCC Amazon presentation seeing I’m familiar with the novel and had already caught the pilot. Dion, Elliot, and Greg were also awfully impressed by the first two episodes of the series. All three of them are eagerly awaiting the launch of the series this Fall and those who are fans of alternate history and solid SF should be as well.

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Jeff McAleer

Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...