'The Man in the High Castle' Plot Details, Spoilers: Executive Produce Frank Spotniz Talks About the Gruelling Process of Making the Show
Back in July, news broke out that Ridley Scott would be adapting Philip K. Dick's dark novel "The Man in the High Castle" into the small screen with the same name. The show and the novel basically explore a world where the Allies have lost the World War II to the Axis powers.
The events would then see the United States run and governed by a Nazi empire which divides the continent into three distinct zones: a German-occupied East (the "Greater Nazi Reich"), a totalitarian, Japanese-held West (the "Japanese Pacific States") and the neutral zone in the middle.
Last week, executive producer Frank Spotnitz spoke with Entertainment Weekly to dish out some information on how the show was made.
Spotnitz, who also helms the series, shared the gruelling process they have to undergo to better translate Dick's alternate history into the television.
"I watched and re-watched endless documentaries on Hitler and Nazism," he said (via EW). "I had spoken to a number of historians. I asked them to talk about how Hitler could have won the war, what the key turning points, the mistakes he made were, and how they pictured Nazi society would have progressed if they had won."
The showrunner further expressed his take on Dick's idea of a different world by saying that the scenarios both portrayed in the novel and in the show could have easily happened if given the chance.
"I think that the qualities that led to Nazism in Germany could lead to Nazism anywhere, fascism anywhere," Spotnitz said (via EW). "There's something unfortunate in the human condition, that we're vulnerable to that kind of ideology. And I think that's what's most chilling about The Man in the High Castle are the scenes that are normal, are everyday, are really all-American, but you can see how it could happen here, too."
"The Man in the High Castle" begins streaming on Amazon this November 20. Stay tuned for more updates.