SS GB

[Mr Larrington]

Well I've not read the book but Pearl Harbour (I think) won't have happened yet?  It doesn't need to have anything to do with that in the plot at all.  it's about the UK mostly.  Fund to speculate though.

Later on in the book a USAnian character mentions that his lot have their own Hitler to deal with "and he signs his mail 'Tojo'" but whether that part of the story will make it into the TV version...

[Exit Stage Left]

The Battles between the Soviet Union and Japan in 1939 are an important part of the story. That's why war between the two was delayed until 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
Two out of the three heroes of that campaign were executed by Stalin, Zhukov wasn't.

That also defined the future of China. In an alternative history all of China is like Taiwan. But that's another TV series.

[Exit Stage Left]

I took a look at the intro sequence, with the anachronistic Mk9 Spitfire. The fact that it had Polish markings, and was being presented to Marshal Zhukov on the Mall during Soviet-German Friendship Week was the important bit, not the age of the Spitfire.

The echoes of Berlin in 1945 were very deftly handled, as you'd expect from a German director.

[mattc]

Slightly OT, but:

Where Eagles Dare was a great movie; but now I've got the extended director's cut I fast-forward through the bits that Eastwood & Burton ruin. Fantastic hour on history of german winter uniforms, and the section on Austrian cable car technology is spell-binding, even on repeat views.

[Mr Larrington]

They've started to take a few liberties with the story in episode 4.  Not sure I agree with this turn of events.

[caerau]

They've started to take a few liberties with the story in episode 4.  Not sure I agree with this turn of events.

Oh bother I missed it.  iPlayer here I come.

[noisycrank]

Slightly OT, but:

Where Eagles Dare was a great movie; but now I've got the extended director's cut I fast-forward through the bits that Eastwood & Burton ruin. Fantastic hour on history of german winter uniforms, and the section on Austrian cable car technology is spell-binding, even on repeat views.

Helicopters?

[spesh]

Slightly OT, but:

Where Eagles Dare was a great movie; but now I've got the extended director's cut I fast-forward through the bits that Eastwood & Burton ruin. Fantastic hour on history of german winter uniforms, and the section on Austrian cable car technology is spell-binding, even on repeat views.

Helicopters?

The Germans used helicopters in WW2 for transport and artillery spotting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_223
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_282

Two Fa-223s were assigned to the German Army's Mountain Warfare School at Innsbruck, so helicopters being used in the film wouldn't have been completely anachronistic, but the lack of working German hardware when the classic war movies were being filmed perforce leads to substitutions.

See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065207/faq?ref_=tt_faq_2#.2.1.2

Note that German WW2 copters tended to be twin or intermeshed rotorcraft - however, the Americans used what we would recognise as the standard helicopter design in the Sikorsky R-4, which saw service in the Pacific, 1944-45:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_R-4

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Experienced AOP Pilots in the British Army were converting from Austers to helicopters in early 1945 at 43 OTU in Andover.  They used Mayfly helicopters which presumably did fly. 

Probably just as well they didn't try using them any earlier.

[Mr Larrington]

There was a helichopter* in the book as well.

* Where Eagles Dare, not SS-GB

[mattc]

Slightly OT, but:

Where Eagles Dare was a great movie; but now I've got the extended director's cut I fast-forward through the bits that Eastwood & Burton ruin. Fantastic hour on history of german winter uniforms, and the section on Austrian cable car technology is spell-binding, even on repeat views.

Helicopters?

The Germans used helicopters in WW2 for transport and artillery spotting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_223
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_282

Two Fa-223s were assigned to the German Army's Mountain Warfare School at Innsbruck, so helicopters being used in the film wouldn't have been completely anachronistic, but the lack of working German hardware when the classic war movies were being filmed perforce leads to substitutions.

See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065207/faq?ref_=tt_faq_2#.2.1.2

Note that German WW2 copters tended to be twin or intermeshed rotorcraft - however, the Americans used what we would recognise as the standard helicopter design in the Sikorsky R-4, which saw service in the Pacific, 1944-45:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_R-4

I have absolutely no interest in helicopters. You seem like a very boring man.

[Wascally Weasel]

There was a helichopter* in the book as well.

* Where Eagles Dare, not SS-GB

Where Eagles Dare was one of the few (possibly the only) one of MacLean’s books that was a screenplay first, or so I have read at least.  So it’s not surprising that the book is very close to the film.

[rogerzilla]

I have absolutely no interest in helicopters. You seem like a very boring man.

[rogerzilla]

Most people seem to be comparing this with The Man In The High Castle*, which I found a bit uninspiring except for the bit when Mr Tagomi (a generally good egg among the Japanese/German victorious powers) slips back into our dimension for half an hour.  Of course, TMITHC isn't really about alternative history at all; that's just a useful vehicle for the whole alternative-realities conceit.  However, both stories have an unoccupied zone, the Nazis remain just as nasty as during the war, and the SS are still running things where possible. 

"Fatherland" is probably my favourite of the genre - really nasty Nazis and Heydrich running the SS.

*I've only read the book

[Jakob W]

Has anyone seen the TV film of 'Fatherland'? I thought the book was great, but gather the screen version got so-so reviews.

[rogerzilla]

It's shit.  Just read the book 

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

It's shit.  Just read the book 

Do you mean 'Just read the book*' or 'Just read the book**'?
* as in go away and do it
** as in I have just done it
or vice versa?

[Mr Larrington]

They really did shoot off at a tangent with tonight's finale

[caerau]

Well I rather enjoyed it - having not read the book probably helped.


Though it did stretch my credibility filter a little at the end there, I thought the whole thing rather good on the whole.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

It didn't seem like the end. Nor even the beginning of the end. Maybe it was the end of the beginning?

[rogerzilla]

It's shit.  Just read the book 

Do you mean 'Just read the book*' or 'Just read the book**'?
* as in go away and do it
** as in I have just done it
or vice versa?

Read, to rhyme with reed, not with red.

Last episode of SS-GB was...er...untidy.  Not impressed, overall.

[Jakob W]

Yeah, a bit hit and miss. Huth and Kellerman were consistently good I thought; both actors caught the properly Deightonesque note of cynicism.

[Mr Larrington]

I can sort-of see why they discarded chunks of the book for the final episode and a half.  Certainly it'd be be harder to flog to the Yanks if Barbara had been killed utterly to DETH plus they'd already not bothered with her ex-husband and given his lines to her.  But all that stuff with the flat tyre and the collaborators was just padding.