HBO's The Pacific

[nik-]

Great last episode. My overall thoughts for the series remain the same, it wasn't executed as well as it should have been, but overall, I still enjoyed it.

[mr.jim.lahey]

I thought the Pacific was really good. I think the episodes on Peleiu and Okinawa were very effective on showing the brutality of the Pacific War. The Japanese defenders grew more ferocious and fanatical the closer the Americans got to Japan and the battles reflected that. I have an excellent book at home that I got and read years ago called “With The Old Breed: At Peleiu And Okinawa. It wasn’t until the end of the Pacific when they were giving an update on the central characters, that I realized that Sledge wrote that book. I went down to the bookshelf and sure enough, written by E.B. Sledge. There are so many good books written about the Pacific war, but I think they sometimes get overlooked due to the fact that the war in Europe was the main focus of the Allies (especially Canada/Britain).

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by Sliver

In the end, all I really got out of this war was it was brutal, unrelenting, violent and miserable.

What were you expecting? Animal House in the south Pacific?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Sliver

In the end, all I really got out of this war was it was brutal, unrelenting, violent and miserable.

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

What were you expecting? Animal House in the south Pacific?

I was expecting something better than I got, that's for sure. Full quote, BTW:

Originally Posted by Sliver

Just watched the last episode. Sooo boring (except for the part where Sledge stared at a flower and rolled around in the meadow...that was a highlight of this series for sure).

I have to say, I think Hanks and Spielberg missed a great opportunity to educate us on the war in the Pacific while entertaining us. In the end, all I really got out of this war was it was brutal, unrelenting, violent and miserable. Except I knew all that going in. Add to that the incoherent timeline, hollow characters and lack of chemistry and you have some really bad television.

I know some of you guys liked this, but I think this series will be forgotten fairly quickly whereas BoB will live on as a classic for at least our whole lives.

[Cowperson]

A good summary of Eugene Sledge's book - the war parts anyway at this link:

http://ww2db.com/read.php?read_id=21

Considering some of the scenes in the final episode, this commentary from Wikipedia, taken from his book, are probably of interest:

Once an avid hunter, Sledge gave up his hobby. He found that he could not endure the thought of wounding a bird and said that killing a deer felt like shooting a cow in a pasture. His father found him weeping after a dove hunt where Sledge had to kill a wounded dove and in the ensuing conversations he told his father he could no longer tolerate seeing any suffering.

A key turning point in his life and career followed when his father advised him that he could substitute bird watching as a hobby. Sledge started to assist the conservation department in its banding study efforts,[10] the origin of his well known passion for the science of ornithology.

When he came to enroll at Auburn University, the female at the register office asked him if the Marine Corps taught him anything useful. Sledge replied saying "Lady, there was a killing war. The Marine Corps taught me how to kill Japs and try to survive. Now, if that don't fit into any academic course, I'm sorry. But some of us had to do the killing -- and most of my buddies got killed or wounded."[11]

He found his salvation in science, it kept the flashbacks of Peleliu and Okinawa at bay. Close, constant study of nature prevented him from going mad. However, the war stayed with him, and finally at the urging of his wife, he began to put his thoughts on paper, at last allowing him to put his horrors behind him. He returned to Auburn in 1953 where he worked as a research assistant until 1955. That same year he graduated from API with a Master of Science degree in botany.

More post-war Sledge at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Sledge

Cowperson

[T@T]

I was a little disapointed in the last few episodes, would have liked to see the shock an awe factor after finding out they vaporized over 100,000 people in the 2 bombings with this secret weapon.

I also would have liked them to show the roles of the scout dogs on those islands, normal house pets before the war turned into hero's that saved countless marines, I think there were about 600 of them and a lot went back to their familys after the war.

[TylerSVT]

Hate to bump an old thread but with the DVD's coming out soon i was curious what most of you guys thought of the series.

I think Band of Brothers was one of, if not the, best piece of film making i have ever seen. 10/10

The Pacific was pretty disjointed and hard to follow, i found myself bored with it and i really stopped caring, the characters were not that intresting, not that fun to watch, and it didnt really show much about war.

IMO they could have done it better but they didnt, i would give it a 6/10

[3 Justin 3]

I was disappointed with the series, but I'd still give it a 8/10 overall. My complaint (other than the story being very incoherent) was that the episodes were too short. BoB's episodes were on average 10 minutes longer, and some like 15 minutes longer.

There average episode length was only about 44 minutes. waaay too short for a mini-series.

[metallicat]

I didn't like it, in fact, the last two episodes sat on the pvr for months unwatched before I finally deleted them. I hold Band Of Brothers in such a high standard that I wanted this to live up to it and it just couldn't. Nothing ever will.

[rayne008]

I give it 7 out of 10.
I swear they used some of the same animation as Call of Duty World at War.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

I didn't like it, in fact, the last two episodes sat on the pvr for months unwatched before I finally deleted them. I hold Band Of Brothers in such a high standard that I wanted this to live up to it and it just couldn't. Nothing ever will.

That's the problem I think for a lot of people............BoB was so good that it was basically impossible for The Pacific to live up to many's expectations. I think if I went back and watched it again I'd probably appreciate it a bit more than I did the first time around.

This is the week where the wife and I start watching an episode or two of BoB leading up to Nov. 11th.

[Knut]

I think I will ask for The Pacific Box set and rewatch it. BoB was just so outstanding. I have a feeling i will enjoy The Pacific more when I watch a few episodes in a row.

[mykalberta]

I will be buying it, but I also bought The thin Red line so... I only saw part of the first episode so I will be watching these back to back to back like I did with Band of Brothers to give the series the benefit of the doubt.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

That's the problem I think for a lot of people............BoB was so good that it was basically impossible for The Pacific to live up to many's expectations. I think if I went back and watched it again I'd probably appreciate it a bit more than I did the first time around.

This is the week where the wife and I start watching an episode or two of BoB leading up to Nov. 11th.

The bolded part.

While watching it week to week I didn't really enjoy it as much as I'd hoped I would.

However, I PVR'ed the entire mini-series and later watched the whole thing, one right after the other.

I enjoyed it a lot more when I did that.

[JBR]

Bump to advise that all 10 episodes The Pacific will play consecutively on HBO Canada Thursday, November 11.

Loved Band of Brothers and missed this one earlier in the year. I'm looking forward to spending the weekend with my PVR.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by JBR

Bump to advise that all 10 episodes The Pacific will play consecutively on HBO Canada Thursday, November 11.

Loved Band of Brothers and missed this one earlier in the year. I'm looking forward to spending the weekend with my PVR.

It's horrible. Totally boring with no redeeming qualities.

[CaptainCrunch]

War Amps has released a series of DVD's containing old Canadian new reels from WWII. They are amazing to watch, and cheap at 30 bucks.

http://www.waramps.ca/military/canr.html