I know everyone out there loves Band of Brothers, so I'm sure I'm not the only one fired up for the start of The Pacific. (<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pacific" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pacific</a>) It's basically the same team behind BoB but set obviously in the Pacific Theater. Just wanted to create the topic since I didn't realize it starts Sunday night and wanted to make sure everyone else knew. So now it looks like I'm going to be ordering HBO Saturday. Can't fucking wait.
I've liked pretty much everything Tom Hanks has ever done. I tuned in every week for Band of Brothers, and the Pacific will be no different.
Looks like It'll be pretty good, going to have to order HBO for this one. The series follows three Marines with the 1st Marine Division through the battles of Guadalcanal,Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. A bunch of my family served in the PTO during WWII so I'm glad this story is finally being told.
As that the red head kid from Jurassic Park? I really hope they don't tip toe around the atrocities the Japanese perpetrated throughout the war and focus it more on the "lessons" of our country's current wars. I really hope this becomes one of the true great war film/series as most of that has been reserved for the European theater.
IJ atrocities against civilians...I doubt it'll even come up, except maybe on Guadalcanal. I've heard that the storyline is based on "Helmet for My Pillow" and "With the Old Breed". I've only read WTOB, so I can't speak for Helmet, but I can assure you if it's true to the latter book, expect a gruesome and brutal look at the PTO even without crimes against humanity. Anybody who's read it knows what I mean when I say that if they show "gold teeth", that will be a first for the cinematic depiction of the ugliness of combat.
[/quote] IJ atrocities against civilians...I doubt it'll even come up, except maybe on Guadalcanal. I've heard that the storyline is based on "Helmet for My Pillow" and "With the Old Breed". I've only read WTOB, so I can't speak for Helmet, but I can assure you if it's true to the latter book, expect a gruesome and brutal look at the PTO even without crimes against humanity. Anybody who's read it knows what I mean when I say that if they show "gold teeth", that will be a first for the cinematic depiction of the ugliness of combat.[/quote] The issue of civilians will come up in the series I guarantee it, especially when an episode is on the Battle of Okinawa. I've read Leckie's book "Helmet for My Pillow", It follows along the same lines as "With the Old Breed".Both books definitley don't shy way from how brutal fighting in the Pacific really was.
Watched it. Liked it. Will watch it again. Though, I don't think Guadalcanal was the best island to start the series on, not much happened in the first episode to hook the audience except the previews. F-in A the rest of the series will be bad ass, it's good to see a legit series about my services triumphs...and no Generation Kill wasn't all that good to me. Best line: "I have a girlfriend? Lucky me!"
I havent caught it yet but as you may remember Band of Brothers started out with a slow episode featuring the dynamic actor David Schwimmer.
For me, I will be more than happy to take the story as it's presented. I have no need to be hooked quickly... I already am, without having even seen it yet. They have more than proven themselves with Band Of Brothers, and I am quite willing to enjoy the story as it unfolds, in whatever way they see fit.
I really liked the "how fucked are you know?" at the end. Looks like Spielberg and Hanks have come up with another winner. I like how they didn't copy and paste the Band of Brothers format for this one. It looks like more attention will be given to the home-front for this one (I know John Basilone went on a war-bond tour after receiving the MOH).
Oh yeah, I was hooked when I heard about it, I was just referring to the outside world who doesn't really know what happened in the pacific campaign. It should be an awesome series just like Band of Brothers.
I'm just glad that they're not pandering to the morons looking for instant gratification. I'd bet money that they're doing it the way they are for a reason.
They are reusing the formula from BoB and there is nothing wrong with that because it worked amazingly well. Yeah we'd feel bad for the soldiers and see that the Pacific theatre was a gruesome place, but giving the soldiers identities and making them familiar makes it hit viewers that much harder. Spoiler Loved the 'how fucked are you now?' happy birthday song.
I felt like the first episode built this incredible, eerie tension. We have the benefit, or rather the burden of knowing what happened to those Marines on Guadalcanal. We know what is coming, and we literally have to sit and watch them march blindly into a strange jungle to meet an inevitable fate. That last scene where the column makes its way into the treeline filled me with a distinct sense of dread that was only compounded by the episode's final lines. I also agree with whoever said that this is going to be more emotionally taxing on the audience than Band of Brothers. Absolutely, we were invested in Easy Company and its story, but we only ever saw those men in the context of the war and their relation to one another. It was powerful, to say the least, but it gave them this heroic sheen. They had left everything behind and were utterly committed to the task at hand. They seemed stronger, more confident. There was something distinctly more adult about the Easy Company characters, both because of the way they were written, and because of the actors chosen to play them. Having seen these new characters sit at dinner tables with their families, we've been robbed of that cold separation. We're being forced to confront the reality that these Marines were boys. Children, by today's standards. We can't pretend that they don't have mothers, we can't support the illusion that these people were anything but very young, very scared kids who took a headlong dive into a veritable hell. It's sobering, to say the least. And to the people who are worried about seeing more 'action', wait for the seige of the Peleliu airfield. I saw the preview. 'Entertaining' is the last word I would use to describe it. It was beyond gripping and incredible in its scope, but if you're not completely desensitized, you'll feel sick to your stomach after seeing it. I was.
I was just talking with my grandfather yesterday about this series as he is a Pacific Marine, and he was talking about the hostility that I guess the directors have been getting due to the "racial" content of the series. Grandpa - Ya they are talking about how its all negative against the japs, hell they didnt give us a welcome on Iwo or Tarawa. Fuck them Grandma - Nope we didn't like them at all. My mom looked on in horror, awesome.
It was the first place Leckie went, and if I recall correctly the first Marine offensive action in the Pacific. I suppose for a miniseries they didn't feel like taking the time to cover Camp Lejeune or Leckie getting his tip snipped. I hope my internet's decent enough for me to see the next episodes, the first one was amazing but I'll be away from TVs for a while.
It's not really the same formula. BOB followed one company throughout WWII and was based on one book. This follows three marines in different regiments and is based on three different books. The are similar in showing the gruesomeness of war and the effects on the marines. I don't think there is anyway to avoid the constant comparison to Band of Brothers. The difference in the two enemies is enormous. The atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers were unspeakable, torture to them was a common place. (Obviously the horrific terrors committed to the Jews is not comparable to anything, but the German soldiers (not the SS) were not known for torturing like the Japanese) I'm not sure if you guys noticed the scene when the Platoon came upon the dead Americans. Some of them were decapitated with their own cocks in their mouths.
Something that is so unbelievable to me was what we thought of the enemy and to a degree what they thought of us. We thought that the Japanese soldiers had limited eye sight and were too small to carry and equipment. They thought we were spoiled and pampered and wouldn't be comfortable fighting at night or in the rain (they felt this way of us and the British) Where would such ridiculous rumors come from? Didn't we know about the Samurai warrior then, didn't they know about WWI?