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Chief of War (Apple TV+)

SarcasticVulcanSalute

SarcasticVulcanSalute

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
Chief of War

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Embark on an epic adventure about the origin of Hawai'i and it's people. Jason Momoa stars as Ka'iana, a fearless warrior on a mission to unite his homeland as a monumental power struggle erupts among the four kingdoms.
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  • Chief of War is a Hawaiian historical drama series created by Thomas Paʻa Sibbett and Jason Momoa for Apple TV+.
  • 9 episodes, every Friday through September 19, 2025.
  • initially announced as a limited miniseries, a second and third season could possibly be greenlit in September 2025
 
SarcasticVulcanSalute said:
Anybody else watching this visually absolutely stunning, at times very violent and brutal, history based action/drama series?
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Oh, dear. I've been meaning to check this out, since I'm interested in the Hawai'ian history, but I really wish prestige TV would get over this need to put graphic violence into everything.
 
I’ve heard good things about it so far, so definitely need to check it out.

It should (hopefully) give me some good tidbits of trivia / knowledge to use on the harbor cruise boat out here on Oahu.

And I’m glad that it sounds like they didn’t hold back on the violence aspect — the native Hawaiians were a pretty nasty and brutish bunch like most of the Polynesian tribes.

Cheers,
-CM-
 
Christopher said:
Oh, dear. I've been meaning to check this out, since I'm interested in the Hawai'ian history, but I really wish prestige TV would get over this need to put graphic violence into everything.
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Colonel Midnight said:
And I’m glad that it sounds like they didn’t hold back on the violence aspect — the native Hawaiians were a pretty nasty and brutish bunch like most of the Polynesian tribes.

Cheers,
-CM-
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Didn't expect it, was just surprised as some stuff is rather graphic and it's on Apple TV+ after all. But I don't mind it and historically it really often was brutal battles and rituals indeed, so it's not just for dramatic effect.

Also I found it really cool, that unless you speak ōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) you'll need the subtitles. English only gets introduced bit by bit with the pale-skins.

There are many wonderful actresses and actors with Polynesian and Hawai'ian heritage in the cast, not just the main ones. Really awesome to see that!
Hope it's a similar thing on set, behind the camera and all trough the production.
 
Christopher said:
Right, like Europeans weren't. Humans in general are often a pretty nasty and brutish lot.
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Not denying that at all. Life was brutal and usually short back then for everyone.

It’s just eye-opening to the tourists when I mention it to them, lol.

Cheers,
-CM-
 
SarcasticVulcanSalute said:
Didn't expect it, was just surprised as some stuff is rather graphic and it's on Apple TV+ after all. But I don't mind it and historically it really often was brutal battles and rituals indeed, so it's not just for dramatic effect.
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Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to show the gore in graphic detail on camera. TV managed fine for decades showing violence discreetly, the same way nudity is shown discreetly with selective camera angles and cutaways. These days, TV-MA shows seem to wallow more and more in showing as much shocking gore and dismemberment as possible, while simultaneously getting more reluctant to show nudity. I'll never understand why people think an unclothed body is a more obscene sight than a disemboweled one.

Okay, I get that the real reason is probably that performers might prefer not to appear nude on camera given the choice, and should be given the choice, while special-effects gore doesn't entail the same privacy concerns. But that doesn't make the gore any less unpleasant to look at. I tend to look away or squint at those parts.


SarcasticVulcanSalute said:
Also I found it really cool, that unless you speak ōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) you'll need the subtitles. English only gets introduced bit by bit with the pale-skins.
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When I watched Apple shows on my computer, I found that I needed to have the captions on all the time for the foreign-language subtitles to work at all. I hope it works differently on my smart TV.
 
It's late at night for me...will try to tupe my thoughts in detail.

This definitely shows the spectrum of humanity within Hawaiians, and over all.

I have watched Subtitled Korean dramas for almost 30 years, which has been good prep.
 
I'm watching it too and really like it. I don't know how accurate the show is being a caucasian with an only very superficial knowledge of hawaian culture and history but i hope the producers have done their research and kept as close to history as possible ( with exceptions for dramatic purposes or else it would be a plain documentary show).

I was also a bit surprised at the display of violence, not that it happened ( combat is violent) but that it was shown so openly but it like that in combat and war. The story is also engaging and though i know the broad history and how it unfolds i'm still engaged to follow this show.
 
Christopher said:
These days, TV-MA shows seem to wallow more and more in showing as much shocking gore and dismemberment as possible, while simultaneously getting more reluctant to show nudity. I'll never understand why people think an unclothed body is a more obscene sight than a disemboweled one.
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You got that right. George Carlin did a whole bit on that, back in the 1970s. Said he'd rather have kids see two people making love than two people trying to kill each other. Even went so far as to suggest replacing the word "kill" with the word "fuck" in all the old movie cliches.

I quite frankly saw as much of Chief of War as I care to see, when it showed up recently as a Jeopardy! category.
 
Morpheus 02 said:
So no one saw the last 2 episodes??


Nahi!!!!!!!!!!
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Finally was able to watch the last 2 episodes.

the penultimate episode was a real roller coaster of emotions with Vai (the Island Lady from the pirate port) and Nahi's deaths. Both affected Kaiiana (Jason Momoa) a lot. Nahi's passing had a powerful effect on their little family tribe and their actions going forward, especially Heke.

Keoua (Cliff Curtis) was almost as mad of a leader as Kahekili. Too bad the lava blast killed him, instead of Kaiiana with on of the paleskin red mouth weapons.
Seeing parts of his warriors/army getting swalled by the crumbling rocks into the lava field/river was cheesy, but still kinda cool.

King Kahekili (Temuera Morrison) completely lost it, as his son Prince Kupule (Brandon Finn) said to his lover. Tough to watch him get stabbed by his fater after the later consumed more of that hallucination fish and smashed parts of his bone temple, wanting even more power and going even more crazy. The end scene was disturbing with him and his son's lover, after his son begged to spare his life.

council member Moku (Moses Goods) mistrusting both, Kaiiana and now also his daughter Kaahumanu (Luciane Buchanan) was interesting, as he initially educated her, basically married her away for power and told her what to do - to now not being the one in command anymore between those two. How the tables have turned.

My favorite character overall was Kaahumanu. I liked her arc a lot - she basically is a combination of of Kamehameha's and Kaiiana's best traits in a way. Nice to see her obvious affection for Kaiiana in the end, despite it well not really being an option in her position of the queen.


Anyway I'm kinda hoping we get a 2nd season for the conclusion of the Kahekilli vs Kamehameha conflict and because I loved the production quality visuals and characters and acting talent.
 
I just finished this. Most of it wasn't as violence-laden as I feared; if anything, it's largely a story about people trying to find a path to peace, albeit failing. Overall, it's more a political drama than a war story, despite the title. Although I did have to avert my eyes for quite a lot of the season finale. (I kinda wish the whole battle had just been the two sides hurling insults at each other.)

It's a well-made show, but I sometimes found the writing a little basic, like, you could tell that certain scenes were there to give exposition and setup. It was interesting to learn about these figures and events from Hawai'an history, but I made sure to look up the real history on Wikipedia afterward, and the show takes quite a few liberties, compressing the timescale, conflating different events, simplifying the causes behind events, etc. for dramatic effect. (For instance, in reality, Wynee died of disease while sailing back to the islands, rather than being killed in the massacre later. And Keoua losing his army to lava really happened, but not in the same battle shown here, and he was captured and executed sometime later.) I understand the need for dramatic license, but they say their intent was to depict Hawai'ian history and culture authentically and tell these stories on TV for the first time, so it could've stood to be a little more authentic. At least, I wish those "Stick around after the credits" featurettes included a historian explaining how it had really happened. Or they could've done what CBS used to do with their historical dramas and documentaries and such -- after the show, they'd do a little feature called "Read More About It" where they'd recommend books people could get from their local library to learn more.

I also thought it was kind of contrived how they made excuses for having the characters speak English in the later episodes. Okay, I can buy the leaders holding strategy sessions and such in English to keep spies from knowing what they're saying (which is the same excuse Marc Okrand used in The Klingon Dictionary to justify the Klingons in The Search for Spock discussing Genesis in English), but that doesn't explain why so many characters used English in their private conversations with no one around. Also, it seemed odd that so many islanders learned English from John Young, but he apparently didn't make an effort to learn a word of their language. I can certainly buy an 18th-century Englishman taking it for granted that the natives have to learn to do things his way instead of the other way around, but why would so many of the islanders be okay with that?
 
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