I just found out I had HBO today, so I'll be checking it out soon. (As for "finding out", I recently moved to a new apartment where people had already been living there and no one mentioned it to me and I haven't had the time to fully explore our cable package until now)
Yep, I started that thread. Don't know what to say really, but I love the show. Between this and Carrier, it seems to be the year of good military based miniseries.
It's a war drama, ala Band of Brothers. It's not as GOOD as Band of Brothers, but it's an interesting take on the Iraq war - from an anti-war perspective. That's why I'm surprised I like it, because I'm for the war.
It isn't an anti war perspective. It is a perspective of what it is to fight a war with through the MTV generation. It is a perspective on who we are asking to bear the brunt of this never ending war. And I quote the book, "They were a new breed of warrior unrecognizable to their forebears - soldiers raised on hip-hop, Internet porn, and video games, a disparate band of brothers of born again Christians, dopers, Buddhists and new Agers." Read the book BTW, it is amazing too.
It's odd, because I tihnk it's MUCH better than Band of Brothers. At the very least it's more "real".
DVD for me. Let's see if it gets an Emmy. And how can you judge whether BofB is "real"? Were you alive in the 1940s?
Well, BoB feels like a clean, Hollywood version of war compared to the depiction in Generation Kill - and that's saying something, given that in the genre of WW2 film/television fiction, BoB was pretty damn good. I mean, I look at the way men talk to each other in the GK and the way they talk to each other in BoB and BoB feels so clean and sanitized. At the end of the latest episode of GK, they pretty much explain why men will do everything possible to undermine each other, even though they consider them their "brothers". So people are calling each other all kinds of shit that in any other context would be considered racist, sexist and homophobic. In Band of Brothers, the only time it even becomes an issue is when one of the characters calls another a Jew. But then it's completely dropped. I'm not saying living in the 40s automatically means you're a KKK member, but really? I'm sure back then people had more colourful language that "fairy". Just these small touches make it feel like the show is about a group of men working together in a shitty situation. It's the deal same with Gunner Palace, if you've seen that. Incidentally, it's why de Palma's Redacted feels contrived. I mean, the film itself is meant to be contrived, but the way the characters are written... well, GK feels like a Wright sat there and transcribed every word said by the marines in Iraq and Redacted feels like it was written by a scriptwriter.
Here's the last thread, although I don't mind the new one. It has what? One, two episodes left? It's been really cool so far. Things have slowed down, since it's clear that their intended mission (well, as intended as it was in light of things getting messed up) is coming to an end. I still thought last episode was pretty good, but there hasn't been a bad episode in the entire miniseries.
Totally agree that the GK feels more real than BoB. I think the greatest thing about GK is that it makes an effort to show all the sides. It shows soldiers bitching, like really bitching and you can't help but emphasize for them and realize how stupid command is. But when you read the book, it gives you the full picture of the strategy of what they were doing and why Mattias chose Recon to do what he asked them to do. I think doing a realistic version of BoB just won't work b/c in our minds we have this crisp version, this "Greatest Generation" ever. That understood what they were doing etc. I'm pretty sure soldiers were bitching to about getting into a war for Kings and Old Europe. Personally I feel that the "Greatest Generation" is the new breed of men and women who are serving their country right now. Being called upon to wage a never ending war. With incomptentant political leaders, powerful companies waging war for money, broken homes and a broken country. Yet they still go out there give it their all and ask nothing for in return.
I JUST hope they took a lot of 'dramatic license' with it because IF C%C was that incompotent or suicidely 'Gung-Ho' (Godfather sending Humvees against armor etc. because he wants to be sure his batallion is 'in the fight'); I pray our (the U.S.) armed forces don't have that many idiots in charge of deadly battlefield operations. Bit as far as the way it's been presented; it's very good and I like that they don't talk down to the viewing audience (you don't see they non-sensically explaining every military term they use during an episode, for example). But either way, it's interesting.