Just finished watching The Pacific

[Candlelight]

After recording the episodes for weeks I decided it was time to sit down and actually watch them (it clashed with another show I was into). I watched the first nine episodes the previous weekend, then ep10 screened last night.

Overall it was a powerful drama, very gritty and realistic, again depicting the horrors of war. Still, I can't help but feel that this production was inferior to Band of Brothers.

While BoB followed a single company, here we have three marines and different combat actions. I thought it was much harder to keep up with the "who's who" this time round, especially jumping between marine divisions. The actor playing Sledge was terrible. While I don't doubt his performance/portrayal was likely accurate, I felt he couldn't quite pull off any scene he was in.

Pacing could've been better too. After the blistering pace of Guadalcanal the series suddenly ground to a halt with the Melbourne then hospital episodes. I also thought that too much time was spent on the Battle of Peleliu. While it was extremely powerful, it was three episodes long, and given they only have a ten-episode season to start with...

It would be interesting to see if they do a third WW2 story. Maybe set in the Mediterranean, or the South African theatre. With the latter, it would feature Anzacs!

 

[firehawk12]

Yep, my main complaint with the show was the pacing - due to the fact that they followed an entire division and three stories that were completely unrelated to each other. They should have stuck to an anthology format and threw temporal continuity out the window, because it wasn't that the stories themselves were necessarily boring... just the way they told them made them boring.

Of course, I'm still ultimately disappointed that it's another WW2 text that doesn't feature any minorities, but that's just my particular hang up.

 

[Caliburn24]

I'd like to see a Band of Brothers type of show focusing on a German unit on the Eastern Front, maybe one of the Heavy Tiger Battalions. What those units were called on to do, the odds they fought against and the cohesion they maintained even as they retreated in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers make anything that the Americans, British or Russians land forces did pale by comparison.

Otto Carius:

In 1943, Carius transferred to the schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 (502 heavy tank battalion). This unit fought at the Leningrad front and then in the area of Narva, Estonia (Battle of Narva). Carius was severely wounded on July 24, 1944 while reconnoitering a village on a motorcycle ahead of his tanks. Until that day, he was unofficially running the 2nd company of 502nd, however, he officially became the commander of 2nd company on the same day he got shot through the leg, arm, 4 bullets in the back and one through the neck. He subsequently became the commander of a Jagdtiger company of the 512th Heavy Antitank Battalion (schwere Panzerjägerabteilung) in the West at the beginning of 1945. On 8 March 1945, without finishing its training, 2nd company was directed to the front-line near Siegburg. It then took part in the defense of the River Rhine and eventually surrendered to the US Army on 15 April 1945.
Otto Carius destroyed more than 150 tanks[1] during his WWII career.

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

Or Michael Wittman,

Wittmann is most famous for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a single Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger he destroyed up to 14 tanks and 15 personnel carriers along with 2 anti-tank guns within the space of 15 minutes.


The circumstances behind Wittmann’s death have caused some debate and discussion over the years, but it has been historically accepted that Trooper Joe Ekins, the gunner in a Sherman Firefly, of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry was his killer.

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

Or Kurt Knispel

With 168 confirmed (possibly as high as 195) kills,[1] Knispel was by far the most successful tanker of the Second World War[1] and is even credited with knocking out a T-34 at 3,000 m. He fought in virtually every type of German tank as loader, gunner and commander. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, after destroying his fiftieth enemy tank and the Tank Assault Badge in Gold after more than 100 tank battles. When Knispel had destroyed 126 enemy tanks (with another 20 unconfirmed kills), he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. He became the only non-commissioned officer of the German tank arm to be named in a Wehrmacht communique. As commander of a Tiger I and then a Tiger II, Knispel destroyed another 42 enemy tanks.


Though he was recommended for it four times, Knispel never received the coveted Knight's Cross, a standard award for most other World War II German tank aces. Unlike some other commanders, Knispel was not consumed by the pursuit of decorations and did not suffer from a "sore throat", Heer slang for those who lusted after the Knight's Cross. When there were conflicting claims for a destroyed enemy tank, Knispel always stepped back, always willing to credit success to someone else.[1]

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

Any of those three soldiers would make for a fascinating story.

 

[captcalhoun]

i'd love to see an SAS or LRDG based show set in North Africa...

 

[Bloodwhiner]

I doubt we'll see another WW2 series from Hanks and Spielberg.

The Japanese movie Yamato is worth chasing down for a look at an AA gun crew aboard the doomed Japanese super battleship. Not the greatest film but still worth a couple hours.

 

[Squiggy]

I'd like to see a Band of Brothers type of show focusing on a German unit on the Eastern Front, maybe one of the Heavy Tiger Battalions.

I doubt any studio would green light a WWII piece with the Germans in sympathetic roles, even today.

 

[firehawk12]

I'd like to see a Band of Brothers type of show focusing on a German unit on the Eastern Front, maybe one of the Heavy Tiger Battalions.

I doubt any studio would green light a WWII piece with the Germans in sympathetic roles, even today.

I remember the angst Relic had when they made a game featuring Germans during Market-Garden, so yeah.

Closest thing you get is Valkyrie, which isn't actually a war film.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Band of Bruders!

I though Basilone's post-Guadalcanal story was the least interesting part of The Pacific.

Of course both The Pacific and Band of Brothers are silly compared to the gritty, realstic war series that was THE RAT PATROL.

 

[TheMurph]

I haven't seen it yet, but I was figuring on disappointment. In order to keep the emotional impact and to keep the story tight it's best to follow a core group of soldiers as they face fire together. A company works perfectly. A division with stories based on three different unconnected guys... doesn't seem like it has the emotional draw.

 

[Aragorn]

I just finished watching this and figured it would be better to bump a thread than start a new one.

I was entertained, but had trouble remembering who's who in terms of supporting roles since the miniseries is following three different characters who don't interact with each other (I recognized their faces, but it was tough to remember their roles, and names were out of the question unless they had a memorable nickname). The show didn't really pick up until Sledge joined the war.

I think reducing Basilone to a supporting part (he's vital at Guadalcanal but we didn't need his whole story) and upgrading Sidney Phillips to the No. 3 role would've improved the flow of the storytelling. Leckie and Sledge are, of course, the major players here since their books make up a large part of The Pacific, but Phillips was actually a part of both stories.

 

[FPAlpha]

When it aired initially i only made it past the first 3 episodes or so before i gave up on it.. as many have said it was hard to keep track of who's who and where and the whole thing was disjointed.

Adding in the fighting at night where it's hard to tell what's going on and it's clear why it wasn't as popular as BoB. Quite some time later i had time to kill and sat down to rewatch the whole thing and my opinion improved. It's not bad and the later episodes are quite good and showcase the brutality and sometimes savagery that was quite dominant in the Pacific. Best scenes though were in the final episodes when we are shown the aftermath of the war and how it affected the cast and how they went on to make a new life post war.. that came through well.

However Band of Brothers is still unmatched.. there's so much done right with this series that it will be forever one of the best shows about WW2 ever to hit the screen and it is unanimously praised in my circle of friends as brilliant.

 

[Mysterion]

I'd like to see a Band of Brothers type of show focusing on a German unit on the Eastern Front, maybe one of the Heavy Tiger Battalions.

I doubt any studio would green light a WWII piece with the Germans in sympathetic roles, even today.

We'll always have Das Boot, though.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

And Stalingrad.