"The Pacific" HBO series

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I finally got around to watching "The Pacific" HBO series about some of the battles the USMC had with the Empire of Japan from 1942 through to 1945 and I have to say I started off watching the first few episodes thinking "This is pretty lame compared to Band of Brothers". But things really turned around in the second half of the series. I was aware of many of the hardships the USMC went through in this war, but this HBO series really did a good job in bringing us some historical accuracy to the battles and now I view "The Pacific" in just as high regard as I view "Band of Brothers".

It was interesting watching "Sledge" go from being this naive green kid fresh off the boat to being "Sledgehammer" the lean mean Jap killing machine. I liked the part where once the war was over and Sledge was talking to the girl at some college open house discussing his post war education opportunities. The girl was asking Sledge all these dumb questions like "did he gain any journalism experience while in the South Pacific" and Sledge's response was "They taught me how to kill Japs. I got pretty good at it".

Anyway good series ... I will need to watch the early episodes again and maybe catch a few things I did not pick up the first time around.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[jrmrangers 0]

That was a great scene with sledge!! I enjoyed the whole series because it was entertaining and it was supposedly a good representation of the things that went on then.

Wait , I pull what first?

[tbrown 26]

I got a promo disc of the first episode attached to the "tin lunchbox" edition of Band of Brothers. It was pretty good, if a bit of a slow start. I'd like to catch the rest on cable sometime, or find a way to rent it sometime.

Tom Hanks made the point that the war in the Pacific was completely different than the war in Europe. Bad as it was, Europe was a solid land mass with more or less familiar cultures, even the enemy. But the Pacific was a lot of far flung little islands in a huge ocean, fighting in tropical jungle against a culture with a whole different set of values.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[ladydyver 0]

My brother did the sound on this series and won an emmy for his work.....needless to say I watched it vigilantly when it was released to hbo and then bought the mini series....found it very interesting and learned a lot about that era that I had no idea that even existed....

DPH # 2
"I am not sure what you are suppose to do with that, but I don't think it is suppose to flop around like that." ~Skootz~
I have a strong regard for the rules.......doc!

[kallend 1,648]

How does it compare with the 1950s series Victory at Sea?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[pchapman 262]

Hey Kallend,
The Pacific doesn't look at the whole war in the Pacific, but just snippets here and there mainly of the grunts on the ground in some of the island battles (plus time away from the battle zone), following a few protagonists in different episodes. It's not a narrated docu, but fiction re-created pretty closely to the memoirs of a couple of the protagonists plus other sources.

Sledge's book had already become a classic. That kid who became a warrior ended up a mild mannered biology professor (or similar), who couldn't stomach going hunting after the war.

There are parts of the series that equal or exceed the violent intensity of the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.