The Pacific

[BlueJazzer]

Maybe its just me but I think Band of Brothers flowed better because it was a story we (well, me anyway) knew. I never covered the Pacific at school so the story, other than Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on 7th Dec, is unfamiliar. Dont want to be a spoiler but I think the Yanks win in the end.......

 

 

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Maybe its just me but I think Band of Brothers flowed better because it was a story we (well, me anyway) knew. I never covered the Pacific at school so the story, other than Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on 7th Dec, is unfamiliar. Dont want to be a spoiler but I think the Yanks win in the end.......

 

 

Err, you really ought to get some books. I thought the Pacific conflict was more absorbing than the European*, especially given the Japanese penchent for fighting until the last man. * Except perhaps Stalingrad. Cor, that was some battle.

[BlueJazzer]

I'm not saying I didn't know the story at all, just that it was a lot less familiar than the European conflict. I've gotta be honest, WW2 was never really my thing, although I'm taking more interest as I get older. I just seem to find myself munching through biographies....

[beag_teeets]

I've just read a book on Anzio, I didn't know anything about it before, sounds horrendous, a real throw-back to WW1 almost trench warfare and being pounded by shells. I finished it last night and the author had a bit at the back were he detailed meeting some veterans, he said they were 19/20 when they were over there fighting, at that age he said he was a student only concerned with playing rugby and writing essays. He told the veterans of his shame about this but they told him off, they said they did what they did so that people were able to do what he did.

 

Put it into perspective for me. We prattle on about our perceived hardships like not being able to afford Sky HD or a 50 inch telly to watch it on, foreign holidays or a mercedes but we're incredibly fortunate and lucky we haven't had to go through anything that that generation did - or previous generations.

[oafc0000]

Watched part one and two and won't be watching any more. Typical american bull:censored:.

 

I suspect you can watch one episode and then from that point onwards, besides the intros from vertrans you could be watching the same episode...

 

Not impressed...

[Matt]

I've just read a book on Anzio, I didn't know anything about it before, sounds horrendous, a real throw-back to WW1 almost trench warfare and being pounded by shells. I finished it last night and the author had a bit at the back were he detailed meeting some veterans, he said they were 19/20 when they were over there fighting, at that age he said he was a student only concerned with playing rugby and writing essays. He told the veterans of his shame about this but they told him off, they said they did what they did so that people were able to do what he did.

 

Put it into perspective for me. We prattle on about our perceived hardships like not being able to afford Sky HD or a 50 inch telly to watch it on, foreign holidays or a mercedes but we're incredibly fortunate and lucky we haven't had to go through anything that that generation did - or previous generations.

 

The Battle of Monte Cassino was also a brutal contact (an allied pyrrhic victory) in 1944 that is often skipped over...

[beag_teeets]

The Battle of Monte Cassino was also a brutal contact (an allied pyrrhic victory) in 1944 that is often skipped over...

 

Aye, as well as the Russian front from Stalingrad to the end of the war was horrendous and did more to defeat the Germans than D-Day and all that yet gets hardly any exposure this side of the old iron curtain.

[Crusoe]

And many, many more - Kokoda, Kursk, Aachen and the Hurtgen Forest, the Scheldt, Kasserine, etc, etc. A litany of tragedy.

 

Some of the books I've read on lesser known battles have been eye-openers: Charles B MacDonald's books on the Battle of the Bulge (okay, not so lesser known) and the Hurtgen, Carlo d'Este's book on Anzio, Rick Atkinson's trilogy that focuses on American involvement in North Africa and Italy, James Holland's book on the British in Italy, Colin Smith's Singapore Burning (about the fall of Singapore), and a fascinating book on the short and vicious war between Russia and Finland in 1939 (when the Finns kicked all kind of Russian backside before the weight of numbers told, bloodily, on them).

 

Film-wise I highly recommend the 1990s German film Stalingrad - truly heart-wrenching.

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Film-wise I highly recommend the 1990s German film Stalingrad - truly heart-wrenching.

 

Yes, it is. Watch it in subtitles though, the English dubbed one is awful. Another great, but as-bleak-as-they-come films is Come And See. It's about partizans and the holocaust in Belarus through the eyes of a boy. If you thought Schindler's List was harrowing then this goes beyond that.

 

Anyway, WW1 was an almight meat-grinder but the hugely more powerful weaponry in WW2 increased the carnage ten fold. Always worth remembering that the films we've all seen don't even make a pinprick on the surface of a whale.

[Crusoe]

Caught up on episodes six, seven and eight tonight. Grim stuff, particularly the airfield attack and the bunker. The show does a good job of not pulling any punches on the horror of it all, but until Sledge in episode seven and (finally) Basilone in episode eight it hadn't hooked me on the characters.

 

And oh Jesus, the single nastiest moment of the show so far - Sledge watching the other mortarman (SNAFU) dropping pebbles into the brainpan of the topless head of a Japanese machine-gunner. That just about turned my stomach.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Crusoe

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Caught up on episodes six, seven and eight tonight. Grim stuff, particularly the airfield attack and the bunker. The show does a good job of not pulling any punches on the horror of it all, but until Sledge in episode seven and (finally) Basilone in episode eight it hadn't hooked me on the characters.

 

And oh Jesus, the single nastiest moment of the show so far - Sledge watching the other mortarman (SNAFU) dropping pebbles into the brainpan of the topless head of a Japanese machine-gunner. That just about turned my stomach.

 

EDIT: Gah, stupid double post.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Frankly Mr Shankly

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

And oh Jesus, the single nastiest moment of the show so far - Sledge watching the other mortarman (SNAFU) dropping pebbles into the brainpan of the topless head of a Japanese machine-gunner. That just about turned my stomach.

 

Oh, yes!

It was the PLOP... PLOP... PLOP... just before the camera reveals what the noise actually is which does it. Brilliantly portrayed and filmed.

 

Actually, Snafu's a brilliant character isn't he? Haunting.

[Crusoe]

Snafu's probably my unsung favourite character. Utterly amoral but uneasy that others might follow in his footsteps - there's a nugget of something decent in him.

[Ackey]

I've not read the other posts as I got part way through Ep.8 and turned it off for another day... the lack of action's starting to get tiresome. Really, whilst still good, I'm finding it harder to become engrossed by than BoB was, to the extent that I've watched most of BoB back since Pacific started and enjoyed it much more.

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Snafu's probably my unsung favourite character. Utterly amoral but uneasy that others might follow in his footsteps - there's a nugget of something decent in him.

 

 

Yeah. I read somewhere that he and Sledge became firm friends after the war too. Think I'm going to try and get hold of his and Leckie's books once I've seen it all.

[slystallone]

And many, many more - Kokoda, Kursk, Aachen and the Hurtgen Forest, the Scheldt, Kasserine, etc, etc. A litany of tragedy.

 

Some of the books I've read on lesser known battles have been eye-openers: Charles B MacDonald's books on the Battle of the Bulge (okay, not so lesser known) and the Hurtgen, Carlo d'Este's book on Anzio, Rick Atkinson's trilogy that focuses on American involvement in North Africa and Italy, James Holland's book on the British in Italy, Colin Smith's Singapore Burning (about the fall of Singapore), and a fascinating book on the short and vicious war between Russia and Finland in 1939 (when the Finns kicked all kind of Russian backside before the weight of numbers told, bloodily, on them).

 

Film-wise I highly recommend the 1990s German film Stalingrad - truly heart-wrenching.

 

Bought Stalingrad on DVD a while ago and watched it in the dubbed format – awful; just awful – if I ever find the “actors” who did the voiceovers I’ll be right in there with a slap; shocking. Haven’t revisited it in the subtitle form since; as I’m frankly scared from the dubbed one!!

 

If you’re after a couple of films from the Pacific front; then these 2 are worth visiting if you haven’t already:

 

Letters from Iwo Jima & Brotherhood a both good watches; and don’t fall into the American smaltz that sometimes affects war films. The US part of letters of Iwo Jima (Flags of Our Fathers) is IMO a poor film that falls into the afore mentioned smaltz trap.

 

[Crusoe]

Brotherhood? There's a Korean War film I've seen called that, but not a WW2 one. Agree completely with what you say on the two Eastwood films - the Japanese-centric film is miles better.

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Latest Pacific (Episode 9; Okinawa)... The most awesome ever. Christ. Oh, and Brotherhood. Cracking film that is.

[Crusoe]

I found episode 9 really hard going. No punches pulled, it'd almost have seemed gratuitous if I didn't believe that those kind of things really happened.

[slystallone]

Brotherhood? There's a Korean War film I've seen called that, but not a WW2 one. Agree completely with what you say on the two Eastwood films - the Japanese-centric film is miles better.

 

My bad - Korean War it was - still an awesome watch whichever war it pertained to!

 

 

Only watched the 1st 2 episodes (as they were 'free' on sky3 a few weeks ago) - I heard mixed reviews though (and read some on here) - I fully expect a DVD Box Set to come out soon; Is it worth the cost (I'd wager £50 - £75; BoB was £80 IIRC when it first came on DVD) or shall I wait till BBC2 buy the rights (hopefully?)

 

 

[beag_teeets]

Latest Pacific (Episode 9; Okinawa)... The most awesome ever. Christ. Oh, and Brotherhood. Cracking film that is.

 

 

I knew I shouldn't have come back in here.

 

Just catching up with it, got 9 and 10 left. Have enjoyed it so far, definitely gets better as it goes along, focuses more on the human side than just shooting people.

 

So, got the best episode left then another one. Nice!

 

[beag_teeets]

Started watching it again with the wife and am really enjoying it.

 

We are going through it in quick succession and it definitely helps that there aren't gaps between each episode. Watched ep4 last night when Leckie is in the hospital and he sees a man in a cage that he knows, I recognised him from ep3 as the man who suffocated the Japanese soldier then has a manic grin on his face. When we watched ep3 and saw the grin I said to Clare "he's just lost it" I missed that it was the same guy when I watched it first time round.

 

I agree with what I put in my previous post, it really is more about the human cost of the war than the muck and bullets of BoB. BoB touches on it when Bill and Joe get their legs blown off and Buck loses it, The Pacific takes this theme and runs with it. The line from Eugene's dad about the mental effect of war on the men he treated during WW1 is almost a throwaway but I think it is a central theme of the series.

 

The Australia episode does drag but makes the marines more human rather than the killing machines from standard hollywood films where 3 guys, rifles and a handful of grenades march in to Berlin and open up a whole can of whoop-ass on Hitler. These were volunteers who ended up in miserable jungles half the world away not 100% certain why they were there.

 

I think BoB2 would have been a big disappointment, if they had just copied the formula but with jungle noises I wouldn't have been happy. It expands on the human side much more, you care for Doc Roe when you see him with the nurse in Bastogne and you care for Leckie when his Aussie girlfriend dumps him as she doesn't want to put her family through the potential loss.

 

Still got the bulk of the series to go, am fully expecting tears from Clare when Basilone buys it and I'm not 100% certain I won't be joining her. Looking forward to meeting Snafu again and seeing Eugene turn from a privileged youth into exactly what his father feared.

[beag_teeets]

We finished it last night, on second viewing it really is very good.

 

Not much to add to my last post, apart from banging on about how it really does put you through the mixer, watching Eugene go from Mummy's boy to bitter grizzled veteran is enthralling.

 

Would love them to do another, one from the Russian perspective or even a German perspective would be amazing.