Spoilers I downloaded the first episode last night and I was completely disappointed. Beyond all the patriotic feelings and the "look at these heroes" sentiment (which I think obscure some of the failings of the first episode), it looked and played out like a hundred war movies you've seen before. Band of Brothers was a masterpiece, and the format of the first episode of that show really set the tone for the rest of the series. We see Easy Company as they are about to ship out on D-day, then it flashes back to their training. They took their time establishing characters, introducing early relationships, and really cementing these people as more or less naive young men. We didn't know where they came from, who they were, but it worked because their lives had begun over again. We got to see them be reborn and start to harden up. What do we get in The Pacific? Some sappy war cliches that you've seen before. Disregarding the contempt the filmmakers have for the audience's intelligence (they let us know with a title that we are in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, as if the catholic church and AMERICAN FLAG weren't enough to establish that), they could have at least make this series seem REAL. Instead, the same standard war movie scenes are plopped in: Guy runs into attractive girl, tells her he "joined the Marines...I just wanna do my bit". Then the dinner scene where, as if we didn't know how hard it was for a young man to go to war, the father concernedly places his hand on his son, and his son gives him this little nod like "I'll be alright". Then at the train station we hear more fucking cliches like "the Marines will give me everything I need" and "There's a war on...everybody has got to make sacrifices". Really? I was expecting lines to that exact effect before the character even said them because that's how cliche they were. There were a million different ways that they could have explored the tragedy of a father seeing his son go to war but they have to beat us over the head with these sappy moments that have the subtly of a soap opera. So in the first 15 minutes I was already thinking to myself "I hope this gets better", but it didn't really. We completely skip their training and the next time we see them they are in a troop transport, joking around and preparing to land on Guadalcanal. That's fine I guess. The story is so epic we can't expect to see everything, but the banter here is also the same stupid shit so that it doesn't seem like these men have grown at all. "I'm gonna kill me all the Japs I can!" and "Gosh fellas what are we really fighting for anyway?" until someone quotes some poetry about fighting for your country to which they all solemnly agree. Everyone who has served (and people like me who havent) knows how much boot camp will change your life. There is absolutely no sense that these men had been through a year of rigorous training together, they are essentially the same as the day they shipped out. Are we supposed to expect that that is how these men really talked? They'd been in the Marines for almost a year at that point, and they had never before examined their reasons for fighting? That they'd be sitting around eating chow and laughing it up before they deploy to their first combat zone? If you've seen The Thin Red Line (a film also about Guadalcanal and a thousand times better than The Pacific in every aspect), you'd realize how powerful these scenes could have been. In Terrence Malick's film, his soldiers actually have personality. Some are talking about killing, others about girls back home, others silently cleaning their weapons or praying or writing letters or crying or puking or any number of things that real people did - but the one thing that is overwhelmingly present is FEAR. Everybody is scared shitless, even if they don't show it on the outside. The tension keeps building because we realize that these men have a very good reason to be scared. They know what they are getting into, they know they could die today. The Pacific tries to paint this portrait of naive young men who just signed up for their country and "gee shucks we're gonna kill these Japs and come home". In doing so, it insults the memories of the real heroes that fought- people that had their own reasons for joining, their own personalities, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their own way of dealing with the soul crushing fear that all of them must have felt. There is no sense of this whatsoever in The Pacific. What we see is one dimensional characters, rousing patriotic speeches, and the world "Jap" about 50 times, coupled with the most banal war movie symbols that you've seen before. The one part that I liked a lot was when some Marines are discussing the Japanese waiting to strike, and one says something like "Let the little yellow bastards come" and walks away. The other two Marines just look at each-other and exchange a "Jesus Christ...Unbelievable". In two words, there is more camaraderie and personality established than in the whole show. It's a scene that establishes these men as humans. They know they are facing a ruthless enemy that wants to destroy them. They don't want to fight. They are going to anyways, but really they want to go home and leave this stinking island. The problem is that the "little yellow bastard" line has the same feel as any other number of lines that were in the preceding 40 minutes of the show, any one of which elicited the same reaction from me. "Unbelievable". Some of you are bound to disagree with me or call me a commie or whatever, but this was my gut reaction. I realize this was only the first episode, and that there are 9 more to establish these characters. Band of Brothers, however, managed to do so much more in its first episode as far as establishing personalities, relationships, and feeling. If the rest of the miniseries doesn't improve (which it very well might), I'm afraid the whole thing is going to suck badly. If you really want to get a sense of what it must have been like and you enjoy characters that are, you know, different, watch Thin Red Line. The first hour or so is devoid of combat, but there is so much more tension, variety, philosophy, and great performances that it makes The Pacific feel like the Disney version of the same movie.
First episode impressions: The scenery is impressive. You can see the money dripping off the production quality, from the weaponry and uniforms, to the scenes with the boats. While watching the beach storming scene, you really did feel what it was like. At that point, I had high hopes, because then you saw the confusion, fear, and lack of information is more indicative of how the war was. The average NCO didn't know shit, strategically. The rumors were rampant, these boys had been sent halfway across the world with their heads filled with more lies than useful information. I sort of agree with Obviously5Believer, the overwhelming emotion from these guys had to be fear. This series suffers from the same romanticizing the History Channel, Saving Private Ryan, etc. all do. It might be controversial to say, given the hindsight, but the US was scared shitless; we had no idea what the Japanese were like. The most accurate portrayals of the war made it a point to show the boredom mixed with horror. As in the experience was weeks of sitting around doing nothing, not knowing where the enemy was, what they were doing, hearing rumors and speculation, then minutes maybe hours of battle (which was confusing and disorienting more than anything), then the awful aftermath. They attempted to do that, just not very well. Most of the dialog is cliched nonsense as are most of the characters. You could almost substitute them from any other WW2 movie. The overly brave guy (sure to be dead by episode 6), the scared shitless kid, the quiet somber guy, the blood and guts commander, the revered officer are all so typical it almost makes it boring. Bonus points for casting Tim from Jurassic Park, though. As silly as it sounds, this series may have over-dramatized the war (I don't believe anyone who fought in the war thought they were saving the world from slavery), rather than shoot for more historical accuracy, which is nothing the History Channel hasn't been guilty of for years. It's over the top (what the hell did I expect from Tom Hanks and Spielberg-accuracy and emotion?), but it's still better than a lot of the other shit on television. HBO hit the bullseye with Generation Kill and Band of Brothers, with the Pacific, it's barely on the same board.
I'm curious how you guys could disagree with what was shown in "The Pacific" considering it was based on written accounts from three Vet's who fought in Japan. Basically you guy's would point out to them that the dialogue used in the series was not accurate because the US was scared of the Japanese? These men were there. I think you should trust in Speilberg and Hanks and know that it is incredibly important to them to paint an accurate portrayal of how the events occurred down to every little detail. Lines like "I just want to do my bit" may have been cliche but they were being said by hundreds of thousands of American men who didn't want to accolades but very simply just to do their part in a war against what they felt was a tremendous evil. I think both of you fell into the trap of comparing the first and only episode of the Pacific to BOB and SPR. Let the series play out before you write a four paragraph narrative on it. Everyone is entitled to there opinion and I look forward to see if yours changes throughout the series. I myself found myself a little disappointed because I just simply did not like any of the characters better than Winters, Spears, Shifty, or the Captain from Saving Private Ryan, of course it's only been one episode. Let's let it run it's course.
I have feelings from both boats. This was only the first episode and is not BoB no matter how much we want to compare it, the story will play out differently and the show must be given it's due chance become its own piece of art. On the other hand I did find a lot of the lines had that kind of sweeping generalities feel that are standard cliche's in movies. Whether or not they were true to life actual spoken words by Marines, is one thing, the way they were translated and executed on film is another. The first episode as a whole felt much more like a Hollywoodized retelling instead of the more personal feel BoBs created. This is by no means condemning the whole series since it was just the first episode. I don't know how deep into this topic I can go but my original fear of the glossing over of certain facts by the film makers seems to be front and center. Though it is the first episode, the Japanese barbarism was glossed over with one semi-shocking scene, while the rest of the episode featured Americans slinging as much racial slang as possible, playing up the racial stereotypes Americans had for the enemy, and basically torturing a suicidal Japanese soldier before putting him out of his misery. It just seems, so far, that they are playing up a lot of negatives that would suggest we were somehow in the wrong for wanting to fight an enemy that attacked us first. Other than that I thought the show was amazing, I watched it in high def and man was it beautiful.....
Remember the Americans didn't really encounter the atrocities committed by the Japs untill Guadacanal, untill then there were just allot of rumors from the Philippines. It was Okinawa and Iwo Jima that really showed the darkness of both sides. There have been posts about how frightened the USA was first going into the Pacific campaign, this is not true. The west still naively thought that the Japanese could not see well because of there slanty eyes, as well as thinking they were too small to carry heavy machinery. We were quickly given a lesson in the fearlessness and ferociousness of the Japanese soldier. It didn't take long. Looking forward to episode 2! .
This Time article sums up a lot of fears I have concerning how history will be molded by the creative talent behind the series: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1969606-1,00.html Hank's makes it exceedingly clear that he wants to draw from the current US conflict to teach lessons about our Pacific fight. The quote on the last page strikes me the hardest: Its quotes like that, that make me question whether they are truly making a product that honors our veterans or if their political views become the forefront of the story. Despite the fact that there were misguided views of our enemies before, during, and after the war. The fact that they were a clear cut enemy and we had an undeniable just cause in fighting them seems to be lost on what Hanks wants to "teach" the viewers. This is what Im referring to in my post but I don't want to push the political topic to hard in the thread.
Ok, there is a certain degree of leniency in my tolerance toward those kind of lines in that I know that they were probably spoken before and that sometimes they are necessary to show the zeitgeist of that era, even when the time period itself is so iconic that the facts seem like cliches. It's just when the whole episode is one hopelessly idealized line after another that it starts to wear on me. We're supposed to admire these characters that we know absolutely nothing about, spouting off like they're part of a war bond drive and looking like they walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting but it's really hard when they haven't proven themselves in any way. When one of the main characters literally refers to it as "This great undertaking for God and country" in a letter home....it all seems like phrases and concepts that we've heard a million times before. So far there is not a single character that has jumped out at me as being true to life, interesting, or exceptional in any way. I don't care at all about any of them. I know that that will probably change but compared to the great and recognizable characters that we had by the end of "Curahee", you can't help but feel like the tone is completely off this time around. WWII is such an awesome and epic event that the possibilities are nearly endless as far as narrative and characters go. Millions upon millions of people from all walks of life participated. There's no excuse for bland characters and uninteresting dialog that came out of the recycle bin. They had 150 million dollars so it's a problem when they can't produce something that isn't more gripping than an hour long documentary with stock footage.
I have no deep analysis, but the #1 thing that bothered me about the second episode is that it took 7 minutes to start. Fuck, most TV shows are half over by the 7 minute mark. I am not a patient man.
Actually it was 8 minutes. And the actual episode was only 44 minutes, it ended before the hour was up. I don't know why the episodes are so damn short when almost every Band of Brothers episode was over an hour long. Either way though, I liked both episodes. Last night when they showed John Basilone just mowing down countless Japanese soldiers as they just kept swarming was pretty intense. I couldn't possibly imagine how fucking terrified these soldiers were to see the enemy just suicide charging right into them. My biggest complaint so far is about the combat at night being so damn hard to make out. I know that's kind of the point but its really difficult for me to make out what is happening and which main characters are being shown unless I watch it again. I'd mention more about the combat scenes if I was having this issue.
I'd like to say this: Fuck the stupid fucking artsy charcoal drawing introduction. I thought for sure it would be a shortened intro for the second episode and on. But I don't have the patience for it any more. I'm a whiney cunt.
Remember that long intro for every episode of Band of Brothers? The only pet peeve I have about that DVD is that skipping through the intro doesn't take you directly to the beginning of the episode.
It was kind of a short episode but I still liked it. Some good character development. So far, for to me, the battle scenes just don't seem as epic as they did in BoB. In BoB a single battle in a single episode could span through fields and towns and back again with artillery and tanks. The two major battles so far have been anticlimactic as far as scope, both at night and they didn't change position but maybe twice a piece? In the day light it looks like they could be on a far off island while at night in battle it looks like the back lot of Warner Brothers. I don't want to make a huge deal of this I know the terrain and battles were totally different but I can't say I didn't notice it.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.usni.org/thepacific/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.usni.org/thepacific/</a> US Naval Institute's guide to "The Pacific" thanks to Fark. Fucking awesome.
The shorter episodes might be so they will fit into an hour slot on commercial television. When Band of Brothers has been shown on commercial television it runs long and messes up the schedule. I think the producers have planned breaks into the Pacific for commercials to be inserted in the future, and kept the running time to around 44 minutes as other hour long shows. I am enjoying the show very much. Sure it is different than Band of Brothers, but the war in the Pacific was a much different war. The islands were much smaller and the combat much closer than in Europe. I think they have done a good job of showing those differences.
I'll be honest, I was really disappointed with the series following two straight incoherent episodes. It wasn't just the fact that way too much of the action took place in pitch-black settings, but also that the characters were so haphazardly dropped into our laps that it was hard to get a firm grip around who we're supposed to care for and what we're supposed to be feeling. It's not unfair to compare this to the first two episodes of BoB ("Curahee" and "Day of Days"), where we got a very good sense of the kinds of people Dick Winters, Lewis Nixon, Carwood Lipton, Bill Guarnere, Frank Perconte, Bull Randleman, et al. were as we followed them from basic training to D-Day. "The Pacific" is certainly a different set of stories in a much different setting, but the distinction is nonetheless obvious. However, last night's one-hour reprieve in the literal and figurative sense was a perfect opportunity to get inside the heads of Leckie, Basilone, and the rest of the Marines while they were ashore in Australia. I'm now feel like I'm more invested in their stories, which is where I wanted to be two weeks ago.
Im just wandering when Tim from Jurassic Park's story is going to kick in. They have given him like two scenes. I am really curious on how they are going to work it in while the other main story is in full swing now. This weeks episode was good though.
Honestly, I thought this was the worst of the three episodes so far. It wasn't so bad that I'm going to give up on the series, but that's mostly because I can watch damn near anything that focuses on WWII. Although the episode explored several characters, it devoted most of the screen time to Leckie and his love interest. They tried to cram a complex relationship into too short of a time frame. Basically we had - drunk guy asks for a date on a bus --> shows up at house, talks with parents for 2 minutes --> they're suddenly sleeping together. I never really bought that they were falling for each other. I will say Basilone having to return home to sell war bonds was an interesting plot development though. So far this is still no where near Band of Brothers, but then again they did set the bar pretty high. Looking forward to getting back to combat episodes next week because thus far, the character development/storyline hasn't really engaged me as much as I hoped.
Id have to remind you of the episode in BoB where the medic was falling for the French nurse. It was a solitary episode and it was rather complex. It did seem odd that her family excepted him into their lives that quickly. Greek people are fucking weird and stick together like Jewish people tend to do. On the other hand they did invent anal so who knows.