Don
Pacific for me is worth watching all the way to the end for the last episode. There is a scene when the young lad is back home hunting with his dad and it just completely breaks me, even just thinking about it has me in tears.
'Band of Brothers' is just astonishing
- Thread starter DrToffnar
- Start date
This.
Soldato
This is exactly it's problem which goes back to the way the US marines in WWII didn't put units through training and then into combat as one but split them up following training so the story looses that end to end link that BOB has. Having read all the books the source material for the Pacific isn't as good either.
Could happily watch BOB over and over again.
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Soldato
Seen it close to 30 times overall I'd say.
What is amazing is that most of the actors were not that well established but just do a Google search and you'll see the obvious ones such as Damien Lewis (Winters) and Ron Livingston (Nixon) but many that are household names now:
Donnie Wahlberg (Lipton)
Tom Hardy (Janovec)
Michael Fassbender (Christenson)
Neal McDonough (Compton)
Eion Bailey (Webster)
James McAvoy (Miller)
Just to name a few.
The genius behind this show was that it is a masterclass in character development, focusing on a different character in each episode, all the while developing the core cast that we see in the final episode.
The Pacific failed due to not following the same recipe above - I just could not follow the flow of the story and the biggest deal to me was I wasn't invested in any of the characters.
What is amazing is that most of the actors were not that well established but just do a Google search and you'll see the obvious ones such as Damien Lewis (Winters) and Ron Livingston (Nixon) but many that are household names now:
Donnie Wahlberg (Lipton)
Tom Hardy (Janovec)
Michael Fassbender (Christenson)
Neal McDonough (Compton)
Eion Bailey (Webster)
James McAvoy (Miller)
Just to name a few.
The genius behind this show was that it is a masterclass in character development, focusing on a different character in each episode, all the while developing the core cast that we see in the final episode.
The Pacific failed due to not following the same recipe above - I just could not follow the flow of the story and the biggest deal to me was I wasn't invested in any of the characters.
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Soldato
Cutting the episode run time from 1 hour to 50 minutes was a big mistake in The Pacific.
Associate
We binge watch this at least once a year. The scene where they're getting shelled in the forest is my go to when people want to sample the power of 3*15" subs. 
Soldato
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Out of curiosity, what would you have preferred?
More guts, guns and 'splosions, less emotional turmoil?
It's to be expected, though, since it's from an American perspective. I've not seen anything on this level from other countries to compete.
The worst part is being a WW2 living historian & reenactor, and seeing more people portraying 502nd/101st Airborne than were in the real life regiment... not to mention whole regiments' worth of "E-company" all sporting Tommy guns and mohawk haircuts.
Man of Honour
I'd love to watch Pacific again but I can't. There are bits that are just too brutal..
Simple
Better writing
BOB writing is superb.
No amount of specila effects quality acting and improve a poor script.
Soldato
- Joined
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- Posts
- 12,308
Such as what, though? It's meant to be all dark and depressing and slow and cerebral instead of win-the-war-heroic...
No amount of skilled writing can turn a horror story into a fun action flick, without ****ing on the original narrative.
Soldato
I couldn't watch it either but for different reasons. IIRC, it was a love story and not a patch on BoB.
As I have got older and read more and more historians books on WW2, British ones too I realise it's not that they think they won it, more as Brits we were institutionalised to think we had a greater part in it from 1941 than we had. We were beaten without Hitlers errors in starting an air war and switching attention to Russia and beaten without the American War Machine feeding the UK and Russia with equipment.
After the Battle of Britain we were pretty ineffectual except in small raids and guerilla tactics. To be fair the Americans could be a lot worse with how we fought the war from them joining. As the years have passed pretty much every thing I have read states that as a ground fighting unit we were only marginally better than the Italians. The Band of Brothers book has more contempt in it for the British losing ground that the Americans won than they ever put in the TV series.
Both Max Hastings books and Ian Kershaws are pretty slating of the British fighting effectiveness in WW2 on the ground and to a lesser extent the sea.
Caporegime
DannyJo you need to read more books then. I suppose north Africa and the med won themselves? I assume Malta was saved by Martians?
Soldato
This should be a copy and paste reply in the SC forum regarding certain replies about Brexit.
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Caporegime
One of the best series of all time imo.
I just didn't connect with any of the characters like I did with BOB
You can have things slow paced, moody etc...But its the script and the charcters that you have to care about.
Soldato
Just started my third watch of this amazing series.
I'm always in awe of the utter bravery of some of the people involved in incredible moments of human history as portrayed in this programme, not least because I think in similar situations I'd be lucky to last five minutes.
A humbling watch indeed.
I'm always in awe of the utter bravery of some of the people involved in incredible moments of human history as portrayed in this programme, not least because I think in similar situations I'd be lucky to last five minutes.
A humbling watch indeed.
Soldato