'Band of Brothers' is just astonishing

I tried watching this ages ago and while good I just couldn't keep watching as lost interest. Weird I know. Be nice to watch it all but every time I try to rewatch it I keep leaving the last 3 or so episodes. :(
 
howiepoohs said:
I couldn't watch it either but for different reasons. IIRC, it was a love story and not a patch on BoB.
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Basically this.

If I wanted to see the impact the war had on those that stayed behind and (if I recall correctly) those that were not able to go - if I wanted that I'm sure there were alternatives.

There were some good parts but, and even aside from the "win the war" theme, BOB didn't overly glory in the gung-ho nature of battle but the desire to survive as a unit and get home.
 
dannyjo22 said:
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 past 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.
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I think you may have been victim to the very propaganda that I was referring to. Out relatively small Island and her colonies were spread throughout the world fighting the Axis powers. Where I do not doubt there were errors/mistakes and incompetence (often from above) our fighting force had some remarkable success.

Yes if the Americans hadn't eventually entered the war things would have been different. The same could be said for the British or (especially) Russian forces and others.

Also for many Americans entering the war things didn't go so well. They were up against veterans who had been fighting for years and it often showed.
 
Without a doubt the best series ever made, I only wish they would make one from the point of view of the British/other allied forces.
 
easyrider said:
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.
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I don't know if caring about them is really needed, so much as just understanding their plight and what they're going through.
I'm sure it doesn't make for exciting, engaging, thrilling entertainment like BoB, but it's a side of war that too many people, too often forget and TP goes some way to help understand it better and so remember those other guys.

Certainly at times, when things deteriorated, the characters became quite nasty *******s and you'd not want to care about them... but that's part of the message being told. BoB is about heroes who overcame the adversity they were faced with - The Pacific is more about those poor souls who were nigh-on destroyed by it.
 
My problem with the Pacific is it absolutely lacked any immersion. With BOB I felt like I was with the guys the whole way along, I grew to care about them and it hit hard when some of them died or were injured.

With the Pacific it felt detached and I didn't have much feeling toward any of the characters.
 
SixTwoSix said:
My problem with the Pacific is it absolutely lacked any immersion. With BOB I felt like I was with the guys the whole way along, I grew to care about them and it hit hard when some of them died or were injured.

With the Pacific it felt detached and I didn't have much feeling toward any of the characters.
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This.

However the fact BoB was following a bunch of guys that had started together from day 1 pretty much and ended together (those left) was a different situation and story entirely.

Hits home the last episode when the German commander briefs his guys and they are all listening, kind of adds the a human feel to the "enemy", they were pretty much the same for the most part, just young lads doing a job together .... after all the political views are brushed aside.

Also when they finally have the realisation it's all over, how to adjust back to normal life, you go back and normal life has been continuing for years and the stories you have just don't translate back to civilian life
 
This thread inspired me to break out the blu rays and re-watch. Just finished Bastogne and echoing what others have said it still remains one of my favourite shows. Isn't showing any age, visuals and audio are awesome and such an immersive story. Going to binge watch the remainder of the box set ASAP!
 
When I first watched it, I was also playing Company Of Heroes for the first time, and they both went hand in hand so much, that I kind of got lost in them both in many ways.

Both my wife and I have watched them 3 times now and it is made all the more amazing by the fact that,because they have the actual guys who were there, in those very situations, we know that it is abotu as true to life as it could possibly be.

It also makes you realise just how much those guys gave. Makes you feel ashamed to have done nothing in comparison.
 
Re-watched it all over the weekend. Still a classic.

I also did some research on some on the characters - in ep3 Carentan - PFC Albert Blythe overcomes his fear which rendered him blind,he was at the end of the episode shot, He was evacuated and the last shot of him is in the hospital, the end credits tell us that he never recovered from his wounds and died in 1948.

That's actually incorrect, he went on to rejoin the forces in Korea and stayed in the military until he died in 1967 with a rank of Master Sergeant. Something which Steven Ambrose corrected in the latter published editions of the books but sadly they never edited in the BR & DVD releases.

Wiki Link for a better explanation.
 
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When it came out around 2000 i think there had been nothing like it before. A bit like Saving Private Ryan 20 years on while good it does not have the same impact now. It is just a shame there isn't a WW2 production series on the scale of Game of Thrones.
 
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