The Pacific

I had to check to make sure the series hadn't moved to Cinemax- and yes it was still HBO. Ohhh Stella! Hey Ohh!

I liked it, agree about the good character development. People here need to stop comparing every minute of this series to the legacy of BoB.
 
We are in a big time lull for Sunday night premuim channel programming. I thought episode 3 was the best episode so far and I will continue to watch it, but it's not knocking my sox off or anything.

biding my time until Dexter, Tudors, Weeds, Treme, Entourage, Nurse Jackie, Boardwalk Empire, etc. arrives
 
agreed, best episode yet...... mainly because we didn't know **** about hardly any of them yet.

like others have said, they have a LOT of groudn to make up.
 
I think that this episode's strength will be determined by how well it feathers with subsequent ones. It was alittle disjointed. I did enjoy the interaction with the Greek-Aus family in their home. Overall, this was a necessary part of these guys' story and they had to deal with it in some fashion.
 
I'm lost. I must have slept through the first 2 episodes because I don't know who the heck the Marine character was who dating the Aussie girl with all the rules. Where did this dude come from? Was he the friend of the guy who's dad wouldn't let him join due to the heart murmur?

I like the backstory on the other guy dating the Aus-Greek girl as well as the guy that feels guilty that he's heading home to sell "War Bonds".
 
Sidney Phillips is the Marine who was dating the girl with all the rules. Philips is in the same company as Bob Leicke. His best friend is Eugene Sledge who just joined the Marines. Phillips is one of the old Marines who talks at the outset of the program. His sister was very prominent in Ken Burn's documentary The War.
 
if you don't talk about the dark, you never learn. And there's no way we are taught enough about the dark when its such a huge part of history and that a ton of that exceptionalism came at the cost of many. Those are huge lessonos
 
I think it's fairly obvious from my post that I'm not against teaching about our dark side. It's the emphasis that I find out of whack. Our willingness to teach about our dark hours is something that contributes to our exceptionalism. But, when we are more willing to show our darkness than that of other cultures, we aren't doing anyone a favor. I don't mind if The Pacific portrays things that aren't flattering to our Marines, but I sure hope they reciprocate by showing the Japanese atrocities that were far worse and far more frequent.
 
I would also recommend the American Experience episode on the Pacific – “Victory in the Pacific”. The episode chronicles the final year in the Pacific theatre and spends a bunch of time going over the role of Emperor (and his unwillingness to compromise his divine providence for the Japanese), Japanese unwillingness to surrender at Saipan, Okinawa, Tinian, Iwo Jima, racial hostility between both sides, strategic bombing and the B-29 raids of Tokyo, expected casualties from an invasion of Japan, and the role of both the Atomic Bomb and the USSR had in the decision to surrender.

This is an outstanding documentary with experts from both sides. Long story short – much suffering because the Emperor failed to accept responsibility/accountability and, in doing so, led the Japanese people to their destruction.
The Link
 
At the end of Episode 4, when Bob is speaking with his "battle fatigued" buddy, what does his buddy say to Bob about the guy who was directly behind him in a trench? I ran it several times and just can't make it out.
 
I saw episodes 2 and 3. This series isn't doing it for me. I thought the episode in Australia was clumsily written at best.

I also don't see how you can avoid comparing this to Band of Brothers; this series is obviously using that series as a model which is a mistake.

Having Hanks narrate the overall situation before each episode is an error. They should dramatize it through the lives of the characters in the series instead of having a lecturing voice over.

I was taking care of my ailing father, so maybe I was distracted, but I found the episodes I saw to be very disappointing. I have not seen episode one, but BoB and other series have grabbed me when I haven't seen the first episode.

In fact, I wasn't prone to like BoB since I thought Saving Private Ryan was overrated (not bad, just sort of disappointing after the brilliant opening sequence). I caught a few random episodes of BoB and could see almost immediately how special it was.

Maybe over its run, Pacific will improve and make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, but I'm not terribly impressed.
 
Here is a piece about R.V. Burgin, a Texan who figures in the series. He is one of the veterans who are interviewed in the openings of the episodes. "Corporal Burgin" is played by Martin McCann ("My Boy Jack"). He received the Bronze Star. He also married one of those Australian women.
In reply to:
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Paraphrasing because I am not in front of the TV:

A guy followed me into the foxhole. I could hear his heart beat and his struggle to keep breathing. He was praying to God to keep him alive. "Jesus I envied him."

I found it pretty moving. Gibson, the guy who was "tired", envied the dying Marine because the Marine died with his spiritual faith intact. Gibson seems to have lost all hope for this life and any belief in God.

The previews for Episode 5 seem to indicate an extension of the theme: if there is a God, did he not create the Japanese?

To distractors (I'm not one of them), they probably were expecting Saving Private Ryan/BOB and are getting a Terrence Malik-like mediation on "war is hell."
 
You nailed it with "Jesus I envied him", I had to play it like 8 times to get it.

And yes, you can't "not" compare this with BoB. However, if this show is half of what BoB is, that is still pretty damn good. Right now, I think The Pacific has achieved that much.
 
RomaVicta:

I guess I didn't state that point well. For some of the people who don't like The Pacific, they are citing the lack of fighting/action (check IMDB) that they seem to think took place all the time in BOB. The comment on Malick is not intented at people who "get" Malick, but those who went into "The Thin Red Line" expecting Saving Private Ryan. Does that make sense?
 
It do.

I didn't know what to make of The Thin Red Line when I saw it. I'd read the book, it was maybe the first unheroic piece of war fiction I ever read back as a high schooler. I find that the movie keeps returning to my thoughts and I've grown to appreciate it more over time. I wasn't expecting Saving Private Ryan (which I don't believe had yet been released
wink.gif
), but the movie is an oddity even for the viewer expecting a gritty look at war.

If I was too snippy in my response to you earlier, apologies. I get your point now.
 
McBrett,

Your reading may be correct and I may be reading too much into his quotes. I think he also said (paraphrasing) "he believed God/Jesus would save him." Then the line "Jesus, I envied him."

I'll have to rewatch that scene.
 
From the previews for this next show, I think we are all in for the best battle sequences yet. Thus far most of the action has been at night (which is what happened, so its real) but the upcoming invasion of Peleliu looks to be very intense.
 
I don't think i conclusion can be drawn about a series that has only aired 40% of its content to this point. Does it seem to be as well done as BOB? Not yet, but there is still over half of it to go. I do think the australia love mess was too much to take over one whole episode, but i think it was very important in taking you on the emotional roller coaster those guys felt. They had been to hell, got away from it, but when they had to go back can you imagine having to try and gear up mentally for another island combat situation like that? Good grief. The hardships faced there are simply staggering.
 
I like it, but I think Thin Red Line did it better with better actors....
 
The Thin Red Line was well-acted, but if you didn't know anyting about Guadalcanal or the Pacific theater before that movie, you still didn't know much after it.
 
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