The Pacific - DISCUSSION THREAD

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by OLS

I heard "they said" Ep 1 was a drag with all the hometown stuff before the men got to fighting, but who knows. I am fine with it if the character development goes on to mean something later on. But as marked as these men were forever by it, I do loves da fightin', and want to see it now.

This series is likely to be quite different since it's primarily based on the memoirs of 2 men instead of the combined recollections compiled by a 3rd party so the point of view is likely to be much narrower and intense in a personal sense than BoB was. As much as I loved BoB, Stephen Ambrose was known more for being a populist story telling historian than a classical historian and that certainly came across in the series.

All in all I've been looking foward to this series since mid last year when it was announced and thought the first episode was very well done. It's going to be quite interesting since the PTO doesn't get nearly the same amount of press up here in Canada as the ETO since we were really only significantly involved in the initial portion of that war and had little to do with the remainder after Hong Kong fell other than as PoW's.

Besides, my parents-in-law live in Vanuatu (called the New Hebrides at the time) which as all the military historian's here know was the proverbial line in the sand drawn by the Navy and Marines as well as the primary staging point for the Battle of the Coral Sea and a major base afterwards. The airstrip built for the B-25's is still in active use as Port Vila's international airport, Bauerfield, named after Lt. Col. Harold W Bauer who won the Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal. Been through that airport several times so the history's interesting on a personal level as well.

[yourchoice]

Originally Posted by OLS

I am kind of the opposite, I think BoB WITHOUT Episode 1 would have been very.....
I can't even come up with the concept. It would still have been a war picture of sheer
intensity, but I thought the Toccoa stuff was priceless, and very well done. It also made the
concept come together in a way that cemented our view of the characters as a true
dysfuntional family that was ironically, super-functional. LOL.
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I heard "they said" Ep 1 was a drag with all the hometown stuff before the men got to fighting,
but who knows. I am fine with it if the character development goes on to mean something later on. But as marked as these men were forever by it, I do loves da fightin', and want to see it now.

I agree BoB Ep. 1 set the stage (built charachter development) and without it the story of BoB wouldn't have been as great as it was. BUT, it wasn't as intense and engrossing as later episodes. Important to the series? No doubt! One of the its best episodes? No way. IMHO

[Aron]

Mr. Springfield Rifle

I've got Spector sitting on my shelf at home. I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet, but it is definitely on my list to read eventually.

What did you think of the first episode of the series?

[taltos]

Just a note for those without HBO, if you have Comcast internet service, you should be able to link to and watch the first episode off of the Comcast home page. In addition if you go to HBO's web site and register, you can watch the first episode there. No idea if the HBO site is free. Hope that this helps.

[ProBe]

Originally Posted by taltos

Just a note for those without HBO, if you have Comcast internet service, you should be able to link to and watch the first episode off of the Comcast home page. In addition if you go to HBO's web site and register, you can watch the first episode there. No idea if the HBO site is free. Hope that this helps.

Thanks for the heads up.

[MortonMilo]

If it's half as good as Band of Brothers, I'll be hooked.

[Jack]

I watched the first episode yesterday on the HBO site, I loved it. Being someone who is training to be a Marine Corps Officer (PLC program), I love the Marine corps history and legends like Chesty Puller. With the Pacific, I don't think you should compare them, but rather take the for what they are. You don't compare Band of Brothers with Generation Kill, both were great (having read One Bullet Away and Generation kill), but not the same at all. Regardless, this is my opinion and from what I have seen, it looks to be an amazing show.

[AD720]

Originally Posted by Jack

I watched the first episode yesterday on the HBO site, I loved it. Being someone who is training to be a Marine Corps Officer (PLC program), I love the Marine corps history and legends like Chesty Puller. With the Pacific, I don't think you should compare them, but rather take the for what they are. You don't compare Band of Brothers with Generation Kill, both were great (having read One Bullet Away and Generation kill), but not the same at all. Regardless, this is my opinion and from what I have seen, it looks to be an amazing show.

Was about to type the same thing. After the first episode I think that Pacific can stand on it's own. I'm sure the series will be excellent.

[taltos]

Totally different of combat and a totally different type of combat force. This was a war designed for the mission of the Marine Corps just as Europe was better designed for the Army and Army Air Corps. All performed well and performed as trained. S/F Paul

[VirtualSmitty]

I enjoyed it. It started a little slow, but so did BoB. I'm def gonna watch it to the finish, the Pacific theater has always interested me more than the war in europe did.

[forgop]

Band of Brothers episode 1 > The Pacific episode 1

Just watched it and was disappointed. Maybe it's because I was expecting something at the level BoB finished with.

[mithrilG60]

I found The War to be a very interesting take on the WWII simply because it didn't deal with the major strategy's and events from a top level perspective like most historical documentaries. To see it presented from a common soldier's point of view was very refreshing and the point of focusing on just 4 towns really drove home the concept that every town was intimately involved in every major campaign in all theatres in one way or another. Obviously The War was the American perspective but it also reflects the way that many of the other countries who were directly involved but never actually invaded or attacked in a sustained manner would have experienced it.

Military history tends to have a very top down perspective so seeing a major documentary from another angle is a very value tool towards understanding the conflict as a whole.

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by OLS

The OLYs. Oly fatigue or not, it was an event you can all be proud of nationally. How you conquered the weather and still made it happen was monumental. How you allowed Catherine O'Hara to talk about Peeing one's name in the snow in the Closing Ceremonies was amazing. Alot of beer swilling talk. And isn't Bill Shatner dead? I heard he was upset that they wouldn't let him play Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek. (no I didn't)

The Oly fatigue was really more of a pre-hangover and I'm sure most host cities experience the same thing. The media spends so much time hyping the coming event that by the time it finally draws near you're a bit sick of hearing about it. Once it's on it all changes though, and honestly I've never seen anything like it in my life. Wearing our patriotism on the outside for all to see is a stereotypically un-Canadian thing to do, so seeing such an outburst was frankly unbelievable.

A lot more was made out of the weather issues than really needed to be, and I predict you'll see more of the same with Sochi since their climate is almost identical to ours. There were some challenges with snow up on Cypress, but that really boiled down to a stupid decision about 8 years before (ie. wanting the freestyle events on Cypress so tourism shots of the mountain looking down onto Vancouver would be possible). Anyone that's spent any time at all in Vancouver knows that those conditions are par for the course on the local mountains (Cypress is only 1 of 3 resorts that immediately ring the city) and that about every 3rd years is a total write-off for snow. Because of that they should have always planned to hold all the alpine events up at Whistler IMHO. Would have saved a lot of last minute scrambling and expense. The effort to get the courses setup was amazing, just never should have had to be done. The ironic thing is they were paid for out of the snow clearing budget which had been doubled the year before as in Jan 2009 we got very uncharacteristically heavy snow fall which would have caused a total shutdown of the Olympics if they'd been held a year earlier.

Other than the snow issues what you saw on the TV was really just standard Vancouver "winter". Admittedly a this year was little warmer than average, but only by about 4 degrees C. We're not exactly a winter paradise here on the Left Coast; palm trees grow year round, the nude beach is open and in use every day of the year, a killing frost is an anomaly instead of a yearly event and most places in the US get far more snow than we ever see in the city proper...... we've just trained the snow to (usually) fall where it's useful, in the mountains Just think of us as the California of Canada

[forgop]

Saw on Good Morning America this morning to hear them talk about how much of a ratings bomb The Pacific was compared to BoB. Seems to me like it had 1/3 of the viewers BoB had.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by forgop

Saw on Good Morning America this morning to hear them talk about how much of a ratings bomb The Pacific was compared to BoB. Seems to me like it had 1/3 of the viewers BoB had.

HBO is a luxury not many people (want to)/(can) pay for, including myself.

[forgop]

Originally Posted by JE3146

HBO is a luxury not many people (want to)/(can) pay for, including myself.

Understood, but this was a comparison of previous series shown on HBO. Obviously, it could mean a much higher percentage of people don't have HBO today compared to BoB or other previous shows, but for the most part draws upon the comparison of viewers to what The Pacific received. This wasn't at all an comparison to regular network programming.

[mithrilG60]

Probably also doesn't take into account that there's a much higher percentage of people who are now downloading some/most/all of their tv, something which was completely unheard of back when BoB was screened.

[macpappy]

I think comparing The Pacific to BOB is sort of like comparing the ETO to the PTO. Beyond the fact that they were both wars fought during the same basic time period, you can't. The two theaters were fought differently because of the geography and I think because of the emotional issues involved.

I'll explain more later. But the Germans didn't bomb Pearl Harbor so IMO that made the Pacific more personal to most of the Americans who fought there.

[JE3146]

Anyone know when episode 2 will be available to watch on HBO.com?

[CigarDisciple]

Originally Posted by JE3146

Anyone know when episode 2 will be available to watch on HBO.com?

It is already on HBO on demand.