*The Pacific*

[CaliforniaPeggy]

Wow, first episode tonight, on HBO...

We thought it was truly well done. The battle sequences seemed so real and I felt as though something was going to blow up in my family room...

The characters are real, and the drama rings true.

Highly recommended.

[tularetom]

1. Glad I watched it

Wish my dad was around to see it. He was there with the 1st Marine Division. I spent most of the hour trying to picture him in the scenes, but he always clammed up when we would ask him about it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I'm not surprised he wouldn't talk about it...

They saw a lot of brutal stuff.

I thank your dad for his service. It was a necessary and horrible war...

[SpiralHawk]

26. Same with my Pop

He was at Pearl Harbor and in the pacific for the whole war...would never say a peep about it. Just drank and drank and drank and then died...

[roguevalley]

41. most vets don't talk to anyone non-vet unless they are really drunk

and find a good listener. My uncle was first marine and marooned on Guadalcanal. He made it as far as Bougainville before shrapnel got him. Others thought he was dead and they stripped his 'body' of stuff his mama gave him. He had malaria and was a skeleton when he got home. He used to sit and watch "ba-ba-black sheep" with me and chuckle. The only thing he said was, "That's just exactly the way it was." I love you, Uncle John Paxton, First Marine. RIP, darling.

[pansypoo53219]

3. a few of my family were in the Pacific.

on great uncle was on a ship. 2nd command i guess when heis ship went down in a port during a hurricane. bad captain on land.
2 of my grandfather's cousin's. one had it easy as nimitz's driver, but his brother saw some bad shit over there.

[Daphne08]

17. My father never talked about it either. Most of what

I know came from my uncle.

Daddy was in the Battle of Peleliu and the Battle of Okinawa. (He's been gone 30 years now but I still miss him so much.)

It must have been terrible for him because my grandmother always talked about how different he was when he came home from the war.

I do remember that one of his best friends was a POW, and when I was a child, he used to call Daddy and cry on the phone.

[vadawg]

4. got it tivoed so ill catch it when i get home in the morning mayby

some bbq and some beer and watching some TV, best way to spend monday morning while all the slubs are off to work :)

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. That'll be a good time to see it...

But be warned: it is very exciting, and it might wake you up!

Very worthwhile, IMHO...

:hi:

[vadawg]

6. rofl, yeah it may wake me up, but i dooubt the adrenaline will pump as fast as tonight

:) would you say its as good as band of brothers..

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. At least as good as that.......maybe better.

[vadawg]

10. as long as its not a pearl harbour movie crap thing...

god that movie was bad...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. They do show some historic footage of Pearl Harbor...

A little prequel if you will...Just to set the story up.

But the main story is about a bunch of guys as they enter the Marines, and then go off to Guadalcanal.

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. "Tora Tora Tora" is the best movie about Pearl Harbor.

I didn't see the movie "Pearl Harbor". I guess I didn't miss much.

[vadawg]

13. tora is a great movie, i love the bit with the biplane on the flying lesson

and the zeros and kates flying by it. and the bit with the band trying to finish the national anthem... best war movies are definetely the older ones, i recently watched fix bayonets if you havent seen it, great movie...

[Posteritatis]

15. Hey! Don't insult merely bad movies by associating them with that thing! (nt)

[vadawg]

16. dude i watched it thinking it was going to be on par with saving private ryan

what a shock, it wasnt even on par with from here to eternity....

[Posteritatis]

19. Ouch! My condolences.

I was prepared by that travesty U-571 and figured it would be bad, but I see history movies somewhat religiously regardless of my expectations so I went anyway.

Despite that, I came away from Pearl Harbor feeling that I, too, had been cruelly subjected to a violent surprise attack that I really should have seen coming.

[vadawg]

21. rofl, i came away really confused, i felt like i had been seduced by captain kirk

and was waiting to die horribly any minute, i still dont think i understand the point of pearl harbour even now..

[LooseWilly]

7. So... this is a series about... surfing?

:shrug:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. Nope.

WWII in the Pacific, so far on Guadalcanal.

Surfing. Right.

It's an HBO mini-series.

Very worthwhile!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. Surfing ... with attitude

Surfers shooting at beach bums. Beach bums shooting at surfers.

Gidget, keep your head down!

:hide:

[Caliman73]

14. Saw it.

The story is taken from the writings and archival footage of 3 Marines. 2 wrote books and the 3rd John Basilone was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and came back to the states to push war bonds. In so far as the information was adapted from those books and from accounts of Basilone's life, it should be fairly accurate. Hanks and Spielberg are notoriously devoted to portraying WWII in vivid detail.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

18. Ah, thanks for the info...

I thought the detail was quite vivid.

Glad to know that the story is based on first-hand accounts.

[Posteritatis]

20. If the production's similar to BoB that sounds about right

Band of Brothers made heavy use of first-hand accounts - how couldn't it, given the way it was written? - and the surviving veterans were involved in the production, signing off on individual episodes before they aired.

Even then it wasn't perfect - the Blithe mistake happened, for instance - but it's certainly one of the more respectful tellings of a story from that war that have come out in awhile.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. I don't remember BoB that well...

But The Pacific is respectfully told, IMHO. It's stunning.

[hootinholler]

23. The Blithe mistake?

Haven't heard about that.

-Hoot

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

25. Apparently, BoB said he died in 1948, but he actually died in 1967

http://www.moviemistakes.com/tv3009

[eqfan592]

40. I believe the error was both in the book and the show...

..but this is in no small part due to several of the vets remembering it that way.

[misanthrope]

37. What Basilone did is nearly unbelievable...

...His exploits on Guadalcanal alone sound like something out of a Marvel comic book. It is still staggering to think about.

[lunatica]

27. I just recently watched Band of Brothers and really liked it

I mean REALLY liked it! So I watched Pacific last night and I'm quite glad I did. It's intense.

[Zech Marquis The 2nd]

28. if this is the FIRST episode

Wow...did HBO catch the exact feel of the period again! The first firefight was really intense, and I can only imagine what the battle scenes for Tarawa and Okinawa will be like.. Another instant classic from Tom Hanks!

[tuckessee]

29. Truman once said he wished he had a propaganda arm like the USMC has.

Judging from the pop culture productions about WW2 one would get the impression that WW2 was nothing but Marines & Paratroopers. Overlooked is the efforts of the regular US Army and the US Navy.

For example, Guadalcanal is seen as a Marine operation plain & simple completely ignoring the role of the Army in the final days and the Navy's actions throughout the entire six-month battle.

1,500 Jarheads & Dogfaces died on the island from all causes including disease and accidents while at sea 12,000 sailors died from enemy action during the same period.

My recommendation to anyone interested in WW2 is to read books about it and forgoe the titallating superficial eye candy that is modern televison & movies until you have become a well-read expert on the subject.

[Regret My New Name]

31. Not to mention how Band of Brothers and this totally ignore all the other countries...

It's as if they don't even exist.

[Posteritatis]

33. That's not a fair criticism at all

The series, and the book that inspired it, are about and largely from the point of view of a single infantry company that didn't start seeing the war until the Normandy invasion. None of the recurring characters, aside from Sink (who mainly shows up occasionally to give Plot Advancing Orders), hold a rank higher than major, and that only happens at the end of the second-last episode, by which point the war's winding down.

There isn't much room at levels that low and close to the front to worry overmuch about what's going on on the Eastern Front or in the Pacific, other than the few asides they give over the course of the series. There's little reason for the characters to sit around discussing a lot of those, and even less to wrench the camera away from the main focus of the series to wander around other theatres.

Not every book/movie/show about the Second World War has to be about the entire thing. If someone did a similar show about, say, the war in Southeast Asia from the point of view of a British infantry company, I'm not going to start complaining because it doesn't also cover Canadian forces in the Netherlands.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

35. Thank you...

You said what I was thinking, only much more clearly and lucidly.

Exactly right.

[Regret My New Name]

36. You have a valid point

but I don't care and I will end this blatant e-bullying of me by saying "WHATEVS!!!"


Teehee... I kids, I'm just in a mischievous mood today. I should probably avoid posting for my safety. :P

[Caliman73]

38. Exactly right

It is not the responsibility of the writer of the book or books (in the case of the Pacific) on which the series are based, to portray the points of view of other countries, branches of service, or even units in the same service. The stories in both BoB and The Pacific are being told from the perspective of individuals within a particular company in the Army (BoB) and Marines (Pacific). There were many other countries involved in World War II but none of those countries fielded soldiers belonging to Easy Company of the 506th regiment of the 101 Airborne or in the various Marine units on Guadalcanal. The Army and Navy played substantial roles in the Pacific Theater of the war, but none of the people whose books or personal letters were used for the making of The Pacific were in either of the other branches of service nor were they from the other countries serving in that Theater.

[Ex Lurker]

42. Secretary of the Navy Forrestal on the Iwo Jima Flag raising photograph:

"This means there will be a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years."

[Ex Lurker]

43. 6 Marine Divisions served in the Pacific vs 22 Army Divisions

Macarthur made more amphibious landings than Halsey did.

[graywarrior]

30. I kept thinking about my dad as I watched it

He was a paratrooper, signed up when he was 15-1/2 and was dropped on Corregidor. He got malaria and had flashbacks for the rest of his life. I wish he could have been here to watch this.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

32. Me too...

:hug:

[spanone]

34. seen enough war movies in my life.

:hi:

[Initech]

39. Part 1 was excellent.

[slampoet]

44. Good episode though i wish they'd do a good show about the First World War....

...but then again there isn't such a pro-war message to the First World War is there? Also the "Bad Guys" are the commanders on BOTH sides of the war.

But let's face it, almost every story of WWII has been done to death.

[Posteritatis]

45. I'd love to see something looking at more obscure areas of WWI

Eastern front, Italian front, Africa, the oceans at points - there's a hell of a lot more to the conflict than the Zerg-rushing back and forth into trench lines between 1915 and 1917 that a lot of people think the whole war was, and a lot of it's totally overlooked.

(Obligatory on-topic book recommendation: G.J. Meyer's A World Undone, which emphasizes the western front but doesn't overlook the other areas at all. Absurdly readable book, too!)

[DiverDave]

46. My Uncles ship was sunk in the pacific

and he and a bunch of guys made it to land, unfortunately it was Japanese held.
He was tortured by having a rope pulled across his back rapidly, creating deep scars.
He was rescued by the Marines when they found out where they were.
He didn't talk about it much.
RIP Uncle Jim, you were a hero in my eye's

I don't really know too much about it, but his scars were horrible.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

47. I wish I could thank him for his service...

So many suffered...

Thank you for adding your voice to my thread...

:hug: