The Pacific HBO mini series

Ron-P

Rivrrat wrote: »

I got a dvd box set for Christmas also. This time around, the family wants to watch it with me.

Yeah, my wife wanted no part of BoB. But she wanted to watch this with me and now that she has she really wants to watch BoB.

doctorcilantro

Didn't grab me like BoB, but I still need to watch it. Just didn't get sucked in; probably to be expected. I'd also suggest, in other genres, HBO's The Wire and Treme.

Polkie2009

Haven't picked up the The Pacific yet, but have watched BoB numerous times and find it to be one of the__ best mini series ever,period. If you've never watched BoB, get the dvds or Bluray discs and watch the episodes on your time. I know the miniseries shows up on The History Channel etc... on cable, but if you have a HT system ,the discs sound and look great:)

DMara

Polkie2009 wrote: »

Haven't picked up the The Pacific yet, but have watched BoB numerous times and find it to be one of the__ best mini series ever,period. If you've never watched BoB, get the dvds or Bluray discs and watch the episodes on your time. I know the miniseries shows up on The History Channel etc... on cable, but if you have a HT system ,the discs sound and look great:)

BoB is like an opera, while The Pacific is a psychedelic rock concert :biggrin:

Tour2ma

No set here, but I watched the original HBO broadcasts and then the day-long Veterans Day re-airing.

I originally thought The Pacific was good, but not great. However, I came away much more impressed after the 2nd viewing.

simm

I didn't get into it as much as Band of Brothers either but I picked it up last week on Blu when Best Buy was doing 1/2 price HBO sets. I believe a second (and third) viewing will be worthwhile.

millerman 3732

I was all but ready to give up on this series, I had made through the first two disc and between the soldiers sneaking out of the base and getting hammered, plus all the surprisingly graphic and constant sex scenes I just wasn't diggin it. Then disc 3, finally the BoB/SPR battle scene I'd been waiting for. I had to watch the Peleliu landing twice, gonna watch disc 4 tonight hopefully it wont disappoint.

doggie750

this series is equally as good as BoB but diff.....

dkg999

I have BoB on BD and haven't quite made it through all the episodes yet. I picked up The Pacific on a BB sale before Christmas and have made it through a few episodes. Not sure I like one better than the other, they are both very well done.

cheddar

Just finished Pacific on blu. Although I think both series are excellent, I really think you have to watch both on their own merits. BoB is a more consistent narrative that follows the soldiers of Easy from battle to battle with a more equal weight given to each character. It puts you in the foxhole or trench and never really lets you leave, and for those looking to be immersed in this view all the way to the end, BoB will probably draw you in more.

Pacific is taken from separate personal memoirs published decades apart. As such, movement between characters and battles can be far less consistent than BoB. However, I found the stories to be far more individual and personal. Someone commented on the frequent sex in the Pacific series. But for young boys becoming men, it makes sense that their relationships with women would be important markers in their lives. Something you might put down in a memoir.

cheddar

In BoB, it was easy to follow the order of battles and their place in the war. But I had trouble keeping all the characters straight until repeated viewings. In Pacific, the battles seemed like one bombed out airfield and mud pit after another, but the three main characters were very easy to follow in just one viewing. The difference in battle scenes could just be the very different nature of WWII Europe vs the Pacific. But the difference in character development had everything to do with the different focus in story telling between the two series IMHO. I really liked both on their own merits.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I just finished watching The Pacific on BD, and liked it MUCH better the second time around.

It was okay when it aired on TV, but I enjoyed both series more when I was able to watch them at my own pace.

I've enjoyed The pacific much more when I just forget about BoB and judge this series on its own merits, and it really is a great series.

Tour2ma

cheddar,
Interesting takes that got me thinking...

Speaking for myself I know far less about the Pacific theater of operations than the European, e.g., I'd never heard of Peleliu. Made it harder for me to relate...

As for characters... seemed to me that I knew over a dozen members of Easy Company better than the three focal soldiers of The Pacific. Not sure how that could be other than the complexitiy of those in the Pacific, but regardless of the reason, that's my impression...

cheddar

The two theaters really were very different. In Europe, once you crossed the English channel, it was basically a land war slog, pushing the line back until the allies reached Berlin. By the time Easy dropped, the allies had air superiority with bombers able to reach Germany from the start of the invasion. Kind of like if the US had started in China and only had to fly airplanes and move troop transports from there.

But we were all the way across the Pacific and so ended up fighting for air bases on mudpits until we were close enough to bomb Japan directly. The next step would have been a more European type slog through Japan (although the Japanese would have probably given a more fanatical type of resistance). But of course, the two A-bombs dropped ended the war before we could invade.

cheddar

As for knowing the soldiers better, again, I think it's a different kind of knowing. With BoB and Easy Company, I think I knew them better in a fox hole and how they functioned in their unit and fought. But about deeper parts of their lives, you only had the stories they told each other to go on a lot of the time.

With the Pacific, you found out more personal things about the characters.


****Spoilers****



Like that Sledgehammer came from a priviledged family and should have entered service as an officer if he had completed his education properly. His brother was, IIRC, a major in the army while Sledge was a corporal in the marines. And for all the violence and killing he did in the war, he couldn't even bring himself to go hunting with his father when he came back. I enjoyed meeting the soldiers' families and seeing where they came from and what made them who they were. This was really different than what we knew about the men in BoB.




****End Spoilers****