The Pacific TV series

There are a few British actors who playing easy company members in BofB.
 
Watched episode two last night and it was nothing but mindless Japanese hurling themselves forward with no semblance of tactical awareness to be mown down by exactly the same machinegun as just mowed down all their mates. It was utterly retarded. In reality the assault lasted most of the day and all of the night as the Japanese probed and probed looking for weak spots to infiltrate and while sure they would have launched some assaults that their extremely high courage and morale pushed forward past the point of foolhardiness, the majority of the time would not have been like that at all. It was like they had to compress all the killing into the area of fifteen minutes.

A little bit of a trap, too, focusing on a Medal of Honour winner in the action where he got the medal...naturally he was going to kill lots of Japanese and it was going to look very one sided. In reality it was pretty one sided because there was no real way to get through the marine position, but marines did die more often than you would think from the show and I don't think the Japanese were so utterly bereft of any tactics. In addition, you never get informed that it was 3,500 Japanese trying to assault a ten thousand man Marine division...so not normal 3:1 assault numbers, but 1:3.

Bit disappointed so far.
 
So what is it that's missing (becasue that is what it feels like)? Real suspense? Believable charcaters? Or is it just that our knowledge of the Pacific theatre is so meager compared to the rest of the war that we simply can't appreciate the work? Maybe we should all read the books the series is based on? So what's the real problem besides the fact that even after six parts the 'main' characters remain pretty bland?
 
Watched episode three last night and again it was very superficial..what is plainly a very nice girl hops straight into bed without even being asked with no real explanation of her motive or emotions, as does another before the troops leave. The jealous Aussie male makes a strange token appearance, gets punched by a righteous yank and his mates apologise whereupon everything is fine thereafter - yank is punched first but doesn't get a mark on him, Aussie takes one punch and goes down; it was very John Wayne-ish. No real exploration of the tensions between Aussie males and the comparitively highly paid marines and the reasons for them.

It was all kind of odd. It was ok though. Just a bit sketchy.

At least we got the voiceover and veteran interviews at the start....for some reason the version supplied locally didn't have them which probably had a lot to do with episodes 1 and 2 being a bit impenetrable.
 
I haven't seen any of it, so all my commentary is based on all of yours.

I imagine they tried to create different scenarios than what were portrayed in BoB. Least, I would think they would so as not to look like a BoB:pacific. Without having read anything about it beyond what I have read here, is the series based on a campaign or a battle? I think I would have liked to see a series on a battle. There would have to be something on naval and air combat...wouldn't there?
 
Yeah, you would think that. But the Guadacanal episodes sketched over the naval actions and the planes from the various national airforces at Henderson Field got no mention at all. Think some Aussies got a bit miffed over no mention of them defeating the Japanese on the Kokoda track or at Milne Bay either...programme simply relates that it took a further year for the US to build up its strength for more offensives....but it's not really about what the Aussies did or didn't do.

It's a look at what happened to three individuals...I'd read the book of one of them, Robert Leckie, before (was called "A Helmet for my Pillow"). They fight in Guadalcanal, then have a year off, then not sure where next...New Georgia? Peliliu for sure, and apparently also Okinawa. Unfortunately it means everything is compressed, but whereas Band of Brothers seemed to get the mix right, The Pacific just isn't doing it for me yet. I think the focus on a company was better than the focus on two or three individuals. But...early days yet.

Having said that, even with Band of Brothers things were very compressed...eg it took a whole day in reality to take Carentan, then the Germans kicked them back out of it and they had to capture it all over again, the second time against only a rearguard as per the series. So there are lots of things they missed out or shortened.
 
My wife and I were disgusted with the third episode. It made Aussie women look like sluts, and Aussie men look like wimps. There was nothing said of what the Aussies did on the Kokoda track or at Milne Bay(which was the first time the Japs had been stopped(defeated) and turn around in the second world war). As usual it will show the Seppos won the war, single handedly, again. They should stick to the battles, and not show the Seppos as being always perfect.
 
Saw the first three episodes and I think it is OK. I haven't felt the urge to delete them while watching, anyway.

In epidode three for the first time I got more of an idea who the main characters are in this series.

Although BoB was a more engrossing series, the first episode took a lot to endure. It was maybe good for the complete series but it was difficult to watch as a #1 episode...
 
Episode 4 was on Monday and it was the best of the lot by a fair measure. It focused pretty much solely on Leckie, and the minor campaigns in Cape Gloucester and Pavulu, where the main enemies were disease, insects and near constant rain, apart from 100 sick and starving Japs suiciding in a banzai charge against 1,200 marines. The psychological damage to the marines was very well done, and for the first time (for me anyway) you could really empathise with a character and what they must have gone through in real life. That episode was as good as anything in BoB.
 
The underrated 1977 film "MacArthur" had some good dialog between him, Roosevelt and the brass which gave a great insight into strategic planning which The Pacific lacks..

 
Have watched eight parts now and am convinced that I won't buy it. The characters still fell a bit bland although you get to know them better the more you watch. Too bad one of the most interesting dies during the series.
All in all, the series somehow is missing the suspense you found in BoB. Maybe it is because the Japanese are pretty absent during most of the battles - even if that was the reality of those battles. it feels totally unreal and I might think that is because they based the series primarily on two books (please correct if you you think otherwise - a few of you have read them). I'll watch the final two parts of the series but I don't expect big changes now. Others might like it, but I'd still rather watch 'Thin Red Line' if I want interior perspective.
 
Not to hi-jack the thread, but I'm with MTK. Thin Red Line (the movie):puke:
 
Agreed, Thin Red Line did blow. Terrible movie. I have to say that I haven't been a huge Pacific fan so far but the last episode really hit home with me and I had to turn it off and then come back to it after a few minutes to finish it up. Very well done.
Lord Bane
 
Parts of thin red line were ok ,but over all as you watch it you start to ask yourself are they any jobs around the house I should be doing:)lol. As for Pacific the acting is at a low standard and the action feels like Call of Duty World at War.It is a shame that the series witch could of been great has fallen flat. A bit like 3D movies very over rated.
 
mTk said:
Too bad so many of you are nit-picking this series to death. You're missing a really good show. "Thin Red Line?" Just horrible,.
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I'm actually nit-picking this series to death because I don't like the series.
I can point lot's of minor problems in movies and tv-series that I do like but they don't bother me at all because the overall package is good.
 
What is lacking from the Pacific is a credible narrative, a story with characters you can believe in and who you want to follow as the story progresses. Band of Brothers had that in spades, and the Pacific does not. The theatre may be against them, but I doubt it. I'm still enjoying the Pacific as a portrayal of how frightening and hellish war can be. And many films and series now lack a credible narrative and good character development, so I wouldn't knock Pacific as being something unusual in that. As for the Thin Red Line, I enjoyed that film, but that's the great thing about the world we live in, we all enjoy different things. I can't get enough of A Bridge Too Far and the Great Escape too, so I don't need all of my films to be sloooow and "thought-provoking", but I enjoy those sort of films too.
 
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