Band of Brothers and The Pacific

[Sturgeon]

Both are quasi-historical drama miniseries, both had Stephen Ambrose on as a consultant, and both are beloved by the worst kinds of know-nothing "history buffs" (this isn't to say if you like them, you know nothing, it's just something I've observed).

I have seen neither. How good/bad are they? If they are terrible, can anyone recommend alternatives, especially documentaries/dramadocs of the Pacific Theater?

[Priory_of_Sion]

Pacific had boobs in it. 

 

Pacific isn't complete trash, nothing really stuck out to me as retarded. I'm not an expert on the Pacific campaign and some of the characters involved though. I haven't seen BoB in so long I don't remember it well enough to comment on it, but RA Forczyk seems to hate it

[Tied]

I like them both, Pacific focused alittle more than bob on the home front, but both are very good

 

Bob does have an opening credits scene that lasts for a solid 5 minutes, in every episode for some reason

 

 

and, how the hell have you now seen Bob/Pacific?

 

also, i recommend generation kill, its not nearly as action packed, but its along the same lines and a quality show, all 3 are free for amazon prime members

 

im currently reading bits  of the Pacific book aswell off and on, the thing is massive but well done 

[Sturgeon]

That and Ambrose's name is enough for me to dismiss them, then. Alternatives?

[Belesarius]

I enjoyed them both, not as serious historical pieces, but from a Memoir-type point of view.  It' has some nitpicky stuff in it that isn't wrong,b ut considering it's based off a memoir type book, take it for what it is. decent production values and some decent storytelling.  Not seriously accurate storytelling. 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I've only seen bits and pieces of them, but they seem pretty well done from a production standpoint.  I am sure they are very entertaining, just don't treat them like a documentary (unfortunately, many people do.)  

 

Here is the one star review Bob Forczyk gave Band of Brothers (the book.)  It's pretty epic.

[Donward]

Pacific had boobs in it. 

 

Pacific isn't complete trash, nothing really stuck out to me as retarded. I'm not an expert on the Pacific campaign and some of the characters involved though. I haven't seen BoB in so long I don't remember it well enough to comment on it, but RA Forczyk seems to hate it

 

Band of Brothers also had boobs in it.

 

Both are fine from an entertainment perspective. BoB is superior to The Pacific in the fact that it has a more concise narrative of characters who interact with each other through similar difficulties.

 

Conversely The Pacific is split along three separate story arcs that have nothing to do with each other. Both are good. Both feature myths that you've seen before. Both have some nifty fight scenes and decent special effects. And neither should be regarded as historical truths.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Band of Brothers also had boobs in it.

 

Both are fine from an entertainment perspective. BoB is superior to The Pacific in the fact that it has a more concise narrative of characters who interact with each other through similar difficulties.

 

Conversely The Pacific is split along three separate story arcs that have nothing to do with each other. Both are good. Both feature myths that you've seen before. Both have some nifty fight scenes and decent special effects. And neither should be regarded as historical truths.

 

 

Yeah Don summed it up. I liked both, the pacific was hard to watch at times it was so graphic. 

[Belesarius]

I agree that Band of Brothers was tighter storytelling, but I'm glad for what The Pacific did to bring the Pacific war into public consciousness.

[Tied]

Yeah Don summed it up. I liked both, the pacific was hard to watch at times it was so graphic. 

 

pansy

 

Generation kill is a good alternative 

[Donward]

The issue with finding alternatives is that Hollywood just doesn't make good War movies anymore. Or any War movie (good or bad) for that matter. Which I find to be particularly crazy considering the popularity of WW2 themed video games, the number of World War 2 memoirs on the shelves of book stores, the popularity of television documentaries on the subject and the sheer number of stories that can be told. At best you'll get on or two films that are eked out every one or two years with varying degrees of success. For every "successful" film like Saving Private Ryan or Fury, you have dogs like Red Tails and Monument Men. 

 

This is in stark contrast to the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s where you had multiple war movies coming out every year plus offerings of varying quality on television. And therein lies part of the problem. 

 

Those previous war movies of an earlier generation were generally your standard action shoot-em-up like The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, Kelly's Heroes, Force Ten From Navarone or quasi-historic pieces like 12 O'clock High or The Longest Day. For the most part they were fairly cheap to produce since they were 90 percent dialogue coupled with some hokey grimace-and-die battle scenes and at the end of the day, the grizzled sergeant and pacifist private stormed the German machine-gun nest and won the day.

 

I think there is a certain reluctance in Hollywood to do any sort of World War 2 film that isn't a heavy-handed homage to our American heroes who saved Western Europe and we should all go down to the VFW or American Legion Post in order to find anyone left of The Greatest Generation to thank. You just don't get World War 2 action movies anymore other than Quentin Tarantino's alt-history revenge flick "Inglorious Basterds" which is a snuff film wrapped around a smug conversation at a bar. Or you get POW movies which may or may not be interesting but are ultimately downers. No one wants to go see the movie Unbroken unless they want to walk away feeling glum and depressed.

 

Which gets us back to why there aren't more War movies. And it's the same reason there aren't many good Westerns made today either. There are only a finite amount of movies which can be produced every year with X amount of Romantic Comedies, Y amount of Costume Dramas and Z amount of raunchy horror or college humor fart fests. When it comes to the action genre, all the oxygen in the room is being taken up by comic book movies because those make money at the moment. You're not going to make a movie about a squad of soldiers who are trying to capture and hold a strategic pillbox on their own against impossible odds when you can make a movie about a squad of super heroes who are trying to capture and hold a strategic magic thingy against impossible odds.

[RobotMinisterofTrueKorea]

I'm probably the only person on Earth who will recommend The Pacific over Band of Brothers. It's probably one of the better depictions of the PTO in a Hollywood production, and the combat sequences are pretty much the most terrifying put on screen. Jeeps wasn't kidding when he said they're incredibly graphic. Also, for me at least, it avoids my biggest issue with Band of Brothers which is that implication that E Company 2nd Battalion 506th PIR was somehow the best US Army Infantry Unit. A lot of The Pacific shows that 2/1 and 3/5 Marines were just cogs in a much larger war machine.

 

With that said, I also want to echo what Tied said. Generation Kill is pretty fantastic. It focuses more on the day to day interaction between Marines while overseas than combat. In fact one of the major focus points is how much 'Hurry up and wait' is involved vs actual combat. IMO it's probably my favorite HBO War series.

[Belesarius]

I'm probably the only person on Earth who will recommend The Pacific over Band of Brothers. It's probably one of the better depictions of the PTO in a Hollywood production, and the combat sequences are pretty much the most terrifying put on screen. Jeeps wasn't kidding when he said they're incredibly graphic. Also, for me at least, it avoids my biggest issue with Band of Brothers which is that implication that E Company 2nd Battalion 506th PIR was somehow the best US Army Infantry Unit. A lot of The Pacific shows that 2/1 and 3/5 Marines were just cogs in a much larger war machine.

 

With that said, I also want to echo what Tied said. Generation Kill is pretty fantastic. It focuses more on the day to day interaction between Marines while overseas than combat. In fact one of the major focus points is how much 'Hurry up and wait' is involved vs actual combat. IMO it's probably my favorite HBO War series.

Finally gracing the forums with a post. Welcome to the dark side.

[RobotMinisterofTrueKorea]

Hehe yeah, been busy, very very busy. But, I figured it was about time that I actually post instead of being some creepy lurker.

[Brick Fight]

I read Band of Brothers before I saw the movie. BoB was probably the best thing Ambrose ever did, and that's much less back-handed than I make it sound. Unlike his other works, it didn't pretend to be anything other than a collective unit memoir, and it did a good job with that. He never did any real analyzation, he just relayed some stories and framed them well. The mini-series was well-done, and I think really broke the mold for war drama, in that it had well fleshed-out characters (they'd even had men from the unit to make sure actors were walking, talking, and acting like they did in real life). I always had the problem growing up of not knowing who was who in a movie because they were all just Generic Handsome Hollywood Guys in helmets. BoB utilized its mini-series format as to build up characters before and during their first deployments. There's a mixture of good action and good writing. I only really didn't like how they tried to really deify characters based on real people to the point where Richard Winters is now playing on both sides of every team in a Modern Warfare multiplayer game.

[Sturgeon]

First episode of The Pacific and there are 1903A3s at Guadalcanal. Welp. :|

[Xlucine]

Similar to generation kill, I'd recommend bluestone 42 if you can find it in yankland

[FaustianQ]

First episode of The Pacific and there are 1903A3s at Guadalcanal. Welp. :|

 

You will never, ever get a film that actually gets the weapons right. This shouldn't even be a complaint, just the grim reality of it.

[Sturgeon]

You will never, ever get a film that actually gets the weapons right. This shouldn't even be a complaint, just the grim reality of it.

 

Well, it's a good thing I have this whole heaping back of non-gun-related complaints to fall back on.