Dude Last night's episode which is episode 9 alone blew away the whole BOB series... I was glued to my T.V screen and had my jaw dropped to the floor, very very intense portrayal of the battle in Okinawa...
Doh, I forgot to watch it last night. Was the whole episode action oriented? Why do I have to work 12 hours today? I just want to watch tv
last night's episode was amazing. Joe Mazzello as Sledge and Rami Malek as Snafu have shined as their respective characters.
This show is so freaking good. I can't wait to go back and re-watch Band of Brothers now to see how they compare.
I love this show. Characters are coming and going too much. Yes the war scenes are better but no way IMO is it better than the first. The character build-up in the first one was great. Easy company training their asses off and showing up david shwimmer was even awesome. The first one has a better story to me. There have been a few episodes in part 2 that I was waiting for the end but the first one I never thought that once. Plus no character can touch general winters. I guess it depends on your taste though. If you want more gore and graphic scenes then part 2 but if you want better story and actually want to follow one group the whole time then part 1. Episode 9 was very good.
I took a break from watching for a few weeks, but I've been recording them every week. Last night I put the wife to bed early, turned off all the lights and watched Parts 8, 9, and 10 one after the other. Wow. Part 8: Spoiler I knew what was going to happen the whole time, since I've read about Basilone in the past, but the story of how he met his wife really drew me in and I actually teared up at the end when they showed him dying in a pit of mud. Seems like such a waste. He and his wife were only married 7 months and she never remarried. So incredibly sad. Part 9: Spoiler The actor who played Sledge really nailed it. Just watching him go deeper and deeper into madness and descend into a cold blooded killer was pretty powerful. Then, watching him cradle that dying woman....you could just feel the humanity oozing back into his veins. Another powerfully great episode. Part 10: Spoiler Didn't have much expectation for this episode, since the war was over, but it proved to be possibly the most powerful of all 10 parts. Seeing Snafu leave the train without saying goodbye to Sledge.....then seeing at the end that he never kept in touch with anyone until 38 years after the war ended. Wow. The war must have really bothered him for the rest of his life. Then when Sledge said he would never wear the uniform again - reminds me of my Grandfather, who served in Okinawa, never telling us a single war story, even though we used to ask him all the time. He never told anyone anything. Not even my Grandmother. Took it all to his grave. I also thought the scene where Sledge goes hunting with his Father, then breaks down because he can't bear the thought of killing anything ever again was pretty powerful. The final "where are they now" segment really knocked it out of the park. Very well done, just as you would expect from Spielberg/Hanks. Amazing how much the actors looked like the actual characters they were playing, just like in BoB. After the slow start of the first few episodes, I still maintain that this was even better than the original BoB, albeit only slightly. I thought it had more ethos than the original, personally. Hopefully they will show the entire series again soon, since I lost the 1st 5 episodes when my DVR went kaput. 5 1/2 out of 5 stars.
okay looks like this miniseries isn't so well received...i expected to see more posts. anyways, we finally finished watching last night... I like BoB better but The Pacific was also awesome. It had a bit of slow scenes but that's cool. It was kind of hard to keep up with the characters at the beginning except Sledge and Leckie. They did an awesome job of casting. Isn't Jon Seda hot?! Joe M. as Sledge was amazing. I was trying to figure out where i've seen him before. Jurassic Park. Rami Malek as Snafu was great. Loved that actor. Watching movies like that just really messes with my mind. I laid to sleep in my comfortable bed every night after watching an episode and wondered about those guys who had to sleep in stinky rotting mud and being scared to death. I really had no idea about Peleliu and Okinawa battles. Wish I paid more attention in history. So I bought Sledge's book - With the Old Breed.
Awesome, I love this show too very very different from BOB.. Did you watch the bluray copy and if so how was the transfer??
I think the letdown was for people expecting another BoB, but this is the more ignored war, and the front that we can undisputedly claim that we won ourselves. Very insightful protrayals, but it seemed like there wasn't a climax, if only because the Japanese surrendered after the atomic bomb droppings.
We don't have a Blu Ray...we DVR the series when they came on Veteran's day. We didn't have HBO at the time when it came out. I did shed some tears at some scenes. It was extremely sad to see some guys having mental problems. That is why after care for veterans is SO SO important. Amazing that we won the war after so many causalities. If it wasn't for that bomb, many more will have died. I wonder if the WWII veterans that are still alive today have some kind of feelings against Japanese people.
Picked up the series on Bluray this weekend and we watched them all. Slow start like people mentioned but the 2nd half is really strong, the battle scenes in HD with my surround sounds was a amazing, really did a wonderful job of showing all the carnage that was going on. The final episode was extremely gripping even thought it's a post war wrap up. Like many have said, it's very different from BOB but still very impressive all around, the last 4 episodes are truly amazing.
It's an amazing series, and a huge contrast to Band of Brothers... which I think is the single best piece in television history. I need to pick up The Pacific on Blu-ray, I didn't even know it was out.
Watched this for a second time today and most of the frustrations and unmet expectations I had with it the first time were gone. The fourth episode (Cape Gloucester/Pavuvu) is imo the most underrated one and even the Melbourne episode wasn't that bad. I'd say the series is on par with BoB and the battle scenes are even better. I think many people dismissed it completely on the basis of the first few episodes and I would certainly recommend a second viewing.
I think the 2nd half of the series is esp strong, those battle sequences with your surround sound up really make an impression.
I started this thread, and have still not watched them, I am going to go buy them tomorrow....time to watch em..... DD
Okay, I finished reading With the Old Breed by E. Sledge. I would def recommend that book. Great book. What was strange that a few scenes were edited in the movie... For example... Spoiler The scene with Sledge wanting to knife out the gold teeth out of a Japanese corpse and Snafu telling him to not do it. It was actually someone else, not Snafu Also, Sledge never mentioned Sidney Phillips even once in the book so I wonder if the depiction of them being best friends in the movie was just made up but the real Sidney Phillips was involved with the movie so I dunno? Sledge didn't talk about Snafu that much in the book so I'm wondering where else they got Snafu's character from. maybe from other accounts/books? I still LOVE Rami Malek's portrayal of Snafu. I need to watch it again. I'm going to read Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie.
Lady_Di, the connection between Sledge, Sid Phillips, and Leckie was a coincidence that the writers & Producers found out about while doing their research. so you're right, they wrote in the relationship between Sledge and Phillips in their hometown in the Deep South so they could re-introduce Phillips later in Leckie's crew... for me the 2 episode battle crossing the airfield in Peileilu was the best sequence of the series... just riveting stuff and great television... the actors took the roles very seriously. one of my favorite stories was hearing how during Boot Camp for the actors, the Americans and Australians could hear faint sounds in the distance- it was the Asian actors training for their roles as Japanese soldiers, simulating the terror of hearing your enemy beyond the horizon. the actors playing the Marines said they were often confused by the lines of reality during their 9 month shoot in Australia... and yes, rami malek , for me, stole the series with his portrayal of Snafu. I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I approached his twin brother Sammy on the street and nearly lost it before I figured out it was Rami's brother...
