I'm sure WWII had its share of immature kids on the battlefield as well. Hollywood just chose not to portray that part. Odd how Hollywood shapes history and our views of it, eh? But then again....how does the maturity level of an 18 to 22 yr old in the 1940's compare to the maturity level of one today? Lotta ways to look at it...
I agree to an extent. War is an ugly business, and there is no silver lining to it. There were rapes to the Germans done by the allied force and needless killings in the WWII too. Once a 18 year old is handed a gun, it's dangerous. However, I think in this war the immaturity is more pervasive among soldiers than in previous wars, seems to me. A generation growing up with music glorifying violence and computer games selling on mass kills. I am somewhat disgusted by it, to be honest. Interestingly, this series is directed by Susan White, who I never heard of, but seems to be a female director. This is really an interesting take.
I think anything in the hands of an 18 year old has the potential to do great damage. Sadly its a reflection on the world today....I sometimes wonder if humans are evolving or devolving. War sucks, but I don't think humans will ever get past it though. As long as one person has something another doesn't, as long as one person is a different color than the other...as long as one persons religion differs from the other.....and mainly as long as the people in governments are not held accountable for their actions, we will mercilessly slaughter each other. Or perhaps not....maybe it's a question of a matriarchal society vs patriarchal society....
I think the majority of the world is peace loving. The aggressors in recent history are always those usual suspects. wink wink. I believe globalization might lead to ultimate peace among race. Soon people will realize going into other's house, fxxking everything up is not to anybody's benifit.
The majority of the "people" in this world just want to be left alone in relative peace to raise their families. But problems arise when there's not enough resources to do that. That brings up the age old dilemma..do you pillage your neighbor in order to feed your own family. As far as the "usual suspects", there's not a so-called "modern" govt today that doesn't have the blood of innocents on its hands. That's the nature of the beast. I wished that was true, but I feel there will always be resource inadequacies and rogue governments/factions that will always choose the dark side for their own greedy benefits.
Funny, I don't think war movies ever took a negative look at american wars till Apocalyspe Now. But I could be wrong. Also, Forest Gump didn't take a negative look at Vietnam and i could probably think of some other examples. I don't think its as much negative as much as it is the nature of war has changed. I don't think Jarhead was negative on the Gulf War, it just was what it was, a devastating victory and some of the guys probably wanted more action and they were disappointed. less troops getting killed because of vastly surperior technology is not negative, even if said troops wanted more action. but that's my opinion on "Jarhead", I still haven't seen this.
series is almost over 2 more episodes. not sure other people's opinion but I really like this mini-series...of course its not as amazing as Band of Brothers, but i dont think no one expected it to be. recorded all the episodes on my dvr so far will probably pull them off the dvr and put it on dvd.... but after that first episode which was slow...now that they are moving through "iraq" the action and story have picked up the soldiers dealing with having to kill civilians. its been an entertaining show to say the least. oh and I love Captain America that guy is hillarious.
Nerco Bump Watched the whole thing yesterday and really thought it was pretty solid once you realize it's not a series that focuses on a lot of battles. Will always be compared to BOB which I don't think is fair since it a totally different type of war. Reminded me a lot of Jarhead, which some people mentioned when it first aired. Recommended to anyone who's interested in these kind of series even though I think it's behind BOG and The Pacific on the HBO scale...
