“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Tuesday, February 01, 2011

HBO's "The Pacific"

POSTED BY BILL


Ed wrote about HBO's 10 part series "The Pacific" a year or so ago, prompted by some of Tom Hank's comments that showed a certain ignorance and moral confusion, shall we say.  Maybe so, but I think we owe him and Spielberg some gratitude for producing this and "Band of Brothers."

My son gave me the box set for Christmas, and I have just finished watching it.  Wow is all I can say.  The episodes, and even more so for me, the extra material such as historical background and interviews with living veterans, are so well made and so full of clear respect for the sacrifice of these men.  I had already read Eugene Sledge's book "With the Old Breed on Peleliu and Okinawa" and consider myself well read on the entire war.  As a child of the 50's, I grew up in the aftermath of WW2 and have always had an intense interest in the history of the period.  But, there is something about seeing a well made production that seems to capture the awful truth of the madness.

Anyway, I completely recommend it.  Especially for any younger people, or older, who may not know just what our fathers and grandfathers did.   I would love to hear other people's comments who have seen the series.

2 comments:

David said...

I found this a decent series at best. For me it was not nearly as good as BoB. I never got to know the characters well enough to tell who was who. Maybe I don't know enough history?

Bill said...

You're right that the character development was not to the level of BoB, other than Basilone, Sledge, Lecke, and a few others. The extra material really helped with that. The sheer realism of the combat scenes (as far as I know never having been in combat) showed a real devotion to "getting it right". They did much the same in BoB, of course, but the conditions were just so bad, especially on Okinawa.