HBO's THE PACIFIC

[RobertR]

Starts tonight. I don't expect it to be as good as BAND OF BROTHERS, but if it's even half as good it will still be very impressive. At the very least, production values look very good.

Robert

[Invader3K]

Yeah, I have the DVR set to record it and will probably watch it if nothing else is going on.

 

From what I've heard, it's even a bit more "grim and gritty" than Band of Brothers was (more swearing apparently). Probably not a series for the faint of heart.

[Buckylovesbeer]

War and Sports are my interests.....(luckily my wife does not check bf.net, but you could include her in that equasion) so tonight is a great night for me. I agree with Robert, it looks like it should be great. Probably wont be as good as BOB, however if it is done as well it will be awesome.

[RyDogg66]

How can people without HBO get access to this show?

[TheCrew07]

I've been looking forward this show for a very long time, and I've had the DVR set since Thursday night. The pacific theater has never really gotten it's due in my opinion, it was a much different war against the Japanese than it was in Europe... I would like to see modern film making revisit the subject before the veterans have all moved on.

 

No I don't consider Pearl Harbor to be worth much as movie, loosely based on a shred of history all the way around, with a horrible romance plot in the middle, I'm hoping The Pacific starts a trend. There were much better movies from the 50s and 60s that covered the events Pearl Harbor touched on.

[pitchleague]

I'm going to watch the first episode tonight in my hotel room before I go to bed. I don't subscribe to HBO at home, though, so it'll be the only episode that I'll watch until I get the box set at some point. I love WWII history so I'm sure that I'll see it at some point. Band of Brothers was excellent and I watch it about once every other year.

[Invader3K]

How can people without HBO get access to this show?

Pretty sure that's the only way as of right now.

[Buckylovesbeer]

Episode one...... Great! Cant wait for next week

[JoeHova]

Seems pretty promising so far.

[T B0NE 10]

So...how long till this hits History channel or DVD so I can watch it? Haha.

[jjkoestler]

How can people without HBO get access to this show?

I'm sure a google search will turn up quite a few sites that will stream it. Not that I'd ever do such a thing.

[Bikeage77]

How can people without HBO get access to this show?

It's not up there as of right now, but it very well could be by this evening. go to www.surfthechannel.com and type it in. If a megavideo link is available, use that. They are generally the best quality.

 

Unfortunately, HBO does a real bang up job of getting their shows pulled from these links pretty quick, but if it gets flooded with uploads, it's usually a longer process.

[thebruce44]

I am sure it is already available by torrent. But I too would never do something like that...

[JoeHova]

HBO put the whole first episode up on their site. I know some people were asking about where to watch it. h/t: tvbythenumbers

[T B0NE 10]

I take it that's just a first episode thing to post it on the site...?

[Paul77]

Yeah, only the first episode will be available online, but the show is being fast tracked to DVD and BluRay. The series wraps in May on HBO and is slated for DVD release in June. Wow.

[Roscoe Chill]

If you have DirecTV, their exclusive channel 101 has been showing it often since Sunday night. I have no idea if that's going to be just for the first episode. But in any event Channel 101 makes having DirecTV worth it almost on its own.

[Invader3K]

I watched the first episode last night on the ol' DVR. I thought it was pretty good, though somewhat slower paced than I expected. I assume things will pick up a bit as the show advances (like on Band of Brothers).

[T B0NE 10]

Yeah the show is excellent. It seems as if the Pacific Theater will finally get a good film/or series.

 

The best there has been for the Pacific has been Letters from Iwo Gima.

 

Europe has Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers.

[JoeHova]

Saving Private Ryan is kind of weak except for a few great scenes, imo. A lot of people nominate The Thin Red Line as the best Pacific war film but I've never gotten around to seeing it.

[Buckylovesbeer]

Its ok......kind of the same as Saving Private Ryan. Maybe a bit more serious, but also, more political. Lots of famous people in it......... just ok

[TheCrew07]

Guadalcanal could easily be 3 full length movies, there is no way they can do the battle justice in the short time frame they have to cover it. I'm a history buff, or more to the point a war buff, but I've easily spent the majority of my time reading about WWII. I thought they did a fantastic job visually, the view of the dead Japanese soldiers on the sandbar matched what I had I remembered of black and white photos from my readings.

 

It's early, but the one thing I thought they did better in Band of Bothers thus far was give scope to what we saw on the screen, not only through interviews but through their statements at the end of each episode. For example the battle of Alligator Creak was a massacre of epic proportions, nearly 800 Japanese soldiers died in 24 hours. I was waiting for a Band of Brothers like summary giving scope of the engagement, but it didn't happen.

 

The unfortunate part of sticking with the Marine 1st Division is that there are so many other great stories that will go untold in the mini series like the Marine

defense of Wake Island for example, but as I said Guadalcanal won't get covered in the detail it deserves from a Marine standpoint, let alone the Naval/Air battles around the island or the Army troops that contributed later in the campaign. The 1st Marines also took some other islands in the immediate vicinity and I doubt those stories will ever be told on screen even though they had to eliminate the defending Japanese garrisons to the last man.

 

The series won't be perfect, it can't be, but it will become much more powerful as the battles progress towards Japan with the campaigns of Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In the initial engagements the Marines didn't suffer many casualties, the series will quickly become more grim. Again each of those battles could have multiple movies made from multiple perspectives so I'm not expecting the series to be perfect as it were.

 

I didn't like the The Thin Red Line at all, and I had read the book the movie was based on, though maybe that was my issue from the start, I had impossible expectations.

[Buckylovesbeer]

I enjoyed episode two. Anyone else?

[RobertR]

Might as well bump this up. It's obvious now that Peleliu is going to be the center of The Pacific's narrative in more ways than one. That's perhaps a smart choice considering that Guadlcanal and Iwo Jima have been well covered in other movies. I suspect that's going to be the lasting legacy of The Pacific.

 

My thoughts have been covered elsewhere, but I'm glad I'm watching it, although I think overall you can tell there's not a cohesive singular vision behind it as they patch several narratives together.

 

Robert

[pitchleague]

since I've only seen the first episode at a hotel last month, has the series kept up it's promise to be good or is it a dud compared to Band of Brothers? I own that and watch it around June just about every year. Is The Pacific a good thing for my library as well?