HBO's "The Pacific" is disappointing...

[0roo0roo]

Well they didn't have ak's/assault rifles in common use at the time, so shooting your rifle while running would be next to impossible. Not that you could hit anything running with an auto.

 

[Exterous]

I know its not BoB but I still have a hard time not comparing the two. While I get that character depth is not as important it still seems like it jumps from story point to story point a bit abruptly. I think I will like the show overall but probably not as much as BoB - But that doesn't mean I dont like it!

Take John Basilone who won the medal of honor... in the show it didn't seem all the impressive to me but then I read the description on Wikipedia and you see that he deserved it tenfold :

(/snip)

Yeah - I was pretty dissapointed in the re-telling of that story. I figured with the history behind it it would be more of an epic scene than it was....

 

[Train]

I think part of the reason people keep comparing it negatively to BoB is the fact that they have seen BoB 500 times.

BoB wasn't seen as being all that epic after the first 3 episodes.

At first everyone was like "Ross from friends is the CO? The dude from Office Space is a captain? they spend a lot of time bitching about petty shit like running up a hill and getting weekend passes, making impesonations of an officer, wtf this is a war series, get to the war already."

People dont look back on BoB as they did when they were just getting into it. Give it 8 years and 500 rewatches, you'll love the pacific just as much.

 

[Gooberlx2]

While I get that character depth is not as important it still seems like it jumps from story point to story point a bit abruptly.

I think character development of the main 3 (1 of whom has barely had any appearance so far) will be quite a bit more important over the entire series. BoB's major character was easy company, as a whole.

Personally, I'm loving the series so far.

 

[JohnnyGage]

So far it's been great and very realistic. As far as racist comments being disturbing, what in the hell were you expecting, the marines saying "that Pacific Islander specific to the island of Japan is annoying me"? I mean seriously. I don't think your that naive, but someone who says that must be young and it's time to be an adult, if you can't handle it don't watch. I don't mean to be blunt, but a comment like that just sets me off. Oh and if it helps the Japanese thought we were mindless cavemen/apes I think, or somewhere along those lines.

As far as the Japanese running directly into machine gun fire there should be an understanding of the chain of command at the time. There were officers and soldiers and the soldiers did what they were told without question, IOW they were a POS and and dying in battle was an honor. Google 'issen gorin'.

 

[Mike Gayner]

I disagree with the negative sentiment - I love this show. Stop comparing it to BoB FFS, it's not BoB 2.

Ugh I take back this comment after seeing the third episode - god dammit that episode sucked ass.

 

[zerocool84]

Yes everyone knows it's a different story and a different campaign but it's a show meant to entertain. To care about the show you have to care about the characters in it. They did a piss poor job of introducing the characters to make you care about anything they're doing. I didn't even know who was who until the third episode.

 

[theflyingpig]

Yes, but the Germans weren't cutting of penises and stuffing them in the owners mouth.

Yeah, they were just stuffing people into ovens 'n shit.

 

[WT]

Yeah, they were just stuffing people into ovens 'n shit.

No they weren't. Misconception there, but the typical German soldier had no idea that the Waffen SS were conducting genocide on the Jewish people. Rounding them up and putting them in camps ?? Yes. Torturing and gassing them ?? No idea.

Keep in mind - we had Japanese/American internment caps here in our country, where American born people of Japanese descent were put while later in the war their younger sons volunteered (!!??!!) to fight for the country that had locked up their family !! Holy crazy ass shit !! Would you volunteer to fight for the country that had your parents locked up earlier in the war ?

Check this crazy nut out !!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye
Oh yea, he's now a US Senator too.

The Allgemeine and later the Waffen SS troops were directly responsible for the starvation and systematic torture and gassing of nearly 6 million Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allgemeine_SS

 

[Mo0o]

Def inferior to Band of Brothers. Watching the first 2 episodes, the battle scenes drag on much too long and theres not even visually to advance the story, just a lot of darkness and muzzle flashes. Pretty shallow character development as well.

 

[Kreon]

As far as the Japanese running directly into machine gun fire there should be an understanding of the chain of command at the time. There were officers and soldiers and the soldiers did what they were told without question, IOW they were a POS and and dying in battle was an honor. Google 'issen gorin'.

Yup, exactly

for those to lazy: "issen gorin" was the price of a postage stamp. It refers to the draft cards sent to the conscripts. They were treated like shit. They were expected to live off the land, rape, kill everything and eat other people. All of this was to instill the "fighting spirit." A book that describes this rather well that comes to mind is the book "Flyboys" by the author of Flags of our Fathers. Just a note: While it is about American Airmen who went down near Iwo Jima (and were captured on an island next to it called Eta Jima that was never invaded, but skipped over), it delves a lot into the training of the Japanese soldiers.

Terrible things were done by the Japanese, especially towards the civilians in wherever they were invading. I'll share some that particularly stick in my mind as especially impacting.

1. A Japanese patrol moves into a town in China. They are poorly fed, having to take anything they want to eat from a populace who doesn't have any food. Meat is impossible to find. They kill all of the males, old women, and most of the children. The women who were of an attractive age were raped. I don't remember the exact term, but it was the equivalent of "pleasure to rape". Then most of those women were killed. The soldiers then stripped meat from them. Particularly the thighs. They ate this. The Japanese soldier recounting this said it was standard practice, and explained the best paces to get and how to prepare it right, but I'll spare you all those details.

2. The same soldier eventually ended up on Eta Jima. The airmen who were shot down there were captured. He recalls how the officers then decided the airmen needed to be killed. They selected soldiers who lacked "fighting spirit" to do the executions. One of them is described, and he was basically a geek (kind of like us) who joined the navy so he wouldn't have to do terrible things in the army. He worked with communications, and had worked with one of the American Airman as he spoke English (the airman was forced to help with their radios). After this, the surgeon was ordered to remove the livers, hearts, thighs, and a couple other organs iirc, which were then cooked in a traditional manner and fed to the commanders and those troops who lacked "fighting spirit". I believe the manner was taking small chunks and boiling them to half cooked, then in a group cooking them in small pans of hot oil.

There are more, but I don't feel like sharing. They did hideous things. Sure the holocaust was terrible, but when compared to the horrible things the Japanese did it barely holds a candle. The tortured everyone they conquered, forced women into "pleasure houses", killed and ate other people, executed anybody associated with any kind of resistance, killed someone when they were bored, mutilated bodies (ie, hacking off a penis and placing it in the still living victim's mouth).

People in Asia still don't forgive the Japanese for the things they did. There's a reason Japan is scared of a nuclear N Korea more than the South Koreans, and why North Korea likes to push the Japanese's buttons. The Chinese still have animosity towards Japan for this.

cliffs for those who want them:
-issen gorin=conscript Japanese soldier who was encouraged and forced to do terrible acts
-Read 1 and 2, I can't summarize them and get the whole point accross
-Japanese atrocities > holocaust, by a lot in lives and atrocities.
-People is Asia still don't forgive Japan

 

[Kreon]

No they weren't. Misconception there, but the typical German soldier had no idea that the Waffen SS were conducting genocide on the Jewish people. Rounding them up and putting them in camps ?? Yes. Torturing and gassing them ?? No idea.

Keep in mind - we had Japanese/American internment caps here in our country, where American born people of Japanese descent were put while later in the war their younger sons volunteered (!!??!!) to fight for the country that had locked up their family !! Holy crazy ass shit !! Would you volunteer to fight for the country that had your parents locked up earlier in the war ?

Check this crazy nut out !!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye
Oh yea, he's now a US Senator too.

The Allgemeine and later the Waffen SS troops were directly responsible for the starvation and systematic torture and gassing of nearly 6 million Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allgemeine_SS

You can even go farther than the populace and non-SS soldiers knew nothing. Many SS soldiers knew nothing of the extermination, though a lot did. A lot of the SS combat units (especially later in the war) had nothing to do with Jews, except perhaps rounding some up and handing them off to more SS. I'm sure there were musings about what happened in those camps, but nobody really thought hard enough I guess.

 

[uli2000]

I finally got around to watching episode 3 yesterday. I have to say, I'm starting to get into it now that we're getting some real character development. The first episode just seemed to jump right in, while in Band of Brothers we had 2 or 3 episodes to get to know the characters. I was very impressed with epi. 3. I hope this continues thru the rest of the series.

 

[JohnnyGage]

Yup, exactly

for those to lazy: "issen gorin" was the price of a postage stamp. It refers to the draft cards sent to the conscripts. They were treated like shit. They were expected to live off the land, rape, kill everything and eat other people. All of this was to instill the "fighting spirit." A book that describes this rather well that comes to mind is the book "Flyboys" by the author of Flags of our Fathers. Just a note: While it is about American Airmen who went down near Iwo Jima (and were captured on an island next to it called Eta Jima that was never invaded, but skipped over), it delves a lot into the training of the Japanese soldiers.

Terrible things were done by the Japanese, especially towards the civilians in wherever they were invading. I'll share some that particularly stick in my mind as especially impacting.

1. A Japanese patrol moves into a town in China. They are poorly fed, having to take anything they want to eat from a populace who doesn't have any food. Meat is impossible to find. They kill all of the males, old women, and most of the children. The women who were of an attractive age were raped. I don't remember the exact term, but it was the equivalent of "pleasure to rape". Then most of those women were killed. The soldiers then stripped meat from them. Particularly the thighs. They ate this. The Japanese soldier recounting this said it was standard practice, and explained the best paces to get and how to prepare it right, but I'll spare you all those details.

2. The same soldier eventually ended up on Eta Jima. The airmen who were shot down there were captured. He recalls how the officers then decided the airmen needed to be killed. They selected soldiers who lacked "fighting spirit" to do the executions. One of them is described, and he was basically a geek (kind of like us) who joined the navy so he wouldn't have to do terrible things in the army. He worked with communications, and had worked with one of the American Airman as he spoke English (the airman was forced to help with their radios). After this, the surgeon was ordered to remove the livers, hearts, thighs, and a couple other organs iirc, which were then cooked in a traditional manner and fed to the commanders and those troops who lacked "fighting spirit". I believe the manner was taking small chunks and boiling them to half cooked, then in a group cooking them in small pans of hot oil.

There are more, but I don't feel like sharing. They did hideous things. Sure the holocaust was terrible, but when compared to the horrible things the Japanese did it barely holds a candle. The tortured everyone they conquered, forced women into "pleasure houses", killed and ate other people, executed anybody associated with any kind of resistance, killed someone when they were bored, mutilated bodies (ie, hacking off a penis and placing it in the still living victim's mouth).

People in Asia still don't forgive the Japanese for the things they did. There's a reason Japan is scared of a nuclear N Korea more than the South Koreans, and why North Korea likes to push the Japanese's buttons. The Chinese still have animosity towards Japan for this.

cliffs for those who want them:
-issen gorin=conscript Japanese soldier who was encouraged and forced to do terrible acts
-Read 1 and 2, I can't summarize them and get the whole point accross
-Japanese atrocities > holocaust, by a lot in lives and atrocities.
-People is Asia still don't forgive Japan

Yeah, I read it, amazing book and well researched.

 

[abaez]

I thought the first two episodes were disappointing. The battle scenes lacked any sort of development of the characters since they were so chaotic.

Episode 3 was much better in that regard - slowed things down a bit and made you learn a bit more about them. I'm now a little more invested - will he come back to that greek girl? That nerdy white dude.. How will the medal of honor guy turn out? Maybe come back? It has me a little more interested now.

 

[daniel1113]

I've said this many times, but I think one of the reasons BoB was so good was because of the first episode. The viewers got to know the characters from the very start as the company completed basic training at Toccoa. By the time I watched the other episodes, I could identify all the major characters and key attributes about them.

I've enjoyed The Pacific so far, but after three episodes, I can't name a single character other than Lucky.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

The article in Time magazine was pretty harsh on The Pacific.

To sum it up they said it is too simplistic for today and is "easy viewing patriotism".

 

[zerocool84]

I've said this many times, but I think one of the reasons BoB was so good was because of the first episode. The viewers got to know the characters from the very start as the company completed basic training at Toccoa. By the time I watched the other episodes, I could identify all the major characters and key attributes about them.

I've enjoyed The Pacific so far, but after three episodes, I can't name a single character other than Lucky.

Getting to know the characters helps you enjoy whatever you are watching that much more. That is the biggest fault of The Pacific.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

I don't know... Chalk me up as disappointed too... And I really wanted to like this. Maybe I just expected too much? BoB was great because it was the same group of guys with a linear story line... D-Day on through to the Eagle's Nest. There was a start, a middle and an end and it was all awesome.

The Pacific is kind of all over the place and most of the time I find myself wandering off. It's just not holding my attention for some reason.

 

[TehMac]

I just expected more about the Marines and their battles, not devoting an entire episode to them drinking and having sex, which this last episode (#3) seemed to be.

I thought that was hawt.

yea from some angles she looks like alison lohman

She was waaaay hawt.

Hell, they were all very cute.

I enjoyed the episode because it gave a more human element to the whole story. These guys weren't just fighting 24/7, they were getting shipped about the Pacific--sometimes for R&R and sometimes for battle.

It really put the war into perspective--these guys are trying to live it up one day at a time--especially after experiencing the bit of Guadalcanal they did.

 

[TehMac]

The article in Time magazine was pretty harsh on The Pacific.

To sum it up they said it is too simplistic for today and is "easy viewing patriotism".

Time Magazine in 1938


They've gotten even worse since then...considerably so.

 

[Imp]

I haven't seen any of the Pacific yet (refuse to subscribe to the cable package), but concerning BoB, I thought the first episode was the weakest. Ya, they're all together, you get an introduction, and then you have David Schwimmer stealing the show (in a bad way).

I didn't get much out of that episode at all. I learned to appreciate the characters from all the other episodes.

 

[brblx]

why the hate for david schwimmer? i thought he played his character excellently- it seemed that we were supposed to think the guy was somewhat intelligent but flawed and maybe even a little nerdy. like he was the kid that got bullied in school.

...so it was basically 'ross' from friends, so not really a stretch for him. but i felt he was competent, and i thought the point was NOT to like his character, and he did that beautifully, heh. and the guy that played lewis was pretty great- again, probably because he more or less rehashed a known character.

 

[SunSamurai]

:awe:

to jog your memory

I suddenly want to read about the stars.

A fitting book considering she looks like an angel.

Can I get an amen.:awe:

 

[mugs]

Time Magazine in 1938


They've gotten even worse since then...considerably so.

Do you understand what Time's Man of the Year is?