Movie Theater The Pacific and Band of Brothers

ThorUSMC3209

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I just finished watching both mini series by HBO on the Pacific and European Theatre's of WWII. And i have to say it is a must see! One of the best series/movies on WWII in my opinion!
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

yes i do agree with that, but what band of brothers lacked also was the similar last part that the pacific had. On how each soldier dealt with the war upon return to home. I thought that was what made the Pacific great at the end.
 
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The key actors on "Band of Brothers" had a 10-year reunion recently, celebrated on the day they started their "boot camp" training before filming the series.
 
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yeah its pretty crazy knowing its that old for how good the picture was. i didnt know it was that old when i bought it a couple months ago until i watched the special features.
 
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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: USGILT</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I also think that the action sequences in the Pacific were very well done and more intense than Band of Brothers. </div></div>

I heard somewhere The Pacific had a budget nearly 10x that of BoB...I'm sure that helped the action sequences.

I have both box sets and they are equally fantastic IMO.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BoilerUP</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I heard somewhere The Pacific had a budget nearly 10x that of BoB...I'm sure that helped the action sequences.</div></div>

haha yeah im sure it would!
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

So no one felt that the Pacific was a lefty pinko propaganda piece portraying the USMC as a group of bloodthirsty savages gleefully doing the homicidal dirty work of a gluttonous master hell bent on conquest, ruthlessly slaughtering the reluctant warriors of Japan in an orgy of violence punctuating by the greatest crime against humanity in history outside the holocaust?

Well, that's what I was lead by some reviewers to believe.

You all are correct, it was outstanding, and fair. While there are plenty of examples of excessive brutality, sadistic at times, the sad truth is these things did occur. The Marine tossing stones into the open skull of a dead Japanese soldier is a true account, and the removal of gold teeth was a common practice.

At the same time, when a wounded Japanese soldier explodes a grenade amongst the marines who come to his aid, we see that this attitude was to some extent justified.

Anyway, yeah, great flic
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

yeah it was gut wrenching at times but that kind of stuff probably happens in about every war, just isn't reveled or talked about (well maybe not in today's age anymore).
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

After watching this movie about the japanese invasion of China, I would of droped a 3rd nuke on Japan.....

War should be avoided, but when no other solution is available, it should be conducted with the upmost violence to ended rapidely.

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Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

I Just finished the Pacific, Great series, I remember growing up and reading about Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and the the island hopping campaign. Great History. I just ordered the books written by Sldgehammer and Leckie based on their experiences during those Battles.
In the Making of the Pacific the producers go through why they focused primarily on Sledge, Lecke, and Basilone, Because more was written by them / about them in an accurate manor so the producers and writers were able to accurately portray what did happen.
I hope that these two series Band of Brothers and The Pacific Honor the men that fought and died in WWII
 
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Yeah i have been wanting to get the books by Sledge and Leckie but just haven't gotten around to doing it. I'm sure its a good read for sure!
 
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I wasn't wild about the pacific. The first episodes got me into it and i was fine with the intermission and character development. But when it came to the battle scenes, they were short, done well but short. I never finished it from what i've seen i think i would like BOB much more.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ThorUSMC3209</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yeah i have been wanting to get the books by Sledge and Leckie but just haven't gotten around to doing it. I'm sure its a good read for sure!</div></div>

Ive read both, leckie's was good, Sledge's was also good but he smacks of boderline pacifisism the whole time, reminds me of upom on Saving Private Ryan in the guy that got the job done but no one ever says they wanna be like him
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

BoB was built around a small group, and centered on Winters. It allowed for continuity as well as better character development. BoB also was after the first one episode or 2, played out over less than a year, not all in combat. The 101st was out of combat from the first few day of July 44 until Sept 44, and after Holland not in action until the Bulge. The at the end of Jan 45 they were out again until like April 45.
The Pacific had really different characters in different units from August 42 until well after the war. It never really allowed the character development like BoB did.
I think the Pacific was filmed in Northern Australia, and Bob in England. They had one village for BoB, and depending on what direction they came in it looked like France, Holland, Belgium, or Germany. Europe also has a lot of reenactors who maintain vehicles that I am sure came in handy for filming.

I did like in the Pacific seeing the weapons and equipment and uniforms change from battle to battle. That was pretty accurate.
The war against the Japanese was extremely brutal and without pity. The Japs made it that way and our forces learned it right off the bat on Guadalcanal, with the Goette patrol. The Germans didn't like close combat much, and when our guys got close and they knew the jig was up they surrendered, often enmasse, at least in the Western front. The Japanese didn't, and were treacherous. I knew several former pacific war marines, and they never ever forgave the Japanese. They despised them until the day they died.
Nobody who actually fought in WW II, especially pacific vets who saw action, ever regretted the A bombs. I agree. the japs got off lucky because we had them. The would have had 20-30 million dead and half the country would be Russian. What the revisionist don't mention was that all civilians had been publically declared combatants by the japanese themselves. and they were training schoolchildren, and even Bhuddist monks, to fight. The bombs saved their country from total annihalation, but they would never admit it. They teach their kids that we forced them into bombing Pearl Harbor, the Chinese provoked them into war, and that they are the victims.
They have never accepted responsibility.
At least the Germans taught their kids how evil the NAZIs were, at least until the 70's, and that the Holacaust was real.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

I had heard the same things about the Japanese revisionist history until I spent a lot of time working with them only to realize it's mostly the nationalists/conservatives in Japan that are doing that - not a nationwide cultural movement.
 
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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dogtown</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I had heard the same things about the Japanese revisionist history until I spent a lot of time working with them only to realize it's mostly the nationalists/conservatives in Japan that are doing that - not a nationwide cultural movement. </div></div>
They deny the rape of nanking, they deny the brytality towards allied prisoners that included murdrers as late as 12 days after they surrendered, both in japan and the occupied areas, they deny the brutality towards the citizens of subject areas everywhere, deny any knowledge of responsiblity for the Biological Warfare experiments, and use, and always, always take the opportunity to have their Press people try to get our Presidents to apologize for the A Bombs at press conferences. They still play the victim and claim we forced them to attack us because we cut off giving them oil because of the war they started in China 7 years before.
They even ritually murdered and ate American and British prisoners for God's sake, including on the island George H. Bush was bombing when he was shot down. They used civilians and prisoners for bayonet practice routinely, and wrote stories for the newspapers about contests over who could chop the heads off helpless and bound civilians. They gang raped and then murdered (because japanese soldiers don't rape so they killed the victims) many 100,000 women everywhere they were.
But the japanese civilians of today never know, are taught, or admit any of it.They refuse to confront their past of atrocities and consider it propoganda and lies.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

Who's "they"? The Japanese government? The entire population? Like I said, what you're describing is how the Japanese nationalists/conservatives think and act. They're easy to spot because they still wave the Rising Sun flags, but they are not a majority of the population by any stretch nor are they particularly influential.

Has the Japanese government been slow to own up to its past? Yes, few if any will argue with that, especially when you contrast it with Germany's post-war introspective attitudes. But you're making it sound like all Japanese are actively denying their past, when the evidence shows otherwise.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

I'll ell you who they is...
Every japanese Government that has refused to admit the horrors they inflicted on the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Indonesians, and POW's for the entire first half of the 20th century, and especially the 40's and 50's.
The education syste that uses History books that omit, deny, and obscure they inflicted and portrays themselves as unwilling warriors who were forced into just trying to feed their citizens.
The entire nation that continues to cover up the fact that their damned Emporer knew about everything they were doing and approved of it all, including the slave labor and extermination of POWs and indigents, the Germ Warfare programs, and the treacherous actions of their civil and military personel.
But they never pass on a opportunity to confront a American President or elected official to apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Every jap that comes to hawaii makes sure to go to the Arizona, and now we have softened the program they show to not offend the bastards who snuck in and bombed us on a Sunday morning while we were still "at peace". They would ride out and laugh and smile and take their pictures showing how happy they were and are, literally dancing on the graves of over 1,000 sailors and Marines who never suspected what would happen.
I say we didn't kill enough Japs, and didn't drop enough A bombs, of incendiaries.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

Donttry, I don't agree with you often. But in THIS case I do.

Must be nice to assume the ability of re-writing history, eh? Oh look at that, I don't owe anything on my credit card bill. That's because I don't have a bill now.

If only,,,,
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

Thats what dogtown was saying before though is that it was the government not the entire Japaneses population. not that i dont agree with you cause i do donttry
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

I don't think all blame falls on the Emperor. Ultimately every person is responsible for their own actions.

There were many accounts of Japanese cruelty and savagery during the war- things like eating a British pilot.

The book "unbroken" features a crew of a B24 downed over the pacific on a harrowing 45 day float in the ocean undiscovered by rescuers, they were strafed by Japanese planes, attacked by Sharks, some starved to death, and they landed on an Island where they were treated nicely by Japanese who knew they were headed to terrible conditions in a camp. They then get into the prison system and are systematically tortured for months and then systematically beaten for years, they end up doing slave labor in mines and finally survive to see release.

It lets you understand how the Japanese weren't all evil, but there were certainly evil Japanese- and those that were not evil, were standing idly by as the Americans were executed, tortured, medically experimented on, beaten, starved, and mentally abused.

We're in another era, and allied, but certainly there are two sides to the story.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

I LOVE to watch BOB, have yet to see The Pacific. I have a great 5.1 Surround system with a good center speaker and sub-woofer in a rather large room. It actually sounds like the rounds are going through the house during the fire fights. Good thing I don't live in a sub-division. The audio is well mixed for that one.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

There was a major racial component influencing both sides of this war. One side, the American one, is dealt with extensively. The caricatures of the Japanese used in American propaganda of the period are well known. What seems to be lost sometimes is that the Japanese, almost universally, believed themselves to be superior to any other people on earth. Contempt and mistrust of all of the world outside Japan, combined with a lack of domestic supplies of vital raw materials, was the motivation for the attempt to create the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere", which would have been little more than a ring around the pacific that no power could penetrate, and allow Japan to draw the resources they needed without having to deal with any other nation. When this is considered, all of the barbarism displayed in China, Korea, the Philippines, and elsewhere makes sense, because their victims weren't worthy of anything else, because they weren't Japanese.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

Today Japan is a stalwart military ally of the USA. They host major military bases. They joined us in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was even a movement among their lawmakers to change their pacifist Constitution in order to help us more directly in the Middle East.

Today Japan is a counter to China and North Korea, proponents of democracy, and an excellent example of how hard work and capitalism can bring a country from utter devastation to the second largest economy in the world.

If you insist on looking back to history for atrocities, then there are plenty that the USA is guilty of too.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Anyway, I thought we were talking about how great these two TV series were!</span> When BoB came out it was simply epic. I remember that plus Saving Private Ryan together really changed the WWII drama. Prior to those, the genre seemed to be largely filled with cornball cheesiness, glorification, or happy-go-lucky stories. After SPR and BoB we've seen a shift to realism. Show the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and make it all look and sound real. I realize other people might just want a good yarn, but I appreciate grit.
 
Re: The Pacific and Band of Brothers

The Japanese response to defeat is also interesting. While the Japanese believed in the superiority of their emperor , it did follow that he who had conquered the emperor should replace him, so it's no surprise that after the war, American culture and a close connection to the US developed.