After watching The Pacific, I felt BOB glamorized WW2
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blisteringlogic — 11 years ago(December 19, 2014 12:16 AM)
One of the characters in the series put it best- something to the effect "I was at Normandy on D-Day, but I had liberty in Paris- You gi-rines had to slog through the jungle with rot and malaria"
I just learned how to use the "Spoiler" button -
jd-276 — 12 years ago(December 17, 2013 04:12 AM)
I think one of the things a lot of people have trouble recognising about
The Pacific
is that it is anti-war. I'm not saying that
Band of Brothers
is pro-war and I'm not sure "glamourized" is the best word but there is a very different feel to both. I take your point.
I also think a lot of people confuse the anti-war message with being pro-Japanese or PC or something else which it is not. If you watch the series more than once, it is unmistakeable. I think this puts it apart from most war movies or series because it goes down a path that few producers would be brave enough to take. -
Ace_Blazer — 12 years ago(February 02, 2014 04:29 PM)
I think one of the things a lot of people have trouble recognising about The Pacific is that it is anti-war. I'm not saying that Band of Brothers is pro-war and I'm not sure "glamourized" is the best word but there is a very different feel to both. I take your point.
I also think a lot of people confuse the anti-war message with being pro-Japanese or PC or something else which it is not. If you watch the series more than once, it is unmistakeable. I think this puts it apart from most war movies or series because it goes down a path that few producers would be brave enough to take.
Why does something have to be "anti-war" or "pro-war"? Why can't people just take things for what they are? If they made a WWI series which just showed mud and decomposing corpses mixed with constant artillery barrages would I try to compare that to BoB and come to the conclusion that BoB is less "anti-war"? Stop trying to infer these black and white interpretations. -
jd-276 — 12 years ago(February 02, 2014 06:58 PM)
Stop trying to infer these black and white interpretations.
Mate, that's you, not me.
I made it pretty clear that
Band of Brothers
didn't necessarily go one way or the other. All I did was offer the opinion that
The Pacific
was anti-war because that's what I think it is. -
Ace_Blazer — 12 years ago(February 02, 2014 09:32 PM)
Anti-war is a dumb label, like many other over-simplifications about movies and TV shows that fail to convey what the subject matter is about. You're looking more along the lines of a closer look at the visceral and intense experience of the infantryman's war. This one happened to be more awful because what those Marines went through was literally hell, and one of the worst places to fight in in the whole war. Anti-war does not describe this series correctly. Technically all war movies can be interpreted as anti-war or whatever generalizing type of terms you want to call them.
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jd-276 — 12 years ago(February 02, 2014 11:22 PM)
Anti-war is a dumb label, like many other over-simplifications about movies and TV shows that fail to convey what the subject matter is about.
You've got to be kidding?
You're looking more along the lines of a closer look at the visceral and intense experience of the infantryman's war. This one happened to be more awful because what those Marines went through was literally hell, and one of the worst places to fight in in the whole war.
You think I don't know this? Yep. Sounds like an anti-war message to me.
Anti-war does not describe this series correctly.
You're the one using adjectives like "dumb", "over-simplifications" and "generalizing". "Correct" is just another value judgement in your ever-tightening circle of argument.
Please enlighten us as to what is "correct" and what is not.
The OP posed a question. I gave my opinion. -
joekinplaya — 11 years ago(April 04, 2014 02:14 PM)
Anti-war? I dunno so much about it being anti-war but more of focusing on PTSD because right after they did this, they also produced War Torn documentary about PTSD. The name is Pacific because it was the beautiful looking hell they had to endure and the nightmare followed them home. That's what this entire mini-series touches on. And at the end Sledge pretty much gets interested in Biology and such but the nightmares and terrors still continued pretty much the rest of his life.
It's not pro-Japanese either because it shows you what the Japanese soldiers do to POW's with the genitals in his mouth in the 1st episode. Things like that and what's already known by the general public like the Rape of Nanking and how they pretty much raped and pillaged every country they occupied. Now there were many good men but it'd be wrong to try to bring good vs bad into a topic about war. -
murph24 — 12 years ago(December 18, 2013 08:05 PM)
On a few occasions I actually found myself wanting to be in one of the soldiers' shoes, and found myself thinking that would be an epic thing to live through. I enjoyed watching the majority of the episodes (even somewhat the episodes depicting The Battle of the Bulge), and couldn't wait for the next one to come out. Especially during the early episodes. Maybe it was because of the 'success' of Easy Company, but I felt like things where too organized and clean for the most part.
An epic thing to live through? Too organized and clean? I'm amazed that anyone who watched Joe Toye and BIll Guarnere getting their legs shot off, Ed Tipper having his eyeball blown out of its socket, Chuck Grant suffering permanent brain damage after getting shot in the head, John Julian being cut down by machine gun fire so intense no one can retrieve his body, Eugene Jackson slowly dying from friendly fire injuries after a meaningless POW grab in Haguenau, or the company stumbling across a nightmarish concentration camp (this, by the way, is just a partial list) would claim that
Band Of Brothers
"glamorized WW2." -
nickm2 — 12 years ago(December 18, 2013 10:25 PM)
I'm amazed that anyone who watched Joe Toye and BIll Guarnere getting their legs shot off,
Right; when Joe & "Wild Bill" were maimed & when Muck & Penkala were 'vaporized' by that artillery shell & Buck cracked under the strainthey were guys we'd spent 'several episodes' with getting to know & probably like-to see that happen to them, that was like a punch in the gut. -
kingbiscut33 — 12 years ago(December 21, 2013 10:11 AM)
While those parts where depressing and difficult to watch, it wasn't enough to leave an impression on me like The Pacific did. IMO The Pacific just did a much better job overall of depicting the horror of an event like WW2. Even the music did a better job of setting the mood with a wiry, horror movie-esque sound.
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murph24 — 12 years ago(December 21, 2013 11:03 AM)
I can understand someone stating that the events depicted in
The Pacific
were more harrowing than those seen in
Band Of Brothers;
it's the claim that
Band Of Brothers
"glamorized WW2" that's difficult to accept. The carnage Easy Company veterans dealt with created profound emotional problems for them in later years; there was nothing "glamorous" about the events they lived through (which were later dramatized for the miniseries). -
kingbiscut33 — 12 years ago(December 26, 2013 01:06 PM)
I'm not saying the events they lived through are glamorous at all. That's exactly my point is it should have not been presented in a way in which it feels glamorous in any way (and as I said The Pacific does a much better job at not doing this). Further, I felt HBO glamorized the events for the series, though 'dramatized' may have been a better word.
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murph24 — 12 years ago(December 26, 2013 06:31 PM)
Further, I felt HBO glamorized the events for the series, though 'dramatized' may have been a better word.
Well, both
The Pacific
and
Band Of Brothers
"dramatized" events, because they're both dramatic works. But I still don't see how the word "glamorize" could be used to describe
Band Of Brothers
and its depiction of WW2. The word "glamorize" means "to make (something) seem glamorous or desirable," and I just don't see how the vivid carnage of Carentan or Nuenen, or the freezing misery of Bastogne, or the discovery of a concentration camp in Landsberg (to take just a few examples) "glamorizes" WW2 or the experiences of Easy Company.
Essentially, dramatic structure and setting are the elements that separate the two shows.
Band Of Brothers
tells the story of a single company and the soldiers in its ranks, and that "single company" coherence gives the show a dramatic unity
The Pacific
simply doesn't achieve - and couldn't, because the latter follows different soldiers from different companies. Which doesn't make
The Pacific
inferior in any way; it just means the show has its own unique identity. Also different is the fact that
Band Of Brothers
is about the
esprit de corps
that existed within Easy Company, something that could be seen as a silver lining to the lethal cloud of war they lived under. Sledge's
With The Old Breed
may be the most harrowing account of an American soldier's experiences in WW2, and much of that is due to the fact that Sledge lived through some of the most harrowing events in the Pacific theater of war. But
esprit de corps
isn't the focus of
The Pacific;
on the other hand, it's what
Band Of Brothers
is all about.
And this is the point that I, and a few other posters in this thread, have been trying to make - that while
Band Of Brothers
examines story elements that aren't seen in
The Pacific,
it doesn't necessarily follow that
Band Of Brothers
"glamorizes" WW2; it simply tells a different story. -
irishpisano — 11 years ago(April 27, 2014 04:59 PM)
i just finished binge-watching BOB yet again and it does not glamorize war. while it does not show war as a 100% purely evil horror, it does show the effects that war has on people, and the suffering that people endure from it
God does not build in straight lines. -
Sekraan — 11 years ago(March 04, 2015 01:22 AM)
I find this interesting, as espirit de corps featured prominently in
With The Old Breed
. It was far and away the greatest asset to Marines struggling to endure unimaginably hellish circumstances, utterly incomprehensible to those of us fortunate enough not to have been subjected to it.
You may recall the particularly harrowing depictions of the environment in Okinawa during the siege of the Shuri ridge (or was it the preceding defensive line?). Between the incessant artillery and mortar barrage and ever present sniper fire the Marines could not collect their dead. The stench of decomposing bodies and horrific hygienic conditions and mental breakdown over constant bombardment were all terrible, and I find myself viscerally sick trying to conjure the mental picture. But what I found interesting is Sledge's horror at the Marine bodies left rotting in the fields, unable to be retrieved. He had become increasingly numbed to the atrocities and living conditions, but the sight of dead Marines left out there is what almost broke him (I think at one point he talks about recurring nightmares out on the battlefield where the dead rise and stalk towards him).
Over the course of the campaigns Sledge grows increasingly numb to the brutality and carnage around him. But what strikes me is the sheer anguish leaping from the page whenever he talks about see his Marine brothers in harms way and not being able to do anything about it (they are too far away, or particularly tragic when he can't shoot lest he risk hitting his buddies). The overwhelming helplessness, shame, anguish, hatred, disgust. Very few mentions, each in succinct and sparse prose. And yet the emotional impact, trying to put myself in his frame of mind, is devastating. I feel that these experiences of helplessness in the face of mortal peril to his comrades were among the most scarring to him.
It was a disappointment to me too that this did not come across so well in the final production. After reading the memoirs upon which the series is based I rewatched it and found it much more compelling knowing the background, for Sledge in particular.
There were several factors that likely diminished this essential facet of Marine life in the mini-series.
*One is that many of the horrific acts perpetrated by Marines were attributed to unnamed individuals in Leckie's and Sledge's memoirs, so as to not dishonor their memory. Due to the constraints of TV storytelling these had to be ascribed to named characters (SNAFU got hit the hardest I think).
*Two, Leckie and some others who documented their experiences didn't have the same sense of belonging. Leckie was insubordinate, capricious, spent time in the brig and was demoted several times. His view of the officers in particular engendered a more antagonistic perspective than the more sympathetic Sledge
*Three, it's just not possible to fully capture this phenomenon through film (in the context of such vicious prolonged combat). The Marines are haggard and mentally and physically gone much of the time. Overt expressions of comraderie discernable to audiences aren't very realistic. They might not understand how crucial and fundamental the bond of trust between them was to their continued survival (both mental and psychological). The fact that if a Marine went down 4 stretcher bearers and a corpsman would go out and get him, knowing full well that the Japanese wanted to draw them out and kill them, because they had absolute faith that any of their comrades would do the same. I agree the show could've done a better job though.
Back in the real world, Eugene Sledge mentions esprit de corps and how it sustained him and his brethren many times in his memoir. His remarks at the very end say it better than I ever could. I'll let him have the last word.
Then on 15 August 1945 the war ended. We received the news with quiet disbelief coupled with an indescribable sense of relief. We thought the Japanese would never surrender. Many refused to believe it. Sitting in stunned silence, we remembered our dead. So many dead. So many maimed. So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past. So many dreams lost in the madness that engulfed us. Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy, the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a war without war.
.
My happiness knew no bounds when I learned I was slated to ship home. It was time to say goodbye to old buddies in K/3/5. Severing the ties formed in two campaigns was painful. One of America's finest and most famous elite fighting divisions had been my home during a period of most extreme adversity. Up there on the line, with nothing between us and the enemy but space (and precious little of that), we'd forged a bond that time would never erase. We were brothers. I left with a sense of loss and sadness, but K/3/5 will always be a part of me.
.
War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste. Combat leave an indelibl -
iresheen — 10 years ago(May 12, 2015 04:00 PM)
Both series were dramatised versions of true events the creators had a lot of access to, and both did a very good job of portraying those events sticking relatively close to the facts (though, obviously, there were deviations).
Therefore, saying that The Pacific did a better job of depicting the horror of WW2 or the horror of war is like saying that Band of Brothers did a better job of depicting the war in Europe, or saying that American Sniper did a better job than either of those two series of depicting modern warfare.
It's a meaningless comparison, and I don't see how it could possibly be used as a criticism of Band of Brothers.