I feel as though too many reviews and too many viewers are approaching HBO’s The Pacific as though it’s a chore. It’s not: If you watched the first episode this week, chances are, you’re in for next week, too, because it has tremendous narrative drive. While rightly noting that this 10-part series never shies away from the brutality of the World War II battles against Japan, the vividness of the carnage is neither excessively off-putting nor action-movie celebrated.
No, what came across in this week’s premiere and continues on through each succeeding episode is the tremendous psychological, as well as physical, strain that the war in the Pacific theater imposed upon everyone from the most low-ranking soldier to its higher-ranking strategists. Unlike Band of Brothers, made by many of the same people and led by producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, The Pacific doesn’t often offer the comfort of triumphant surges and comradeship under fire. It does something much trickier to pull off: It creates marvelous drama from a highly chaotic, confusing series of battlefields, and follows men who aren’t best buddies, but who are complex combinations of heroes, innocents, cynics, and damaged goods.
I don’t claim to have a lot of knowledge about this area of history, and the filmmakers can’t assume many viewers do. What I get from The Pacific strikes me as being “realistic” in the sense that, without having done research, I was convinced of it on the level of drama — of the sheer misery, fear, discipline, and bravery that commingled in an area characterized by one soldier as “jungle rot and malaria.” I’m also taken with the visuals. Director Tim Van Patten arranged a beautiful (there’s no other word for it, callous as it sounds) of, first, a big battle at night and then, the next morning, a shot of dead bodies floating in water.
The three main characters aren’t close friends, but rather fact-based men whose tales occasionally intersect, while holding up as individual narratives. James Badge Dale’s Leckie is brooding and literary and self-consciousnes and sensitive; he’s the kind of soul many of us wish we were or think we are. And it’s important in a grand historical spectacle like The Pacific to have characters you can latch onto, if not identify with. For others, it will be Jon Seda’s John Basilone, a more tough, gruff, and only on the surface less self-analytical man, who can perform heroic works without ever quite feeling he deserves to be considered a hero.
You see? The Pacific is already the kind of war story that draws you in on the strength of its characters while also making sure you get the details of Big Picture: Where these battles are being fought; how much more confusing, both tactically and morally, some of these missions seem than they were in Band of Brothers. That last is something I particularly appreciate about The Pacific – it’s as good at dramatizing the inner wars these Marines go through as it is at showing the hideous food they must eat, the sores and vermin that attack their bodies, the bullets and shrapnel that wounds them.
Am I in for the long haul. How about you?
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Right now just checking out the hardward. I looks pretty legit so far.
Agree, this show looks wonderful. Its about time more media is devoted to the Pacific conflict – THAT was where the US was most concerned with, not Europe. We were attacked by Japan, and our interests lay in defeating them primarily. Too much attention is paid to the European front – that story has been exhausted and overplayed.
Great stuff, I was a little dissapointed that the RCAF wasn’t represented; I did see the HMCS Uganda in the background. Oh well…
I heard somewhere that Tom Hanks was interested in doing a mini-series about the Aleutians next.
Do you know anything about history? 30 million people died in the European conflict and the Pacific conflict yielded nothing close to that amount. Hitler was the true issue at hand. We only became concerned with Japan after McArthur found that women and children were being trained for combat and Truman decided to drop the bomb. The European conflict was far worse a situation than Japan.
Eric, we only became concerned when McArthur found out about women and children being trained for combat? We were not concerned after the Pearl Harbor attack, when Wake fell, when Guam fell, when the Phillipines fell? Guess losing U.S. territory is no cause for concern, Germany never took any U.S. territory. We were concerned with Germany sooo much that the Battles of Coral Sea, Midway and all the battles around Guadalcanal were of no concern in 1942 since the first battle America fought in the European theater was North Africa in Nov 1942. Heck we didn’t even start daylight bombing until 1943. Yep the Pacific wasn’t a concern at all.
what i did not like about the first episode was that it did not show Pearl Harbor….at all. they didn’t give you that motive of why we went into Japan. i think we had more motive (as military) when we went to the Pacific, then when we went to Europe. I don’t know, i didn’t really like the first episode, i thought it made us look like we were blood thirsty, animals(Speaking of the part when 30 americans were trying to have target practice on a Japanese soldier). so hopefully the rest of the show isn’t like that. Et tu? Tom Hanks!!!! i’m going to call him Brutus from now on.
PS. THE HURT LOCKER IS VERY REALISTIC!!! are you a soldier? have you ever been to the middle east? so how do you know? if you are a soldier then you can say what ever you want.
I don’t agree either that the US was “most concerned” about Asia or that “the Europen conflict was far worse.”
As an ally of Germany, Japan had its own plans for the other half of the world, including something called the Fugu Plan, which was basically about shipping certain European Jews to Japan to use as slave labor, as they already did fellow Asians. The Japanese have had their own version of [racial] “superiority” theory (nihonjinron) throughout the 20th century.
Molly, I deployed twice to Iraq and served 11 years, the only thing the Hurt Locker got right was EOD disposes explosives in Iraq. I would have courts-martialed all 3 of them for their actions. Don’t even get me started on the prisoner shooting.
As we do not subscribe to HBO, we’ll wait for the DVD release. My Father, Staff Sergeant Donald C. Boyd, also served with the 32nd “Red Arrow” Division, 128th Infantry Regiment, Cannon Company. He fought on Leyte, Luzon, the Druiniumor River, and the Villa Verde Trail where he drove an M7 Priest, carried an M1 Garand, and was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism. He is currently recovering nicely at home in Swanton, Ohio from recent triple bypass surgery. A short interview and recent images of my remarkable Dad may be viewed at this link. http://carol_fus.tripod.com/army_hero_donald_boyd.html
Eric I dont think you know anything about history. China alone lost an estimated 10-20 million people. Japan estimated 3 million. India estimated 2 million. Dutch East Indies(Indonesia) estimated 3-4 million. Thats an estimated 18-29 million people, and I’m leaving out about 10 other countries. I’d say thats pretty significant.
Molly, I think you have somewhat missed the point of The Pacific. It sounds to me like you were expecting the sort of gung-ho, good will prevail over evil attitude that is present in Saving Private Ryan. You cannot accurately portray Guadalcanal without portraying the effect that war has on your humanity, in the same way that the power of Band of Brothers didn’t come mainly from not sanitising the violence, but by not sanitising the psychological destruction.
Re: Jean’s comment. Your Fugu Plan description is not very accurate according to what I’ve read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_Imperial_Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara According to these articles, the Imperial Japanese government actually PROTECTED Jews from the Nazis.
It’s funny (or sad, or both), that there are examples of German Nazis in China protecting Chinese people from imperial Japan (see the book “Rape of Nanking”), and on the other hand, examples of Imperial Japanese protecting European Jews from the German Nazis. Personally I think this has to do with how unfamiliar these groups were with each other. As the old saying goes, Familiarity breeds contempt. With few Jews in Asia for the Japanese to hate, and few Chinese in Europe for the Germans to hate, you can sort of see why such acts of compassion were possible in the first place.
Mike Around 60 million ppl died in ww2 before you throw out numbers do your research
Randy whats your point? Not once did I talk about the total number of people that died in WW2. Eric stated that “30 million people died in the european conflict and the pacific conflict yielded nothing close to that amount.” The point I was making to Eric was that a significant amount of people did die in the Pacific conflict. Those countries I stated and the ESTIMATED deaths were just a handfull of the countries involved in the pacific conflict. So next time Randy, do a little more reading before you post a comment.
I can see once again people are talking about WWII without knowing jack. After Japan attacked in the pacific the U.S. declared war and Germany declared war on the U.S. Now the funny part was the U.S. sent 30% if its forces to the Pacific and 70% to Europe. Now what is even better is that Germany only had 25% of its forces fighting the western allies while 75% fought in Russia. The Japanese never intended to fight a prolonged war and they were never a serious threat from day 1.
i didn’t like the pacific as much as band of brothers. i had a hard time getting to know and understand the characters and i thought the cast members that they picked were sub-par. they really watered down the grittiness of battle in southeast Asia. what was up with all that love story junk? in my opinion, romantic stories have no place in war dramas. they distract viewers from thinking about the emotional stress of losing people that you spend 24 hrs a day 7 days a week with in gunfire and bombings and torture. the Australia stuff was a stupid topic to bring up. just my opinion. P.S. from what i remember about my ww2 classes is their landing in Guadalcanal was inaccurately portrayed
Well Ken I don’t know if I am really into this yet. As much as I like Hanks and Speilberg there seems to be something missing from this sereis already. It is that brotherhood feeling that war creates between men. As you hand said that was a Band of Brothers thing. But that is part of what made Band of Brothers so great and genius because they were brothers. As the men of easy company would say Currahee! We Stand Alone Together
You are not going to see a band of brothers bond due to actual history. The bond in Easy Company came from the training while the 101st was being created and cemented further through the campaigns were they stayed pretty much together. The 1st MARDIV was an established division before the war and its regiments existed since WWI. Which means these Marines do not have the bond of creating an entity it was just their latest duty assignment. Also as new MARDIVs were created they took Marines out of the 1st and 2nd MARDIVs to make leadership cadres for the 3, 4, 5 and 6 MARDIVs. Add in the extremely high casualty rate, there once was a quote stating “there are no more 1st Marines” after an assualt I think on Iwo Jima (maybe mistaken on which island). Between the constant reshuffling of personnel and casualties you will not see Marines in the same company for more than 1 or 2 battles.
I don’t think you are correct about the 1st Marine Division being an established organization. While it has see service in the first World War it had been decommissioned and reactivated twice between the world wars, the regiment was re-formed in 1940 as a full-fledged artillery unit. Additionally, in his letters to my Mom, her brother, PFC John Rivers(1st Marines, 11th Battalion, Company H) explained the 1st Marine Division was being reformed after a twenty year hiatus. He went on to say the unit had been broken up in Cuba. He wrote to her from the New River Training Camp. PFC Rivers was awarded the Navy Cross for his part in the Guadalcanal Campaign. He, Cpl Lee Diamond and Pvt Al Schmid were responsible for eliminating over 200 Japanese soldiers during the Tenaru/Ilu River Battle(Diamond and Schmid were also awarded the Navy Cross). They weren’t mentioned in HBO’s mini-series. Instead, Lecke was shown running about shoring holes in the Marine line during the action. Never happened. Lecke participated in the fracas, however, on the far right flank. So much for the accuracy of the mini-series.
Those who are disappointed that “The Pacific” isn’t like BOB…remember the BOB episode “Replacements”? The new men never bonded as much as the guys who were there from the beginning. Well, in the Pacific Campaign during WW2, so many Marines were lost (killed and wounded) that they were constantly getting replacement troops, and thrown back into battle, they never really had time to become buddies like in the European Campaign.
i agree with you, i think thats what made band of brothers so enjoyable to watch because of the actual brotherhood you got to see grow with the men. Thats what i truly loved about the show because the men were not only looking out for themselves but for the whole company. really great show but i dont think the Pacific will be like that which i am sad about
It was good, but not yet as engaging as Band of Brothers. I found the narrative of the first episode to be very choppy and confusing… it took me until the end of the episode to realize that there are going to be 3 separate story lines unraveling. So far, I’m also not impressed with the dialogue… thought it was a little flat and kind of dull. But the visuals are of course impressive and the acting so far has been serviceable.
totally agreed. did not like any of the actors enough. the storylines were really messily put together. am not sure i will watch again.
yep i agree kind of confusing at first. I hope the three individual stories do get clearer as the show progresses. Im sure it will
so wish I had HBO just for this series. Guess I’ll have to wait for DVD
Not impressed with first installment. Very disappointed.
For the trifecta Hanks and Spielberg need to do a miniseries on the 319th (Col. Randy’s Flying Circus). They were stationed in N. Africa and were part of the invasions of Italy and Southern France.
Naw… The allies have been done to death. How’s about a series on a Wehrmacht unit? 1st or 2nd Panzer Division? Those guys were everywhere. There’d be an interesting dynamic between the Wehrmacht and the waffen SS. It’d definately be different. I knew a guy who fought in the Russian front, was wounded, and had to basically walk all the way back to Germany (he later surrendered to the Canadians, was taken to North America, and never went back).
right you are. there is a great series of books by a ‘hasselband’:'cross of iron’, ect about a german penal batallion. fantastic stuff.
i envy you having known thi veteran.
Personally i agree with you, a miniseries of the ‘ Germans.’ But simply put its too hard to ‘ sell ‘ , even though i doubt Tom Hanks and the production crew are in it for money, its just seems too biased for an predominantly American crew to try and write about the perspectives of Germans. Not all German troops were bad, but you mention the word WW2 Germany troop to the Western audiance, you wont get nearly as much engagement.
Either of those would be really interesting. I just want them to keep making these series.
This might sound strange, but I can’t help feeling a little envious when watching this, or Band of Brothers. These series are an incredible way to make history come alive, and I wish my own country (Canada) had the funds to do the same for watershed moments in our history (Juno Beach, Vimy Ridge…).
I’m sorry Natalie, but the CBC in the past 20 years have tried to move mountains when it comes to Canada’s Military History. I mean airing right now there is an excellent 6 part docu-series called Love, Hate and Propaganda about the use of propaganda during WWII narrated by George Stromoboulopoulos (from the Hour). As for TV miniseries, does no one remember Dieppe (1993) with Victor Garber about Canada’s greatest defeat during WWII or The Arrow (1997) with Dan Ackaroyd about the demise of the Canada’s biggest achievement in aviation. Yes these 2 projects didn’t have the budgets or scope as anything done by HBO but the fact that they were made desreves respect. I think before you start to make comments like that you should look into what the CBC had tried to do to preserve our history and respect it.
I was a bit distracted while watching, so I need to rewatch. But from what I saw, I agree with Kevin that I found the narrative a bit confusing. There were too many introductions and we were thrown right into the action, so I had a hard time figuring out who was who initially. I probably still wouldn’t realize there were three different stories if I didn’t look up some reviews. It was good though, and I’m definitely going to catch a repeat when I can watch it without other things going on around me.
There were about 10 minutes left when I started thinking, “Whatever happened to those 3 friends that celebrated Christmas together?” I might be wrong, but I don’t think we ever saw them again in episode 1.
They were in the group walking by Leckie’s company at the end. They were the one’s talking about how beat up Leckie’s company looked. It was a setup for next week.
Yup, you’re wrong Kevin.
I liked it cuz i expected to NOT be like band of brothers. I think people who expects it to be like BOB 2:the pacific will be really disappointed. Ken pretty much summarized waht its about and besides it’s only one episode.
I agree totally with dee!!! People are comparing it to BOB. The two are completely different, BOB focused on the brotherhood but in pacific its the war and the battles and the focuses on 3 different soldiers. Its the FIRST episode people!! U guys are jus nitpicking at the silliest things!! I thought it was great, the visuals were unreal.
Exactly! It demonstrates that the Pacific was an entirely different experience… and that’s the point! I don’t mind the segmented stories, because it’s reflective of the segmented nature of fighting on different obscure islands.
So far, so good. I am curious as to why Hanks and Spielberg continue to chronicle Marines in WW ll when the Army also played such a great role in both theaters. My dad was a sergeant in the Americal Division during their invasion of the Philippines in 1945 – he has numerous stories to tell that he has only been able to share in the last few years. They, too, went through hell! So, it wasn’t just the Marines!
Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers both chronicled the army. This is the first time they chronicled the Marines!
Band of Brothers was focused on the Army…it was the story of Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WWII Europe from Operation Overlord through V-J Day. My father, although not in WW2, was in the 101st during Vietnam but its kind of nice to get a perspective of the Marines as well. FYI: Saving Private Ryan and a movie released that same year, although not produced or made by Spielburg or Hanks, was also about the Army.
Right on Richard!!! My father served in the 32nd (Red Arrow) Division, 127th Infantry Regiment, Co. B & C. He served at Buna, the Villa Verde Trail, among other battles. From the research I am doing on these battles for a manuscript on his experiences, these battles were exactly the same hell as the Marines faced!! And, by the way, Buna was fought in roughly the same time frame as the Marines were fighting on Guadalcanal!
Army fought on Guadalcanal too (There’s a book/movie about it – The Thin Red Line). Lynn, what is your point? Hanks and Spielberg have done nothing but movies/shows about the army.
@Richard Van Hoose
Dude, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Saving Private Ryan = ARMY RANGERS and 101st Airborne. Both Army Units. DDAY – primarily Army operation.
Band of Brothers – 101st Airborne. Again, army unit.
Maybe I’m a little different, so might my perspective be. What happened in reality was new, day after day. D-Day would have failed without the Marines sharing mistakes. Every Island was new. Every defense of those was a new innovation. Shut the rest of the world off. Watch as these 19 year olds became our greatist generation. It is my hobbie, it is my passion, all of these stories, I have read them. America used to be like this. This is our non-fiction, these guys made this our America. Please watch with an American mind and learn what it is we take for granted. We will never feel hardships and desperation like they did to keep us from them. Thanks to those who out it on film. They show heroes.
Band of Brothers was focused on the army…it was the story of Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WWII Europe from Operation Overlord through V-J Day. My father, although not in WW2, was in the 101st during Vietnam but its kind of nice to get a perspective of the Marines as well. FYI: Saving Private Ryan and a movie, although not produced or made by Spielburg or Hanks, was also about the Army.
Sorry wrong post.
Saving Pvt. Ryan was directed by Spielberg.
He is referring to We Were Soldiers.
Also a great movie but about Vietnam.
@CTU Chief -
Who was comparing what to We Were Soldiers? Vietnam yes… also an ARMY movie.
I agree with Kris. Comparing it with Band of Brothers
Ok, so 3 is a charm, hanks and spielburg NEXT should do a series of the african american soldiers in WW11, like the tuskgee airmen, a lot of people forget about black soldiers in WW11, they did play a major part, I think that would be awesome
Umm, yeah, they should do a movie about African-American units in WWII, like the Tuskegee Airmen, in a movie called “The Tuskegee Airmen,” like the made for TV movie released in the 90′s by HBO? Perhaps we can just be satisfied with that film, since it is an incredibly told story, with great actors like Courtney B. Vance, Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher and John Lithgow.
i agree that The Tuskegee Airmen was great. but are you saying that since there is ONE film, that we (as in all Americans) should be satisfied with that?? if that was the case for these types of films, why did HBO make “the Pacific” (since white men fighting in WWII has been done already)?
on top of that, The Tuskegee Airman was a movie, not a series
isn’t george lucas producing that movie right now
It was great start to the series and the best thing is that we have 9 more weeks to look forward to!
While I really enjoyed Robert Leckie’s character, the rest of the episode was so-so. As others mentioned it was choppy. Also the Eugene Sledge story seemed to drag. Watching it with other people, some of whom know what he eventually does and some who do not, we all felt it dragged. For those of us who knew, we wanted it to get to the point, and those who didn’t lost interest. The initial Guadalcanal landing could have been more suspenseful as well. Still, an overall good, realistic, if slow, portrayal.
John:
The initial Guadalcanal landing was as it WAS, not how we wished it would have been or as “suspenseful” as any viewer might have wished. D-Day for Guadalcanal wasn’t like the Normandy invasion.