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Pretty hyped for this:

I need to get around to trying out the Pacific again. I loved Band of Brothers but the next series they did bounced right off me. This one looks great, though I'm surprised it isn't HBO. I wonder if Apple gave them more money.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I need to get around to trying out the Pacific again. I loved Band of Brothers but the next series they did bounced right off me. This one looks great, though I'm surprised it isn't HBO. I wonder if Apple gave them more money.

I had exactly the same thing back when it was released; I recently rewatched it, because it was on [insert streaming service here] and I actually really enjoyed it. The key thing, which isn’t really explained beforehand, is it’s actually three or four separate storylines about specific individuals, interweaved and with very little cross over (because those people didn’t meet in real life). Once you realise that’s what it’s doing, it’s much easier to watch and follow, but the lack of an essentially linear storyline about one group of people does lessen the impact compared to BoB.


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I’m really looking forward to this and hoping that they’ve done as good a job.

Also hoping it’s been long enough since my last Apple trial that I can get it without having to re-subscribe…

Will also chime in that Pacific was a harder watch then BoB. Took me 2 tries, and I think it was (as mentioned above) the split storylines, as well as just the nature of the Pacific theatre combat. Much more intense and merciless.

I liked The Pacific the first time around. More than Band of Brothers, actually. Though I agree it's probably easier to get into it if you know beforehand that you're following the Pacific campaign itself rather than a specific group of characters.

As for the flyboys, eh, not really my thing. Might give it a watch eventually, but it's hardly a priority.

 Geifer wrote:
I liked The Pacific the first time around. More than Band of Brothers, actually. Though I agree it's probably easier to get into it if you know beforehand that you're following the Pacific campaign itself rather than a specific group of characters.

As for the flyboys, eh, not really my thing. Might give it a watch eventually, but it's hardly a priority.

Which I think was why I didn’t get it the first time round; it was heavily marketed as a sequel to Band of Brothers, so you go into expecting the same thing, but with sunshine and palm trees.

 nels1031 wrote:
Will also chime in that Pacific was a harder watch then BoB. Took me 2 tries, and I think it was (as mentioned above) the split storylines, as well as just the nature of the Pacific theatre combat. Much more intense and merciless.

It's also the nature of the source material.

Band of Brothers was a curated history of a unit that focused explicitly on the 'upside' of war. Not denying the ugly side exactly, but Ambrose cut out a lot of the uglier episodes of the Easy Company story, reframed many personalities in a better light, and told the story of the unit as a whole rather than from a specific POV.

Most units in WWII didn't have such a history written about them, so you get to the Pacific which is based on two men's personal memoirs/biographies, plus the story of John Basilone. Because the series is told explicitly from the POV and memoirs of Lecky and Sledge, you get a far more intimate look at the soldier's experience and the war without Ambrose smoothing over the uglier and grittier parts or reframing them to be more tasteful.

If you, for example, read only the personal memoirs and biographies of individual Easy company men (Malarky has one of the most candid) you get a lot of what Ambros cut out and the story doesn't look so different from that told in the Pacific.

EDIT: and because I like to bring it up as a matter of habit; Ambrose liked making some men look better than others by slandering less popular Easy Company men, with Norman Dike being the now most infamous example. The series doesn't even try to mention he was shot 8 times through the chest at Foy, or that his frequent 'absences' were because he was given command of Easy but never relieved of his duties at Regiment, forcing him to split his time.

I found Generation Kill a better bookend to BoB than The Pacific, just from the view as a piece of media.

I have a feeling this will be more Pacific in it's telling than Band of Brothers. I mean, they show Tuskegee airmen and Red Tails in the preview so it looks more like a survey of the US allied air war than following one unit in the 8th Air Force.

 Easy E wrote:
I have a feeling this will be more Pacific in it's telling than Band of Brothers. I mean, they show Tuskegee airmen and Red Tails in the preview so it looks more like a survey of the US allied air war than following one unit in the 8th Air Force.

The series is said to follow the 100th Bomber Group based on a book by Donald Miller (and the book from what I can tell is Band of Brothers-ish in approach), who served in the European theater and would have run into the 332nd Fighter Group during the war. So the Tuskegee lads making an appearance might not be indicative of the format of the series but they served fighter escort a lot in the war so a series focused on B-17s featuring them makes sense.

Casual fan of aircraft movies, and this looks good. If it ever makes its way to BBC iPlayer I'll give it a spin.

To bad it is on Apple + so that I might never see it.

 Ahtman wrote:
To bad it is on Apple + so that I might never see it.

In the same boat.

Probs just subscribe when its fully released, along with the Monarch series that also coming soon on Apple+ and then cancel.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
To bad it is on Apple + so that I might never see it.

In the same boat.

Probs just subscribe when its fully released, along with the Monarch series that also coming soon on Apple+ and then cancel.

I suppose between Monarch and this one month isn't to much to ask.

I've been doing a lot of streaming hoping lately. Most only have a few things I want to watch at any given time so I just exhaust whatever's there in a month and catch up on the next channel.