THE PACIFIC

Heavily looking forward to the series. I will miss the premiere due to me not being in on the day, but next day they repeat it at 10 PM which means I am watching it in HD on HBO, which we got just to watch it!

Won't this be on at the end of the month? And if we miss it, it should be an instant must-buy on blu, where it will really shine !!

I'm seeing and feeling a bit of The Thin Red Line in there, especially with the "Dear Vera" character voiceover. I got immediately taken back to Jim Caveziel's character in TTRL, minus the southern twang.

Pacific Theatre, as far as I know, was very different from the war in Europe. You didn't fight in towns there, so no urban warfare which was, I dare to say, much more predictable than what we see in The Pacific. And boredom until series of attacks, yeah. This is a very different beast because the war was a different beast.

The series are great and because it's made the way it is (I agree with lp here), the idea of making the score a sort of Coplandesque twist on The Thin Red Line makes much sense. Perhaps some of the visuals ([spoiler]the first episode is set in Guadalcanal which is of course the same place The Thin Red Line was set in[/spoiler]) were even inspired by Malick's movie. The voiceovers reminded me more of Ben Chaplin's character, maybe because it was in the form of letters.

Well, Kamen was simply better written. The score works rather well and it's nice to have some suspense setpieces. In case of that particular theatre it makes sense, because, as far as I know it, simply the wait for "action" was much, much longer and there were many false alarms. Not so much in Europe.

Looking forward to seeing it as well. There is something about war movies or series that it grips you by the throat in a way that no other genre can do. A good realistic war film is a bit like the ultimate horror film IMO. Only the horror comes from man itself.

With this and Saving Private Ryan coming out on blu, I'll have my share of horror to go through soon.

The Pacific is more about horror of war than SPR was. It deals A LOT with how the horrors of war influence a single soldier. Without spoiling anything, I think it's shown the best with Eugene Sledge's storyline, a character that particularly struggles to stay human during the course of the war (and interestingly the character who voiced his will to go to fight himself).

Don't let Zimmer's main theme honorability fool you. It's completely not about heroism. The series was what I hoped for. I've read a bit on the war on Pacific and I was shocked that (before the series) nobody went to make an SPR treatment of that war.

I am happy to see that The Pacific was really The Thin Red Line meets Saving Private Ryan. Again, without spoiling anything. The Thin Red Line (my all-time favorite movie AND score, one I value even more knowing that it gave me very nice contact with Hans Zimmer himself) is a movie about horrors of war. Who read my article knows, the omnipresent fear, the discussions on evil happening. The movie is more about mental violence than physical. One of things that always shock me and move to the core in The Thin Red Line is the depiction of Japanese soldiers. Americans are simply scared shitless, constantly. The Japanese prisoners are on verge of madness.

Pacific has that. Pacific has a thing which I feared they might have not shown - the American treatment of the Japanese - NOT very good. This is particularly shocking in one episode about Peleliu and I am very happy that they actually depicted that particular battle.

Great series. No, it's not Band of Brothers. It never planned to be a simple rehash of that in the jungle. This is a series showing war is worse than hell. That war destroys people who are soldiers. This is more of a psychological drama than typical war series. Whoever expects constant fighting, misses the point.

The score, being a slightly more Americana twist on Zimmer's TTRL sound, fits very well and the nature of the series demands that kind of sound. I would say that Zimmer's Iwo Jima piece is the best I've heard in the whole series. I also have a thing for Zanelli's Peleliu/Sledge's theme, even if it sounds like a variation on Crimson Tide turning into a variation of The Thin Red Line's Light (the latter may be the theme's appeal to me ).

Not *as good* as Band of Brothers (these series had it easier, because the whole Easy Company was a character in and of itself, The Pacific has some problems at the beginning with establishing who is who, it gets better when it starts concentrating on Sledge only during the war scenes), but great in its own merits. The score is good to very good, but again can't compare to Band of Brothers. The best of Geoff Zanelli is far from the best of Michael Kamen. Anyway, amazing.

I would love to discuss some of the series in a more detailed way, but I guess that will demand serious spoiler tags

WW2 was the biggest event in all of History, there's tons of stories to come and which I would welcome.

But yeah, I'd also welcome a Vietnam mini series.

It may be sometimes too heavy for a marathon.

You underestimate my ability to consume this kind of thing.

I hope it is screened over here. I liked BAND OF BROTHERS, but wasn't head over heels about it, as many others.

I kinda agree. I'm not too keen on Vietnam films either. Heck, not any of the "American" wars. I'd prefer, as you, one of the contemporary conflicts, that mostly has a more global involvement and not restricted to one or a few countries fighting in a wartorn area.

And of course the American Civil War. I'll put Iraq in there too, even though it has an international presence.

I would like more war films from non-American eyes.

Australia fought in both wars, so they're not entirely American either.

ALL stories are variations on a theme.

Still, if you're bored then simply don't watch them, end of.