The Pacific: The Complete Series [DVD] [2010]

Would recommend a watch

As with Band of Brother which is from the same Hanks/Spielberg stable this is a historically accurate and absolutely captivating drama. The story of the US forces, and particularly that of the US Marines, follows their progress through the Pacific campaign to overtake islands held by the Japanese. The action and battle sequences, like those in Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan are so realistic (if we're allowed the luxury of imagining how horrific battle would be) as to be edge-of-the-seat gripping and quite frightening. We're left in no doubt about the fear, the suffering and the horror of battle, it is brought real into our living rooms.The story, as far as the main characters are concerned, follows the trials and strife of a few real-life soldiers from the campaign, one of whom may be the bravest soldier of the twentieth century. In any other era of film making, we could be forgiven for assuming that the exploits had enjoyed some Hollywood over-dramatisation; not so, if anything, the heavily decorated John Basilone was even braver in real battle and real life than he is portrayed in this mini-series - I looked into his sadly short career on Google. Suffice to say that the producers have not exercised any moviemaking license or dramatic hyperbole in the making of this series, and they needn't have done, the truth is startling and frightening enough.The characters are well drawn, youthful, callow as the teenagers and frightened as the young soldiers of WWII would have been. There is no schmaltz, no tackiness in sketching the relationships, even when playing out the brief romance and even briefer marriage of Basilone.Shot in low saturated colour, the photography gives the movie a feel of the period, a period of history which we all think of as having taken place in black and white and which makes us uncomfortable with livid technicolor. Each episode is so captivating and seems so short (though they are not) that I challenge you not to watch at least two episodes on the trot.A fabulous dramatic roller coaster and I recommend it to you.

When I heard that Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg had teamed up again to make the miniseries The Pacific, I was thrilled. Now that I've watched it in its entirety (over just two and a half days!), I can honestly say that it's a must-see piece of work. It's a masterpiece. As other reviewers have rightfully said, there's considerable contrast between this and Band Of Brothers. Is one better than the other? I don't think it's possible to say, because it's like comparing chalk and cheese. Both are 5 star + achievements, incredible memorials to the men who served and died in Europe and the Far East during World War Two. Both bring us the stories of real soldiers, real heroes, and what happened to them.One of the main attractions of this series is that it tells us of the incredibly savage battles that took place across the Pacific as the Japanese were gradually dislodged from the thousands of tiny islands that they've occupied. This is a little known aspect of the war, which deserves to be more widely known. Shocked by the brutality of one particular battle, on an island called Peleliu (now part of the nation of Palau), I did some research, discovering that the struggle on Peleliu had indeed been savage beyond measure. It is in fact regarded as the most difficult battle that the US armed forces fought in WW2. Worse than D-Day! It took more than two months to gain control of an island just 5 square miles in area, and the Marines lost thousands and thousands of men.I've seen some great films about the war in the Pacific, among them the outstanding Flags of our Fathers & Letters from Iwo Jima, directed by Clint Eastwood, and Kokoda - 39th Battalion, about the Australian experience in Papua New Guinea. But nothing could prepare me for the relentless assault on the senses that is the Pacific. Buy it. It's unforgettable.Footnote: if you want to read more on the subject, two of the soldiers who were portrayed in the series wrote about their experiences. I've bought both books already. They are: Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge (for me the outstanding character of the series). I can't wait to read them.Ben Kane, author of The Forgotten Legion.

Worth watching

But that’s no great shame and still well worth watching. The visuals (occasional obvious CGI aside) and sound are top notch and won’t disappoint.My biggest criticism of The Pacific is that the story is a little fragmented. It’s not that it is particularly difficult to follow, rather that it lacks a sense of overall cohesion. When characters appear and then disappear I feel it takes a lot of momentum out of the series.It also could have benefited from a bit more exposition and background information. I knew the Iwo Jima episode was going to be a meat grinder, for example, but I would guess the context and significance (or lack thereof depending on your view) would be lost on a lot of viewers. For better or for worse these types of programmes are important history lessons for some people, and I think a few seconds of an island-hopping map graphic at the start of each episode is too limited and a missed opportunity.That said, the last episode is arguably the pick of the bunch. It’s an episode set after the fighting is over but in many ways it hits the hardest, with the knockout delivered at the final credits when you see the real people who were being portrayed in the series and what happened to them after the war. For me, the final episode grasped a bunch of loose hanging threads and made something great out of them.