I like WW2 movies and series. It's as close to understanding war as a civilian like myself will ever know. Serious shows anyways. My father was in the pacific for WW2 and could not stand the 60's comedy shows like Hogans Heros and such. He considered it a very disrespectful representation of reality.
Its good, but compared to Band of Brothers I think it suffers a little because it jumps around a lot and follows people who didn't serve together in a small unit like E Company. I think I enjoyed it more on a repeat watch when I didnt expect it to be BoB 2.0.
my father was a navigator for the Army Air Corps in the Pacific in WW2. I remember describing a clip i had watched of a bomber being downed and how cool it was. Suffice to say, he did not think it was very cool.
I remember my parents making those comments about Hogan's Heroes. It was a pretty bizarre idea for a comedy, but I watched it ... Certainly having been through a war would change your perspective on any of the 'entertainment' depictions. Whether they touched you deeply or offended you. A friend told me about a scene he witnessed at a John Prine concert: Two guys of Vietnam age were restless the whole show. Getting up, walking around, sitting back down ... Then Prine sang "Sam Stone" and they sat there in tears.
Yes I agree. BoB is the better series and I also went in thinking it would be like BoB. The Battle of the Bulge scenes were hard to watch but some of the scenes in The Pacific were just gruesome.
For those getting ready to watch The Pacific I'd highly recommend reading Seldge's book With the Old Breed first. This is one of the books used as a basis for the movie, and the book is considered one of the best memoirs from the war.
I read this pretty recently and agree. Gonna read the other guy's memoir pretty soon. There's a nice LOA edition that has Sledge's book and 2 other memoirs: World War II Memoirs: The Pacific Theater - Library of America
This was a decent read itself about post-WWII culture, but I think I got more book/media recommendations out of this than anything. So much stuff I've never heard of and was unfamiliar with.
It got me interested in learning more about men like Chesty Puller and Andrew Haldane, neither of whom I knew anything about.
He's not entirely off-base. When taken by itself, it was a very funny show. When taken in the context of the time it was broadcast, one can't help but question how much of it was inspired by the antiwar sentiment of the late 60s. I see your Exorcist and raise you the shower curtain scene in The Shining
Perhaps the best World War II documentary with an emphasis on the Pacific Theater. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMOJ05TrdIZA7pNQa5YjrHuPIDPdHPIod First episode Iwo Jima including footage of the Marines raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi.
I got a kick out of my dad when I bought my first Toyota. He commented about me buying a Japanese vehicle. I answered But dad you drive a Mercedes. His answer was I didn't fight the Germans I fought the Japs......That is why I say I don't think he ever forgave them for some of the brutalness he saw in the Pacific.
We had this old fellow at my church growing up. Everyone knew he was in the Navy in WWII. That is all we knew. Well at his funeral, his son, who lived out of state, talked about how he survived Pearl Harbor, then survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I never knew a time when this sweet old man didn't drive a Toyota.
not saying you are wrong, but I personally did not associate Hogan's Heros with hippies. And reality-based horror is always scarier than fiction-based horror.
Hogan's Heroes was about spoofing the Nazis. Werner Klemperer and his dad, the great Otto Klemperer, fled the Nazis. Robert Clary survived a concentration camp. John Banner left after Hitler annexed Austria. Same with Leon Askin. The show wasn't anti-war. It was anti-Nazi.
Great thread, @g8rtrucker - thanks for starting it. I watched BoB when it first came out on HBO (?). It was phenomenal. Each episode left me with that "Wow, what just happened?" feeling. Haven't heard of Pacific until today, but will try to watch it. I think others have answered this, but is it due to the violence? You're in for a treat. Thanks, just ordered it on Abebooks. . . along with a couple books on whiskey.
