The Pacific

[ando]

There are several directors credited with this HBO mini-series, which may contribute to what some critics of the series call a lack of cohesion. Some have given it glorious praise and others have deemed it Anti-American (revisionist, even communist). Tonight is my first viewing of the film (HBO DVD edition, main feature: 1.78 : 1) but I was curious about what people on this board felt about it. People, naturally, compare it to Band of Brothers (same producers, for the most part) but I'm hoping it's not just a pacific theater version of that film.

[Roger Ryan]

THE PACIFIC is much darker than BAND OF BROTHERS, but I wouldn't say it is any less cohesive than that series. THE PACIFIC borrows heavily from Malick's THE THIN RED LINE and, like in that film, the characters are more isolated. While alliances form, the group of soldiers we follow are not really a "band of brothers", but loners who each respond to the horrors in a different way. Whereas the first series viewed WWII, more or less, as a just cause with a clear goal in mind, the second series portrays the cause as more ambiguous, the goals less clear. I don't know if this is what caused critics to call THE PACIFIC "revisionist", but I found the series offered a good balance to the perspective put forth in BAND OF BROTHERS.

[TMDaines]

I stopped watching around episode 5 or 6. I went away and when I came back I had no desire to catch up. I loved Band of Brothers and thought it as fantastic. This I just found dull and had no emotional attachment to the main characters. I remember thinking the special effects were shoddy in places too i.e. when the giant ocean liner is at port in Austrailia.

[ando]

Speaking of CGI, I can't help but think that the creators gave more than a nod to he massively popular Call of Duty video game series (perhaps to attract a younger audience?). In the obligatory Making of The Pacific the creators talk about the "experiential" nature of the series and the "massive amount of research" to get at the truth of what it was like to actually engage in combat. (This, of course, smells like an attempt to steer clear of any political implications which would seem an impossible feat for a war film.)

I've always felt that the combat scenes were the least compelling aspects of war movies. To me it's everything around them, that informs them, that influences them that makes the experience interesting. Perhaps it's the lack of back-story that contributes the non-engagement in the individual plights of the marines in this film.

I'm soon to commence with part 3 of the series and I must say that I find the writing flat out hackneyed. Some of it seems to come right out the aforementioned video game. If there was a serious attempt at getting a good writer to adapt this material the English language, in the hands of the latest generation of Hollywood writers, has taken a real nosedive.

________________________

The language in part 3 improves, but not by much and to what avail? Greek American author, George Pelecanos, and Michelle Ashford are credited as writers of this Melbourne episode (directed by Jeremy Podeswa ), which, as many have noted, seems like a sidetrack. I suppose that if the writing (and directing, for that matter) was exceptional and the actors were changed it would seem to be a different film altogether. The 1st Marine Division is on leave for the entire episode during which time you'd expect a bit more psychological insight into the motivations of the main characters. But the entire episode plays like a Hallmark card.

The Greek family that PFC Robert Leckie suddenly finds himself tied to is so touchingly obliging and simple (Zoe Carides' performance as Mama Karamanlis, ironically, the most compelling in the series thus far), offering nothing in the way of dramatic tension or psychological counterpoint to Leckie or any of the other enlisted men (who are mostly drunk or asleep or reluctantly accepting the Medal of Honor) that one wonders where the story of the story is supposed to be. One might grasp for the father/son that he never had theme but it isn't especially developed.

I admire Leckie's stubborn prowess, in general, but other than courting the Greek babe we don't get to see some of his other exploits. How did he manage to get her the silk stockings? How did he finagle a leg of lamb for the family when the fiesty, charming Mama Karamanlis couldn't? These are pretty important details when observing a character. OK, these guys are loners but the writers are keeping them away from the audience as well. I'm not sure this strategy works.

Hope we're back at war in part 4.

[ando]

Despite my griping the cinematography in this series is stellar:



An unmistakable WWII Pacific Theater image. So much of what is published of actual operations is black & white stock. And colorized photography is anathema to me. The visuals (and some of the acting which, fortunately, gets better) really save the series.