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- HBO
- Mar 14, 2010
- HBO
- Mar 14, 2010
Summary From the creative team behind Band of Brothers comes this ten-hour miniseries tracing three American marines as they fight World War II in the Pacific. The series was shot on location in Australia, and is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks television.
- HBO
- Mar 14, 2010
- HBO
- Mar 14, 2010
Summary From the creative team behind Band of Brothers comes this ten-hour miniseries tracing three American marines as they fight World War II in the Pacific. The series was shot on location in Australia, and is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks television.
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Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
86
84% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
16% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
86
84% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
16% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The Pacific never feels like anything less than a cohesive whole. It's really a remarkable piece of television. I know what I'm doing for the next 10 Sunday nights.
It will repay you with a brutal but eloquent story that's finally less about how men fight and die than what happens to them when they fight and survive. It will show you how character and sheer, unfair randomness combine to produce cruelty or decency. And it will make you feel deeply for the men who return.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 164 User Ratings
7.5
81% Positive
133 Ratings
133 Ratings
6% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Negative
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 164 User Ratings
7.5
81% Positive
133 Ratings
133 Ratings
6% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Negative
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
In contradiction to all other user, I have to disagree with most users. The Pacific was a good mini-series. You cannot compare the two as the war against Japan was different from the war against the **** militarily, geographically and psychologically. I think that the war in Europe was honoured more than the war in the Pacific. Therefor I pledge that "The Pacific" is a great representation of the war against Japan. Most people think that this war was as simple as fighting in the civilian cities. Yet most forget that these Marines had to endure the fears of the jungle and the discourage of the never surrendering **** who creaved US blood.
The Pacific portrayed the agony of noncombat, the terror, disease, hostile weather, the asian families fleeing battle, torturing of their enemy and the desperate attempt of dieing Marines begging for their lives. This gives us a good view of the scenarios of moral dilemmas people faced during the war.
(SPOILER ALERT) Example:
The next day they move forward, and Sledge and Snafu watch as their fellow Marines slaughter all the Japanese they come across using bullets, flamethrowers, tank rounds. Sledge seems more disconnected and monstrous than Snafu as he witnesses the gory nightmare around him. He barely takes cover as a nearby explosion happens. When a Japanese soldier attempts to take him by surprise Sledge cuts him down with barely a thought. Snafu watches his friend kill with a look of shock.
As they're walking by a hut, they hear a baby crying. "Might be a trap," Sledge says, but after a moment, they go inside anyway. They discover the baby crying by the breast of his dead mother. The woman's body has been blown open by an explosion. Sledge realizes that this hut is much like the one he ordered the squad to hit, and looks at the hole in the ceiling in cold horror. Snafu tries to reassure him that a lot of mortars were fired up there, but it does nothing to comfort Sledge. Another man walks in, sees the baby, asks them what's their problem is, and scoops up the infant in his arms.
Snafu turns and leaves and Sledge walks behind him until he hears the soft breathing and voice of woman pleading from another corner of the hut. He follows the noise and sees an older woman, her face swollen and purple, struggling to breathe and repeating something to him softly. Sledge at first takes aim at her, then lowers his rifle. Struggling, her jaw slack, she lifts the cloth on what remains of her shirt and shows him her wound: She's been blown in half. She reaches for the muzzle of his rifle and guides it to her forehead with one hand, then mimes with the index finger of her other hand that he should pull the trigger.
Sledge almost does, then stops himself. He slowly puts down the gun, eases to the floor next to the woman, reaches over and cradles her in his arms, stroking her hair. She stares up at him and breathes a few more gasps. She pulls her face into his neck in a deep embrace, and as she stops breathing, she drops a child's toy that makes a jingling noise as it hits the ground.
End
Nonetheless Band of Brothers and The Pacific are both very good mini-series about war. However they should not be compared since it wouldn't be fair to undermine their importance and respect they earned. Not to forget the follow-up on these series will be "Masters of the Air".
I think it's safe to say that this mini-serie was a succes for what they where aiming to achieve on-screen from visual effects to the emotions put into the series. At the end of the season we get a review of the US Marines who served in the war, may they be honored for their service and rest in peace.
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SEASON 1
When this show first got announced, I knew Band of Brothers would be something very tough to surpass. Although the Pacific isn't better than BoB its is still an incredible movie/show to watch. On its own accord this film is great and is easily one of my favorite movie/shows of all time.
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SEASON 1
From this, you will gain a keen understanding of what lies beneath those endless rows of markers at any military cemetery. This is an honest and often magnificent tribute to the 1st Marine Division.
The Pacific is as brutally simple and direct--and as oblivious to modern PC sensibilities--as the Marine's letter. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, this 10-part HBO miniseries is a loving but anguished tribute to the men who fought on the bloody island hellholes that comprised World War II's Pacific theater.
Obvious or not, I watched most of the 10 episodes without the scene-setters and was occasionally lost. But if the battles aren't always distinctive, the characters are.
Ultimately, what a series like this aims to do is to pay homage to the marines who sacrificed their lives. The Pacific succeeds at that task, asking its audience to imagine what those battles must have been like from the ground level, and for that alone, it's worth watching. But The Pacific fails by trying to wrest big emotional moments from its already compelling narrative.
What the production most sorely lacks, though, is a strong sense of cohesion, which often makes the hours play more like loosely assembled snapshots of the war without a compelling hook to pull the audience along. Nor do any of the key performers really distinguish themselves, dwarfed as they are by the general sense of pageantry--the sound and fury--that usually surrounds them.
Very powerful and moving series. Yes it lacks the character focus of BoB but that wasn't the point of the Pacific. No other war related movie or series comes close to showing the first person experience of battle and the toll it takes on everyone like this one. The Pacific's main focus was on the personal experiences of its characters and how it affected and changed them in a very dramatic and terrible way. Because of this its very dark and ominous. The cheerful reverence and respect to veterans that BoB gave is replaced by the dark, haunting feelings and experiences that would stay with the characters for the remainder of their lives. Viewers will really begin to understand why ww2 vets never liked talking about their experiences in battle and how it permanently changed their lives for the worse and those with similar experiences will understand very strongly what they're attempting to portray. Basically the Pacific says "war is hell" and it will haunt you for the rest of your life. The music plays a key role in depicting the feelings they experienced. So if you want to see through all the praise and hoopla given to war vets marching to "To the halls of Montezuma..." and see it all through their eyes I would recommend nothing other than this series. You will see how in the end every single one of them who experienced battle and survived had still in a way sacrificed their lives. They lost they're ability to live a normal life and had it replaced with one haunted by their past. In the end you will respect them so much more for what they did.
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SEASON 1
First and foremost: though this may have been made by the same people who made Band of Brothers, and in the same HBO 10-part mini-series, this cannot be compared to Band of Brothers.
I say this, because the Pacific seeks to tell the story of the Pacific Theater of WWII, a much longer, complex, and larger part of the war as a whole. In 10 episodes, this series goes from 1941 to 1946 (whereas Band of Brothers takes place over the span of about 500 days). In addition to this, The Pacific focus solely on the Marine Corps involvement in the war, and (I believe, given the chosen stories told) there was no one individual nor company of men that fought in every major battle throughout the war. Thus, we end up with three characters--all Marines--that had over-lapping careers in combat.
The scope of this part of the war alone does not allow for the same kind of character build that Band of Brothers had, and furthermore the war in the Pacific was significantly more costly and grizzly than the European one entirely. In the Pacific, we're fighting for islands with cave systems. One amphibious land invasion at a time.
It's brutal, it's honest, and it really makes you question the price that is paid to fight wars.
However, for a show that sets itself up to be "the definitive series to cover the Pacific war," this series, by most accounts, fails because that theater was just so huge. If it weren't for the fact that this was branded as a follow-up to Band Of Brothers, and its title was, "The Pacific," (something else that is more accurate to the limited, but respectable scope this story tells) then I would be more kind in critiquing it.
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SEASON 1
Technically perfect, but more disjointed and much less engaging than the fantastic Band of Brothers. I could not make myself care for any of the characters and that kills everything, even the will to finish watching the last two episodes. It seems the story would function better if they ditched the idea of following the books and made a cast of composite characters (still true) who would be with us all the way.
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SEASON 1
Not interesting at all. Characters are boring cliches. Fights are so dark and poorly displayed that you wont see anything. The different fights are barely connected by background personal stories that are soooooo booooooring. A politically correct vision of the war at the pacific. Close to nationalist propaganda.
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SEASON 1
Bad acting, great special effects, and the story of the Marines in the Pacific Theater could be told by 5th graders and still be fascinating. However, and for whatever reason, the director decided to make the characters so cliche and the writers went waaay out of their way to try to exclude or minimize everything Army, and if that wasn't good enough, decided they needed to throw in a few poorly written jabs as well. Obviously done in poor taste and there's not enough story to hold the narrative together as the characters get lost in the jumble and then sweeping boring lulls. Skip this one, stick to Band of Brothers.
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SEASON 1
