The Pacific versus Band of Brothers

Vinnie

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Finally finished watching the Pacific and am now ploughing my way through the book. The obvious comparison for this is to Band of Brothers so which series did people like better and why?

For me BoB had is in the bag by episode three. The acting was much better and the characters more rounded and interesting. I really didn't care what happened to Sledge and Snafu the way I did about Winters et al.
Part of this is the scope of the two series. One about a single company over the course of a year and the other covering almost five years and geographically a much larger area. This forced an episodic nature onto the series which ruined the narrative flow.

The book is also pretty poor compared to BoB.
 

custardpie

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I have to agree with you fully on the films. In fact I plan to do a review type thingy comparing the two on my blog when I have time and space.

Book wise you need to read With the Old Breed by Sledge and Helmet for my Pillow by Leckie. Cath's reading Sledge's right now but as she gets to the end is losing intrest as she watched the serries and it feels she has read it before (as it follows th book closly). If BoB came out second I would say that it would have lost some of it's advantage but not that much as it is clearly for me the better serries. Another negative for me was that so much action happened at night and sometimes it is difficult to hear what is said for the background noise. Realisum over function, never thought I would complain.

Ian
 

Vinnie

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Thanks. I'd deliberately avoided reading any of the pacific threads as I wanted to come to the series with an unjaundiced eye.
 

JR Brackin

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I agree BoB is the better series. I think that there are 3 reasons that it is better: 1) BoB focused on one company and not units in different divisions etc; 2) BoB was based on one book, not several; and most importantly 3) there were more survivors of Easy Company available to comment and add personal experiences than there were available for The Pacific.

That being said, both were interesting, and The Pacific is the best covering that theater of the War that has been made.
 

Vinnie

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Do you think the fact that BoB was based upon the officers and Pacific on the enlisted men made any difference?
 

JR Brackin

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I would disagree in this aspect. In BoB there was a mix of charaters featured, showing a wide ranfge of personalities. The fact that some were officers makes no difference.

The issue was that al of the characters were able to inteact with each other. Many started with the training and then were able to grow with the story. Whereas the main characters in The Pacific were not destined to have major interaction. Therefore the writers of the series had to try and develop their characters in seperate vacuums from each other. For instance in episoe 3 of BoB where the focus in on Private Blight we still get charater development of others like Lipton being wounded and Winters running the company.

This is what lacked in the Pacific for me. In simple, it might have been better if they went with one story and developed that into a story about a unit.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Do you think the fact that BoB was based upon the officers and Pacific on the enlisted men made any difference?
One of the many themes explored in the earlier threads. Such a shame you missed them. :laugh:

JR Brackin, I think the main reason that the Pacific failed where BoB was a success was related to your latter point. The writers of the series appeared - this is only supposition - to be too disinclined to flesh out the characters. They were almost too reverential in their treatment - though only at times. Being HBO, of course, they had no problems adding irrelevant sexual content and making it up out of whole cloth (none of the lurid details of Leckie's sex life were, apparently, reported in his book the way they were graphically depicted on screen).

Someone in the linked to thread above points out that The Pacific was nominated for more Emmy awards. They included main title design, casting, "single-camera picture editing" (x3), makeup, sound mixing (x4), etc. The comparison in the other thread was false though; Pacific was nominated for 23, BoB for 19.
 
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Michael Dorosh

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Do you think the fact that BoB was based upon the officers and Pacific on the enlisted men made any difference?
Seriously, though, BoB had a great deal of content related to the enlisted soldiers, and the Pacific did have at least one platoon commander character. The camaraderie in BoB was such that it really wasn't a movie about different lifestyles and even the heavier burdens of leadership were only hinted at. Actually, the burdens of a 1st Sergeant were explored equally in one of the Bastogne episodes very effectively.
 

jpellam

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Going with pure facts and leaving emotion out of it, The Pacific won 8 Emmy awards and BoB only 6. Being a former enlisted guy I am totally 100% biased towards The Pacific since it follows the lives of several enlisted men one of which won the Medal of Honor, turned down a commission, requested a return to combat and gave his life in the first 30 minutes or so of the IWO Jima invasion. The honorable John Basilone (GySgt).
 

Pitman

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This thread belongs in the chit chat subforum as it has nothing to do with ASL.
 

Faded 8-1

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The luke-warm reception The Pacific received from wargamers here moved it from 'must-see' to 'meh' on my list. I do want to watch eventually.

(Twelve posts until the Topic Nazi arrived. Who had 12 in the pool? :D)
 

Paul M. Weir

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I am going against the herd a bit but I marginally preferred TP over BoB.

I have been a fan of BoB since I bought it many years ago and re-viewed it only a couple of weeks ago. It does a good job of presenting snapshots of company and Winters in particular.

I have just finished watching TP. Although the main characters are less connected in TP and the narrative is more disconnected, I feel it does a much better job of portraying the emotional and psychological impact of the war on the characters. The last episode is quite important in that respect and does that job well in giving a brief glimpse of what was involved in returning to 'normality'. The way I read the intent of the series was to highlight both the physical and emotional sacrifice of the characters and present the war from their point of view. Overall, I feel it did that job admirably.

I must warn everyone that I am also a fan of 'The Thin Red Line' which I regard as one of the greatest war movies I have ever seen. So gather all ye pitchforks and torches.
 

JR Brackin

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Going with pure facts and leaving emotion out of it, The Pacific won 8 Emmy awards and BoB only 6. Being a former enlisted guy I am totally 100% biased towards The Pacific since it follows the lives of several enlisted men one of which won the Medal of Honor, turned down a commission, requested a return to combat and gave his life in the first 30 minutes or so of the IWO Jima invasion. The honorable John Basilone (GySgt).
I would not completely base awards on anything. Ken Burns "Civil War" was not submitted for consideration and won zero awards despite completely changing the style of documentary.

In no way does the detraction of the video presentation take away from the bravery and valor of any of the persons represented. Their ability to function under extreme circumstances not in doubt. My comments were purely centered on actual presentation of the material by HBO, I think they needed to add epeisodes or make some of them longer so that we could get to know the characters and sub caharacters better. BoB had several episodes that went over an hour, whereas I always felt that The Pacific was rushed at the end to conclude the installment.
 

JR Brackin

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I must warn everyone that I am also a fan of 'The Thin Red Line' which I regard as one of the greatest war movies I have ever seen. So gather all ye pitchforks and torches.
So you were the one!!!

There are two versions of The Thin Red Line - I do not mind the first version in B & W, except for the cave scene from the Arizona desert. The first was easier to follow, I did not get the newer version.
 

fwheel73

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I am going against the herd a bit but I marginally preferred TP over BoB.
[big snip]
I must warn everyone that I am also a fan of 'The Thin Red Line' which I regard as one of the greatest war movies I have ever seen. So gather all ye pitchforks and torches.
So you were the one!!!

There are two versions of The Thin Red Line - I do not mind the first version in B & W, except for the cave scene from the Arizona desert. The first was easier to follow, I did not get the newer version.
1. I thought the Thin Red Line was quite good... didn't realize there was the B&W version-- will see if it is available for online viewing from Netflix.... thanks.

2. Not certain the _Thin Red Line_ is one of the greatest, yes very good, I would consider a B&W movie I had not seen in 30+ years, _Pork Chop Hill_ with Gregory Peck above The Thin Red Line... and a few others.

Since this thread may get sent over to Chat.... a saving ASL question::)

-- Is there a scenario or two that is being designed that will take us to Pork Chop Hill in the Korea Module? Can you tell us about it?

Enjoy the thread.
Best regards,:salute:
John
 

'Ol Fezziwig

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Which scenarios are better: those based on Band of Brothers or The Pacific?

[video=youtube;sqenn5PPzsQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqenn5PPzsQ&feature=related[/video]
 

RobZagnut

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I liked them both. I liked BoB better, because it focused on the whole company from start to finish, so you were emotionally involved with what happened to individuals as well as the whole group. Pacific was just about three guys and maybe a couple of their buddies. I read Helmet and Old Breed, so I knew what was going on, but without reading those it would have made Pacific harder to understand.

I absolutely hated The Thin Red Line. It sucked. I fell asleep. Probably during one of the scenes where they unnecessarily showed a bush, a tree, a rain drop slowly flowing down a leaf, a lizard or any of a thousand stupid scenes that had nothing to do with the movie, but fill space.
 

Psycho

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I absolutely hated The Thin Red Line. It sucked. I fell asleep. Probably during one of the scenes where they unnecessarily showed a bush, a tree, a rain drop slowly flowing down a leaf, a lizard or any of a thousand stupid scenes that had nothing to do with the movie, but fill space.
:clap: Snore! :bored:
 
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