electric-crow At first I thought it was a little sappy especially the Melbourne episode but then I thought about my own career in the military and how yes, that's what we did, that's how we hazed each other, that's how we treated FNG's, that's how nobody understood, that's how you sometimes get jerks for officers, that's how you would rather be with your buddies than at home pretending to be normal. After a couple episodes it all felt very familiar.

crwdennis-cd I would like to rate this an 8 or and 9, because the battle scenes on Okinawa, Iwo Jima and Pelaliu Airfield were brilliant. However, there were a few things about the series that bothered me so much I had to reduce the rating. 1. the depiction of the American marines. I know we are several generations out from 1945, but back then, people generally behaved in an honourable way. For example, the veterans did not for the most part swear at that time. They also for the most part did not fall apart psychologically or question the war, they believed they were engaged in a just war. (yes, of course there was PTSD). The marines here are depicted as sadistic and without a moral compass. Why the emphasis on cutting out the gold teeth of dead Japanese soldiers? That was just weird. 2. the depiction of the Japanese soldiers. The Japanese were depicted as if they were a weak and pathetic foe here. They just ran straight into machine gun fire. They were butchered in the thousands here for only a handful of American casualties. That is straight out wrong. The casualty ratio was around 5:1 . The Japanese were a fierce, intelligent and formidable foe. On the other hand, there was a complete whitewashing of Japanese atrocities here. The Japanese tortured those they took prisoner. They were brutal. They disembowelled prisoners. They had forced death marches. Yet here they are portrayed as the moral side somehow.3. sex and romance. You have a 10 part series, and the whole of episodes 3 and 8 were dedicated to slow-moving romance stories, with a lot of graphic sex. Why on earth were we shown the sex of Basilone's wedding night? I didn't want to be there. 4. no depiction of naval battles. It was weird going through the pacific war without Midway, Leyte Gulf, the Battle of the Coral Sea etc etc. It wasn't a clear picture of what the pacific war was. 5. Hard to warm to the characters. Basically all the main characters were depicted as scoundrels of one form or another. So it was difficult to care about what happened to them. As I said, the battle scenes were raw and brilliant at times, powerful.

Alex John It's not a historical anything, it's just a "personal drama" over 10 episodes, with little to do with real life fighting, or how real life soldiers act, it does show some brutal stuff but it's put there only to let the viewers know it was indeed a brutal war in real life, but these are raw elements in an otherwise bland 10 episodes. The characters are not interesting and fake, the plot isn't interesting either, in fact it's typical American war movie: 1) don't show the real reason we are at war, fed the public some bs; 2) of course Americans get to have girlfriends of every nationality they want, because they're Americans; 3) personal drama and so called transformations on characters that clearly never existed in real life(and even by some miracle if they did, it's clearly not based on their actions); 4) portraying the enemy as SUPER STUPID(all the Japanese soldiers in this movie only know how to banzai charge and die like idiots), and SUPER EVIL, as if the poor Americans are hated for no reason at all; 5) portraying the Americans as fighting "a just cause", good vs. evil, and blaming the enemy for all the evil in the world, and brainwashing the average public that has no idea about history with this bs propaganda. As I said, the characters, scenes, plot, action etc. are all weak, I feel like I wasted my time watching what some guy believes happened in WW2 and not what actually happened or at least firmly based on what actually happened instead of some irrelevant and fake drama of non-existing people. Thanks for wasting my time, HBO.

SnoopyStyle Ostensively, this follows 3 marines and their individual stories in the Pacific during WWII. Bob Leckie (James Badge Dale) is a small town reporter who join the marines at the start. Eugene Sledge (Joseph Mazzello) is a 90 pound weakling whose parents are reluctant to allow him to join. John Basilone (Jon Seda) comes from an Italian family who becomes a famous war hero.Right off the bat, this must be compared to 'Band of Brothers'. While they are both WWII mini-series focused on the soldiers, they really hit on two different tones. BoB is more patriotic, more action oriented, and the story flow with a natural climax. This one still has the overwhelming action but it's muddier, grittier, and uglier. At times, this feels like a Vietnam war movie or a tough Korean movie. Unlike BoB, the last episode of this series is possibly the most emotionally tough. BoB can be an adventure thriller at times but 'The Pacific' is always a psychological grind. The only problem I have is the third episode where they spend the whole episode in Melbourne. It has some interesting stories but it's a waste to spend the whole episode there. Leckie gets a girl but they don't even stay together. For most of the Pacific, there are some great stories and impressive action. It's just a different style of war TV show.