Mike
A worthy 'sequel' to Band of Brothers? A review of The Pacific
March 29, 2010 12:00 AM
A few weeks ago I was in the US on a business trip when I realized, to my delight that the hotel I was staying in had HBO. And that I was going to be able to watch the first episode of the media behemoth that is The Pacific.
The long, long LONG awaited follow up to Band of Brothers, this is a show with a huge amount of pressure on it's shoulders. Band of Brothers was a phenomenon. I don't think that anyone would have been able to imagine the impact that it was going to have. Sure it had all the big names behind it, but it was a massive risk. Thank goodness some TV exec took that risk though, because it remains incredibly popular, and whenever we ask people what their favourite military film is, Band of Brothers always crops up.
With a bigger budget, a longer period of shooting, and a huge advertising budget behind it, The Pacific surely would not disappoint. I was in the US for a week and must have seen hundreds of posters and television adverts promoting the first show - so I sat down on a Sunday evening, ready to be blown away.
Now I am going to be honest up front. I have only seen the first episode of the show. I haven't been able to watch any of the other episodes as I am back in the UK.
But I have changed my mind about buying Sky Movies just to watch the show. I was really underwhelmed by what I saw. The Pacific simply does not have the soul and style that Band of Brothers had. Visually it is a fine piece of work (although some of the 'sets' seem a little flimsy compared to B of B). The first episode centred on the US invasion of Guadalcanal. I don't want to ruin the episode for you by revealing the plot, but actually that is pretty tough to do, as there did not seem to be any coherent story line in the episode at all. There were some characters. But little in the way of characterization.
There were all of the moments of excitement and suspense that you would expect from The Pacific. All of the equipment, weaponry, terminology seemed pretty much spot on (always a must from an Osprey point of view) but from the moment the credits began to roll I found myself thinking that I might just wait for the box set of dvds to be released...and then reduced on price...before I watch the rest of the series.
I hope that in the next couple of episodes some semblance of story telling emerges, so that we can start to identify with the characters. Sure I suppose we can attribute the lack of coherence down to the chaos and confusion of war, and as a thematic device that can work. Just not across close to 10 hours worth of TV.
So what do you all think? Am I being a little too harsh? Has it improved (please please let it get better)? Should I get on the phone to Sky? Or should I wait for a second hand copy of the DVDs picked up from Amazon?
COMMENTS
Being in the UK, I’ve not seen the programme yet however I have taken the trouble to hunt down (via www.aintitcool.com ) the reviews from the US press by those that have seen it all the way through. The overwhelming consensus is very positive but they do comment that the production only hits its stride after episode three. In addition, many ‘ordinary’ viewers (www.pacificfans.com) have commented that episode two is better than episode one and that they should have been shown back-to-back as Skymovies will do in the UK over Easter.
The early Guadalcanal sections seem to have also encountered some post-production editing problems as the one of the writers (and Tom Hanks) has stated that segments had to be cut because of poor pacing and story. This was not the case in later episodes. Again, there seem to be some consensus, even from the producers, that the early sections are the weakest. It is also worth noting that the producers feel this should be viewed as a 10 part movie rather than 10 separate stand alone stories as BoB was.
Without wanting to advise anyone to put more money into the pockets of Murdoch’s empire, I think it would be a mistake to judge this on the basis of what you have so far seen.
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I think Tom Hanks has gone off his rocker. I read an interview with him in Time magazine. He seemed to imply that the Pacific War is based on racism! His absurd comments have made me very reluctant to watch this show.
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I saw the first 2 episodes "back to back" last night on sky movies and was very impressed. It worked very well as the two episodes run into each, both being about the Guadalcanal campaign and being on sky movies rather than sky one it was not interupted by numerous adverts. I thought the paceing was good; introducing the characters and then going into action rather than spending an hour on the home front. I watched it with three family members of various ages; all of whom are less interested in varying degrees to me in military history and they were all very impressed with it.
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