 While it definitely stands in the shadow of Band of Brothers, that shouldn't take away anything from what the Pacific is in terms of its excellence and its extreme commitment to telling the stories of the Marines in the Pacific theater. Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for the Pacific. Apologies for taking so long to finally getting to this, but I really wanted to do as good of a job of a review as I did when I did the Band of Brothers review. For those of you who suggested that I review this, thank you for your patience. I know that was years ago. I felt that maybe I wasn't like ready to do so. I wasn't committed to do so. And this one took a bit. I had actually listened to Robert Lecky's helmet for my pillow novel years ago, but when I rewatched the series, I wanted to listen to his book again because if any of you have read Lecky's story, he was a writer. Find that there's three different types of novels when it comes to talking about experiences of war. There's ones like Sledgehammer with the old breed, or Andy McNabb with Bravo 2-0, which I know that there is some speculation about what actually happened with that mission, but in terms of just how to tell the story. And then there are other novels that don't really have that much of a narrative structure and more so talk about collective experiences and the psychological element that it had, like the things they carried, which was by Kong Timmel Bryant, which is a very good book, but it's just kind of a smattering of things that happened to him throughout the Vietnam War. And then there's Robert Lecky's story, which I find that Lecky's is in the middle. It is very much taking from both. And then I finished it and then I watched Sledge's episodes, which is kind of the latter half of the Pacific series. And I wanted to read his book too because I wanted to see what was right, what was wrong, what was different, much like how I found that when I was listening to the Band of Brothers book. And for the most part, they got his part of the story very dead on. There are a few things that are maybe a little different, oddly enough. Some things weren't as bad as they were, but there was a lot of other stuff that was awful that they didn't talk about, which I found very kind of interesting. But at least to say the Pacific is about the Marines and their conflict through the islands leading to Japan to Okinawa and how the first Marines were in the literal shit from day one against an enemy that just did not know how to quit. Something I wrote was, can you imagine trying to remain the semblance of good, showing proper honor and integrity and not being like your enemy when they are a never ending nightmare of malicious intent and unwillingness to surrender? This is in the situation where you just take on a new enemy, wipe them off the face of the earth and then just move on to the next one and do the same. This is in the Power Rangers. The fight against the Japanese is something that is just barbaric. I know it might sound rude to compare and contrast people's experiences during the Second World War. And every person who went through conflict has their own story, their own nightmares, their own PTSD. But I'd really do feel that if I had a choice of whether to go to the European Theater or to the Pacific Theater, I would have chosen the European Theater 10 times out of 10. Because while the soldiers in Europe were fighting their own hardships against the Germans in conditions that weren't great, especially with Battle of the Bulge, they at least were in some semblance of normalcy with buildings and structure in 20th century like standards of living. Whereas the Pacific Theater, aside from the time where they went to Australia, they were on islands dealing with malaria, dealing with diseases, dealing with all form of awful God, awful shit. And that is just one of the multitude of reasons why I feel that the Marines had it really fucking hard. And I think the Pacific really does show that well. While Band of Brothers followed the company whereas Winters was somewhat the main character, it followed the whole company and key characters in it. The Pacific really follows three main characters being Robert Lecky, John Bazalone, and U.D. Sledge. All have their own different stories and all have their own individual elements of storytelling that reflect what happened to the Pacific Theater. Robert Lecky's story is very much about the disillusion of the golden ideal of what it's like to be in the Marine Corps to what it's like to go off to war. Right from the start, when his dad drops him off and his dad's just kind of like, eh, eh, just seeing a bit. His story is just a counter of everything that you would take and what you would expect from a story like his. The conditions of while on the boat, the kind of the infighting between NCOs and soldiers. For instance, there was a story, it was not on the show, but in his book where he and a bunch of guys got thrown in the brig on a boat when they were sneaking off into Australia. While the throwing into the brig was not actually proper conduct, they had to sign off something saying that it wasn't, it didn't happen or it wasn't, it wasn't as bad as what the punishment was because while the major was wrong, I remember this quote, a wrong major always beats a right private. That kind of feeling of distrust, this separation between regular soldiers and NCOs like very much when he finds the box and the NCO takes it and puts his socks in the box. So that kind of story of just his camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, not only against the Japanese, but also against higher ups who were just dick bags, he definitely gets that and just the up and downs of living on Guadalcanal, fighting on Great Britain, the whole sort of fantasy disillusionment that happened when they went to Australia. That is probably one of the more narrative episodes in terms of just what happened because that whole relationship with him and that lady, 90% of that isn't true. What did happen is he did fall in love with a lady and they did sleep together in a very similar situation but he found out she was married or she told him he was married and so that obviously ended. He had a few flings on the island but I think they wanted to focus more on that than on him constantly jumping ship or leaving his position going AWOL to just hang around in the city. And also if I'm correct, they were in Australia for eight to nine months which is bonkers. There's also a few things that are a little bit different like that whole situation where with him being drunk and pulling the pistol on the soldier, it tied into him feeling that grief of having his heart broken where he just did it because he was fucking piss drunk. There wasn't any kind of heartbreak that was behind it but for the most part, Leckie's story is very true. John Basil de Lone's story, I don't really have as much notes about him. His participation in the battles was immense. He was a highly decorated soldier. He was like a super soldier basically and his wanting to go back which ultimately led to what happened to him is such a heartbreaking story but it's just so reminiscent of the aspect of what a lot of Marines felt. And that kind of ties into Eugene's story is the heartbreak and the loss of purpose when people couldn't go to war and also when they were able to go home. This is something that was in Eugene's book is they felt guilty that they were home. They wanted to go back even if they were injured. And I feel that the show did get a lot of that right. It did show just how awful it was to be in these situations that the typhoid to the fevers to the conditions to the dryness like when they're fighting on Pelelu and there's no water, there's all our poisoned water. The one aspect of this show that does take the biggest hit which a lot of people will recognize it it's not better brothers. It doesn't have that narrative structure. Despite being about fewer characters it feels a lot more messy. And now some of that is intended obviously but there are elements that just don't feel right. They don't sit right in terms of narrative structure. And it's not like a massive make or break. It's just not as good. Something that I can definitely point that out to is how leaky story sort of intertwines with Eugene's That is the best way that they could get it to work because they never met. They never saw each other. There's no record of that. Heck, there's no record of the two ever crossing paths but they were able to make that work a little bit but even then it can feel a little bit like it's passing of the torch. When leaky story ends it's just so like he's gone until the last episode. So that was a little bit odd and that might have kind of thrown people off a bit and then also how each episode starts. Whereas in Band of Brothers they were moving into France, moving into Germany, right? Well there also was Operation Market Garden but there was just kind of this movement of going east. Whereas with the Pacific Theater it's island hopping. And island hopping is a lot harder to kind of come across. Also you don't have the advantage of the veterans giving their prelude stories which obviously was a huge thing with Band of Brothers. That was amazing to see. Especially when you came to the end of the series and you saw all the veterans and who they actually were and you can cross and compare them with the actors who played them. They don't have that with the Pacific. To the point where the last episode is just this like 10 minute crawl of what happened to characters. And some of them you don't even remember. That's something else too is that these characters are interplaced so throughout that sometimes you forget who they were until the final credits comes around and you're like oh who is that? Also how they were filmed. Band of Brothers took a long fucking time to film. It apparently took over two years. The Pacific cost more because of the locations and everything but they also shot multiple bits at the same time. And that could kind of be counted up to the lack of direction or the lack of cohesive direction I guess with some episodes. When you know that multiple parts were being shot at the same time to save on time, save on cost, get the product done faster. It's funny that I say save on cost because this is still one of the most expensive things that HBO ever made. It was $200 million to produce. And Band of Brothers was over a hundred million. Back in 2001, well 2000 when it was finished. But all of these negative things aside I still very much enjoy that the Pacific just for a different reason. It really talks much more about the psychological aspect of the war whereas Band of Brothers was about brotherhood, Pacific was about survival and that really comes to terms when they talk about Eugene's story. Eugene's story is, one, the book is fantastic. He wrote the book not for publishing purposes. He wrote it so his family could understand what it was like to have been a soldier during that. And he waited like 30 years to write that. It's a very good retelling of what happened. It like down to all of the basic brass tacks. There's no narrative aspect to it. It's a book that's not written by an author if that's a good way to describe it. But it's not boring. It's never dull. It is brutal. And certain aspects of that story do kind of muddle a little bit in terms of what happened with Sledge. One thing that's really interesting is how they jump. And particularly the big one for me is episode nine. The battle for Okinawa was awful. It was brutal. It was terrible. Eugene does talk about that in the book but he also actually talks about how it was kind of like weirdly not bad for a good bit. Because when they first landed they were part of the section of the island that just had no Japanese. There was no one. So they were like hanging out on the beach. One point is zero came and flew by them and was almost gonna kill a wall. But then a Mustang came. I don't think it was a Mustang. An American plane came and went after the zero and saved them. Aside from that, it wasn't bad until they did get into the conflict and then it was awful. And there's a few stories that happened in that episode that didn't per se happen to Eugene or they didn't happen the way that they did. Like for instance, the lady with the bomb. There are stories about that but he didn't encounter that himself. At least that's what I gathered. I apologize if I'm wrong but that's like one of the most standout parts about that episode is when the civilians are coming down and there's that lady who's got the dynamite and the baby and that sticks out. That's one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in television series. Also the bit where he slides into the hole with the decaying body and he has to like, like gets out and he's taking his knife off to get the maggots out. The maggots were a huge awful problem with all the dead because they couldn't bury the dead. On the, on Okinawa, there was too much and there was also too much close conflict. The casualties, not only from just dying are wounded but also psychological casualties. I think he said at the end, there was like 20,000 psych cases that happened from Okinawa, just like fatigue, people losing their fucking minds. Which I will say I did like that episode where like he goes to the rehabilitation center and he sees firsthand what happened to a lot of the soldiers who had psychological breaks. That was actually probably one of my favorite episodes because it showed something very different. It didn't hold back but it also just showed what was happening with them and that ties into what happens later on the series, especially after Akak dies for Sledge and Gunny just loses it. Well, him cleaning his balls in the shower with his shoe polish brush. It's just this man who has this fortitude of strength and character and pure bad assness who was brought to fucking shambles by the events that happened. Like whether it was the guy who they beat to death, well they killed him by hitting him with a shovel because he was having a nightmare. They tried to knock him out like punching him. They tried to hit him with morphine. They tried to reassure him but he just wouldn't shut up. They knew Japanese were around them so they whacked them in the head with a shovel. You see that in the episode and he was dead. And there was another one where what happened in the episode where the guy was on the line and he went to the bathroom and he came back and he got shot. Something like that did happen as well. Bleeding to the death of a soldier, like he got executed and it was the next morning they realized that it had been one of their own. So this absolute barbarity and Sledge talking about it. And that's why episode nine, again, I say is a little different from what is portrayed in the book because there's that big scene where, in particular where you see Sledge just being so matched, just so done with everything. He's like, we're here to kill Japs, ain't we? Why does it matter what gun we killed them with? Show it makes it like he's doing it because he's just hate fucking Japanese, which a lot of them did because of what they were going through. But in the book it's for a different reason. He's saying that because they have an NCO who's a bit of a dipshit, his name was Shadow. He was cussing them and critiquing them on like killing these Japanese when he told them to hold fire and that's why he comes from the line. And then also the scene with the woman, that is much different. He finds her, she does ask him to kill him. This is the one that's in the hut that's got the terrible wound. And in the show he holds her until she dies, whereas in the book it's worse. So he goes in, she tells him she wants him to kill him, or hit him to kill her. He says, no, I'm gonna go get a corpsman. So he calls for a corpsman and while he's gone, they start walking back and they hear a gunshot and someone comes out of the hut. Yeah, there's this woman inside and she wanted me to kill her, so I did. And Sledge breaks on that. And that's where that leads to that outburst and it's just so hard to hear that. And there was a few other things too, like that replacement that comes in and just breaks. Like he's the one who gets all the rounds wet because he switches the tarps for his own. That is sort of talked about in the book but really the brass and awfulness of it is that replacements were just massacred. Like they were killed so fast in Okinawa that some of them weren't even registered. So I think that's what that episode really talks into. But neither Lecky's book nor Sledge's book talk about what happens when they come home. And I think that's one of my favorite bits because it's just so sombering where their corporal friend meets his parents and he's worried that his wife from Australia won't be there in the end she was. She would later come to America. Or when Snafu just gets off the train, doesn't even say bye to Sledge and they didn't hear from him for like decades. That was one reason why I wanted to read the book because I wanted to know with Snafu the way he was because Rami Malek just plays the character amazingly. Everyone in this is so well done. Every actor does a fantastic job in this. James Page Dale does a fantastic job as Lecky and to the point where the family, the Lecky family even commented that they could see their father, their grandfather in this man. Kid from fucking Jurassic Park as Sledge. Can't believe that. I never made that distinction. But yeah, that's him and he does a fantastic job as Sledge. Rami Malek's grading it. There's all these different characters. The actor who played John Basilone. Apologies I didn't get him right. He's fantastic in it. But there's also a bunch of lower actors too. Like at the time lower actors. John Barenfold in this. He's Basilone's cousin brother, I think. And he dies in the second episode. But it was really cool to see him in this too. While it doesn't have as many of the up and comers as Band of Brothers did, Band of Brothers had just an absolute shit ton of up and comers. Pacific has a lot of people you recognize and also just some newies. And yeah, some up and comers like Rami Malek is definitely the most big up and comer in the entire series. I feel that while kind of talking about the history of it all, the Pacific did get what it was trying to do. Which was not tell the same story as Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers was very much about camaraderie taking on the Germans and just a soldier's recounting of what happened. Pacific is also about a soldier's recounting of what happened. But about the savagery. About the brutalism. About the breaking of the soul. And the horrors that one would go to from ripping teeth out of dead soldiers to hucking rocks into the missing top half of a person's skull. It did not hold back. Like there were certain bits that they did oddly enough but they showed enough to really get the idea of what had happened to people. What had happened to these soldiers, what they went through. And it's really reflected in especially with Eugene at the very end where you see him have a full on PDSD moment and his father is telling Eugene's mom, let him rest, he needs to figure it out. He's seen things that he wouldn't even fathom. And that was something that a lot of veterans went through, like both theaters of war. Both of them did not have the proper facilities or knowledge of what it was like. They called it combat fatigue. We call it PDSD. Before that was called shell shock. What horrors that they saw at such young ages like these kids were 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. I can't even imagine what young me would have been like would have, would have seen, would have thought would have come back as if I came back at all. I feel that Pacific, while it is not the band of brothers it's not what we wanted. It's not exactly what we were hoping for. It's something different. And honestly, I commend it wholeheartedly for that because if we had gone the same thing we probably would have complained about that. And we complained about it because it's not the same thing which they probably knew was gonna happen anyways. But I also got to show this off because I have to. I love this, I still have this. These are the DVDs, admittedly I should switch it out but you just don't get these anymore. It's so cool, so cool, right? Loves it, this is so good. And I look at that stretch, so nice. And I love the case too, the case is great too. But in the end, one of my final thoughts about the Pacific, I think it still has every right to be as good as it is. I think that it had a little bit too much of harsh criticism when it came out. I was one of those people because as I said I wanted band of brothers again but that's not what this was trying to tell. This was one of the story. Also the opening theme by Hans Zimmer, this is so good, so good. It's not what people expected but it's still a standout. It's still one of the best miniseries ever made. While yes, it is very much in the shadow of band of brothers, I still think it has every right to be as well accolated as it is. While the narrative may be a little bit messy here and there in certain spots, it's not as cohesive as band of brothers that it's only because of the stories that it's telling and it actually connects things a lot better than just sticking a bunch of books together. So in the end, my final rating for the Pacific is a six out of seven. I would very much highly recommend this. If you've never seen the series, definitely watch it. It's very, very good. It's very, very heartbreaking. It's very, very brutal but it's not holding back. It's not trying to sugarcoat what happened to them. And I appreciate that. I appreciate what it did for that exact reason. Anyways, guys, that's all for me. Apologies again for how long this took. I don't even know now when I've released this because I'm looking, I've talked for almost half an hour now about this. I don't know how long it'll be in the actual edit but I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope you guys enjoyed hearing me talk about this and I'm very, very thankful I rewatched it again. I'm already rewatching band of brothers in fact, actually now because of this. But let me know what you guys think. Have you guys seen the Pacific? What did you think about it? What were your initial thoughts on it? When you first watched it and what are your thoughts about it now? Has they changed? Has it, you know, the same? Anyways, guys, that's all for me. If you like this video, leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe. Until then, thank you so much for watching this long, long video. I hope you guys enjoyed some of it and I'll see you guys on the next one.