Is Band of Brothers any good?

[EstherWeis]

I'm watching it in the evening.
I really like it.
For us it's something we have been educated on since childhood. Maybe that is why I enjoy watching this so much because I have been in some of these places.

And you have many places that you can visit still that are untouched or turned into museum.
You can easily still find bullets on the beaches or sometimes farmers will find old bombs in their fields...

 

[AmateisGal]

Band of Brothers doesn't really show the messy stuff of WW2 while The Pacific shows the most horrific things that soldiers went trough with a lot of cruel and heartless moments. In Band of Brothers you don't get to see the characters being inhuman the same way that you can see characters in The Pacific losing all humanity that was left in them in some scenes.

This is very true.

 

[MisterCairo]

I saw bits and pieces of BoB on ship, but when Ross Geller appeared, I mean, David Schwimmer, I just couldn't get Friends out of my head! It didn't help matters that his character is a twerp.

 

[belfastboy]

My fave scene in the entire series is the one shot in the Ardenne forest, at night, with a young soldier having a panic attack during a German bombing. His sergeant, standing unaroused at the edge of the foxhole, admonishing the young soldier. He said, in paraphrase..."your problem is you don't yet understand you are already dead. Once you come to that realization this becomes easy." To me it was the most chilling moment and brought into focus how horrific war must be and the psychological challenge the soldiers must face.

 

[AmateisGal]

I saw bits and pieces of BoB on ship, but when Ross Geller appeared, I mean, David Schwimmer, I just couldn't get Friends out of my head! It didn't help matters that his character is a twerp.

It is hard to see him as anything but Ross, but do give it another go. He's not in any of the rest of the episodes after the first one (except for a brief appearance in the third or fourth, can't remember which). I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

 

[belfastboy]

I saw bits and pieces of BoB on ship, but when Ross Geller appeared, I mean, David Schwimmer, I just couldn't get Friends out of my head! It didn't help matters that his character is a twerp.

Yes, it was like that when I was watching "Still Alice" with Alec Baldwin....kept waiting for Tina Fey or Tracey Morgan to pop into a scene.

 

[Haversack]

I watched BoB several years after it came out without first reading the book. I had a very strange experience when watching the D-Day episode with the company's attack on the artillery battery. It seemed very familiar as if I had heard about it a long time before in bits and pieces. And then I remembered that Mr. Hester, the scoutmaster of the Boy Scout troop I belonged to in the 1970s, had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the 101st during the war and that he would occasionally talk about his experiences then. I looked up the cast of BoB on IMDB and there saw that one of the people portrayed was Clarence Hester. I was gob-smacked.

 

[AmateisGal]

We finished watching it tonight (Sobel makes a fantastically brief appearance in the last episode, but you'll enjoy that bit) and I was sad that it was over with. My daughter gave it a 10 out of 10 rating. We're moving on to "The Pacific."

 

[Worf]

"The Pacific" is a bit harder to follow as it doesn't focus on one Regiment or even one Division. The war is seen through three separate characters. From the desperate days on "The Canal" to the atomic end and beyond. Different but worth watching. Bit of a warning though The Pacific s far more graphic then BoB's without a doubt, things were done, especially to the dead that might not be suitable for a young adult to see.

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

"The Pacific" is a bit harder to follow as it doesn't focus on one Regiment or even one Division. The war is seen through three separate characters. From the desperate days on "The Canal" to the atomic end and beyond. Different but worth watching. Bit of a warning though The Pacific s far more graphic then BoB's without a doubt, things were done, especially to the dead that might not be suitable for a young adult to see.

Worf

Yes. I watched "The Pacific" last year and it is most definitely a grittier, harsher look at war than BoB.

 

[Otter]

Much more graphic in the blood and guts department.

 

[AmateisGal]

Much more graphic in the blood and guts department.

Yep. Fear not - I'm not going to be a bad parent on this.

 

[filfoster]

I wondered if the OP was trolling. Of course this is a wonderful miniseries. I felt entitled to go to the reunions after watching the whole thing.
The Pacific is as good, in its way. They're as close to 'being there'that we'll get.
I'd throw in the 'Winds of War' and 'War and Remembrance' miniseries as well, to get that 'you were there' sense, despite Ali McGraw's painful 'acting'.

 

[Sharpsburg]

Not WWII, but the latest episode of Game of Thrones truly demonstrated the absolute horror and gore of hand-to-hand combat. I could not sleep at all that night!

 

[2jakes]

For me, the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” was disturbingly realistic.
Giving the "sense of being there” which I recall from my days in the military.

From the landing on the beach to finally being able to secure the primary point
at a very high price.
The film captures the horror without being repetitive.

I like G.O.T.
More so if they did the same when it comes to the action.

I’m not quite sure in what content the op meant when he asked,
“Is B.O.B. any good?”

My dad (WW2 vet) thought it was good overall, although not realistic in
some parts.

 

[Worf]

Not WWII, but the latest episode of Game of Thrones truly demonstrated the absolute horror and gore of hand-to-hand combat. I could not sleep at all that night!

One reviewer stated that "The Battle of Winterfell" made Braveheart look like a meeting of the Rotary. It was a good battle scene that's for sure.

Worf

 

[p51]

"The Pacific" didn't sit as well with audiences in general nor among the WW2 enthusiasts. I can't say why, as it could be many things:

• People don't care so much about the Pacific Theater in general as they do for the European theater
• The narrative bounced all over the place so you didn't care about the people as much
• The characters weren't very likeable in many cases
• It was far more brutal than "Band of Brothers" was

 

[filfoster]

"The Pacific" didn't sit as well with audiences in general nor among the WW2 enthusiasts. I can't say why, as it could be many things:

• People don't care so much about the Pacific Theater in general as they do for the European theater
• The narrative bounced all over the place so you didn't care about the people as much
• The characters weren't very likeable in many cases
• It was far more brutal than "Band of Brothers" was

All points seem right to me; the last one seems also to reflect the reality of island fighting from what I've seen on screen and the few vets I spoke with who would talk about it.
Still, I liked The Pacific and read the several books that were the basis for the story line. All good reads, btw.

 

[EngProf]

I also agree with P51's comments and might expand on them a bit.
The characters in "The Pacific" seemed totally interchangeable, unlike BoB which had a collection of readily identifiable (and more likable) individuals with distinct personalities: Winters, Nixon, Webster, Bull, Malarkey, Guarnere, Lipton, etc., etc., etc. Even the minor BoB characters like Spiers, Dike, and Joe Toye had more effect and personality than most of "The Pacific" cast.
Also, as P51 said, most people don't know about even the bigger strategic moves in the Pacific theater. Going from Guadalcanal to Bougainville to New Georgia looks exactly like going from New Georgia to Bougainville to Guadalcanal. No one knows the difference, unlike BoB, where they go from the US to England, to France, to Belgium, to Germany, and then to Austria. It makes some "sense"...

 

[AmateisGal]

Agreed with EngProf and P51. I really have a lot more interest in the European side of WW2 than the Pacific, and I think that holds true for most people. Also, the Pacific was such a completely different type of war...there were no rules compared to the European one. No Geneva Convention, etc. It was much more savage. And maybe it's harder for us to see since we are so used to viewing the Allies as the good guys who would never descend into the barbarity of what was going on in the Pacific - and that's exactly what happened as Sledge and others have documented. Does that make sense? It's late and the fireworks are going non-stop here and I'm tired.