Band of Brothers

Fantastic mini-series. I have watched every episode multiple times and it still never gets old and am hoping The Pacific can shape up to be just as good.

huge Bob fan but Pacific is pretty disappointing so far. Can't believe they wasted an entire episode on the love story angle.

+1 I watched the BoB DVD's in one day with some buddies a few years ago. The Pacific is good, but a bit repetitive. Not sure if it's the writing and story line, or simply the circumstances of the Pacific theater (i.e. it actually was repetitive and boring IRL). I actually enjoyed the Melbourne episode only for the reason that it tells a story that's rarely ever told. The previews look like Ep 4-10 will be a lot more exciting.

Spears, FTW.

Loved Band of Brothers. Still giving The Pacific the benefit of the doubt, though in the first three episodes, it's been a pale imitation of its predecessor. That said, I'll be the contrarian here and say that the love-story-in-Melbourne episode was really good. The best of the first three eps, ironically enough, even though it doesn't have any battle scenes in it. This was the first time you really started to see the main characters get fleshed out a bit and develop personalities that transcended the one or two notes they played in the first two eps. EDIT: Not sure if derailing this thread to talk about The Pacific is the most efficient idea in the world, given that there's already a Pacific thread going: http://www.styleforum.net/showthread...nd+of+brothers

x2. Totally badass.

Watched the Pacific 1-3...liked it, to me filming those battle scenes at Guadalcanal with no light was fcuking fantastic, really gives the viewer an insight into what these guys had to live through. I swear, this country has come to a point where if we were ever put in a situation like that again, we'd be fucked...think aboiut it, every willing male went to fight, and those who couldn't were devastated about it. Today, try finding a handful of non-military personel willing to give up their cushy existences to fight and die for this country (myself included there).

I also liked the Melbourne episode. Shows the emotional turmoil these guys lived through, and while doing what they did, they still lived with head ache and heartbreak. People tend to make out that these soldiers like they were robots, or married with kids. It was so long ago, and we are so far detached from it.

Just starting BoB now on demand...

Maybe, or maybe not. You have to remember that we were bombed by an enemy military at Pearl Harbor. The country was deliberately attacked, unprovoked, by an imperial power bent on control of the Pacific. (Also, in Europe, the Axis powers declared war on us before we declared war on them).

If a major power -- let's say China or Russia -- suddenly bombed a U.S. military base and declared war on the country, I bet we'd get a decent enlistment turnout. When what appears to be the very existence of the country is at stake, people enlist. Hell, the only reason we probably didn't see major enlistment after 9/11 is that the enemy was a non-state actor, hidden in the shadows, and was thus harder to rally against. But if it hadn't been al Qaeda, and it had been an identifiable nation, we'd have seen major civilian enlistment.

I don't mean to make less of the sacrifices that the men and women of our country made back in the 30s and 40s. They deserve a shitload of credit, obviously. But I wouldn't be too quick to disparage the current generation. We may be more complacent; then again, we may not be. We just haven't been tested the way our ancestors were.

I don't really think that's true. I think they did quite a good job of villainizing 'terror' and putting a homogeneous, identifiable face/icon on it. I'm sure there were other factors affecting enlistment.

Just watched BoB for the first time. A wonderful series. Liking The Pacific, though it is not as strong so far. The last love episode was weak.

Like I said -- maybe or maybe not. Obviously we can't say what would have happened if X had occurred instead of Y. I'm just saying that there was a lot of country-unifying rage and national pride right after 9/11. It's hard to remember just how united everyone was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, because so much happened in the ensuing years. But for a brief moment, pretty much everybody was on the same page, and that page was righteously angry and out for vengeance. Had the target of the vengeance been more easily identifiable, and not just the vague concept of a "war on terror" -- even vilified as well as "terror" had been -- my theory is that we'd have seen a lot more volunteerism. Hell, the mere fact that a president as divisive as George W. Bush had a 90+% approval rating immediately after 9/11 means that the unity and shared anger was there. It just wasn't harnessed, because there wasn't an easy enemy staring us in the face. Also, Bush didn't call for enlistment. Instead, he asked us to go shopping. If ever there was some complacency and idleness to the American public that we didn't have back in the late 30s and early 40s, Bush played to it instead of to our volunteer spirit. Anyway, just about the last thing I want to do is provoke a 9/11 discussion on a board like this one. That's not my purpose at all in bringing it up. I'm bringing it up simply to illustrate that collective call to action isn't some exclusive quality that "The Greatest Generation" may have had. That generation didn't have a monopoly on service, at least in theory. In practice, well, they've set a bar that no succeeding generation has yet risen up to. No doubt about that.

I hear your point...I also think the background of most Americans in the early 40's had a lot to do with their enlistments. These kids grew up during the Great Depression, had very few "things" and comforts to give up by joining. Kids in 2002-2010 have grown up with tons of shit...video games, massive SUVs, compact SUVs, and the freaking internet. I think the fact that communication is so immediate today also plays a role. When the insurgents who caught that Nick Berg (that his name?) kid and sliced his head off, I'm sure those luxuries looked even nicer. The kids in 1940 may have heard about the shit going on in Europe and especially the Pacific, but nothing bets the real thing...maybe their niavety contributed to their gung ho approach to their service, while today, these kids are just as well informed as adults. Bringing this back on topic here, the scene where the Dr tells his son about his experiences in the First WW help explain how someone who did know AND SEE what goes on in war would have reacted, and the fact that his boy hadn't could explain why he was so ready to join.

Just started watching this last night and am really enjoying it so far - with the exception of the casting of Ross from Friends as a hard-assed sergeant. WTF?

Maybe you need to watch it a little more, but you might change your tune to "punk-assed" sergeant. The casting will ultimately make sense. Unless you just can't help but think "Fuck..that's ROSS GELLAR"