The Pacific

The story doesn't feel coherent as it jumps from one character to another. The only director who has any skill in directing action scenes is Tony To, who's episode Peleliu Airfield is leaps and bounds above the rest. Every other action sequence is a mess of poorly edited insert shots. Still The Pacific manages to capture how unbelievably dreadful the Marine campaign against the Japanese was in WWII, though it's a pity it wasn't done with more competence. Definitely not Band of Brothers quality.

While nothing could live up to the original Band of Brothers, this is still a remarkable tale about a much different part of the war. My grandfather was a marine, one of the first boats unloaded onto Guadalcanal so it was particularly fascinating in that regard.

Compelling imagery and setting but my god, the dialogue and character development are painfully awful.

Like others have said, it's not quite as good as Band of Brothers, but still a gripping and well-made mini. Most of the characters were disposable, but I enjoyed Basilone's arc until the writer shit the bed in the Iwo Jima episode. Sledgehammer's arc was easily my favourite and the three Peleliu episodes are far and away the best in the series.

A major step down from 'Band of Brothers' for one simple, yet large, reason: it tries to do too much. Attempting to follow three different viewpoints in the Pacific Theater only weakens the bond we should be having with these characters, for it is impossible to fully understand the motives and underpinnings of their psychology. It fails at generating any empathy or moral complexity of any kind, both of which made BoB such a stunning work of art, but it can still amaze with its authenticity.

Overall, it's alright. The Peleliu airfield is probably the best directed sequence of the entire series, and the Sledge portions have some really good character development. The showering during the surprise 10 second rainstorm shot reminded me a lot of The Thin Red Line. Outside of that, though, it's really very average and forgettable. It pretends at being meditative and emotional and there is more entertainment to be found in the cheesy WW2 action flicks of the 70s.

Yes, Band of Brothers was way better.

Big disappointment. The director had absolutely no clue what was going on. It's a mess of soldiers in a jungle or camp with occasionally some Japanese attacking. Now and then they throw some creepy animals in front of the camera (snakes or rats) to show it was really hard out there. The actors look like they couldn't be bothered to get out of their trailer and do some real acting on the set. Watching this I didn't have any empathy for the characters and couldn't care less if they survive or not.

Wow. Just incredibly well done all around. Powerful. Emotional. Just a great piece of story telling about real lives and real stories.