Some of you reading this may or may not agree but I have to say that Tom Hanks "killed" The Pacific for me when he said the war in the pacific was one of racism. Asked to clear his thoughts and define what he stated he said exactly what everyone was thinking but my question is how can the Japanese taking of Manchuria and the US stopping oil shipments to Japan and Japan's attack on Hawaii a Racist war?
Up until the attacks on China, Japan had been a great ally of the US. Many states and many cities in those states were sisters to many states and cities in Japan.
My review is based on the books that I have read that were the basis of this series. First I want to say that Hanks and Speilberg screwed the pooch with this series. They could have shot the moon with it and used the characters and their war stories to further the Island Hopping Campaign. The fact is Hanks focuses more on their personal lives than the tragedy that befalls each one during the war. He focuses on their hospital stays, their R&R, and their sexual romps (I've seen more boobs in this series than I did in the R rated "Life of Linda Lovelace").
During the campaigns we get flash backs and cut overs. We got stuck in Peleilu for three segmenst of the series so we can watch each character turn into thieves and crapping machines. The only real action in the whole 10 episodes is the 2nd Guadalcanal segment where Basilone receives his CMOH.
Don't get me wrong. This was a miniseries that depicted war. But It could have been a whole lot better. They had access to tanks, amtracks, planes, ships, and other gear that made this a one of a kind movie. Sadly this was NOT Band of Brothers. No, we did not want this to be an exact copy, what we wanted to see was the taking of the Islands, the bitter fighting, the reason why these guys got CMOH and other high ranking awards.
Basilone returns to the fleet for the invasion of Iwo Jima and was a machine-gun section Sgt on Red Beach during the battle. Japanese had blockhouses every 100 yards and in one section a maze of them had his unit pinned down. Basilone worked his way around behind the Japanese positions until he was directly on top of the blockhouses. He attacked with grenades and his .45 destroying the entire strongpoint and its garrison.
He then worked toward Airfield Number 1 helping a Sherman tank that was pinned down in an enemy mine field taking mortar and artillery fire. Guiding the tank to safety, despite heavy weapons fire from the Japanese he pushed forward on the edge of the airfield. Unfortunately a Japanese mortar round landed several yards from him and he was mortally hit by shrapnel.
Sadly, Hanks left this out along with a lot of the action from Sledge amd Leckie's books.
The Pacific is good. Unfortunately for me, the reviewer, my opinion of it is rather low. I give this 3.5 of 5 American Stars.
