Band of Brothers...

Awesome show. Liked it so much I bought the blue ray and then bought The Pacific.
@Chuckman have you seen both? If not I’d be glad to let you borrow it. Both are favorites of mine that never get old.
 
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Totally agree. I read the book, and have seen the series several times. Great show! I liked The Pacific as well.
 
Pbj ak said:
Awesome show. Liked it so much I bought the blue ray and then bought The Pacific.
@Chuckman have you seen both? If not I’d be glad to let you borrow it. Both are favorites of mine that never get old.
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I have seen both, thanks. For a while Amazon had The Pacific, so I caught it there. I really, really liked it. A lot of people don't like it because they compare it to the BoB, but it's excellent in its own way. Still great, just...different.
 
B00ger said:
Ive watched the shows, read the books, and still, to this date, cannot understand how they were able to jump out of airplanes with testicles that large without breaking the chutes.
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I asked that question once to papa. He said,"Well I got an extra 50.00(can't remember the actual amount) dollars a month. Being from WV that was a lot of money. Looking back poor and stupid made me do a lot."
 
Cowboy said:
I asked that question once to papa. He said,"Well I got an extra 50.00(can't remember the actual amount) dollars a month. Being from WV that was a lot of money. Looking back poor and stupid made me do a lot."
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It was more a question of physics than motivation.
 
Loved the show. The Most Daring Raids show on their assault at Brecourt Manor is really good.




I hated The Pacific. Just couldn't get into how jumbled up it was. Not to mention most of the non fighting content was completely made up. Why?
 
chiefjason said:
Loved the show. The Most Daring Raids show on their assault at Brecourt Manor is really good.




I hated The Pacific. Just couldn't get into how jumbled up it was. Not to mention most of the non fighting content was completely made up. Why?
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BoB had some made up 'composite' characters, some tactics and situations were simplified to fit the story (per Spielberg and Hanks). I imagine The Pacific had the same issues. It was based on the memoirs of the main characters.
 
Chuckman said:
BoB had some made up 'composite' characters, some tactics and situations were simplified to fit the story (per Spielberg and Hanks). I imagine The Pacific had the same issues. It was based on the memoirs of the main characters.
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There were entire storylines that spanned a couple episodes that were made up. The girlfriend in NZ and most of that stuff. Seems a lot of time to dedicate to the story just to work in some sex scenes to a war flick.


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Amazing stories, love the series.
 
Chuckman said:
Never get tired of it. Oh, and the book...a must-have companion piece. Far more detail.
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Not a slam, because I am much the same these days. But that statement is certainly a sign of our times.

The mini-series most definitely followed Stephen Ambrose's work. I (used to) try reading the books on which historical movies are based first, but it's getting harder with family/kids, etc. And the production quality of stuff like BoB, Gettysburg, etc are so good it's hard to put them off.
 
The book is much more historically accurate than the series, but that's mainly due to Hanks and Speilberg being somewhat limited in terms if just how many characters they could highlight given the amount of total screen time they had.

Most if not all of the scene and actions were true, but they attributed them to a limited number of characters. In other words, the scenes were correct historically, but many of the events were condensed into a smaller number of people.

If there were 5 incidents done by 5 different people in real life, they simply chose one character and attributed those 5 to him, for example.
 
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Having not read the book, and I cant remember the guy in the series - but was the guy who ran across the field and then back while under fire a real guy?
I think they were near a small village, or at least a barn or something, and he just ran, pretty much, up to the enemy, and back without being shot.
 
HMP said:
Having not read the book, and I cant remember the guy in the series - but was the guy who ran across the field and then back while under fire a real guy?
I think they were near a small village, or at least a barn or something, and he just ran, pretty much, up to the enemy, and back without being shot.
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Yes that was Ron Speirs, a LT from another company that Winters told to go relieve the Commander of Easy Co, who had froze on while leading the Co in to attack the town of Foy.

Speirs ran through the Germans to link up with another company and then ran back through to get back.

Speirs ended up remaining the Commander of Easy Co until the conclusion of the war.
 
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chiefjason said:
Loved the show. The Most Daring Raids show on their assault at Brecourt Manor is really good.




I hated The Pacific. Just couldn't get into how jumbled up it was. Not to mention most of the non fighting content was completely made up. Why?
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Same here. I just couldn't get into the characters for some reason.
 
Tim said:
Not a slam, because I am much the same these days. But that statement is certainly a sign of our times.

The mini-series most definitely followed Stephen Ambrose's work. I (used to) try reading the books on which historical movies are based first, but it's getting harder with family/kids, etc. And the production quality of stuff like BoB, Gettysburg, etc are so good it's hard to put them off.
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Yeah; Ambrose borrowed heavily (with permission) from Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoirs of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich. Ambrose is a great writer but his research is even better. But I have liked most of his books. I hear you; it's hard for me to make the time to read the books.
 
chiefjason said:
There were entire storylines that spanned a couple episodes that were made up. The girlfriend in NZ and most of that stuff. Seems a lot of time to dedicate to the story just to work in some sex scenes to a war flick.


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Yeah, I did not care for the non-action stories. The battle sequences and accuracy of the campaigns were good, as was Basilone's story line (i.e., wife).
 
rotorhead said:
Yes that was Ron Spears, a LT from another company that Winters told to go relieve the Commander of Easy Co, who had froze on while leading the Co in to attack the town of Foy.

Spears ran through the Germans to link up with another company and then ran back through to get back.

Spears ended up remaining the Commander of Easy Co until the conclusion of the war.
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Thank you for the update/clarification.

That was, by far, one of my top moments in the series.
Up there with meeting the German/American POW, and subsequent shooting of them.

Was spears also the one who did that? Its been a bit since Ive seen it, but was he the one who would offer up the smokes and then mow them down?
 
HMP said:
Thank you for the update/clarification.

That was, by far, one of my top moments in the series.
Up there with meeting the German/American POW, and subsequent shooting of them.

Was spears also the one who did that? Its been a bit since Ive seen it, but was he the one who would offer up the smokes and then mow them down?
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“Yes” in quotes because he never said. But the story was about him. There’s a scene in the Church in Foy that goes into it.

Spears also jumped in Korea so he had 3 combat jumps.

My wife kinda liked him.

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chiefjason said:
“Yes” in quotes because he never said. But the story was about him. There’s a scene in the Church in Foy that goes into it.

Spears also jumped in Korea so he had 3 combat jumps.

My wife kinda liked him.

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That shirt is BA!
 
I went to the 82nd Airborne convention in 1998 in Omaha. We jumped in to the airport and started drinking beer.

What shocked my 20year old ass was how these old grandpa looking dudes acted like grandpa, until we had drinks in them, hanging out with us in class b's.

It took about a hour and age vaporized and we all are paratroopers. The interaction was life changing for me to teach a 5 combat jump hero ping-pong ball drinking games.

To spend time with them was just great!

John
 
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Chuckman said:
I have seen both, thanks. For a while Amazon had The Pacific, so I caught it there. I really, really liked it. A lot of people don't like it because they compare it to the BoB, but it's excellent in its own way. Still great, just...different.
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Yeah if it hadn’t been practically advertised as the marine companion piece to BOB I might have enjoyed it more.

But because of that I went in expecting to follow a company of Marines through the pacific and instead ended up with what felt like a disjointed mess that bounced around.
 
Chdamn said:
Yeah if it hadn’t been practically advertised as the marine companion piece to BOB I might have enjoyed it more.

But because of that I went in expecting to follow a company of Marines through the pacific and instead ended up with what felt like a disjointed mess that bounced around.
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I get that. It was hard to follow the main characters because they were in different units and different campaigns. Like BoB, worth reading the book, which was excellent. I still liked it just as much, just different.
 
Chuckman said:
I get that. It was hard to follow the main characters because they were in different units and different campaigns. Like BoB, worth reading the book, which was excellent. I still liked it just as much, just different.
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Agreed. Both books (as usual) were better.
 
I’m due for a rewatch of the series. Might earn my 10x award this time around...lost count of how may times! It gets better every time!

The theme song is great with words too:


I got to meet Damien Lewis (Winters) in front of work one day when I worked downtown Charlotte. He was just standing there in between photo shoots for Homeland—no crew or fans or anyone around him. I walked right by, stared at him for a second thinking “who the hell is that guy? I know I worked with him or something...then it hit me: HOLY SHART! THAT’S CAPTAIN WINTERS!

You bet your ass I went back for a picture. I don’t have it handy to post...
He was totally cool. Chatted for a minute about BoB. In hindsight, I may have been insulting in that I only talked about his work from 10+ years ago and nothing about his current show (which I didn’t watch, mainly because it’s hard to see Capt. Winters being a bad guy!!!). But he was like a regular guy, no attitude. Actually asked what I do and wanted to chat about MY work!
 
Started rewatching it today.
 
Most awesome series ever! I don't watch a lot of TV, but this series really did an awesome job of portraying the personalities of the actual soldiers. I read somewhere that the actors spent some time (weeks) with the actual soldiers they would be portraying. I did portions of the BoB tour in Germany not long ago, and hope to do it all eventually. Luz, Speirs and Guarnere I would have loved to have met in real life.

As far as The Pacific...... eh....
 
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Funny that this was posted; my brother sent me these pics of him and a couple teammates sitting in Easy Company’s foxholes in Bastogne this past weekend. They were on their way back to the states and took a day trip to check it out.

EF413617-039F-43B5-BDCA-67331441022C.jpeg B883BCAE-AA95-4525-B1A7-DE9D45810D38.jpeg
 
That's super cool

I'd like to visit Bastogne sometime
 
Derek8404 said:
Funny that this was posted; my brother sent me these pics of him and a couple teammates sitting in Easy Company’s foxholes in Bastogne this past weekend. They were on their way back to the states and took a day trip to check it out.

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I related to 1SG Lipton’s fascination with the arty in the trees seeing a mess of inbound 107mm rockets streaking overhead at night...captivated by the propulsion’s glow...then the impacts started and the surreal event ended and the reality set in. I wasn’t also suffering from frostbite and having trees exploding around me for hours at a time. Like I said...I can relate but I can’t fathom what they went through
 
I’m interested to hear if Spielberg’s next project gets through production. He’s supposed to be working on The Mighty Eighth, about the Eighth Air Force in WWII. Based on a book called Masters of the Air (a great read). Hope we can see it soon.
 
Doctor SigFan said:
I’m interested to hear if Spielberg’s next project gets through production. He’s supposed to be working on The Mighty Eighth, about the Eighth Air Force in WWII. Based on a book called Masters of the Air (a great read). Hope we can see it soon.
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I have not seen any updates, but saw this:

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/hbos-mighty-eighth-update-getting-close.html

Also, Hanks as a destroyer captain:

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/tom-hanks-star-destroyer-captain-new-wwii-movie.html

Lots of quality WWII film coming....
 
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