More Band of Brothers !

[Silent Bob]

Not to sound like a wet blanket, or detract what our soldiers went through in World War II, but I think there has been too much emphasis on the European theater/World War II (possibly because Nazis are the only war movie enemy that doesn't bring out the special interest groups?) in the past several years. I would like to see the Band of Brothers concept expanded to Korea, which isn't known as "The Forgotten War" for nothing. (Well, there was MASH and all)

 

[simon]

Good Point Bob!
Maybe on the next one they'll do just that...

 

[tetchaje1]

Don't leave out Bougainville.

I agree that the Pacific War was really focused on the Marines (shore landings) and the Navy (sea and air battles). I also agree that a future series about the Korean War is essential.

 

[Hutch]

'Nother vote for using "With the Old Breed" as a basis. The 1st MarDiv (including my father-in-law) went from Oki to China after the war. Some fascinating stories came from that, and some are in another book by E. B. Sledge. Forgot the name of the book, unfortunately.

Sledge(hammer) taught college near hear in a little state school (Universit of Montevallo) until recently. He passed late in 2001, IIRC. His son had a neat display table at an AGCA (Ala. Gun Collectors ???'n) show a couple back, with some some of his personal effects.

 

[Waitone]

Regardless of the historical setting for BoB II, can we look forward to American forces assaulting an objective with walkie-talkies? Hey, Steven S. failed to mention Schindler armed Jews.

That said, I enjoy BoB I and look forward to II.

 

[JDSlack]

Hutch,
I agree "With The Old Breed" would be a great start, but so would "The Long and The Short And The Tall" another great 1st person account about USMC in the Pacific. Tha Author, Alvain Josephy was with the 3rd MarDiv on Guam and Iwo, great story.

 

[444]

Of course we all could be wrong and it will be about the Navy.

 

[Boats]

Of course we all could be wrong and it will be about the Navy.

And that tale could certainly be harrowing in its own way. Pearl, Coral Sea, Midway, The "Slot," all of the action around the Phillipines, the first Kamikaze strikes, signing the Japanese surrender on Big Mo'.

The thing about battle at sea is that there is nowhere to run away to. You fight where you live and work. if the ship is struck significantly, a good portion of the crew, and your friends will die or be horribly maimed. If the ship sinks, you could go down with it and drown, escape it only to drown, escape it only to die of exposure, be rescued, (but not by the enemy), or maybe become shark chow.

I'd probably watch it.

 

[lionken07]

I think the DVD collection is well worth the almost $100 dollars price tag.

I will get the next band of brothers DVDs as soon as they come out.

and yes hopefully its base on true story.

 

[444]

I would actually prefer it being about the Navy, but I would like to see the same kind of format where they follow one ship or one unit (however it works in the Navy) through the war rather than jumping around.

 

[greyhound]

Silent Bob, good point about the Nazis being the only "PC" enemy these days. Remember the big fuss out in L.A when when they wanted to show "Tora, Tora, Tora" to some veterans and some liberal assclown wouldn't let them use a public arena?

One of my biggest peeves is that we're not allowed to show history as it really was these days, it all has to fit into someone's post-modern agenda. (Like schools having 1 week on Harriet Tubman and 1 day on (slave-owning) Thomas Jefferson. Now I agree that both need to be taught and are important, but come on....)

 

[Silent Bob]

I think a neat scene (in a Korean Band of Brothers) would be to portray a massive ChiCom human wave attack against an American position, complete with the bugles they would play to signal attacks.

 

[Cosmoline]

The big problem with setting it on the Navy is COST. Even huge films with multi million dollar budgets fear filming on the sea. It could be done at that big tank in Mexico, but it wouldn't look right.

 

[Boats]

The big problem with setting it on the Navy is COST. Even huge films with multi million dollar budgets fear filming on the sea. It could be done at that big tank in Mexico, but it wouldn't look right.

Despite largely filming in tanks, the illusion of being at sea was pretty well maintained in The Perfect Storm and Titanic. I tend to think that if Speilberg wanted to do a BoB involving the Navy, that he might know a crew or two who could make it happen well enough that you wouldn't know that nobody ever left the dock.

Anyone who watched the extras disc on BoB knows that the whole thing was filmed mostly on one backlot for the town and hedgrow scenes and a huge indoor soundstage for Bastonge. Mix in some location shots of "Curahee," Bavaria, and Austria, and voila, finished film. Four DC-3s become hundreds, ships flown over the channel all digitized, jump scenes all bluescreened. The Navy would be simple enough with enough computing power.

 

[444]

I never watch the extra disc. I want to believe it is all real. I have no desire to see how it was REALLY made. That takes all the fun out of it for me.

 

[Cosmoline]

Sure, but

the Titanic had a "titanic" budget, and "The Perfect Storm" used a small boat with a small crew.

You know, I bet they could pull it off if they set it on a PT boat or frigate. But then you run into the problems of the viewers having to see the same sets every single episode. BOB was great in part because it was always shifting.

They'll go to the Marines on this one, I'm sure. They can get a bit of everything that way. Some shots on the big ships at sea, some on landing craft, some in the interior of tropical islands, etc.

Still wish someone would make a film about Attu and the forgotten front. The wet and cold the soldiers had to cope with up here made the worst days of the Battle of the Bulge look mild.

 

[Boats]

BoB's $90-100 million budget was nothing to sneeze at. One can readily see that most of that money made it onto the screen, largely because mostly "not-yet famous" actors such as Ron Livingston and Damian Lewis were used.

I think BoB--PTO will follow the Marines. It would be a treat to have some naval gunfire support, close air support, and kamikaze action off of some of those islands "filmed" and included. In the ETO, the allies had air superiority but no enemy willing to engage in air carnage against allied targets when losing. The PTO was as different from the ETO as night is to day.

To be credible, the BoB-PTO portrayal should be unblinking in its honesty. As much as it was about anything else, the PTO was a race war. "The Japs" was just the most polite term our side had for them, and they were not any better about the caucasins they fought against or captured.

We didn't take many prisoners because even when the few IJA troops who surrendered tried to, they were rarely captured. On our side, one knew better than to become a POW and to save that last bullet for himself. No one ever told his buddies, "Leave me for the Japs" when on the retreat or something and thought to be too wounded to move. Where else did Americans face bayonet charges and other serious hand-to-hand combat incidents because of the close contact distances jungle fighting can create?

Where was napalm first used? Where were flamethrowers common and used as extensively as any other issued weapon? The atom bomb? There is a nasty undercurrent in the PTO that made that theater qualitatively more savage than the ETO.

BoB does contain a not-so-subtle respect for the enemy's "sameness." A certain respect would be paid by Pacific veterans to their counterparts, but it would be more grounded in an otherworldly toughness, ability to endure hardship and fight suicidally, not out of a shared sense of duty or other, "we could've been friends in a different context" claptrap.

BoB-PTO needs to be more politically incorrect than BoB-ETO or it will ring falsely.

 

[444]

Very good points.
I don't think that will happen, but you are correct.

 

[moa]

Correct me if I am wrong, please, but during in the Alaska campaign was there not a large scale and deadly friendly fire event? Result of dirty weather?

 

[DMK]

Correct me if I am wrong, please, but during in the Alaska campaign was there not a large scale and deadly friendly fire event? Result of dirty weather?

I remember reading about that. IIRC, two U.S. forces landed on opposite sides of a Japanese held island. They soon made contact and had a fierce firefight. Unfortunately, the enemy had already left the island well before they got there. The two forces were attacking each other.

 

[cdbeaver]

Boats:

I believe the Navy's role in WWII was covered extensively in the television series "Victory at Sea." I thought the Navy came off pretty well in those episodes.

WWII's ETO was primarily an Army (and Army Air Force) show, while in the Pacific the Marines were the prmary combatants (though the Army came in to "mop up" after the Marines had secured enemy-held islands with their amphibious landings.

I do not at all intend to throw rocks when I say that the Marine brass was very publicity conscious, and Marine cameramen, both still and movie, were right up at the very front lines recording Marine battles for the sake of historical accuracy . . . and Marine glory.

This old Korean War vet would very much like to see a documentary-type movie or TV series about that three-year conflict that saw more than 33,000 soldier and Marines killed in combat.

 

[Boats]

Please note that although I am myself a naval veteran, I have "lobbied" nobody in particular that the BoB-PTO should be about the Marines from the get-go.

No discussion of WWII publicity hounds would be complete without a few days devoted to the media antics of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

I also agree that perhaps one should be done about Korea, especially to remind those South Korean protestors and the American left why we are still there.

 

[ShaiVong]

Ok, now i'm showing my WW2 history knowledge holes.

Wasn't the Army on Okinawa too? My Grandfather was on Okinawa, and I always thought he was Army...

He's never mentioned the core, although he never really talks about it in detail. hes 82 now though, and still screams at night.

 

[Dave R]

You guys are missing an obvious area of focus: Guadalcanal. Prolly the most pivotal battle of the Pacific Theatre. If that had swung the other way, it would've been a lot longer war.

And the facts couldn't have been scripted better by a fantasy writer.

Marines abandoned by the Navy. Forced to live off captured enemy rations. Rag-tag flyboys keeping planes aloft by cannibalism. Epic ground battles, huge odds, no reinforcements, live or die with what we got, hold the line by using artillery at close range with grapeshot, Chesty Puller, what else do you want?

Wow, who could play Chesty Puller? None of today's crop. Ernest Borgnine? (his early, dramatic days, not McHales Navy) Lee Marvin? The Duke? Gunny Ermy ;-) ?

 

[cdbeaver]

Boats:

That's for sure. There was none better in the world at self-aggrandizement than good ol' Dugout Doug. His ego was large enought to last through part of the Korean War and a joint session of Congress.

By the way, Sunday will mark the 50th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in Korea in July, 1953, with appropriate ceremonies here and abroad. Please give a nod of your head for those valiant warriors who were the first to fight against communism in that "police action."