The Pacific

:

Season 1
  • Network: HBO
  • Series Premiere Date: Mar 14, 2010
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 239 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 188 out of 239
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 239
  3. Negative: 26 out of 239
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  1. MarcDoyle
    Aug 7, 2010
    7
    Band of Brothers is clearly a very tough act to follow. The Pacific is not nearly as good, in part because it follows three different "lead characters", and you don't get that intimate connection that you did with the company in BoB. For some reason, I was also more interested in the stories told by the actual vets in BoB. But beyond just the entertainment value, these are amazingBand of Brothers is clearly a very tough act to follow. The Pacific is not nearly as good, in part because it follows three different "lead characters", and you don't get that intimate connection that you did with the company in BoB. For some reason, I was also more interested in the stories told by the actual vets in BoB. But beyond just the entertainment value, these are amazing individuals who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. I appreciate the historical document.… Expand
  2. RandyP
    Apr 6, 2010
    8
    I was hyped for this series, huge fan of B.O.B you felt a connection with the cast and vets that were interviewed, but with the pacific i feel its not indepth and lacks any means of connection to the characters, am i the only one who feels the same? cinamatics are phnomanal but i just dont buy the characters, sorry.
  3. gamefriek
    Sep 7, 2010
    9
    This is probably one of the best mini-series ever created, for the simple fact that it is a very powerful series. Not only does it tell about the war, but it also tells about the lives of the men.
  4. hdosorio
    Apr 19, 2011
    9
    Hemos visto muchas series y películas de la segunda guerra mundial enfocadas en los eventos desarrollados en Europa, esta serie nos trae una imagen sorprendente y veraz de lo sucedido en el Pacífico entre Estados Unidos y Japon. Buen guíon, buenas actuaciones, espectacular montaje, vale la pena. Un buen complemento a esta serie es ver laHemos visto muchas series y películas de la segunda guerra mundial enfocadas en los eventos desarrollados en Europa, esta serie nos trae una imagen sorprendente y veraz de lo sucedido en el Pacífico entre Estados Unidos y Japon. Buen guíon, buenas actuaciones, espectacular montaje, vale la pena. Un buen complemento a esta serie es ver la película Letters from Iwo Jima… Expand
  5. hugosel
    Jan 17, 2011
    8
    Top-class entertainment that synthesizes all that's good about Hollywood. Stunning acting performances, superb dialogue and a well-written plot (with some minor exceptions, hence 9 instead of 10 for me)...and the score by Hans Zimmer is splendid!
  6. arora
    May 24, 2011
    9
    test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review test review
  7. g3a9j7
    Apr 19, 2012
    10
    Very powerful and moving series. Yes it lacks the character focus of BoB but that wasn't the point of the Pacific. No other war related movie or series comes close to showing the first person experience of battle and the toll it takes on everyone like this one. The Pacific's main focus was on the personal experiences of its characters and how it affected and changed them in a very dramaticVery powerful and moving series. Yes it lacks the character focus of BoB but that wasn't the point of the Pacific. No other war related movie or series comes close to showing the first person experience of battle and the toll it takes on everyone like this one. The Pacific's main focus was on the personal experiences of its characters and how it affected and changed them in a very dramatic and terrible way. Because of this its very dark and ominous. The cheerful reverence and respect to veterans that BoB gave is replaced by the dark, haunting feelings and experiences that would stay with the characters for the remainder of their lives. Viewers will really begin to understand why ww2 vets never liked talking about their experiences in battle and how it permanently changed their lives for the worse and those with similar experiences will understand very strongly what they're attempting to portray. Basically the Pacific says "war is hell" and it will haunt you for the rest of your life. The music plays a key role in depicting the feelings they experienced. So if you want to see through all the praise and hoopla given to war vets marching to "To the halls of Montezuma..." and see it all through their eyes I would recommend nothing other than this series. You will see how in the end every single one of them who experienced battle and survived had still in a way sacrificed their lives. They lost they're ability to live a normal life and had it replaced with one haunted by their past. In the end you will respect them so much more for what they did.… Expand
  8. MorbidPig
    Aug 19, 2014
    8
    Less ambitious than Band of Brothers, but a whole lot darker, The Pacific is both a tragic and important reminder of the individuals caught between an international armed conflict and the home they yearn to see again.
  9. NickySmith
    Jan 3, 2015
    9
    During the holidays I had some free time to watch television. I just finished watching the HBO Miniseries (on Amazon Prime) directed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg "The Pacific", a intertwined journey of three U.S. Marines in World War II. Sometimes a hard movie to watch due to to violence and killing but was a well invested 10 hours of TV time. I could not help but cry during someDuring the holidays I had some free time to watch television. I just finished watching the HBO Miniseries (on Amazon Prime) directed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg "The Pacific", a intertwined journey of three U.S. Marines in World War II. Sometimes a hard movie to watch due to to violence and killing but was a well invested 10 hours of TV time. I could not help but cry during some scenes, and more so at the end when I discovered the stories are true as the credits roll with the Marines real pictures and when they died and some still living. What strong men, committed to freedom and loyal to each other, and our country we had during this Pacific invasion. Made me very proud of these Marines and also to be a free American in a country we time take for granted that it will always be a great country of freedom. I pray that if we ever have another war that the men today will be as strong as they were in that generation of my parents. My next movie series will be "Band of Brothers".… Expand
  10. fbtimes
    Mar 30, 2015
    8
    Less ambitious than Band of Brothers, but a whole lot darker, The Pacific is both a tragic and important reminder of the individuals caught between an international armed conflict and the home they yearn to see again.
  11. russiangamer
    May 10, 2017
    9
    Менее душевный, чем "Братья по оружию", но более захватывающий, в том смысле, что держит у экрана, с чем иногда не справлялись те же "Братья", которые не смотря на это, остаются прекрасным сериалом.
    Актёры, техническая сторона, музыка - всё прекрасно, но сценарий имеет реально смешные шутки и их много! В "Братьях" шутки, естественно, были, но тут смеялся от души, что способствовало    Менее душевный, чем "Братья по оружию", но более захватывающий, в том смысле, что держит у экрана, с чем иногда не справлялись те же "Братья", которые не смотря на это, остаются прекрасным сериалом.
    Актёры, техническая сторона, музыка - всё прекрасно, но сценарий имеет реально смешные шутки и их много! В "Братьях" шутки, естественно, были, но тут смеялся от души, что способствовало погружению. Не говорю, что сериал теперь комедия, нет. Это по-прежнему отличная драма о тяготах войны, которую я советую к просмотру!    … Expand
  12. fbtimesofficial
    Jul 25, 2015
    8
    Less ambitious than Band of Brothers, but a whole lot darker, The Pacific is both a tragic and important reminder of the individuals caught between an international armed conflict and the home they yearn to see again.
  13. MovieMasterEd
    Mar 22, 2016
    8
    If you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improvesIf you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improves on its 2001 European-theater predecessor.

    The war against Japan was different from the war against Hitler militarily, topographically and psychologically. WWII in Europe was, for all its mechanized death and horror, in some ways a throwback: it was the last great (so far) land war in Europe, fought in places with recognizable names by great massed armies. The men fighting there may have not known the big picture or cared about the geopolitics, but they at least recognized the war.

    (As did we. For whatever reason, the movies have had more success with war-in-Europe stories than with war-in-the-Pacific stories like Letters from Iwo Jima and The Thin Red Line. Even WWII videogames, like Call of Duty, involve Nazi-fighting more often than Pacific-war scenarios.)

    In the other theater, The Pacific makes painfully clear in its early episodes, the Marines that it follows had no idea what they were getting into. On the one hand, the war was simple: Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, and now we were going to get those bastards back. On the other hand, they were going to be introduced to a kind of war they had scarcely imagined, on islands they didn’t know, at a cost they could not conceive. “I might have jumped into Normandy, but at least I got some liberties in London and Paris,” a Europe vet tells a Marine after the war. “You got nothing but jungle rot and malaria.”

    The Pacific’s Marines are not naive: they know they’re going off to face a fierce enemy. But they go into the war in December 1941 talking about being home by next Christmas. Some expect a “cakewalk.” No one can pronounce “Guadalcanal.” We can, and the reason we know it is how horrible it—and Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and Peleliu—became for them.

    If Band of Brothers’ soldiers were fighting the last kind of war, in many ways The Pacific’s are going to fight the next one. They land on their first beach in a flotilla of armored ships, and we, like them, are dreading the kind of D-Day firefight we saw in Band, and before that in Saving Private Ryan. They land: quiet. For the moment.

    Instead of tank columns and shelled European cities, they find oppressive heat, disease and an enemy using guerilla tactics, suicide missions and sometimes civilians. There are poisoned wells and bugs in the rice (“Think of it as meat”). It’s part Vietnam, part Iraq, part horror movie. (In some of the most tense scenes of waiting, in the jungle, in the dark, it is–and I don’t mean this to be glib–like the sense of menace in a scene from Lost.)

    But there’s little History Channel-like attention to the sweep and strategy of the war; really, The Pacfic is not about “war” as practiced by generals, but fighting as done by grunts. And unlike Band of Brothers, which spread its attention among a wide ensemble fighting together, The Pacific focuses mainly on three Marines, in different units, whose stories and battles are mostly separate.

    Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) is a smart, cocky aspiring writer who struggles to keep his body and mind intact through some of the war’s fiercest fighting; Dale nails the role, making Leckie a soulful rogue. John Basilone (Jon Seda) is a Medal of Honor winner whose heroism wins him a trip home to sell war bonds—a prize, and a role, he’s uncomfortable with. And Joe Mazzello has maybe the most psychologically tricky role: Eugene Sledge, who has a guaranteed out from fighting—a heart murmur—and enlists anyway, over the objections of his father, who worries he’ll come back dead-eyed and broken like men he’s seen from WWI.

    The deeper Sledge gets into the war, the more he sees that his father may have been right. This is a kind of war that tries soldiers’ souls, and minds. Threats seem to be everywhere. Rumors fly (the Japanese have poisoned the coconuts, goes one). Witnessing atrocities and an almost incomprehensible willingness of the enemy to die takes a toll, and brings out ugliness in some soldiers along with the best in others. There are acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, as well as casual racism toward the “yellow monkeys.” After one savage battle, a few Marines amuse themselves by taking potshots at a stranded enemy soldier, to kill him slowly; disgusted, Leckie dispatches the soldier with his sidearm to end it.

    But if you want to watch The Pacific, it will repay you with a brutal but eloquent story that’s finally less about how men fight and die than what happens to them when they fight and survive. It will show you how character and sheer, unfair randomness combine to produce cruelty or decency.    … Expand
  14. MovieMasterEddy
    Apr 7, 2016
    8
    If you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improvesIf you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improves on its 2001 European-theater predecessor.

    The war against Japan was different from the war against Hitler militarily, topographically and psychologically. WWII in Europe was, for all its mechanized death and horror, in some ways a throwback: it was the last great (so far) land war in Europe, fought in places with recognizable names by great massed armies. The men fighting there may have not known the big picture or cared about the geopolitics, but they at least recognized the war.

    (As did we. For whatever reason, the movies have had more success with war-in-Europe stories than with war-in-the-Pacific stories like Letters from Iwo Jima and The Thin Red Line. Even WWII videogames, like Call of Duty, involve Nazi-fighting more often than Pacific-war scenarios.)

    In the other theater, The Pacific makes painfully clear in its early episodes, the Marines that it follows had no idea what they were getting into. On the one hand, the war was simple: Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, and now we were going to get those bastards back. On the other hand, they were going to be introduced to a kind of war they had scarcely imagined, on islands they didn’t know, at a cost they could not conceive. “I might have jumped into Normandy, but at least I got some liberties in London and Paris,” a Europe vet tells a Marine after the war. “You got nothing but jungle rot and malaria.”

    The Pacific’s Marines are not naive: they know they’re going off to face a fierce enemy. But they go into the war in December 1941 talking about being home by next Christmas. Some expect a “cakewalk.” No one can pronounce “Guadalcanal.” We can, and the reason we know it is how horrible it—and Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and Peleliu—became for them.

    If Band of Brothers’ soldiers were fighting the last kind of war, in many ways The Pacific’s are going to fight the next one. They land on their first beach in a flotilla of armored ships, and we, like them, are dreading the kind of D-Day firefight we saw in Band, and before that in Saving Private Ryan. They land: quiet. For the moment.

    Instead of tank columns and shelled European cities, they find oppressive heat, disease and an enemy using guerilla tactics, suicide missions and sometimes civilians. There are poisoned wells and bugs in the rice (“Think of it as meat”). It’s part Vietnam, part Iraq, part horror movie. (In some of the most tense scenes of waiting, in the jungle, in the dark, it is–and I don’t mean this to be glib–like the sense of menace in a scene from Lost.)

    But there’s little History Channel-like attention to the sweep and strategy of the war; really, The Pacfic is not about “war” as practiced by generals, but fighting as done by grunts. And unlike Band of Brothers, which spread its attention among a wide ensemble fighting together, The Pacific focuses mainly on three Marines, in different units, whose stories and battles are mostly separate.

    Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) is a smart, cocky aspiring writer who struggles to keep his body and mind intact through some of the war’s fiercest fighting; Dale nails the role, making Leckie a soulful rogue. John Basilone (Jon Seda) is a Medal of Honor winner whose heroism wins him a trip home to sell war bonds—a prize, and a role, he’s uncomfortable with. And Joe Mazzello has maybe the most psychologically tricky role: Eugene Sledge, who has a guaranteed out from fighting—a heart murmur—and enlists anyway, over the objections of his father, who worries he’ll come back dead-eyed and broken like men he’s seen from WWI.

    The deeper Sledge gets into the war, the more he sees that his father may have been right. This is a kind of war that tries soldiers’ souls, and minds. Threats seem to be everywhere. Rumors fly (the Japanese have poisoned the coconuts, goes one). Witnessing atrocities and an almost incomprehensible willingness of the enemy to die takes a toll, and brings out ugliness in some soldiers along with the best in others. There are acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, as well as casual racism toward the “yellow monkeys.” After one savage battle, a few Marines amuse themselves by taking potshots at a stranded enemy soldier, to kill him slowly; disgusted, Leckie dispatches the soldier with his sidearm to end it.

    But if you want to watch The Pacific, it will repay you with a brutal but eloquent story that’s finally less about how men fight and die than what happens to them when they fight and survive. It will show you how character and sheer, unfair randomness combine to produce cruelty or decency.    … Expand
  15. eva3si0n
    May 7, 2017
    9
    Good military series about the Pacific military front of World War II. I have decided to look at him after Band of Brothers. Yes it isn't so well directed and not so interesting as Band of Brothers, but is all the same good. The cast is of course not such known, but in general actors have coped with the task - to show horrors of war and "wildness" of Japanese. I recommend to all it toGood military series about the Pacific military front of World War II. I have decided to look at him after Band of Brothers. Yes it isn't so well directed and not so interesting as Band of Brothers, but is all the same good. The cast is of course not such known, but in general actors have coped with the task - to show horrors of war and "wildness" of Japanese. I recommend to all it to look, and people began to forget that recently what there have passed our grandfathers through to present us light life.… Expand
  16. steven
    Aug 31, 2010
    4
    I had such high hopes for The Pacific after having watched Band of Brothers. I expected an intertwining storyline moving in a linear manner with high drama and a soulful look at the changes a man goes through living and fighting in a hellish war. What I received was an incoherent jumble of storylines mixing like oil and water with a love story inserted as a change of pace. DisappointingI had such high hopes for The Pacific after having watched Band of Brothers. I expected an intertwining storyline moving in a linear manner with high drama and a soulful look at the changes a man goes through living and fighting in a hellish war. What I received was an incoherent jumble of storylines mixing like oil and water with a love story inserted as a change of pace. Disappointing to say the least.… Expand
  17. meh
    Aug 11, 2010
    5
    The Pacific is a ringing endorsement for meh. Not as riveting as its predecessor, Band of Brothers, but better than most war movies. Having to condense the entirety of the Pacific War into 10 episodes was too much in my opinion. Also, the jumping POV between the various characters made it difficult to follow.
  18. RelaxingKyle
    Aug 11, 2010
    10
    Fantastic, mainly for one reason: It's an original war story. It strays away from only showcasing the action in the war and spends time focusing on the characters in it and their journeys throughout the war.
  19. Brosman
    May 29, 2013
    10
    When this show first got announced, I knew Band of Brothers would be something very tough to surpass. Although the Pacific isn't better than BoB its is still an incredible movie/show to watch. On its own accord this film is great and is easily one of my favorite movie/shows of all time.
  20. recon292
    Jan 8, 2013
    2
    Bad acting, great special effects, and the story of the Marines in the Pacific Theater could be told by 5th graders and still be fascinating. However, and for whatever reason, the director decided to make the characters so cliche and the writers went waaay out of their way to try to exclude or minimize everything Army, and if that wasn't good enough, decided they needed to throw in a fewBad acting, great special effects, and the story of the Marines in the Pacific Theater could be told by 5th graders and still be fascinating. However, and for whatever reason, the director decided to make the characters so cliche and the writers went waaay out of their way to try to exclude or minimize everything Army, and if that wasn't good enough, decided they needed to throw in a few poorly written jabs as well. Obviously done in poor taste and there's not enough story to hold the narrative together as the characters get lost in the jumble and then sweeping boring lulls. Skip this one, stick to Band of Brothers.… Expand
  21. Acriminal
    Aug 22, 2010
    5
    The Pacific is definitely not Band of Brothers. The stories all seem separate from eachother and are rather dull. There is no spark between any of the characters. The battle scenes are amazing but I just didn't get gripped by the story like I did when watching Band of Brothers. Really the best part of the show was the opening theme song, and even that wasn't as good as what they hadThe Pacific is definitely not Band of Brothers. The stories all seem separate from eachother and are rather dull. There is no spark between any of the characters. The battle scenes are amazing but I just didn't get gripped by the story like I did when watching Band of Brothers. Really the best part of the show was the opening theme song, and even that wasn't as good as what they had for Band of Brothers. I was excited about The Pacific for a long time, but I had hoped for much better.… Expand
  22. bobm
    Apr 12, 2010
    8
    Not as good as band of brothers as the stroyline is alot more harder to follow in the pacific. War scenes done incredibly well again as you would expect really of hanks and speilzberg. The general idear of the history of the pacfic warfare is portaryed very well, however the lack of outstanding acting as portrayed in band of brothers and the amazing dialougue the characters had in terms Not as good as band of brothers as the stroyline is alot more harder to follow in the pacific. War scenes done incredibly well again as you would expect really of hanks and speilzberg. The general idear of the history of the pacfic warfare is portaryed very well, however the lack of outstanding acting as portrayed in band of brothers and the amazing dialougue the characters had in terms of how they bonded and bounced off each other which the pacfic fails to supply. In conclusion the series is still a remarkable effort by HBO and a powerful drama as the war scenes are rightfully shown in gory detail in how the the pacific was thought and how the veterans are regarded as heroes in our eyes.… Expand
  23. Ravenous
    Nov 6, 2010
    5
    The fact is that the Pacific is not even close to being as good as Band of Brothers. For starters, the focus on the characters in The Pacific is disjointed and somewhat haphazard, resulting in the overall story itself lacking any feeling of cohesion, at least for the entire first half of the series. Secondly, aside from Sledge, the characters just aren't all that interesting, and theThe fact is that the Pacific is not even close to being as good as Band of Brothers. For starters, the focus on the characters in The Pacific is disjointed and somewhat haphazard, resulting in the overall story itself lacking any feeling of cohesion, at least for the entire first half of the series. Secondly, aside from Sledge, the characters just aren't all that interesting, and the half-baked attempts to show the families on the homefront falls completely flat. I was bored for the first several episodes, at least until they get to Peleliu. In sharp contrast with Band of Brothers, the audience simply doesn't have enough time to really get to know the characters and their stories, and the fact that the episodes themselves are shorter than those in B.o.B. only makes this problem worse. Overall, The Pacific is just plain disappointing. Do yourself a favor, read Sledge's book 'With the Old Breed' instead... best World War II novel ever written (makes the Naked and the Dead seem lazy and unrealistic in comparison).… Expand
  24. abulafia
    Sep 9, 2010
    3
    Not interesting at all. Characters are boring cliches. Fights are so dark and poorly displayed that you wont see anything. The different fights are barely connected by background personal stories that are soooooo booooooring. A politically correct vision of the war at the pacific. Close to nationalist propaganda.
  25. lanceb
    Apr 12, 2010
    8
    I'm not quite enjoying the series (still ongoing) as much as I did Band of Brothers (which was perfect as far as I'm concerned), but The Pacific has still been quite a joyride.
  26. KundK
    Aug 28, 2010
    6
    Technically perfect, but more disjointed and much less engaging than the fantastic Band of Brothers. I could not make myself care for any of the characters and that kills everything, even the will to finish watching the last two episodes. It seems the story would function better if they ditched the idea of following the books and made a cast of composite characters (still true) who wouldTechnically perfect, but more disjointed and much less engaging than the fantastic Band of Brothers. I could not make myself care for any of the characters and that kills everything, even the will to finish watching the last two episodes. It seems the story would function better if they ditched the idea of following the books and made a cast of composite characters (still true) who would be with us all the way.… Expand
  27. Arimack
    Apr 7, 2010
    6
    I so wanted to like this series. I own Band of Brothers and have read Sledge's book on which part of the series is based. Unfortunately is is clear early on that this is not in the same league as BoB. The issue comes not from the technical aspects of the series which if anything surpass some of BoB's best scenes. What is missing is the ensemble cast that flow thru the series and I so wanted to like this series. I own Band of Brothers and have read Sledge's book on which part of the series is based. Unfortunately is is clear early on that this is not in the same league as BoB. The issue comes not from the technical aspects of the series which if anything surpass some of BoB's best scenes. What is missing is the ensemble cast that flow thru the series and are ever present even when they are not the focus of the episode. I grew to care deeply about the ensemble of BoB. I am having a great deal of difficulty following even the leads in the Pacific. The ensemble supporting them is almost lost with little back story on any of them. That is where the Pacific fails. It does not follow a group who came together and fought across the war together. It follows three individuals, separately, as they struggle in the vast Pacific. The fact that they have to open each episode with a narrative of what is going on in the war, also shows the lack of a clear driving story behind the whole production. Sad because I so wanted to like this series. I will watch the whole thing...but I will not be happy about it.… Expand
  28. MichaelB
    Mar 28, 2010
    4
    One single omission speaks volumes why the Pacific simply does not work.The most critical battle of the entire Pacific Campaign is not mentioned that being the Battle of Midway which put the Japanese on the defensive, losing 4 aircraft carriers. Without that epic victory Guadalcanal could never have been attempted. On virtually every level- acting, direction, editing and particularly One single omission speaks volumes why the Pacific simply does not work.The most critical battle of the entire Pacific Campaign is not mentioned that being the Battle of Midway which put the Japanese on the defensive, losing 4 aircraft carriers. Without that epic victory Guadalcanal could never have been attempted. On virtually every level- acting, direction, editing and particularly writing- The Pacific is substantially inferior to A Band of Brothers. The Battle of Guadalcanal was incoherently told at best. As for the Australia R&R episode please, this was stale and boring, lifted from a few hundred earlier war films. All in all a major disappointment.… Expand
  29. kman5473
    Mar 14, 2019
    6
    First and foremost: though this may have been made by the same people who made Band of Brothers, and in the same HBO 10-part mini-series, this cannot be compared to Band of Brothers.

    I say this, because the Pacific seeks to tell the story of the Pacific Theater of WWII, a much longer, complex, and larger part of the war as a whole. In 10 episodes, this series goes from 1941 to 1946    First and foremost: though this may have been made by the same people who made Band of Brothers, and in the same HBO 10-part mini-series, this cannot be compared to Band of Brothers.

    I say this, because the Pacific seeks to tell the story of the Pacific Theater of WWII, a much longer, complex, and larger part of the war as a whole. In 10 episodes, this series goes from 1941 to 1946 (whereas Band of Brothers takes place over the span of about 500 days). In addition to this, The Pacific focus solely on the Marine Corps involvement in the war, and (I believe, given the chosen stories told) there was no one individual nor company of men that fought in every major battle throughout the war. Thus, we end up with three characters--all Marines--that had over-lapping careers in combat.
    The scope of this part of the war alone does not allow for the same kind of character build that Band of Brothers had, and furthermore the war in the Pacific was significantly more costly and grizzly than the European one entirely. In the Pacific, we're fighting for islands with cave systems. One amphibious land invasion at a time.
    It's brutal, it's honest, and it really makes you question the price that is paid to fight wars.
    However, for a show that sets itself up to be "the definitive series to cover the Pacific war," this series, by most accounts, fails because that theater was just so huge. If it weren't for the fact that this was branded as a follow-up to Band Of Brothers, and its title was, "The Pacific," (something else that is more accurate to the limited, but respectable scope this story tells) then I would be more kind in critiquing it.    … Expand
  30. Cinemassacre94
    Mar 20, 2016
    8
    If you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improvesIf you watched the ten brutal episodes of HBO’s Band of Brothers–in which war was not glorious but miserable, and death sudden and ignominious–you were probably not thinking that there was an even uglier side to World War II that this miniseries was not showing you. But there was, and showing that side is the project of The Pacific, the ten-episode bookend that in nearly every way improves on its 2001 European-theater predecessor.

    The war against Japan was different from the war against Hitler militarily, topographically and psychologically. WWII in Europe was, for all its mechanized death and horror, in some ways a throwback: it was the last great (so far) land war in Europe, fought in places with recognizable names by great massed armies. The men fighting there may have not known the big picture or cared about the geopolitics, but they at least recognized the war.

    (As did we. For whatever reason, the movies have had more success with war-in-Europe stories than with war-in-the-Pacific stories like Letters from Iwo Jima and The Thin Red Line. Even WWII videogames, like Call of Duty, involve Nazi-fighting more often than Pacific-war scenarios.)

    In the other theater, The Pacific makes painfully clear in its early episodes, the Marines that it follows had no idea what they were getting into. On the one hand, the war was simple: Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, and now we were going to get those bastards back. On the other hand, they were going to be introduced to a kind of war they had scarcely imagined, on islands they didn’t know, at a cost they could not conceive. “I might have jumped into Normandy, but at least I got some liberties in London and Paris,” a Europe vet tells a Marine after the war. “You got nothing but jungle rot and malaria.”

    The Pacific’s Marines are not naive: they know they’re going off to face a fierce enemy. But they go into the war in December 1941 talking about being home by next Christmas. Some expect a “cakewalk.” No one can pronounce “Guadalcanal.” We can, and the reason we know it is how horrible it—and Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and Peleliu—became for them.

    If Band of Brothers’ soldiers were fighting the last kind of war, in many ways The Pacific’s are going to fight the next one. They land on their first beach in a flotilla of armored ships, and we, like them, are dreading the kind of D-Day firefight we saw in Band, and before that in Saving Private Ryan. They land: quiet. For the moment.

    Instead of tank columns and shelled European cities, they find oppressive heat, disease and an enemy using guerilla tactics, suicide missions and sometimes civilians. There are poisoned wells and bugs in the rice (“Think of it as meat”). It’s part Vietnam, part Iraq, part horror movie. (In some of the most tense scenes of waiting, in the jungle, in the dark, it is–and I don’t mean this to be glib–like the sense of menace in a scene from Lost.)

    But there’s little History Channel-like attention to the sweep and strategy of the war; really, The Pacfic is not about “war” as practiced by generals, but fighting as done by grunts. And unlike Band of Brothers, which spread its attention among a wide ensemble fighting together, The Pacific focuses mainly on three Marines, in different units, whose stories and battles are mostly separate.

    Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) is a smart, cocky aspiring writer who struggles to keep his body and mind intact through some of the war’s fiercest fighting; Dale nails the role, making Leckie a soulful rogue. John Basilone (Jon Seda) is a Medal of Honor winner whose heroism wins him a trip home to sell war bonds—a prize, and a role, he’s uncomfortable with. And Joe Mazzello has maybe the most psychologically tricky role: Eugene Sledge, who has a guaranteed out from fighting—a heart murmur—and enlists anyway, over the objections of his father, who worries he’ll come back dead-eyed and broken like men he’s seen from WWI.

    The deeper Sledge gets into the war, the more he sees that his father may have been right. This is a kind of war that tries soldiers’ souls, and minds. Threats seem to be everywhere. Rumors fly (the Japanese have poisoned the coconuts, goes one). Witnessing atrocities and an almost incomprehensible willingness of the enemy to die takes a toll, and brings out ugliness in some soldiers along with the best in others. There are acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, as well as casual racism toward the “yellow monkeys.” After one savage battle, a few Marines amuse themselves by taking potshots at a stranded enemy soldier, to kill him slowly; disgusted, Leckie dispatches the soldier with his sidearm to end it.

    But if you want to watch The Pacific, it will repay you with a brutal but eloquent story that’s finally less about how men fight and die than what happens to them when they fight and survive. It will show you how character and sheer, unfair randomness combine to produce cruelty or decency.    … Expand
  31. MommaBear_x3
    Jun 1, 2017
    10
    In contradiction to all other user, I have to disagree with most users. The Pacific was a good mini-series. You cannot compare the two as the war against Japan was different from the war against the Nazis militarily, geographically and psychologically. I think that the war in Europe was honoured more than the war in the Pacific. Therefor I pledge that "The Pacific" is a greatIn contradiction to all other user, I have to disagree with most users. The Pacific was a good mini-series. You cannot compare the two as the war against Japan was different from the war against the Nazis militarily, geographically and psychologically. I think that the war in Europe was honoured more than the war in the Pacific. Therefor I pledge that "The Pacific" is a great representation of the war against Japan. Most people think that this war was as simple as fighting in the civilian cities. Yet most forget that these Marines had to endure the fears of the jungle and the discourage of the never surrendering japs who creaved US blood.

    The Pacific portrayed the agony of noncombat, the terror, disease, hostile weather, the asian families fleeing battle, torturing of their enemy and the desperate attempt of dieing Marines begging for their lives. This gives us a good view of the scenarios of moral dilemmas people faced during the war.

    (SPOILER ALERT) Example:

    The next day they move forward, and Sledge and Snafu watch as their fellow Marines slaughter all the Japanese they come across using bullets, flamethrowers, tank rounds. Sledge seems more disconnected and monstrous than Snafu as he witnesses the gory nightmare around him. He barely takes cover as a nearby explosion happens. When a Japanese soldier attempts to take him by surprise Sledge cuts him down with barely a thought. Snafu watches his friend kill with a look of shock.

    As they're walking by a hut, they hear a baby crying. "Might be a trap," Sledge says, but after a moment, they go inside anyway. They discover the baby crying by the breast of his dead mother. The woman's body has been blown open by an explosion. Sledge realizes that this hut is much like the one he ordered the squad to hit, and looks at the hole in the ceiling in cold horror. Snafu tries to reassure him that a lot of mortars were fired up there, but it does nothing to comfort Sledge. Another man walks in, sees the baby, asks them what's their problem is, and scoops up the infant in his arms.

    Snafu turns and leaves and Sledge walks behind him until he hears the soft breathing and voice of woman pleading from another corner of the hut. He follows the noise and sees an older woman, her face swollen and purple, struggling to breathe and repeating something to him softly. Sledge at first takes aim at her, then lowers his rifle. Struggling, her jaw slack, she lifts the cloth on what remains of her shirt and shows him her wound: She's been blown in half. She reaches for the muzzle of his rifle and guides it to her forehead with one hand, then mimes with the index finger of her other hand that he should pull the trigger.

    Sledge almost does, then stops himself. He slowly puts down the gun, eases to the floor next to the woman, reaches over and cradles her in his arms, stroking her hair. She stares up at him and breathes a few more gasps. She pulls her face into his neck in a deep embrace, and as she stops breathing, she drops a child's toy that makes a jingling noise as it hits the ground.
    End

    Nonetheless Band of Brothers and The Pacific are both very good mini-series about war. However they should not be compared since it wouldn't be fair to undermine their importance and respect they earned. Not to forget the follow-up on these series will be "Masters of the Air".

    I think it's safe to say that this mini-serie was a succes for what they where aiming to achieve on-screen from visual effects to the emotions put into the series. At the end of the season we get a review of the US Marines who served in the war, may they be honored for their service and rest in peace.    … Expand
  32. GrantD243
    May 15, 2019
    9
    A brutal, realistic portrayal of what soldiers went through while fighting in the Pacific Islands during World War 2. This is a must watch.
  33. Onlyclassicvg1
    Mar 12, 2022
    8
    Sinopsis: Tres marines son los protagonistas de la miniserie de Tom Hanks y Steven Spielberg sobre la guerra en el Pacífico que comienza tras el ataque a Pearl Harbor.

Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best TV Season of 2010
22
#22 Most Discussed TV Season of 2010
6
#6 Most Shared TV Season of 2010

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
86

Universal acclaim - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. Boston Herald
    Reviewed by: Mark A. Perigard
    91
    By dramatizing the true stories of the men who fought there, Spielberg and Hanks craft perhaps their most psychologically grounded work.
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  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Maureen Ryan
    100
    Certain moments may verge on cliche (and once in a while, the dialogue is a little corny), but overall, The Pacific is crafted and acted with such loving devotion that it's hard to find fault with its sincerity and sentimental forays.
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  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    83
    The Pacific has both grand scale and intimacy. It builds in intensity as the series proceeds.
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