My dad just gave me the book and I was looking at the pictures and it turns out Sledgehammer and Snafu end up being lifelong friends. There's a nice picture of the two of them well into their senior years.

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I thought about the episode naming as well last night...get out of my head shakes.

I "skip" past the music...i.e. change the channel for ~3minutes. I have it down to a science now...

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@audioidkid

Funny that you guys are talking about the music. I was dicussing this with a friend last night, the first couple of episodes it was really cool but now I just want to get to the story!

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You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

I really don't like how they run the intros with this series.

They always do it in this order:
1. Tom Hanks voiceover and interviews with Vets.
2. Previously on "The Pacific"...
3. Opening Credits

It really should go like this:
1. Previously...
2. Credits
3. Interviews

By putting the interviews first, you kind of lose the emotion these guys have when talking about the battles because you have to sit through about 3-5 minutes of recaps and credits.

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Good point, you're totally right about that.

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i love the music.

i learned the theme, in fact...

nice work.

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@audioidkid

Episode 8 or "Sands of Iwo Jima"?

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President of Blake Shetlon fan club

Just got done watching it. I kind of expected that to happen to him with the way the love story was going.It was a decent episode IMO however the next one looks really good,back to the fucking craziness.

_________________
You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

I thought the episode was pretty compelling.

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President of Blake Shetlon fan club

Very good episode. The relationship scenes were well done and the last 15 minutes
were really intense. The series is coming on strong. Really looking forward to next
week as my grandfather was on that island and in some of the battles. Just hope
the last two episodes don't dissapoint. I am most concerned with the last episode
and how things wrap up. I know this isn't as good as Band of Brothers but with all
the high expectations we all seemingly had, the last 2 or 3 episodes have been
pretty damn good.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

the last 10 minutes was good.

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@audioidkid

Yep, everything else was The Notebook goes to Bootcamp.

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Here's a pic of the Basilone statue in his hometown. If this isn't one of the coolest statues ever made its gotta be in the team photo.

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I just wonder how closely the show is following the literary works it is based on.
I would be upset if they "Friday Night Light"-ed the content.
Remember, the Texas championship game describe in the book was a blowout. The movie version had it come down to the final drive.
I just want to know if Basilone was actually married in that fashion or the events in the Australia scenes really took place. Were these scenes added to offset the battle scenes.
I also hope the battle scenes weren't altered for dramatic effect.
Even with fiction, I'm bothered by it ("Jaws").

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President of Blake Shetlon fan club

Everything I've read about Basilone has been portrayed 100% correct in the show, including all his heroics in battle. Actually, what I read makes it sound like he did even more than they showed on Iwa Jima in his limited time before he died.

Actually, one inaccuracy is that he died from a mortar strike whereas the show made it look like he was shot.

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Another good episode last night, now that it is moving along nicely I am sorry to
see it go. I'm curious to see how they'll wrap everything up. That was a pretty
touching scene last night as he held that dying Japanese woman.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Okinawan woman....you're confusing shows.

kiss the baby, throw the baby, and now the exploding baby. that scene was pretty badass.

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@audioidkid

Snafu and Sledge drive the show.

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President of Blake Shetlon fan club

that's because they're the only two characters that have been given a full fleshing out.

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i wonder now if that's because everyone else was killed or wounded...

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@audioidkid

i'm glad they're wrapping up leckie's story in the finale, too. sledge is certainly the most fleshed out character but leckie was my guy.

+1

Probably the best episode yet imo. I was telling my friend last night that I thought the baby was a trap,looked way too suspicious but that was an AWESOME scene. I almost feel like they would need a 2hr finale to end this thing;something about last nights episode left me wanting more than just 1 more episode.

_________________
You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

yeah...it could have been way better from the start.

_________________
@audioidkid

my one gripe, because otherwise it was a rather powerful episode, was the trite "ironic" moment that sledge had when he got mad at the "grunt" who killed the innocent okinawan. when the guy said, "he's just a jap. we're here to kill japs!"...eye-roll inducing.

I have to agree, that was an uncomfortable exchange in what was otherwise a
nicely done episode. Minor in the grand scheme, but the fact that it comes near
the end, especially after that scene with him holding that woman, that dialogue
was a let down.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

it's just so obvious that they're trying to show sledge's own hypocrisy. he said the exact same thing only a few scenes before the dying woman scene. the scene could have been kept (the grunt killing the innocent guy) but there was no need for the line "we're here to kill japs!" it was just overkill. we get that sledge has seen the difference and has really felt loss. and that it's not just about "killing japs".

I guess I felt the same way about this episode being somewhat anti-climactic, but frankly I think that's the way it was. It wasn't like the US soldiers in the European theater marching into Berlin. They dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and then the soldiers were told they could go home. You want that climactic conclusion as they are rushing up to take a hill (just like in John Wayne's Sand of Iwo Jima), but that's just not how it was.

I thought the final episode was very nicely done. I really liked the last bit with finding out what happened to a lot of these guys. Went on a bit long toward the end in the sense that I didn't even recognize some of the fallen heroes that they were showing.

Overall this was a decent but far too up-and-down miniseries. I think it did a good job of showing just how agonizing the pacific war was; but there was something missing in the human element. And again, they followed so many characters at some times, that I couldn't keep up with all of them. Sledge, Leckie, and Snafu by far were the most interesting characters with Snafu being probably the most surprising because I *hated* him at first. And then I grew to like him a lot.

It really got me that all these guys are gone. Sledge lasted a lot longer than Snaf and Leckie but it was just kind of sad to see.

I liked the scene with him hunting with his dad. I also really liked the dinner scene with Leckie and Vera. Felt very natural.

But there were stagey things that happened in this series, and plots that didn't develop enough for me that I still think it was lacking something. Had a great soundtrack and some great characters. But I wonder if it's just better to focus on one or two characters than a whole bunch. Even "Band of Brothers" got confusing and it was hard to keep track of all the characters even though the battle sequences were far more dramatic. In a way you did get closer to them than we did in "The Pacific".

But I certainly know more about it now.

Overall I enjoyed the series and liked how they wrapped things up. I am sure that I
will go back and watch these again down the road and maybe appreciate some of
the episodes a little more. Along with Treme, it was nice to have something solid
to watch on Sunday evenings. I hope some of the other upcoming series will be
as good or better.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami