whoopdido

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185906/episodes

You can click on each episode and scroll down a bit to find the running time. Each one says dvd running time, but I don't know what that means. Possibly the dvd had extra scenes.

Anyway:

Currahee 70 min
Day of Days 49 min
Carentan 62 min
Replacements 57 min
Crossroads 53 min
Bastogne 64 min
Breaking Point 69 min
Last Patrol 56 min
Why We Fight 55 min
Points 59 min

Total 594 min or 59.4 min per episode

I assume the 705 min total includes "making of" docs and supplemental material.

cartman

I'm going to disagree with what seems to be just about everyone in saying that I'm not fond of this series thus far... I love BoB. Love love love it. I watch it all the time. The relationships and "characters" really made that series, seeing it through their eyes both onscreen and in the interviews.

The Pacific, on the other hand, didn't develop ANY of that. BoB had "Currahee", and while I'd not liked to have seen a simple rehash of training, you could swap any of the soldiers in The Pacific halfway through the episode and it'd not really have any bearing on a viewers understanding of what's going on. This'll need to have a mighty spectacular turn around for me to gush like the rest of you, and I really really want to.

mugwump

For me it was the other way around. Most of my studies centered on the Pacific War so the fabled Band of Brothers was new to me and it took me a few repeat viewings of the miniseries to keep everyone straight. But John Basilone, Robert Leckie, and Eugene Sledge are guys whose history I know very well so it's been a snap to just sit back and enjoy the show without worrying about who's who.

TruGator

BoB and The Pacific are very different conceptually. BoB is about a specific company: Easy Company of 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat team, 101st Airborne Division.

The Pacific, OTOH, has 3 main characters who are in the same division (1st Marine Division), but in different regiments, battalions, and companies. Therefore, unlike BoB where the focus was on the bonding of soldiers that occurs in a Company, The Pacific is about the horrors of the Pacific war on a very individual level.

outlander78

I did see Band of Brothers. It is a classic series - very well put together. In BoB I had no trouble identifying characters after the first episode, no trouble following the battle scenes (which are the best I've seen), and was enthralled from the beginning until the last scene.

So far, The Pacific is a great disappointment to me. I can't tell one character from another, the night battles are nearly incomprehensible, and the rest is like watching a horror movie stalking scene.

I hope we won't have to watch many more night battles, which seem to largely consist of faceless hoards of Japanese soldiers charging out of the darkness and getting mowed down. With luck, maybe the producers are just getting the idea across of what hell it was fighting in the jungle at night, and then we'll get to see daytime engagements and other details of the war in the Pacific.

I am starting to wonder if the nature of the battles in the Pacific are the reason why so many war movies focus on the naval or western theatres. If what we have seen is all there is to film, maybe it is best left for the history books.

Gripes aside, hopefully The Pacific will be a roaring success and lead to more series - I would love to see the African tank battles or the Russian/German eastern slugging match covered by the same team that did Band of Brothers.

outlander78

Hopefully when I get around to reading more Pacific-centric books I will have the same appreciation you do. Right now, I'm hoping Shaun of the Dead shows up to save these guys.

wishbone

I was lost initially with some of the characters featured in BoB but that did not detract from my overall viewing experience. Reading Stephen Ambrose's book and subsequent viewings of BoB made me appreciate the series even more.

With The Pacific I expected BoB quality and production -- I did not expect it to be BoB Part Deux. I will probably read the source material after viewing the new series and with subsequent viewings I will likely appreciate The Pacific even more.

stc9357

You learn the same thing in jail I sure did, you definitely don't have to go to war to learn that.

whoopdido

I really don't know much about the African campaign, but I at least know a little about Eastern Europe. I would LOVE to see an entire series focussed on that. I mean, many Americans don't know much about that, just as I know next to nothing about Africa, but the battles between the German and Russian forces are some of the most interesting parts of the entire war. The Battle of Stalingrad, for example, lasted a full year and resulted in almost 2 million casualties. That's crazy.

I think it would be awesome to get a 10 part series on that, but unfortunatley I don't see many Americans being interested in a series about Russians and Germans.

TheNightFlier

I really wanted to see a little more of Basilone's stand. I was hoping they would have made it more epic after everything I read about it.

People have to stop comparing this and Band of Brothers. They are two different animals.

outlander78

I recently learned that 7 of every 8 German soldiers killed in WWII died in Russia. Wow.

If the Russians and Germans are speaking in accented English, and the production values are still sky-high, Americans will watch.

The African tank battles were largely English vs German, though Patton did show up eventually. The Germans lost in the end due to limited supplies more than anything - Rommel was a genius tank commander.

Again, I know, not as much American involvement, and the original American tanks (like the English ones) were death traps, which English-speaking audiences may not appreciate. But still, one can dream.

outlander78

They are indeed very different. Unfortunately, the marketing didn't explain that very well. I was led to expect BoB II, and got Friday the 13th in the tropics.

I read about Basilone's stand in wikipedia last night. If wikipedia is correct, 16 men (13 of whom died) killed most of a Japanese regiment (3000). Words fail me. This is definitely a case of history being crazier than fiction. The most amazing part is that it wasn't Basilone's _last_ stand!

This renews my complaint about the production - I had no idea of the incredible heroism and accomplishments of those 16 men. Would it have been that hard to have the colonel use the words "regiment" and "3000" in his morning-after congratulations?

jpb07

Actually, yes it would have if you are trying to keep things realistic. While you know there were a ton of dead Jap bodies, they likely didn't know it was a 3000 man regiment until days/months/years later. Remember, they were in the jungle so it's not like they had planes flying overhead guessing numbers of soldiers.

I'll go outside the box as far as the next series Hanks should do. They ought to go back and cover at least the American involvement in WWI. That war gets so little attention yet was the breeding ground for the NAZI high command and sowed the seeds of German nationalism.

Oh and I am loving this series so far. I didn't see BOB on HBO and have had the BR set on my shelf unopened for over a year. I will likely watching it over the span of a week once this series is over.

outlander78

You are right that they wouldn't know it was 3000, but surely they knew it was a regiment-sized force (vs, say, a company or two). Alternately, some closing comments ala BoB could have set the record straight.

You are right about WWI. The European treaty ensured WWII, as you say. The treaty that covered the middle east (Ottoman Empire specifically) also set up the wars we have today in that region. Too bad a movie about the 1919 and 1920 treaties wouldn't be as gripping as the combat scenes, because we are still living with the fallout of those treaties today.

whoopdido

Yeah. Although, I like the openings of The Pacific episodes better than Band of Brothers, it would be nice to get a brief epilogue and the end of each episode, ala Band of Brothers. That's where the 3,000 could be explained.

Dave99

Yeah, had I known that, I would have been more impressed. My LCD doesn't have the greatest contrast ratio, so the night scenes were pretty much tracers & the occasional flare lighting up the action. That gets old after a few minutes.