heavyartillery | [TP REWATCH] Part One and Part Two

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[TP REWATCH] Part One and Part Two

Welcome to the rewatch discussion post for PART ONE and PART TWO of The Pacific.
You are welcome to discuss any and all aspects of the episodes in the comments on this post. Please recognize that others may hold different opinions than yours and continue to abide by our #1 rule: don't be a dick. Additionally, I ask that y'all take care to keep spoiler content off of spoiler-free threads. Otherwise, have fun!

Part One
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Spoiler friendly thread.

Part Two
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If you'd like to chat about the episode in real time, join us over on Discord.*

* Please note that during this rewatch, we have done away with spoiler friendly and spoiler-free Discord channels and will simply be using the dedicated channel for The Pacific. As such, if you participate in the discussion on the Discord server you may encounter spoilers.

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This is a comment thread for spoiler-free discussion of The Pacific: Part One.

For spoiler friendly discussion of the episode, please see the thread below.

This is a comment thread for spoiler friendly discussion of The Pacific: Part One.

By participating in this thread you acknowledge that you may encounter spoilers for later episodes in the series. For spoiler-free discussion of the episode, please see the thread above.

This is a comment thread for spoiler-free discussion of The Pacific: Part Two.

For spoiler friendly discussion of the episode, please see the thread below.

This is a comment thread for spoiler friendly discussion of The Pacific: Part Two.

By participating in this thread you acknowledge that you may encounter spoilers for later episodes in the series. For spoiler-free discussion of the episode, please see the thread above.

Having seen Band of Brothers first, I suspect I will be seeing all of the Pacific through that lens. So the first thing I noticed was the difference in how it started. I hadn't been that keen on how BoB had started its run with a flashback to training rather than in a chronological format. By comparison, this series of least started with the instigating event, and then moving forward.

However, I didn't find that this really helped in getting to know the characters because there's only a little homefront info then jumping into deployment. Rather, there seem to be less development than in the other series, at least in the first episode.

I was puzzled by who the dead bodies were when they were first marching through the jungle. Were they advance scouts?

The overall structure of the episode also didn't really lend itself to much understanding of what was going on, aside from certain scenes. Part of this was probably the many night scenes, and also less clear progress in terms of troop movement.

What did come across in scenes like the grenade ambush of the medics and the lone soldier screaming in the river, was the different nature of this sector of the war.

I like the scene with them reading one another their letters. I wonder if that's still as popular today given so many more entertainment options.

I enjoyed the dinner sign of all the things the rice came without. Little wonder they raided the Army supplies.

I wasn't clear why Leckie threw up the peaches. Were they spoiled or was it that his stomach couldn't handle it?

Where did the dog come from after the bombing?

Shame about the loss of Rodriguez. What an odd contrast that must have seemed compared to the news of their publicity stateside.

However, I didn't find that this really helped in getting to know the characters because there's only a little homefront info then jumping into deployment. Rather, there seem to be less development than in the other series, at least in the first episode.

I totally agree with this assessment. Even though I tend to prefer The Pacific for its take on the war that's less rose-tinted than Band of Brothers, I will say that the first few times I watched it, the first handful of episodes were difficult to get into. It's a much better experience having read both Sledge and Leckie's books, but I firmly believe that it ought to be able to stand up on its own without that background knowledge and it doesn't do an altogether stellar job there.

The overall structure of the episode also didn't really lend itself to much understanding of what was going on, aside from certain scenes. Part of this was probably the many night scenes, and also less clear progress in terms of troop movement.

I think TP overall suffers a bit for its focus on three different protagonists rather than sticking to one solid unit, though I do appreciate it for its tonal shift in showing how brutal the Pacific Theatre really was. I also appreciate that it doesn't shy away from the racism present in the American social fabric at the time, even if it's treated the Japanese soldiers so far mostly as faceless terrors in the night.

I do agree that I had a much harder time fixing in my mind the more granular troop movements and objectives this time around, even though the map graphics between segments helped a bit in terms of general placement.

I like the scene with them reading one another their letters. I wonder if that's still as popular today given so many more entertainment options.

I would imagine that letter reading, or at least gossiping about things back home, is probably still a pretty popular social practice among soldiers or really any group made up of a set of people that share a common background that's different from their current surroundings. I know when I was in college across the country from my hometown and met someone from that area there was always that innate drive to chat about the differences between "there" and "here," respectively.

Edited 2020-01-15 15:33 (UTC)

I enjoyed the dinner sign of all the things the rice came without. Little wonder they raided the Army supplies.

That bit was totally hilarious, agreed.

I wasn't clear why Leckie threw up the peaches. Were they spoiled or was it that his stomach couldn't handle it?

For some reason I'm fairly certain that it was Leckie's stomach that couldn't handle it, though I've just skimmed the book and can't find specific mention of the incident in question. I think I assumed that the Marines were so used to eating basically just rice with weevils at that point that the sudden introduction of rich foods like peaches in syrup pretty thoroughly wrecked their systems.

Where did the dog come from after the bombing?

So, it's not made super clear, but the Marines did have canine units with them on the islands. The dog runs into the shelter with them just as the bombing starts—Hoosier grabs him, I'm pretty sure. My assumption was that he was one of their unit dogs, though again, the show is relying on a lot of intricate knowledge that a read unfamiliar with Sledge or Leckie's books or the general history of the USMC in the Pacific won't have so it's not a very effective narrative choice.

Shame about the loss of Rodriguez. What an odd contrast that must have seemed compared to the news of their publicity stateside.

It is my great shame that I watched this series like six times and never once recognized Manny as Jon Bernthal until I was informed by another person, lol.

Leckie talks a lot about how isolated they felt on Guadalcanal and how damaging it was to their morale to be so sure that their country had probably forgotten about them. That scene strikes me as one of the saddest in the series in a weird way, because even after they're told by the sailor that everyone back home knows who they are and has heard of their exploits, they keep sitting there in that kind of gobsmacked silence because they really can't believe it.

So glad you're participating in this rewatch too! Really looking forward to more of your insights~

Yeah, my first instinct was that it was too rich for a stomach shrunken by bare survival level food. But he seemed to be the only one getting sick so that made me think it was the can.

Ah, no wonder! My first thought was -- this is an uninhabited island, where did a dog come from? I wondered if I'd somehow missed an earlier scene but I'm glad it just wasn't introduced. I mean they were Dog unit but until the bombing scene I didn't recall seeing any dogs and then wondered if it was somehow a mascot since it seemed to be the only one.

Yes, that's another thing that I'm sure the troops in Europe never felt, not only because of their proximity to England (and later the liberated countries) and various communication sources, but because they were moving over inhabited areas.

I firmly believe that it ought to be able to stand up on its own without that background knowledge

Oh definitely. This is the same argument going on in other fandoms, some of them book adaptations but others just poorly written screenplays (Rise of Skywalker). If you have to rely on outside sources, especially things like director or actor interviews as well as tie-in books, then you haven't done your job right.

I mean Leckie's pre-deployment scenes mostly amounted to explaining who Vera was and how repressed his father was. (Given the whole thing with the tire, I was 80% sure that his father was going to have a car wreck on the way home and die as a way of highlighting how no one was safe, whether they were going to war or not).

Yes, the map shots definitely helped, though even there they start at a distance and zoom in, whereas after the first time locating the island regionally, I thought they'd do better focusing just on the island, maybe with dashed lines showing the movement of the different groups.

I know when I was in college across the country from my hometown and met someone from that area there was always that innate drive to chat about the differences between "there" and "here," respectively.

Yes, that makes me think of the scene in Episode 2 of BoB where two soldiers on opposite sides came who from his same hometown.

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[TP REWATCH] Part One and Part Two

Part One [SPOILER FREE]

Part One [SPOILER FRIENDLY]

Part Two [SPOILER-FREE]

Part Two [SPOILER FRIENDLY]

Re: Part One [SPOILER FREE]

Re: Part Two [SPOILER-FREE]

Re: Part One [SPOILER FREE]

Re: Part Two [SPOILER-FREE]

Re: Part Two [SPOILER-FREE]

Re: Part One [SPOILER FREE]