With regard to the first two episodes of this show, I've really enjoyed them. It's no Band of Brothers (so far), but it's better than The Pacific and I look forward to the next episodes being released. 

I can easily envision watching this series a couple of times each year, like I do with Band of Brothers. 

This show’s pretty stinking good. Not a fan of the 2 actors playing the leads, they just don’t fit the roles,  but the flight/bombing scenes are freaking awesome.

I was a little frustrated with the reviews that compared the first two episodes with the entire series of BoB and The Pacific. This show just hit its stride with this episode.

On 1/31/2024 at 6:37 PM, VaBeach_Eagle said:

With regard to the first two episodes of this show, I've really enjoyed them. It's no Band of Brothers (so far), but it's better than The Pacific and I look forward to the next episodes being released. 

I can easily envision watching this series a couple of times each year, like I do with Band of Brothers. 

BoB is all about the bonds and the leadership through hard times. 
 

The Pacific is just hard times sandwiched in between even harder times. 

17 hours ago, Mlodj said:

I was a little frustrated with the reviews that compared the first two episodes with the entire series of BoB and The Pacific. This show just hit its stride with this episode.

Granted MOTA is almost fifty years before you were in, but how’s the accuracy on what they show?

 

I know for Saving Private Ryan and BoB, Dale Dye ran everybody through actor boot camp and stressed realism, but I didn’t see that this series had a Dale Dye like figure to watch over that kind of thing. 

35 minutes ago, Bill said:

BoB is all about the bonds and the leadership through hard times. 
 

The Pacific is just hard times sandwiched in between even harder times. 

The Pacific is also about those bonds, but the biggest difference between the two (to me) is that Band of Brothers was based on the book, "Band of Brothers". So it's a single narrative. The Pacific was based on two different books. "Helmet for my Pillow" by Robert Leckie and "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by Eugene Sledge so it's not a single narrative.

That's perfectly fine, the mini-series wasn't bad, it was good. But it just wasn't as epic as Band of Brothers. I watch Band of Brothers at least twice per year, sometimes more. I might watch the Pacific once every multiple years. It's good, I just don't like it as much as I do BoB.

On 2/5/2024 at 12:57 AM, Bill said:

Granted MOTA is almost fifty years before you were in, but how’s the accuracy on what they show?

 

I know for Saving Private Ryan and BoB, Dale Dye ran everybody through actor boot camp and stressed realism, but I didn’t see that this series had a Dale Dye like figure to watch over that kind of thing. 

I've been rereading the book, and the show generally does a good job of sticking to the facts.  For instance, the pilot that died in the past episode trying to land his plane did die like that, but he died trying to avoid hitting a village rather than trying to keep his copilot alive.  The book is also not a straight narrative of the unit.  It spends as much time looking at bigger matters like the concept of daylight strategic bombing and the formation of the 8th AF as it does focusing on the 100th BG.

I don't know if there is anybody analogous to Dye for filming WW II aerial sequences, since the vast bomber fleets of WW II were a brief moment in time that were made obsolete before the war ended.  Not to mention there would be some yuuge financial costs to start and maintain that kind of business. It's one thing to go out and buy some surplus uniforms and replica weapons and have the actors root around in the dirt for a week, it's quite another to buy or rent a B-17, Plus, they would never take them to altitude and risk hypoxia or frostbite.

One other thing that was mentioned in a review that I never thought about was that when BoB and The Pacific were filmed they still had many of the actual subjects of the books/shows alive to talk to and get advice from.  The subjects of MOTA were probably all dead before they started filming.

4 hours ago, Mlodj said:

I've been rereading the book, and the show generally does a good job of sticking to the facts.  For instance, the pilot that died in the past episode trying to land his plane did die like that, but he died trying to avoid hitting a village rather than trying to keep his copilot alive.  The book is also not a straight narrative of the unit.  It spends as much time looking at bigger matters like the concept of daylight strategic bombing and the formation of the 8th AF as it does focusing on the 100th BG.

I don't know if there is anybody analogous to Dye for filming WW II aerial sequences, since the vast bomber fleets of WW II were a brief moment in time that were made obsolete before the war ended.  Not to mention there would be some yuuge financial costs to start and maintain that kind of business. It's one thing to go out and buy some surplus uniforms and replica weapons and have the actors root around in the dirt for a week, it's quite another to buy or rent a B-17, Plus, they would never take them altitude and risk hypoxia or frostbite.

One other thing that was mentioned in a review that I never thought about was that when BoB and The Pacific were filmed they still had many of the actual subjects of the books/shows alive to talk to and get advice from.  The subjects of MOTA were probably all dead before they started filming.

Yeah, that’s a good point. IIRC a lot of the actors in BoB actually established friendships with the men they were playing. 
 

 

Above is a link to a podcast with an interview of the author of one of the books it’s based on. 

This show is landing some big blows and becoming must watch in short order.

 

Spoiler

The unceremonious off screen killing of Buck was one of the best writing decisions ive ever seen, been waiting decades for somebody to do something like that

 

 

On 2/2/2024 at 9:56 PM, The_Omega said:

This show’s pretty stinking good. Not a fan of the 2 actors playing the leads, they just don’t fit the roles,  but the flight/bombing scenes are freaking awesome.

Austin Butler is a rising superstar and I can't think of a better casting.

This weeks episode made up for last weeks a little bit. Last weeks was the weakest so far, I thought, and the direction Buck’s storyline took was very unsatisfying. In thinking about it though, if they were trying to show what it was like for the pilots then it was probably pretty effective. Your buddy leaves, then just doesn’t come back and you’re left assuming they’re dead but you don’t really know for sure. I’d imagine there wasn’t much satisfaction in that either.

2 hours ago, The_Omega said:

This weeks episode made up for last weeks a little bit. Last weeks was the weakest so far, I thought, and the direction Buck’s storyline took was very unsatisfying. In thinking about it though, if they were trying to show what it was like for the pilots then it was probably pretty effective. Your buddy leaves, then just doesn’t come back and you’re left assuming they’re dead but you don’t really know for sure. I’d imagine there wasn’t much satisfaction in that either.

That’s my take as well about not showing the mission in flight because it was directed toward everyone’s reaction left on base. It follows the book in not knowing what happened at that moment or so I read because I didn’t like episode 4 until I read more about it and now it makes sense why they made it that way and I’m ok with that. I hope we get to see more by the end of the series 

On 2/10/2024 at 9:05 AM, dawkins4prez said:

Austin Butler is a rising superstar and I can't think of a better casting.

I can't help but hear Elvis when he speaks. 

14 hours ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

I can't help but hear Elvis when he speaks. 

He's going to be Feyd Rautha in Dune 2.  I'd get over it quick.

He's going to wind up being the poor man's Val Kilmer.

4 hours ago, dawkins4prez said:

He's going to be Feyd Rautha in Dune 2.  I'd get over it quick.

I likely won't see it, I don't think I've even seen the first one. If I did it was so long ago that I don't remember a single thing about it other than its title. 

3 hours ago, The_Omega said:

He's going to wind up being the poor man's Val Kilmer.

Not a bad comparison.

Seeing how this thread died during the middle of the series I’m curious to know everyone’s reaction to this now that it’s finished? Did everyone give up on it? Dislike? I liked it for the most part, I wouldn’t compare it to band of brothers or the pacific. This show felt as if it was something on its own, maybe it’s just me it wasn’t incredible but it wasn’t bad either. I wouldn’t go out of my way to rewatch this anytime soon but I liked it

4 hours ago, RoadToHell said:

Seeing how this thread died during the middle of the series I’m curious to know everyone’s reaction to this now that it’s finished? Did everyone give up on it? Dislike? I liked it for the most part, I wouldn’t compare it to band of brothers or the pacific. This show felt as if it was something on its own, maybe it’s just me it wasn’t incredible but it wasn’t bad either. I wouldn’t go out of my way to rewatch this anytime soon but I liked it

Same.

On 2/19/2024 at 11:42 AM, The_Omega said:

He's going to wind up being the poor man's Val Kilmer.

Funny you should say that, because rumor is he's gonna play Val Kilmer's character in a Heat prequel.

On 3/19/2024 at 6:03 PM, RoadToHell said:

Seeing how this thread died during the middle of the series I’m curious to know everyone’s reaction to this now that it’s finished? Did everyone give up on it? Dislike? I liked it for the most part, I wouldn’t compare it to band of brothers or the pacific. This show felt as if it was something on its own, maybe it’s just me it wasn’t incredible but it wasn’t bad either. I wouldn’t go out of my way to rewatch this anytime soon but I liked it

I actually forgot about the show, I'll have to finish watching to get an overall impression. What I do remember from what I've watched, it wasn't bad but while I can (and sometimes do) re-watch Band of Brothers 10 times or more a year, I would put this one (so far) in the same category as The Pacific. Not bad, but something I might re-watch only once every 5 or 6 years. Maybe a little more often than The Pacific, but not like BoB. 

2 minutes ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

I actually forgot about the show, I'll have to finish watching to get an overall impression. What I do remember from what I've watched, it wasn't bad but while I can (and sometimes do) re-watch Band of Brothers 10 times or more a year, I would put this one (so far) in the same category as The Pacific. Not bad, but something I might re-watch only once every 5 or 6 years. Maybe a little more often than The Pacific, but not like BoB. 

Yeah I’m not sure what it was, but it just didn’t have what BoB had. I think a lot of it had to do with the production quality. With BoB I felt like I was watching a movie, but the pacific and MotA just feels like I’m watching a really good made for tv movie. 
 

IDK, maybe it’s just that everybody who’s into that stuff wants to emulate Winters or Lipton.