Band of Brothers

[Hate 20106]

Watch a documentary if all you want is combat.

[PRONG HORN 3128]

10 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

It was a throwaway episode. It contributed nothing. You can skip it and you wouldn’t miss anything. 

 

 

What you miss is the storytelling.  The story in your mind didn't follow the story on the screen.  It's like going to see strippers and only watching tits or ass. 

 

Watch the dance.  That's the art.  Only weirdos go to watch the flesh.  

 

 

 

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

Band of Brothers is like going to see strippers, you see.  It’s art. 

[henrygandorf 29189]

 

[tokamak 6391]

Just finished watching this on Netflix. I had never seen it before. Great show (obviously). The concentration camp episode was a real gut punch.

My only complaint is that, aside from a few main guys (Winters, Nixon, Donnie Wahlberg, maybe a couple others), I never had a good sense of which guy was which and what their rank/role was. There's a ton of characters and a lot of the time they're wearing helmets, faces are super dirty, etc. For example, Michael Fassbender was in an early episode I was like "oh, cool, early career Michael Fassbender". Then he disappeared (I guess?) and I forgot he was in it, and he reappeared in one of the last episodes. Not a big deal, just a nitpick, but I did feel like there were quite a few scenes where a character is portrayed as "one of the guys", or they're really sad about his death or something, and I'm sitting there thinking "wait who tf is that?".

[Parliament 14225]

Well when they, you know, DIE, you kinda gotta write them off the show.

[HornPhD 1368]

1 hour ago, tokamak said:

 

My only complaint is that, aside from a few main guys (Winters, Nixon, Donnie Wahlberg, maybe a couple others), I never had a good sense of which guy was which and what their rank/role was. There's a ton of characters and a lot of the time they're wearing helmets, faces are super dirty, etc. For example, Michael Fassbender was in an early episode I was like "oh, cool, early career Michael Fassbender". Then he disappeared (I guess?) and I forgot he was in it, and he reappeared in one of the last episodes. Not a big deal, just a nitpick, but I did feel like there were quite a few scenes where a character is portrayed as "one of the guys", or they're really sad about his death or something, and I'm sitting there thinking "wait who tf is that?".

My wife has a difficult time keeping track of multiple characters, as well

[Biff Tannen 45660]

Just finished another run through.  I'm not crying, you're crying!

[atomheartbevo 89618]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:22 AM, tokamak said:

Not a big deal, just a nitpick, but I did feel like there were quite a few scenes where a character is portrayed as "one of the guys", or they're really sad about his death or something, and I'm sitting there thinking "wait who tf is that?".

You should watch Masters of the Air.  It's another show set in the Band of Brothers Universe (BBU).  Feels like characters were being dropped from the series every episode.

Edited May 3 by atomheartbevo

[Sandman 3403]

I flew to London a couple of weeks ago and this was available in the in-flight entertainment, I was so thankful. Watched 4-5 eps on the way there and finished it during the return flight. Of course I got all choked up, thought about my grandfather a lot. It never gets old.

[Wally Fairway 5539]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:22 AM, tokamak said:

Just finished watching this on Netflix. I had never seen it before. Great show (obviously). The concentration camp episode was a real gut punch.

My only complaint is that, aside from a few main guys (Winters, Nixon, Donnie Wahlberg, maybe a couple others), I never had a good sense of which guy was which and what their rank/role was. There's a ton of characters and a lot of the time they're wearing helmets, faces are super dirty, etc. For example, Michael Fassbender was in an early episode I was like "oh, cool, early career Michael Fassbender". Then he disappeared (I guess?) and I forgot he was in it, and he reappeared in one of the last episodes. Not a big deal, just a nitpick, but I did feel like there were quite a few scenes where a character is portrayed as "one of the guys", or they're really sad about his death or something, and I'm sitting there thinking "wait who tf is that?".

Look up Buck Compton, be up in La. Child actor with Mickey Rooney, played football and baseball at UCLA with Jackie Robinson, Sgt with Easy Company, after the war LA PD, then in the prosecutors office, he led the Sirhan Sirhan protection, and finally a judge on the California Appellate Court. 

His biography was a captivating read.

[HouTex 1866]

Starting my annual watch of BoB over the Memorial Day weekend.  Never gets old.  The Greatest Generation indeed.  

[tx 3 putt 76859]

10 minutes ago, HouTex said:

Starting my annual watch of BoB over the Memorial Day weekend.  Never gets old.  The Greatest Generation indeed.  

always a great watch 

[UTexasFight 9427]

4 hours ago, HouTex said:

Starting my annual watch of BoB over the Memorial Day weekend.  Never gets old.  The Greatest Generation indeed.  

Working my way through it the past few weeks having never seen it before. 
 

Episode 8 with a near full moon rising in the background 

 

 

so damn good 

 

 

Edited May 25 by UTexasFight

[BearSchlong 8082]

The Bastogne episode is the most uncomfortable hour in television history, but I persevered.

Annual Memorial Day tradition like no other.

[HouTex 1866]

6 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

The Bastogne episode is the most uncomfortable hour in television history, but I persevered.

Annual Memorial Day tradition like no other.

Exactly.  I suspect in modern warfare we would have surrendered to the Germans.  The medic from Louisiana seemed to be crying out for a surrender.  Yet, the leadership did the right thing and held out even though perhaps, in the very short term, some Americans might have been saved.  I believe the leadership made the right call.  War is hell.  

[atomheartbevo 89618]

7 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

Annual Memorial Day tradition like no other.

We are probably going to rotate between BOB, The Pacific, and Masters of the Air going forward.  Last year, we did BOB with the family.

This year, because my 8 year-old had some friends over, we decided to go with The Pacific, but it was hard for 7 year-old and 8 year-old girls to follow - in hindsight, Masters of the Air would have been a better narrative choice, but they might have struggled keeping all of the characters straight.

[Davis Lane 5577]

Perconte: Oh Skinny, you got blood all over my trousers.

Skinny: I'm real sorry, Frank.

[LCHorn 2612]

On 5/13/2024 at 9:48 PM, Wally Fairway said:

Sgt with Easy Company

Nitpicking but Compton was an officer-it’s an important distinction because the series touches on how it impacts the relationships the men have to one another frequently (and not just with Compton-the salute stuff with Sobel, Winters’ promotions, Nixon’s demotion, etc.)

[Parliament 14225]

21 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

The Bastogne episode is the most uncomfortable hour in television history, but I persevered.

Annual Memorial Day tradition like no other.

The episode after was hardly better.  

[Biff Tannen 45660]

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

This year, because my 8 year-old had some friends over, we decided to go with The Pacific, but it was hard for 7 year-old and 8 year-old girls to follow

Good god man.  Growin' em up fast eh?

[Parliament 14225]

If they’re relatively mature, I don’t see a problem.  Get them to grow up fast.  

[atomheartbevo 89618]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Good god man.  Growin' em up fast eh?

Kids in elementary schools are playing Five Nights at Freddie’s 

[LCHorn 2612]

16 hours ago, HouTex said:

I suspect in modern warfare we would have surrendered to the Germans.

I beg your pardon?  I know we like to extol these folks as "The Generation Generation", and maybe they were, but as a USMC OIF veteran I feel reasonably well assured that there's simply no clear condition under which surrender would be considered an option, particularly so if you want to describe it as "we", i.e., it's a unit or a platoon surrender. 

All of this is just fantasizing, anyway, but I'd far rather have been freezing in Belgium than running patrols through the jungles of South Vietnam.  Those guys were very tough and by comparison get little of the glory. 

16 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

This year, because my 8 year-old had some friends over, we decided to go with The Pacific, but it was hard for 7 year-old and 8 year-old girls to follow

I tried to show it to my 7 year old boy and only got through Carentan before my wife caught us and shut it down as too violent.  I conceded mostly because I didn't think he was appreciating the parts of it that come along with the violence-the sacrifice for your comrades in arms, the devotion to the mission, the confusion and fear and how that's normal.  There's a lot to learn and as a parent you almost have to be a commentary track. 

I haven't tried to show him The Pacific yet (I was a little underwhelmed, myself), but his great-grandfather survived Bataan so perhaps he'll be more interested. 

[BearSchlong 8082]

The episode after was hardly better.  

This is true.

[Eskimohorn 5629]

I tried to show it to my 7 year old boy and only got through Carentan before my wife caught us and shut it down as too violent.  I conceded mostly because I didn't think he was appreciating the parts of it that come along with the violence-the sacrifice for your comrades in arms, the devotion to the mission, the confusion and fear and how that's normal.  There's a lot to learn and as a parent you almost have to be a commentary track. 
I haven't tried to show him The Pacific yet (I was a little underwhelmed, myself), but his great-grandfather survived Bataan so perhaps he'll be more interested. 

Your kids gonna love the scene where the blood trickles into the Japs skull, thats been severed in half

[atomheartbevo 89618]

1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:

Your kids gonna love the scene where the blood trickles into the Japs skull, thats been severed in half

You’re acting like we are letting them watch the Route 66 game.

[Biff Tannen 45660]

8 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

Your kids gonna love the scene where the blood trickles into the Japs skull, thats been severed in half

I think you're referring to when they are flicking pebbles into his open skull like they are shooting baskets.  Yeah, that was fucked up.

[Hornius Emeritus 12448]

10 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I think you're referring to when they are flicking pebbles into his open skull like they are shooting baskets.  Yeah, that was fucked up.

That was lifted directly from Studs Terkel's book "The Good War."  Great book. Surreal description of that scene.

[Parliament 14225]

“The Good War” was the first history book I read (outside of school of course).  Pretty much the reason I became a history buff.

[BearSchlong 8082]

My 12th-grade religion teacher had me read most of his stuff, same thing happened to me.

Funny sidenote, a lifelong friend’s son was gifted a letter from his great-grandfather (times 5)’s collection as a high school graduation gift this past week. Historical and rare family keepsake.

I didn't have the heart to mention that his ancestor, a former US Congressman, Cabinet Secretary, and prominent slave owner, is credited in most Civil War history books as a leading secessionist instrumental in destroying the Union before serving the CSA. He was in Jefferson Davis’ inner circle, and General Sherman’s army was ordered to show no restraint in burning his place.

Judging by Facebook comments, its clear nobody else caught the significance. Or they didn't care.

[Hornius Emeritus 12448]

 

[TwiceHorn 31433]

On 5/28/2024 at 1:04 PM, LCHorn said:

I beg your pardon?  I know we like to extol these folks as "The Generation Generation", and maybe they were, but as a USMC OIF veteran I feel reasonably well assured that there's simply no clear condition under which surrender would be considered an option, particularly so if you want to describe it as "we", i.e., it's a unit or a platoon surrender. 

All of this is just fantasizing, anyway, but I'd far rather have been freezing in Belgium than running patrols through the jungles of South Vietnam.  Those guys were very tough and by comparison get little of the glory. 

I tried to show it to my 7 year old boy and only got through Carentan before my wife caught us and shut it down as too violent.  I conceded mostly because I didn't think he was appreciating the parts of it that come along with the violence-the sacrifice for your comrades in arms, the devotion to the mission, the confusion and fear and how that's normal.  There's a lot to learn and as a parent you almost have to be a commentary track. 

I haven't tried to show him The Pacific yet (I was a little underwhelmed, myself), but his great-grandfather survived Bataan so perhaps he'll be more interested. 

It is a provocative and interesting question whether today's America has the "fortitude" to prosecute another WWII the way we did.

Subsequent events might indicate "no."  One of the main reasons, I think, being that media might make the war a little too "real" for the American public, which has shown no stomach for it since Korea.

Then again, all of our "wars" since WWII have been political misadventures rather than existential crises.

Although I do believe the modern American would find the sacrifices of war worse than post-Depression Americans, I don't believe I doubt for a second the ability and willingness of our military to do the needful.

Two other questions are how the modern political environment and corporate behavior might affect things, but again, I think the actual existential crisis that was WWII takes all the cynical bets off the table.  

Edited August 18 by TwiceHorn

[Macanudo 12974]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

Then again, all of our "wars" since WWII have been political misadventures rather than existential crises.

 

Gunny Highway would like to have a word with you about the liberation of Grenada.

Edited August 18 by Macanudo

[HouTex 1866]

13 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It is a provocative and interesting question whether today's America has the "fortitude" to prosecute another WWII the way we did.

Subsequent events might indicate "no."  One of the main reasons, I think, being that media might make the war a little too "real" for the American public, which has shown no stomach for it since Korea.

Then again, all of our "wars" since WWII have been political misadventures rather than existential crises.

Although I do believe the modern American would find the sacrifices of war worse than post-Depression Americans, I don't believe I doubt for a second the ability and willingness of our military to do the needful.

Two other questions are how the modern political environment and corporate behavior might affect things, but again, I think the actual existential crisis that was WWII takes all the cynical bets off the table.  

You are asking the right questions. There is so much more I want to add but it’s CR territory.