Band of Brothers (HBO)

[TURBO]

How good is this series?

 

Just started watching it for the first time a couple days ago, highly addicting and most excellent!

 

I feel silly I have missed out on this for this long...

 

[logan82]

Very, very good. Worth buying. It does get shown several times throughout the year though. Always around military based holidays.

[TURBO]

I bought it used on Amazon for $15, said like new. Got it in the mail last week, and it was still in it's original packaging. Pristine!

 

So far, I love it, although it was hard to see David Schwimmer (Friends - Ross Geller) as a hard-nut drill sargent (spelling?) but I finally got used to it.

[logan82]

Good luck finding a point to stop watching so you can get some sleep.

[patrickgpe]

yeah one of the better HBO series. paid way more than 15 for it since it was on before i had the HBO. check out the pacific once you get through that series, just as awesome.

[pitchleague]

I watch this every year around this time of year (June 6, naturally). Love it every time. In fact, gets better each time. I still have the original set, not the blu-ray. Not sure how much of an upgrade it really would be, as it looks fantastic now!

 

Don't worry about Schwimmer, either. He's a bit player in only a couple other episodes.

[Schlitz001]

In my opinion one of the best TV series ever produced. I've watched it through 3 times and I'll probably watch it again at some point. For me it has become sort of a measuring stick for all other TV series, which is almost unfair since it's closer to a really long movie than traditional programming.

[logan82]

It's like Saving Private Ryan if the movie was 10+ hours long.

[Invader3K]

 

Don't worry about Schwimmer, either. He's a bit player in only a couple other episodes.

 

I think he did a really good job in his role, actually.

[Outlander]

Yeah, I really dislike him but we were supposed to dislike him. There are so many interesting characters in this series but I always found it interesting how Schwimmer's character was good at what he does but when it came to the real thing he just couldn't handle it. I'm sure there were many people just like him and it gives me that much more respect for the people that fought for our country as it really takes a special person to do that.

[pitchleague]

 

Don't worry about Schwimmer, either. He's a bit player in only a couple other episodes.

 

I think he did a really good job in his role, actually.

 

 

I never said he didn't. The original poster expressed some concern so I eased his concern. I never said that he played his role poorly.

[FVBrewerFan]

I have probably watched it 10 times over the years, just an oustanding job of film-making. I owb the DVD set and will still watch it when it's on TV. By the way, I tried to watch the Pacific and barely got through two episodes and never watched the rest.

[TooLiveBrew]

I bought it used on Amazon for $15, said like new. Got it in the mail last week, and it was still in it's original packaging. Pristine!

 

So far, I love it, although it was hard to see David Schwimmer (Friends - Ross Geller) as a hard-nut drill sargent (spelling?) but I finally got used to it.

Wow, BoB for $15?! That's a steal.

 

Enjoy, it's nothing short of fantastic.

[berniebrewer4life]

BoB ranks up there with shawshank as far as shows/movies i will sit down and watch, no matter how far in it is. You will truly find yourself connecting to the characters, to the point of buying the books many of them wrote about the war(at least that's what i did).

[PeaveyFury]

Be sure to catch the 'sequel' mini-series, The Pacific, made by the same production team/HBO. Not quite as good as BOB, but still an excellent production.

[Dragonbait]

It is awesome.

 

Hardest part was just figuring out who was who, aside from Nixon/Winters it was hard to remember who goes with what name.

 

But after a few times watching it, it gets easier.

[RobDeer 45]

This is such an amazing mini series! I watch it once a year, maybe twice. Each time it really does get better. Every time I watch it, when I get to the last few episodes, I begin to get angry that it's almost done. It's just so good that I want it to keep going. Good Good stuff!

[TooLiveBrew]

Be sure to catch the 'sequel' mini-series, The Pacific, made by the same production team/HBO. Not quite as good as BOB, but still an excellent production.

I actually couldn't watch The Pacific all the way through. That's how bad I thought it was, & I was ready to love it no matter what.

 

Although in fairness, it's probably that it just sucked in comparison to how awesome BoB is.

[pitchleague]

The Pacific started real slow and had storylines that were "different" from Band of Brothers. It wasn't near constant battles with small 3-4 minutes parts of story interspersed. Instead, it was 40 minutes of story with a couple of 3-4 minute battles.

 

That's why The Pacific wasn't as good, to me. In the end, I'm glad that I watched the whole thing, as it did get better toward the end. Still, it was a 5.5 on a 10-point scale compared to Band of Brothers' 9.5 score.

[TheCrew07]

The problem was the Pacific was the competing story lines, following different people from different units all over the Pacific campaign. I'm definitely happy the Marine's story was told, their campaigns have historically just been miserable, but I'm a total history nerd and even I was struggling at times to keep up with who was what unit and what part of what battle was unfolding.

 

As I'm thinking about it maybe it was just that The Pacific tended to focus more on the hopelessness and despair of war than the espirit de corps that was basically front and center in BOB. The veterans talking about their experiences first hand really set the tone in BOB, that wasn't possible in The Pacific given the characters out of the books that they followed.

 

Personally I've tended to focus more on the European theater so going into the series my knowledge which specific Marine units fought in which battles wasn't anywhere near as good which probably contributed to my preference for Band of Brothers as well, I already knew the entire history of the 101st and every part they played in every battle in which they fought. The Pacific was moving, it was candid, it was very well done, it just wasn't Band of Brothers and I think many of us whom expected a similarly styled production were disappointed.

[Invader3K]

If Band of Brothers didn't exist, The Pacific would probably be more highly thought of. It was almost impossible for the second series to live up to the first in expectations and execution. I still thought it was really good, though.

[TooLiveBrew]

Honestly I just thought the writing in The Pacific was awful. I realize part of why I'm harsh on it is BoB's excellence, but objectively I just thought The Pacific was bad all on its own.