Band of Brothers

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
31,961
91,823
I'm going through The Pacific right now. Starting episode 5. This show doesn't really have any of the same draw as BOB

Boy, and it never develops it either.

I will say though that the books it uses for its source material (My Helmet for a Pillow + For the Old Breed) are each much better than the book that is the foundation of Band of Brothers. The Band of Brothers one was dry and not all that insightful. I mean to get to the memoirs of Dick Winters eventually but it's pretty low on my list at the moment.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Brikker

Trump's Staff
6,513
5,333
There was a 20-year anniversary podcast, each episode with a different cast/creator, that is worth listening to imo if you love BoB. They go over some of the errors and whatnot as well. Some good stories about training for the show and being with the original soldiers.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
20,625
17,344
Boy, and it never develops it either.

I will say though that the books it uses for its source material (My Helmet for a Pillow + For the Old Breed) are each much better than the book that is the foundation of Band of Brothers. The Band of Brothers one was dry and not all that insightful. I mean to get to the memoirs of Dick Winters eventually but it's pretty low on my list at the moment.
The ending to The Pacific went a long way into redeeming the relatively undeveloped stories/characters in the show for me. That ending scene when he returns home was fucking rough and I thought did a great job of portraying what a lot of those dudes must've gone through psychologically.
 
Last edited:
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,831
14,364
The ending the The Pacific went a long way into redeeming the relatively undeveloped stories/characters in the show for me. That ending scene when he returns home was fucking rough and I thought did a great job of portraying what a lot of those dudes must've gone through psychologically.

The final episode addressing PTSD was good I agree. My grandfather fought in a good chunk of the battles portrayed in the show and looking back, it's clear he had a lot of unresolved PTSD from his time there. Even 60+ years later, he had horrible nightmares and would strike out in his sleep.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Brikker

Trump's Staff
6,513
5,333
My mom's dad fought in the Pacific with the Marines and then went on the career ladder in the Army post-war. He died from cancer around 1959. I never met him (I'm only 38).

My dad's dad would be 131 years old if he was still alive today. He was born in the fucking 1800's! Never got to meet him either, of course.

I sincerely miss that I never had the opportunity to know these men, if for nothing else than to interact with two people from a completely different world than the one I live in today.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 2 users

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
44,940
54,148
My mom's dad fought in the Pacific with the Marines and then went on the career ladder in the Army post-war. He died from cancer around 1959. I never met him (I'm only 38).

My dad's dad would be 131 years old if he was still alive today. He was born in the fucking 1800's! Never got to meet him either, of course.

I sincerely miss that I never had the opportunity to know these men, if for nothing else than to interact with two people from a completely different world than the one I live in today.
All we know about my paternal grandfather's service was that he was an engineer in the pacific but whatever he saw/did over there completely fucking ruined him. If it weren't for the paradoxical problem of my dad and thus me never being born then I'd just as soon he never came back due to how terrible he was to my grandmother. Nobody ever came out and said it but from little things that have slipped I'm pretty sure he was awful to his kids (my dad/aunts/uncle) during their childhood too. I'm sorry for what he endured in service to his country but I swear I still see him in the way my dad behaves sometimes and I wish I could reach back through time and slap the shit out of him.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Bald Brah

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,004
2,348
Watching The Pacific now. I loved Band of Brothers but the Pacific kind of stinks. Way too much stateside garbage. I guess they didn't have the budget to do as much war time story. Or they didn't have the same level of left over props they could use from Saving Ryan's Privates. I kind of lost interest when Shane from Punisher/walking dead dies. And that's the 2nd or 3rd episode.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
31,961
91,823
Watching The Pacific now. I loved Band of Brothers but the Pacific kind of stinks. Way too much stateside garbage. I guess they didn't have the budget to do as much war time story. Or they didn't have the same level of left over props they could use from Saving Ryan's Privates. I kind of lost interest when Shane from Punisher/walking dead dies. And that's the 2nd or 3rd episode.

I felt similar. It was just this big step backwards? I'd much rather watch Flags of Our Fathers or Letters from Jima.

As a side note the book that became Band of Brothers ain't all that hot but the two books that became The Pacific (My Helmet for a Pillow and For the Old Breed) are both really good. Flags of Our Fathers the book was also solid.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,786
5,721
I could do a yearly rewatch of Band of Brothers, but I never want to see The Pacific again.

It seems like two very different wars. Both were bad, but the Pacific theatre seemed absolutely awful. The survivor's of the Pacific theatre seem PTSD'd to the max.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

Kajiimagi

<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
3,472
6,577
I could do a yearly rewatch of Band of Brothers, but I never want to see The Pacific again.

It seems like two very different wars. Both were bad, but the Pacific theatre seemed absolutely awful. The survivor's of the Pacific theatre seem PTSD'd to the max.
It's my understanding that my German grandfather left most of his lower intestines and half of his mind in the south Pacific when he was a Marine in WW2. I don't recall meeting him and only know what my mom told me.
 

sleevedraw

Revolver Ocelot
<Bronze Donator>
2,264
6,566
I could do a yearly rewatch of Band of Brothers, but I never want to see The Pacific again.

It seems like two very different wars. Both were bad, but the Pacific theatre seemed absolutely awful. The survivor's of the Pacific theatre seem PTSD'd to the max.

Some of it was luck of the draw; my grandfather was Army and had a couple hard months in Guadalcanal[?], but afterward, he got transferred back to Hawaii and in his own words "spent the rest of the war chasing skirts." He got out of the service as a SFC.

He told us that he got passed over for a promotion to officer "because he didn't have a strong voice," but that was a lie - after he died, we found that he had been offered a battlefield commission, but he apparently turned it down for reasons that he took to his grave with him.

Other than that, he was a great guy--one of my idols, and one of the calmest and most patient people on the planet. Had tons of health problems: melanoma, colon cancer with a colostomy, a stroke with hemiplegia, and I never once heard him complain about any of it.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

elidib

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,672
5,498
Coincidental bumping of this thread, netflix has this, but it's leaving soon, last day to watch is Sep. 3rd.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Bondurant

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
3,925
4,872
Band of Brothers: mandatory watch
The Pacific: ultra skip unless you're a film student doing a thesis about writing (the bad part)
Masters Of The Air: ultra skip unless you're a film student trying to make a point about how both the Pacific and Masters Of The Air colludes bad writing on a quantum level.
 
  • 2Solidarity
Reactions: 1 users

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
17,429
8,456
What's the appropriate minimum age for this series? My kid is almost 12 and I think that will be ok. But I also realize there is a tame sex scene and I might be desensitized to some of the gore and violence.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
71,476
167,728
What's the appropriate minimum age for this series? My kid is almost 12 and I think that will be ok. But I also realize there is a tame sex scene and I might be desensitized to some of the gore and violence.
vampire jews will give him nightmares
 
  • 1Pathetic
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 1 users

Sanrith Descartes

You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
<Gold Donor>
48,421
139,947
What's the appropriate minimum age for this series? My kid is almost 12 and I think that will be ok. But I also realize there is a tame sex scene and I might be desensitized to some of the gore and violence.
Depending on the kid, 12 might be a bit young emotionally. As Lanx said, the death camp scene will be rough as will the scene in the church of
Bastogne.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
17,429
8,456
I had similar thoughts wrt to the death camps. There was a writing assignment that was basically pick a topic, research it, write a brief summary. I was surprised his 6th grade teacher was ok with the Holocaust. Obviously the offline written database they were supposed to use is quite different than accurate visual representations.
 

sleevedraw

Revolver Ocelot
<Bronze Donator>
2,264
6,566
What's the appropriate minimum age for this series? My kid is almost 12 and I think that will be ok. But I also realize there is a tame sex scene and I might be desensitized to some of the gore and violence.

You could skip certain episodes, but it would be kind of dysjointed if not viewed in order.

Worst episodes are 6 (Bastogne), 7 (The Breaking Point), and 9 (Why We Fight). 9 is the Holocaust one and also has the sex scene. 6 is very bloody given the focus character is the medic (hospital scene is especially bad as Sanrith noted), and 7's title tells you pretty much all you need to know - features a guy trying to crawl back to his decapitated leg after getting shelled, and Buck Compton succumbing to PTSD.

1 and 10 are mostly safe - 1 has a guy vomiting up food on Currahee after Sobol plays fuck-fuck games with their training, but as I recall that's pretty much it. 10 has the incident where a drunk soldier that runs over another soldier gets pistol whipped by Spiers.

Everything else is somewhere in the middle - off the top of my head, 4 has a German getting bayonetted, although it's mostly discreet and obscured by airplanes. 5 isn't very graphic, but has some psychological horror - Winters having the recurring flashbacks regarding shooting the young German kid. Blithe gets mortally wounded at the end of 3. I believe there is one scene in 8 where a guy gets a faceful of grenade and dies on a table while being held down by a bunch of other guys.

Overall, I would say minimum 14, although depends on your kid's tolerance for violence. If he's been playing M-rated gory games for a while, he might be OK. I personally would probably have not have been OK at 14, but I'm pretty delicate when it comes to super gory shit.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Burns

Avatar of War Slayer
8,492
16,287
What's the appropriate minimum age for this series? My kid is almost 12 and I think that will be ok. But I also realize there is a tame sex scene and I might be desensitized to some of the gore and violence.
Just made a post in Peacemaker thread about IMDB having a pretty good guide section for parents, so I'll just cut/paste it over (if you want to try to get an idea on episode to episode basis):

2025-08-25 10.44.24 www.firesofheaven.org 8d764b651bdb.png

2025-08-25 10.46.47 www.imdb.com 8551e927a7da.png

 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
17,831
14,364
Did you let your kid watch Saving Private Ryan? BoB is more or less on par with that, outside of like 1 or 2 sex scenes in BoB