HBO's The Pacific: reactions to (new title)

[Boondoggle]

http://www.pacificfans.com/trailer-videos

August 16, 2007 | Production Begins on 'The Pacific'

Production has begun in Australia on THE PACIFIC. Shooting through mid-2008, the epic ten-hour miniseries is executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the creative team behind the Emmy®-winning 2001 HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers."

THE PACIFIC is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television. The production is based at Melbourne Central City Studios in Melbourne, Victoria, with filming taking place in and around Melbourne, where U.S. troops camped in 1943, and multiple locations in Far North Queensland. Kary Antholis, senior vice president, HBO Films, is the executive in charge of the project. THE PACIFIC is scheduled to debut on HBO in 2009.

The miniseries tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda) - across the vast canvas of the Pacific. The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain forests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day.

Carl Franklin (HBO's "Rome"), Jeremy Podeswa (HBO's "Six Feet Under"), Tony To (HBO's "Band of Brothers"), Tim Van Patten (HBO's "The Sopranos") and Graham Yost (HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon") will direct episodes. Writers and additional directors will be announced as they are confirmed.

In addition to James Badge Dale ("The Departed"), Joe Mazzello ("Without a Trace") and Jon Seda ("Kevin Hill"), actors featured in THE PACIFIC include (in alphabetical order) Akos Armont, Jon Bernthal ("The Office"), Joshua Biton ("National Treasure"), Adam Booth ("Doctors"), Simon Bossell ("Hotel de Love"), Laurence Breuls ("Ghost Rider"), Tom Budge ("Last Train to Freo"), Linda Cropper ("McLeod's Daughters"), Brendan Fletcher ("Tideland"), Eamon Farren ("The Outsider"), Leon Ford (HBO's "Tsunami: The Aftermath"), Daniel Frederiksen ("Stingers"), Scott Gibson ("Lucky Number Slevin"), Joshua Helman, Ashton Holmes ("A History of Violence"), Andrew Lees, Rami Malek ("The War at Home"), Martin McCann ("Closing the Ring"), Ian Meadows ("Home and Away"), Toby Moore ("Joanne Lees: Murder in the Outback"), Rohan Nichol ("All Saints"), Henry Nixon ("Happy Feet"), Keith Nobbs ("The Black Donnellys"), Annie Parisse ("Law & Order"), Sam Parsonson ("Love My Way"), Jacob Pitts ("The Novice"), Rupert Reid ("The Matrix Reloaded"), Mitch Ryan, William Sadler ("The Shawshank Redemption"), Gary Sweet ("Down in Splendor"), Anna Torv ("Young Lions"), Sandy Winton ("Two Twisted"), Dylan Young and Ashley Zukerman. Additional actors will be announced as they are confirmed.

THE PACIFIC is based on the books "With the Old Breed," by Eugene Sledge, which was hailed by historian Paul Fussell as "one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war," and "Helmet for My Pillow," by Robert Leckie (recipient of the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Annual Award), as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers. Continuing the World War II oral history work begun by his father Stephen E. Ambrose (author of the book "Band of Brothers"), Hugh Ambrose serves as a consultant on the miniseries.

THE PACIFIC is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television; executive producers, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman; co-executive producers, Tony To, Graham Yost; supervising producer, Bruce McKenna; producer, Gene Kelly; co-producers, Robert Schenkkan, George P. Pelecanos, Michelle Ashford.

http://www.hbo.com/films/news/

[Steve Blair]

I've got very mixed feelings about this one. I wonder how much they'll "dumb down" the Pacific Theater? Correction...I know they will. I just don't know how much of it I'll be able to stomach.

[tequila]

The trailer I saw on HBO last night had a lot of philosophical-sounding rhetoric coming from Marines in combat. Don't recall a ton of that in With the Old Breed, but it's been awhile.

Looks like they definitely spent money on screen, though. I'll be watching.

[Steve Blair]

The trailer I saw on HBO last night had a lot of philosophical-sounding rhetoric coming from Marines in combat. Don't recall a ton of that in With the Old Breed, but it's been awhile.

Looks like they definitely spent money on screen, though. I'll be watching.

There wasn't, really. Helmet for my Pillow had more of that, but (IMO) it's also not as well-written. Not sure that I like the idea of wedging Iwo Jima in with the First Marine Division, either. We've already had a spate of Iwo movies, and the campaigns of the First Marine Division are for the most part glossed over as something that happened between the Canal and Oki. Peleliu was really a foreshadowing of Iwo, and Cape Gloucester was a nasty place as well.

One of the strengths of "Band of Brothers" was the focus on one unit. Wedging Iwo into the story really breaks that up, IMO.

[Bob's World]

I look forward to this, but agree, no need to add Iwo; the 1st Division carried plenty of water in their own operations.

Of course, with two uncles who earned their CIBs the hard way in the Pacific; one with the 41st Division, and one with the 25th; I personally believe it is a missed opportunity to simply re-tell the Corp's great legacy in the Pacific when so much of the fighting, bleeding and amphibious assaults for that matter, were executed unsung in MacArthur's long shadow by Army Infantry.

[Steve Blair]

I look forward to this, but agree, no need to add Iwo; the 1st Division carried plenty of water in their own operations.

Of course, with two uncles who earned their CIBs the hard way in the Pacific; one with the 41st Division, and one with the 25th; I personally believe it is a missed opportunity to simply re-tell the Corp's great legacy in the Pacific when so much of the fighting, bleeding and amphibious assaults for that matter, were executed unsung in MacArthur's long shadow by Army Infantry.

Or they could have gone to the folks that MacArthur often left to mop up...the ANZACs. Not as big an American audience, granted, but still a story well worth telling.

[Cavguy]

I've got very mixed feelings about this one. I wonder how much they'll "dumb down" the Pacific Theater? Correction...I know they will. I just don't know how much of it I'll be able to stomach.

If it's half as good as "Band of Brothers" (same production team), it will be great. Looking forward to it.