WRITERS: Bruce C. McKenna (Part 9 & 10) & Robert Schenkkan (Part 10)[SPOILERS] I fell behind with The Pacific because it's not lived up to my expectations, and I struggled to muster enthusiasm to watch Part Nine until recently, but I'm glad I did because Part Nine was one of the miniseries' better installments. A gritty, nightmarish hour of warfare in Okinawa, a combat zone that became infamous for the high numbers of US and civilian casualties...
DIRECTORS: Tim Van Patten (Part 9) & Jeremy Podeswa (Part 10)
Here we saw Sledge (Joseph Mazzello) at his lowest ebb because he's lived amongst such atrocity and relentless discomfort for so long (falling into a muddy pit containing a maggoty corpse, or surviving a mother-and-baby suicide bomber), but a moment of tenderness for a dying woman in a hut helped pull him back from the brink of insanity. Likewise, already-crazy Snafu (Rami Malik) appeared to rediscover his humanity in this most awful of places, before the marines were pulled out of the horror thanks to an off-screen attack on Nagasaki that vaporized the entire city.It was an entertaining hour that definitely highlighted the predictable change in Sledge from skinny country boy to "wise" pipe-smoking veteran -- with Gunny's lighter (his "torch") duly passed. The issues I have are more generalizations for The Pacific as a whole; the fact it's been such an infuriating mish-mash of battles, characters and events. It's not so much telling a story as throwing a lot of moments at you, and some episodes contain enough "hits" to be considered a success. I think the main problem is that The Pacific campaign isn't ideal material for a miniseries intending to give you a broad overview, and the passage of time has been difficult to gauge. Has a year passed since Part One? A few months? Actually, Part Ten confirmed it's been three years. Three. YEARS. So why did it feel like a really bad summer, at the most?
Also, too much has felt rushed or ignored and it's been unclear who we were supposed to be following: Leckie appeared to be the lead, but then vanished halfway through; Basilone never felt like a lead but his character kept on being returned to, before he almost accidentally starred in the best hour; while Sledge has been the most consistent presence and ultimately the most normal person the audience can identify with. The intention was to give us three leads, actually, but The Pacific never managed to make its triptych work.
Part Ten was an emotionally satisfying episode, as all the characters returned home after the Japanese surrender. Leckie (James Badge Dale) goes back to sports journalism, discovering that he can use his "celebrity" to haggle a pay rise and woo Vera, the girl who lives across the street, with his fancy uniform and maturity. Vera's who he was writing all those letters to, which he didn't actually get to send. That was probably for the best, given how morbid they were. A shame we never knew Vera before Leckie went off to war, as the actors had good chemistry. The point to this vignette was to show Leckie trying to busy himself with other things, rather than face his memories. Is it possible his experiences have made him doubt the existence of God, too? There was a family dinner scene where everyone closed their eyes to say grace in prayer, but Leckie would rather hold Vera's hand under the table and stare into her eyes.
The most interesting and developed story belonged to Sledge, who arrived home and found it difficult to adjust to normality: at a recruitment fair he realized he's gained no useful skills while in the Marine Corp (beyond "killing Japs"), social events felt uncomfortable, he had difficult sleeping because of nightmares, he's kept his pipe-smoking habit, and a shooting trip with his father caused him to have a panic attack at the thought of firing a gun. Indeed, Sledge decided he never wants to wear his uniform again. The only person who truly understood was his childhood friend Sid (Ashton Holmes), who's had time to adjust to civilian life since returning from the Pacific himself.
Finally, Basilone's widow Lena (Annie Parisse) visited her husband's grieving family -- an awkward way to meet your in-laws for the first time, but she soon made a breakthrough by handing over Basilone's Medal Of Honour to this father. Rather frustratingly, her husband never signed insurance papers, meaning she'll receive no financial support for her loss.
One interesting element of Part Ten (which also highlighted a problem I've had with the series) was the extended credits sequence, where the real people behind these stories were shown, and their post-WWII lives encapsulated in short paragraphs. It was a poignant reminder that these were real people and interesting to note the details of what happened to them all (Snafu didn't speak to any of his comrades for three decades until he read Sledge's war memoir, for instance.) But was I alone in not recognizing the names/faces of most people shown? The Pacific did a decent job at keeping Leckie, Sledge and Basilone in your memory, but nearly everyone else melted into the background for me. This tends to happen with ensemble war dramas, but was a particular problem for The Pacific because it so obviously wanted you to only attach yourself to three leads, and the story was so fractured.
Overall, The Pacific definitely improved from Part 6 onwards and contained three or four genuinely good episodes in its run, but it was obvious this miniseries was more style over substance. I couldn't identify with and didn't particularly like any of the characters apart from Sledge, and the way the series would jump around in time and location was often confusing. Unlike Band Of Brothers (which it will always be compared to), the lack of a simple men-on-a-mission storyline with a clearly defined goal definitely hurt the serialized storytelling. The Pacific campaign just isn't as amenable to a dramatic retelling like this (unless you concentrate on one particular battle), but this ten-part miniseries wanted to encompass far too much. In so doing, it bit off more than it could chew, but at least it succeeded in bringing this lesser known aspect of WWII to wider attention.24 & 31 MAY 2010: SKY MOVIES PREMIERE/HD, 9PM
