"The War" series by Ken Burns on PBS....

[muddyboots]

I don't think I can imagine being so hungry, and tried, that I can't remember my family. I just don't grok. Obviously it happened but that's so far outside my limited experience that it's Lovecraftian.

[O.P.]

It's an OK show. And Ken Burns should probably be commended for trying. But it's thin, real thin.

The four towns thing is a good idea, and he should have stuck to the homefront aspects of that story, and then made a separate combat, or war story.

He must have realized how totally thin it was by tonights episode because he is using accounts and interviews from people not from those towns.

I know he had an idea and a point, but sometime in the six years he spent making this, he and his crew lost focus. He should have changed gears and regained focus. Instead he made this dog.

The only point he, so far, has almost, I mean ALLLLMOST, got across, is how many people died. The reason I say almost is that there is very little context to all of his dead body pictures. A one minute blurb from an interviewee saying "Alotta guys got killed" and then going back to the "Ken Burns" special, lets show a sh1tload of dead folks cut, aint cutting it with me anymore. It lacks any context, or meaning. Some longer individual stories about how that happened, would be more meaningful to me, and probably to history.

The other thin stuff, for me is, for a documentary filmmaker and crew, no one obviously reviewed the aircraft flying in their movie, and coordinated them with the proper battles or the proper narraration. They just cut in random sh1t. It's like a Baa Baa Blacksheep episode. It makes me wonder about the rest of it I don't really know a lot about.

In fact, it makes me glad I don't know much about the Civil War-Jazz-Baseball-Ect, because if I did, I have a feeling I'd be knocking on his door and asking that little sh1t for my tax money back.

In short, Glossing over, beating some isolated, yet curently popular, dead horses, bad film research, and just cramming a two hour special into fourteen hours of really really slim storylines, or at least not 14 HOURS of it. Like we used to say in the Nav, Ken Burns is on the ROAD Program, Retired On Active Duty. He got 6 years of juice out of the big t1t on this one.

I'm not going to join the Ken Burns-PBS-Chevron @sskiss fest yet. I had middle school history textbooks in 1976 that had more coverage than this dog does.

This is glossy, tear jerky, entertainment. It's not really any kind of coherent history. It's not something I would tell someone to see if they wanted to know anything solid. It's entertainment. Period.

I don't usually rant about "Entertainment" kinda stuff. I actually don't think it's a bad show. It's just weak. I just keep thinking of the time in the future when my kid comes home from school and tells me that WW2 was about imprisoning Japanese people in America, treating Black people like sh1t, and a super duper bunch of dead people.

This is a quality Ken B/PBS product, so you know it's going to happen.

[ZeamerB17]

Geez, O.P., why don't you tell us what ya really think?
You make some good points. I prefer getting my history from books 'cause they're a little more in-depth, but it is nice to hear the vets speak for themselves once in a while. I missed about half of last night's segment, so I don't know if there was much on my favorite part of WWII, the bomber war in the SW Pacific. We shall see.

Dave

[blacksheep]

...but it is nice to hear the vets speak for themselves once in a while.

Copy that, Dave!

I've found Quentin Aanenson's commentary to be very interesting. "A Fighter Pilot's Story" was aired several years ago, and was more in-depth about his personal experiences, but it is good to see him making another appearance. His website is linked below-

http://pages.prodigy.com/fighterpilot/

[Jack Frost]

O.P., sorry you think <But it's thin, real thin>. I guess the only way it has any meat to it is for you to actually have been there and then I have a feeling that would be 'too thick, too thick' for you.

I'm not a WW II vet but my parents were very anxious about the day to day life during WW II and I was 7 years old in 1939 and remember hearing about the events on the radio and in the papers. If you want something to complain about being too thin, that describes the news back then. I think you're applying modern day TV news standards to events of 50+ years ago.

Sure the audio track of the B-17 on takeoff was of a lightplane engine and probably should have been corrected but to slam the whole production over trivia like this is missing the whole point of the series. It is a general discription of those times and IMHO very well done.

Jack

[Jesse C.]

I think its time for this thread to be moved to off topic section.

[O.P.]

O.P., sorry you think <But it's thin, real thin>. I guess the only way it has any meat to it is for you to actually have been there and then I have a feeling that would be 'too thick, too thick' for you.

I'm not a WW II vet but my parents were very anxious about the day to day life during WW II and I was 7 years old in 1939 and remember hearing about the events on the radio and in the papers. If you want something to complain about being too thin, that describes the news back then. I think you're applying modern day TV news standards to events of 50+ years ago.

Sure the audio track of the B-17 on takeoff was of a lightplane engine and probably should have been corrected but to slam the whole production over trivia like this is missing the whole point of the series. It is a general discription of those times and IMHO very well done.

Jack

Hi Jack!

Like I said, I normally would not even comment on something like this. But, It is looking like, or at least sounding like, the end all be all standard by which WW2 documentaries will be judged.

Thats where I have a problem.

I saw a local PBS interview with Ken Burns before this show aired. In the interview he lamented the fact that todays children, and todays people know nothing about WW2. He told of professors complaining that college students knew nothing. That was the main reason he wanted to make this.

I am applying todays standards to this show. And it passes with flying colors! It is very sentinmenal, misses huge segments of time and place, and has some kind of modern political undertone. Perfect! Especially for a classroom of middleschoolers.

So when the typical person who could care less before, within the next few days, and the next few years, when they find out I am into something like Warbirds, starts saying some wierd disjointed stuff to me about WW2, The first thing I am going to ask is "Did you watch that documentary?". If they say "Yes", Then I'll know they are probably a newly minted "Ken Burns" expert, and probably keep on walking. Kinda like the people who tell me the T28 is a hellcat, and shot down a lot of german planes in the "Big One", while I'm at the airshow. Just say "Thats nice" and keep on truckin. Experts get cranky when you say anything to them outside of their mindset.

Ken Burns documentaries have a lot of cache. Regular folks beleive them to be definitive. This one is no different.

I think, at least among us, WIX people, we should be honest about it.

Take it easy,
Orvis

It's a good show. A historical document/masterpiece? Not by a long shot.

[Cripes]

I thought his Civil War series was a high point of TV documentaries. This one falls short IMHO. The hometown stories are a good idea, and maybe he should have stuck with that. And Quentin Aanenson appears again? Surely he could have found another interesting story to tell that we haven't heard. I much prefer the BBC series "Battlefield" for the rest.

[Bill Greenwood]

OP, everything does not have to be cut and dry factual like a video encyclopedia. What Ken Burns has done is like poetry rather than cold prose, and like an impressionist painting it conveys feeling, at least it had to me and probably a lot of others.

[RyanShort1]

Not having seen the film, but having seen Burns Civil War series, and knowing what some other books and films produced of late seem to be trending towards, I kind of think that OP might be right. I think in way it's a pendulum swing. It used to be that if you knew of atrocities or things done that were wrong, out of honor for our forces and a desire for the next generation to do better, and have a higher standard, that you just didn't talk about some stuff, or if you did, you basically said that it was wrong, and move on to a different subject. Now, we are (rightfully) embarrassed about issues like the internment of American Citizens of Japanese origin, but seem to be blowing it out of proportion in some effort to sooth our national conscience. Problem is that in some ways it actually re-opens old wounds and encourages young folks who are descendants of those mis-treated to feel disenfranchised, and clouds what otherwise might be ok. I'm not saying those issues shouldn't be addressed, just that I'm not sure of what's the right way to address them.

Ryan

[O.P.]

OP, everything does not have to be cut and dry factual like a video encyclopedia. What Ken Burns has done is like poetry rather than cold prose, and like an impressionist painting it conveys feeling, at least it had to me and probably a lot of others.

Hi Bill!

I agree with you. It's a nice show. My point isssss, is that is all it is. A show. As a documentary, it's not very good. That would not be a problem with me either, except, it is Ken Burns, and this will mean more than it is worth. It is not up to the standard of "The Civil War". Thats what I expected. Maybe ole Ken is like Orson Wells, He only has one of those big ones in him.

Another thing I noticed, is that there is no Shelby Foote kinda person here keeping this thing on track, a little more focused........

I'll stop beating this horse now, and let the world fit good ole Ken boy for his emmy awards tuxedo.

ehhhhh...what the hay, I'm a couple three beers into the afternoon, One more for the road..

It's a real, totally, not good idea, to say things like "I have a feeling that would be 'too thick, too thick' for you" to complete strangers.

I'm all paid up on my America time buddy.
I'm all paid up on my being afraid time.

There's good reasons why I have to sleep with the radio on.
There's good reasons why I walk with a limp on most days.
There's good reasons why I gotta get the doc to take lumps outta my back every couple of years.
There's good reasons why if the temperature goes below 70 degrees every joint in my body hurts.
There's good reasons all my hair started turning grey at 25, when that has happened to no one else in my family.
There's a good reason why....well, screw it,,there's a lot of folks who got it a lot worse than I do, but I think everyone here should get the point.

I'm all freakin paid up Tex.

Calling out a stranger is always a bad idea. Calling out someone here, is just plain............

Toodles.

[Jack Frost]

Jack Handy,

Point taken. No slur intended.

Jack Frost.

[mjanovec]

For those people like us that read about WWII on a regular basis, this documentary was doomed to fall well short of our expectations. But for the general population, this documentary may be a refresher of sorts about the war...or, for a younger segment of our population, this may be their first real exposure to the history of that war. And while it shouldn't be the final word on the subject, it may plant a seed in many young minds to read more about the history of their nation and go beyond the limited teachings they will get in school on the subject.

[6trn4brn]

Allrightythen...wish I could write as eloquently as OP! Falling short of that, I agree with all you have written sir. To add to it though is where I may get myself into a bit of a tiff with some here.

I guess that what I originally thought about too much attention was given to the plight of the minorities is still my opinion. To add to that thought is that I don't understand why there were no counter-thoughts from the German side. Has anyone done a show like this and talked to soldiers and airmen from both sides? From simply reading books by the likes of Adolph Galland and Guenther Rall, one will begin to get the impression that the Luftwaffe pilots were not so enamored with Hitler as I once thought. IIRC Ernst Udet and Rommel both were in on the plot to assassinate Hitler?

How about the hardships that the Russian soldiers and airmen dealt with? If I remember my history correctly, the British side was no cakewalk either. A lot of stuff missing in a series titled "The War".

Maybe I should have read about the premise behind this series. If the premise was to try and tell the story of America during the second world war, then Burns did a good job. But to call the series "The War", one would think that there should be some additional attention paid to everyone involved...differing viewpoints, right or wrong, make for a much more fulfilling story.

Just my opinons...I will probably buy the series when it comes out

[Greg87]

I also don't know what the original focus of this documentary was, and I'll be honest and say I only saw one episode of the documentary. However, I was a little upset when they were talking about how Stalin asked the allies to start another front to take some pressure off of them, and the allies chose not to launch an attack on France, but instead Americans fought in the Pacific (which I THINK did nothing to help on the Russian front) and invaded North Africa. They do not make the slightest mention of the Dieppe Raid, which made Germans divert defences to the French coast, as well it helped in the planning of the Normandy invasion. Also there was no mention of the fact that there were other allied forces fighting in the Pacific. This is not too surprising as I find a lot of documentaries are one sided (don't take offence... I'm not refering to American documentaries, I get upset when I watch Canadian made documentaries and they make no mention of anyone else). It's nice to see a well made documentary every once in a while that covers all sides of the story.

Has anyone done a show like this and talked to soldiers and airmen from both sides? From simply reading books by the likes of Adolph Galland and Guenther Rall, one will begin to get the impression that the Luftwaffe pilots were not so enamored with Hitler as I once thought.

Actually there is a good series called "Wariors of the Night" about the night time bomber offensive of WWII. There are interviews with both allied and German crews, imho it does a great job of showing both sides of the story. It also goes into very good detail as it has a specific focus and there are maybe 5 or 6 episodes to the documentary. I'd highly recomend it to anyone.