New WW II Documentary Starts Tonight

[Beersheba4thLH]

Ken Burns new documentary THE WAR starts Sunday night on PBS. This is his long awaited documentary on World War II and no professional historians were used in the filiming.

[Dennis GT]

Looks to be a land mark event. Ken Burns Civil War is the best on the subject.
Take a look at this
http://www.pbs.org/thewar/

Dennis

[ParaCollector45]

East Coasters it is starting NOW! Dont miss this! Ken Burn is a master of documentary film making and will not let us down!

[LeeG]

Looks good, though it is purely from the American perspective which ensures that "World at War" will continue to reign supreme as THE World War II documentary.

I notice that Burns has gotten Winton Marsalis on board again -- let's hope he's limited to playing music -- his commentary in the Jazz documentary was very tedious and uninformed in my opinion.

[Lenny W]

its awsome another 12 more hours of film to go

[PZIV]

Why does it start so late? It's not continous is it? I'm so confused....

EDIT: Nevermind, I had thought it would be going until 11:00 CT, but it seems it just ended at 10:20. Strange PBS times!

It was great (I missed the last 15 minutes, but I taped it).

[Larry deZeng]

The first chapter/episode was excellent, although as has already been pointed out above, it's 100% about the participation of the United States in the war from an American perspective. While the "home front" footage was largely fresh, at least to me, the combat scenes were mostly familiar. I guess Burns could only afford the film that's in the public domain or is available on a budget. But that's O.K. The rest of it, especially the interviews, were memorable. The Guadalcanal 1st Marine Div. vet, the fellow from the 2d Marine Raider Bn. and the lady from Mobile were standouts. Let's hope the remaining 12½ hours are just as good. Regretably, the predicted viewership numbers will be low for this work because 99.9% of the younger generation - those under 45 or so - have no interest in World War II. But to a few old foggies like me who remember the war, it was great.

--Larry

[Gene]

In the commercial for it, they goofed and showed a German para running from behind.

[PZIV]

Hey, I'm 16 and I loved it!

[Gunbunny]

I saw it last night and was rather disappointed. Looks like a rather conventional documentary with the same old footage we've all seen before. Some of the footage not correct to the story (marines on Guadalcanal wearing camo covered helmets, etc.). The personal stories were compelling and the series should be informative to those not familiar with that era. Some of the music was absolutely dreadful and seemed to have nothing to do with the action on the screen. I mean it was so bad I was tempted to turn the sound off! Where's Richard (Victory at Sea) Rodgers now that we need him?

[JaimeH]

Ken Burns is a film maker not a historian, but he did a very good job on "The Civil War" and "Baseball" I was disappointed in "Jazz". I see already that an American making an American documentary about the effect of the war in America is being accused of not recognizing our allies. This gets old.

[James Noble]

I have to agree the majority of the music is really bad, I hope it improves.

[Martin W]

Watching the interviews with the veterans and the civilians made it worthwhile viewing for me.
Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Martin.

[Gene]

One of the guys interviewed, Quentin Aanenson, was profiled about 15 years ago on PBS. He was a P-47 pilot and flew in the ground attack role.

[PZIV]

My god the music was bad at times. Oh well, nothing is perfect.