Official "The War (A film by Ken Burns)" Thread

[Marco]

Twelve days until Ken Burns' latest work premieres on PBS. I've been excited about this one for months!

What little advance press I've seen is highly complimentary so far.

Check out the "Viewer's Guide" here. (http://www.pbs.org/thewar/downloads/thewarvgbroadcast0724.pdf)

[firerose818]

We've been really excited about this too. Jeff has a passion for learning about WWII, and that has rubbed off on me. This should be fantastic!

[sieglinde]

My PBS station comes in so crappy, I may wait for the DVD set.

[aus1ander]

I finally get PBS-HD OTA. Talk about timing! Got the Season Pass geared up.

[Jeeters]

Gee, this thread is the first I've heard of this. Just googled it. I loved his Civil War and The West series, so I'm really looking forward to this.

[packerfan]

I heard an interview with Ken Burns on the Adam Carolla show. I can't wait for this to come out! I wonder if it will be unedited?

[Sirius Black]

This sounds very interesting. I'll have to look for it. I wonder what the most effective wishlist criteria would be. Sometimes PBS doesn't have the most complete guide data.

[Jeeters]

I wonder what the most effective wishlist criteria would be. Sometimes PBS doesn't have the most complete guide data.I set up a Title wishlist for "war", since the name of the series is "The War". When I did a search using the wishlist, a 30-minute preview show appears already.

[AccidenT]

It's too bad my local PBS station dropped the PBS HD feed. :(

[terpfan1980]

I may have to snag this on my Vista/MCE box so I can easily burn DVDs of the episodes later. :up: :up: :up:

[Indiana627]

It was on my local PBS SD and HD channels in the guide for Sun 9/23 at 8PM with a repeat at 10:30. This is the first episodes. Not sure when new episodes will air? Each Sunday night?

[Marco]

It was on my local PBS SD and HD channels in the guide for Sun 9/23 at 8PM with a repeat at 10:30. This is the first episodes. Not sure when new episodes will air? Each Sunday night?

See the Viewer's Guide, link added in OP above.

[sieglinde]

Thank gawd, I get PBS from Los Angeles. They are less likely to bleep out language.

[bullitt]

Twelve days until Ken Burns' latest work premieres on PBS. I've been excited about this one for months!

What little advance press I've seen is highly complimentary so far.

Check out the "Viewer's Guide" here. (http://www.pbs.org/thewar/downloads/thewarvgbroadcast0724.pdf)

According to the guide they will air weekly (Wed Night) episodes beginning Oct 3
Is this correct?

[Marco]

According to the guide they will air weekly (Wed Night) episodes beginning Oct 3
Is this correct?

Dunno, but I ain't waitin' that long.

Original run will be Sun-Mon-Tues-Weds, then the following Sun-Mon-Tues. That means the last "new" episode is on Tuesday, October 2nd.

[tgewin]

I'm definitely looking forward to this. I've only seen a few of the episodes of The Civil War (keep meaning to watch the DVDs I borrowed from my brother), but I'm even more interested in The War. I grew up in Mobile and recognize some of the family names of individuals featured in the Mobile portions of the series. I've also read Eugene Sledge's book With the Old Breed, and look forward to learning more about him.

Sledge's story will also be featured in the upcoming HBO mini-series The Pacific War being produced by Hanks and Spielberg.

[Indiana627]

See the Viewer's Guide, link added in OP above.
Thanks for that link. I checked again this morning and my PBS (not sure about all of them) is repeating each episode twice within 24 hours of it's original airing: Once immediately after the original, and then again at 1PM the next day. So episode 1 will be on Sunday 9/23 at 8PM, then again at 10:30PM, then again on Monday 9/24 at 1PM. The Monday original airing follows the same pattern (not 100% sure about the Tuesday 9/25 episode since my guide doesn't go that far). That sure will make it nice for scheduling conflicts!

[Marco]

Sledge's story will also be featured in the upcoming HBO mini-series The Pacific War being produced by Hanks and Spielberg.

thanks for the heads-up on this, I had never heard of it before!

[jsmeeker]

Pumped up for it!

Of course, it's going to conlfict with a bunch of other season passes, so my TiVo won't record all of them. At least not during the initial run. Right now, my PBS station doesn't seem to be repeating them in additional time slots.

I think I forsee a few nights of live TV watching next week.

[tgewin]

thanks for the heads-up on this, I had never heard of it before!

Sorry to threadjack a bit, but I have to correct myself and then add one giant "Oi vey!"... It's called The Pacific, not The Pacific War, as I had said before.

IMDB entry for The Pacific (http://imdb.com/title/tt0374463/fullcredits) Also going to have some involvement from Graham Yost... no surprise there. 2009 is a long way off, isn't it? :(

The oi vey is that they cast someone from Hyde Park, NY as Mr. Sledge. I'll be shocked if he can pull off a proper LA accent. LA being Lower Alabama. :) Are there really not any talented enough actors in their early 20s from the central gulf coast? or even from Alabama, Mississippi, or Georgia? Oh well, maybe the guy's really good and will have watched enough of Ken Burns' new documentary to know what us Mobilians sound like. :)

[Marco]

The oi vey is that they cast someone from Hyde Park, NY as Mr. Sledge. I'll be shocked if he can pull off a proper LA accent. LA being Lower Alabama. :)

Messrs. Hanks and Spielberg cast an English actor as Dick Winters, and that seemed to work out pretty well, eh? :)

[Turtleboy]

It looks beautiful in HD on my 61 inch DLP. :up: to my local PBS and Comcast for carrying it in HD.

[cheerdude]

The only reason that we aren't recording this on HD (except for the space constraints at the moment) is that the PBS HD station here has been disappointing. If they re-show it again on HD (after everything is done), we may try recording it again to see if any improvements have been made.

[mrpope]

It looks beautiful in HD on my 61 inch DLP. :up: to my local PBS and Comcast for carrying it in HD.


yeah, didn't really watch it, but took a look at the picture. pbs in the twin cities does an excellent job as well.

[TiVo'Brien]

The sound in Orlando's PBS HD OTA feed was out of sync with the video. :rolleyes:

As for the show, I didn't get to watch all of it, but from what I saw, it was very well done. There was a level of honesty that I hadn't heard before. I wonder, though, isn't this series about five years late?

[loubob57]

The sound in Orlando's PBS HD OTA feed was out of sync with the video. :rolleyes:

As for the show, I didn't get to watch all of it, but from what I saw, it was very well done. There was a level of honesty that I hadn't heard before. I wonder, though, isn't this series about five years late?
I think it was slightly out of sync on the DFW PBS-HD station too. I also had a few minor muting/pixellation events (maybe 4 or 5).

Overall I thought it was pretty good. The last segment did appear to be a late addition, but maybe I wouldn't have thought so had I not read the review in the Sunday paper. There was apparently some criticism that there wasn't anything in the series about the contribution of Hispanic or Native Americans, so they added a new segment to 3 of the episodes. Ken Burns said they would be "seamlessly integrated" but they were added to the end.

[jon01]

i ff'd through it a lot. was expecting more of a recreation (like band of brothers) instead of just stills and interviews. did i skip over something good?

- Jon

[jsmeeker]

First episode was good. Got a lot more into specific conflicts than I thought it would, though. From the title and description, I thought it would focus mostly on events leading up to the United State's entry into the war, then all the reaction about going. There was a lot about that, but maybe only half the show. There are lots of eipsodes left. Are we going to see some of this over again?

[Mabes]

Out of sync in NY too.

I thought it was good, a couple of problems. For example, why were there no Japanese on Guadalcanal when the Americans arrived? Had the Japanese abandoned the airstrip or was it just delayed? Seems like an obvious question but it wasn't answered.

[cheerdude]

Per Wiki - there were Japanese there... but the Allied force overpowered them and got the Japanese by surprise.

[Mabes]

Per Wiki - there were Japanese there... but the Allied force overpowered them and got the Japanese by surprise.


Yeah I remember now they said there was a "minimal", or something like that, presence. I think they said almost no resistance, so I wondered why. Maybe they didn't think the Americans knew about it; we knew a lot of things from breaking their code.

[jsmeeker]

Yeah I remember now they said there was a "minimal", or something like that, presence. I think they said almost no resistance, so I wondered why. Maybe they didn't think the Americans knew about it; we knew a lot of things from breaking their code.


I think they were all hiding in the jungles instead of being right down near the coast and airbase. Plus, they were being reinforced (according to the show), so I guess that was coming from another side of the island.

[scottykempf]

Torrent?

[Marco]

I think they were all hiding in the jungles instead of being right down near the coast and airbase. Plus, they were being reinforced (according to the show), so I guess that was coming from another side of the island.

Right.
I didn't get to this part of the show yet, but I know the battle. Essentially, for six months the pattern was Americans trying to hold the part of the island they have and expand it, versus the Japanese trying to sail down there with reinforcements to push them off and/or send battleships and cruisers to bombard the Americans already ashore.

[SeanC]

I was shocked to learn that the first fighting the USA was involved in was in the Pacific theater and not Europe.... I had never known that.

[cheesesteak]

I couldn't sleep last night. I put this on at 1:30 and ::BAM!::, out like a light. I'll watch it for real later this week.

[Turtleboy]

Torrent?

It's a PBS miniseries. It will be repeated many times. Just set a season pass.

[jsmeeker]

It's a PBS miniseries. It will be repeated many times. Just set a season pass.


but if you want to watch in order, he may need a bittorrent if his local PBS station isn't doing any re-runs yet. Mine isn't, so far. The only airings on the schedule are the originals.

[Langree]

but if you want to watch in order, he may need a bittorrent if his local PBS station isn't doing any re-runs yet. Mine isn't, so far. The only airings on the schedule are the originals.

What's the correct order? I can't tell by the showings list and forgot to set an SP and want to watch them in order.

[loubob57]

What's the correct order? I can't tell by the showings list and forgot to set an SP and want to watch them in order.

EPISODE ONE: “A Necessary War”
EPISODE TWO: “When Things Get Tough”
EPISODE THREE: “A Deadly Calling”
EPISODE FOUR: “Pride of Our Nation”
EPISODE FIVE: “FUBAR”
EPISODE SIX: “The Ghost Front”
EPISODE SEVEN: “A World Without War”

I'm looking forward to episode 5 ...

[Langree]

Thanks!

[Rosenkavalier]

I think it was slightly out of sync on the DFW PBS-HD station too. I also had a few minor muting/pixellation events (maybe 4 or 5).

The HD audio/video sync has been noted (over in the AVS Forums thread) as a PBS broadcast network issue, and supposedly will be fixed for Night 2 and beyond. I just wish KERA here in Dallas would transmit the actual 5.1 audio signal, instead of a 2.0 downmix.

Overall I thought it was pretty good. The last segment did appear to be a late addition, but maybe I wouldn't have thought so had I not read the review in the Sunday paper. There was apparently some criticism that there wasn't anything in the series about the contribution of Hispanic or Native Americans, so they added a new segment to 3 of the episodes. Ken Burns said they would be "seamlessly integrated" but they were added to the end.

I was sitting there at about 10:05 PM (Central), thinking the show was ending for the night, when they did that odd cross-credit bit to transition to the "raiders" segment. It really did feel tacked on, but it still was quite interesting.

[sieglinde]

Mine was out of sync also. Saw it in HD on my non HD TV because of a unique situation in my home town dealing with my PBS station and the cable company.

The Hispanic thing did seem to be just an add on and the episodes are 2 and a half hours long rather than 2 hours long. As a Californian, I am glad they did add this segment though.

[HamptonWalsh]

Has anyone else seen the rude blue screen informing us that their local PBS station has chosen to exercise its right to block this show from being recorded? We set our Tivo to catch a 2 AM broadcast of the first episode and sat down to watch it tonight. Too late now to try recording it on another PBS station (though even if we weren't, I'm pretty sure the two we get here in Norfolk, Virginia, are both run by the same decision-makers at WHRO).

Boy, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

[jsmeeker]

nope. But then again, my TiVo won't do that.


Sounds like a glitch with your PBS station.

[terpfan1980]

Has anyone else seen the rude blue screen informing us that their local PBS station has chosen to exercise its right to block this show from being recorded? We set our Tivo to catch a 2 AM broadcast of the first episode and sat down to watch it tonight. Too late now to try recording it on another PBS station (though even if we weren't, I'm pretty sure the two we get here in Norfolk, Virginia, are both run by the same decision-makers at WHRO).

Boy, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Slight thread jack, but I saw the same thing with Heroes premiere tonite on my Vista/MCE box. I think it was just a glitch, but it was definitely rude and a pain. In my case I was watching Heroes live on the Vista/MCE box, but I had started watching it from a recording so it acted like I was watching playback of a recording. Sure enough, about half-way in I got the text about the content being protected. I hit the Live TV button and was able to keep watching from there and the box seems to have continued recording, but I'll have to check that later.

The whole restricted copying thing just gets my goat and yeah, to get back on topic here, having something like that come up on a PBS show is really, really, really counter productive if the local PBS station wants to encourage you to contribute, be appreciative, etc.

[cheerdude]

We sat down to watch the 1st epsiode... thinking that we would view an hour or so and then switch to the Monday premieres.

2 and 1/2 hours later... we were hooked. Actually, more like 15-20 minutes later.

Looks like Ken Burns (and company) has done it again. It will probably take us a little bit to get caught up though.

[heySkippy]

i ff'd through it a lot. was expecting more of a recreation (like band of brothers) instead of just stills and interviews. did i skip over something good?

- Jon
Yes, the whole thing was good. Not sure why you expected fiction from a Ken Burns documentary.

[Globular]

Watched episode one last night (sandwiched around "Heros" :) ). I had the audio sync issue too in HD, but apparently that is a confirmed PBDS HD problem, not a tivo/cable issue.

Is anyone else annoyed by Burns (and others) using fake sound effects with the original war footage? It seems ethically questionable to me in a documentary to do that. For some reason that has always bugged me.

-Matt

[Marco]

Is anyone else annoyed by Burns (and others) using fake sound effects with the original war footage? It seems ethically questionable to me in a documentary to do that. For some reason that has always bugged me.

Then The Civil War musta drove you right up the wall, 'cause it would have been an awfully quiet television program if Ken Burns had to rely on sound recordings of the actual battles.

I must say, if the sounds are there to help the viewer understand what it was like in battle, and not overdone in order to manipulate or misrepresent, I have absolutely no problem with it.

[Globular]

Then The Civil War musta drove you right up the wall, 'cause it would have been an awfully quiet television program if Ken Burns had to rely on sound recordings of the actual battles.


It did :)

I realize it's entertainment, and the sound effects add to the drama, but the fact that they're obviously fake has always bothered me. Just being picky... ;)

-Matt

[jsmeeker]

Is anyone else annoyed by Burns (and others) using fake sound effects with the original war footage? It seems ethically questionable to me in a documentary to do that. For some reason that has always bugged me.

-Matt


Not really.

A lot of what we see are simply still photos. No sound there. And for the video(movies), it's always possible there was never sound to begin with.

[loubob57]

What's with the audio sync on the HD feed tonight? The audio is preceding the video by 4 seconds! :eek:
I switched over to the analog channel and it is OK.

[scottykempf]

Not really.

A lot of what we see are simply still photos. No sound there. And for the video(movies), it's always possible there was never sound to begin with.

It's 99.9% likely that what you hear is added in post. Especially during war, you wouldn't get much usable audio with that much noise around.

[Mabes]

I guess I'm going to have to wait to see most of this when it's run again. They are running it again on a weekly basis, right? I've got about 20 hours of HD space and 3 a night goes to the Mets, and I've got Heroes and Prison Break and The Bionic Woman and Curb Your Enthusiasm and a bunch of other stuff backing up.

Good TV times.

[Jeeters]

You could always wait for the DVDs to be released and rent them. Street date for release is next Tuesday (10/2).

[Langree]

Has anyone seen Burns Civil War set? Is it as good?

[terpfan1980]

Has anyone seen Burns Civil War set? Is it as good?
Yes :up: x 3

Edited to add: and the Baseball series he did was also very good.

[Hoffer]

I finally watched the first episode of this yesterday and am watching part 2 now. It is especially interesting for me. I was born in Luverne, MN and my parents still live there. I hear them mention the town all the time and it's odd. They had like the premiere of the show in Luverne at the Palace Theater. That's where I went to watch movies as a kid. Whenever I've seen photos of main street from years ago, the Palace is the only thing I ever recognize.

[Marco]

Has anyone seen Burns Civil War set? Is it as good?

BETTER, IMO. Maybe that's just because I saw it first, but his command of the historic material is nothing short of virtuosic.

Run don't walk to see it!

[Crash_Corrigan]

My favorite segment in the series so far was last night...the story of the Native American fighting in France. I think his name was John Medicine Crow of the Crow tribe. His grandfather had taught him to be a warrior in the tradition of the Crow. He ends up serving in Europe and fighting in dense forest. During combat he lead a war party. He touched an enemy warrior. He took away an enemy warrior's weapon and stole an enemy's horses. Who knew that any German combat troops were still using horses for anything during the war? When he returned home after the war and recounted his actions in combat during a tribal gathering, the tribal council realized that he had met all the conditions for a Crow warrior to become a War Chief and they proclaimed him to be a chief. At the end of the segment, he says that he is the last War Chief of the Plains Indians.

The segment on the Japanese American unit serving in Europe was heart breaking. The general commanding them treated them like cannon fodder. They served with honor and did all that was asked and more and their casualties were horrendous.

I never knew.

[Mabes]

I never knew there were so many mistakes on D-Day and thereafter as far as not understanding the terrain. My memories of learning about it were that it was a brilliant military strategy, although with expected heavy casualities.

Maybe it was both? You can't get everything right.

[loubob57]

It is over and ... We won! (should I have spoilerized that?)

I thought it was interesting that you could buy the DVD set at BB for $80 on the day the last episode was being aired.

[cheerdude]

Ilana and I are about 2/3 of the way through Episode 4 (the one on D-Day and Saipan). It is a very very good series... almost as good as the Civil War. I still rank that one higher... since it was Ken Burns' first series.

[dean9000]

the a bomb episode was interesting too...

[aus1ander]

I never knew there were so many mistakes on D-Day and thereafter as far as not understanding the terrain. My memories of learning about it were that it was a brilliant military strategy, although with expected heavy casualities.

Maybe it was both? You can't get everything right.

If you're interested, you should read D-day by Stephen Ambrose. The stories of hedgerow fighting and the assumption that French hedgerows would be exactly the same as British hedgerows (which was assumed based on aerial photography) is well detailed in that book. Plus, like The War, most of Ambrose's books approach WWII from the bottom up, telling the stories of the soldiers instead of the war planning by the generals.

[aus1ander]

My favorite segment in the series so far was last night...the story of the Native American fighting in France. I think his name was John Medicine Crow of the Crow tribe. His grandfather had taught him to be a warrior in the tradition of the Crow. He ends up serving in Europe and fighting in dense forest. During combat he lead a war party. He touched an enemy warrior. He took away an enemy warrior's weapon and stole an enemy's horses. Who knew that any German combat troops were still using horses for anything during the war? When he returned home after the war and recounted his actions in combat during a tribal gathering, the tribal council realized that he had met all the conditions for a Crow warrior to become a War Chief and they proclaimed him to be a chief. At the end of the segment, he says that he is the last War Chief of the Plains Indians.

The segment on the Japanese American unit serving in Europe was heart breaking. The general commanding them treated them like cannon fodder. They served with honor and did all that was asked and more and their casualties were horrendous.

I never knew.

I was hoping they would mention the windtalkers... the only unbreakable code of WWII. Too bad the only recent memory of their sacrifice for the US is that terrible movie by Nicolas Cage.

[jsmeeker]

I was hoping they would mention the windtalkers... the only unbreakable code of WWII. Too bad the only recent memory of their sacrifice for the US is that terrible movie by Nicolas Cage.


The local PBS station in Dallas aired a special on them prior to the first episode of The War.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I think I first learned about the Navajo codetalkers from an episode of the X-Files. I never saw the Nicholas Cage movie.

I wished I could have watched this series with my dad. He served in the Marines in Hawaii during the war as a driver. He died in 1972 when I was only 8. He was fortunate and was never in combat, but he would have been in the invasion force if we had had to invade Japan. I don't know much about his life during the war. I have a photo album/scrap book and a couple documents, including his discharge papers and his old mess kit. He met and married my mom after the war. She had worked in an ammunitions plant in the war effort. He had always wanted to take her to Hawaii because it was such a beautiful place, but he died before he had the money to take her there...an anniversary trip that never happened.

Children of the Great Depression who came of age during the second war to end all wars, who raised their families under the threat of the Bomb during the Cold War, and saw men walk on the moon. I agree with Brokaw about the Greatest Generation, and we are losing their memories and experiences as more and more pass away. My mom died two years ago. I'm glad Ken Burns made this series and captured some of the human experiences of that time.

It was so much more than lines on a map and a list of battles and place names.

[jclark99]

I watched almost the entire Ken Burns War series -- on the one hand it was more detailed than you can possibly imagine about body counts and strategies to capture towns AND YET it was totally riveting. The conditions were beyond horrifying that the soldiers lived through. I also watched it to honor the memory of my dad who served in the Pacific in the Navy and my grandmother's husband who survived the Bataan death march (!?!). If you love WWII and history, watch it.

[JohnB1000]

That Cage movie did a great service if you ask me. Prior to that movie I had never heard of the Navajo code talkers, the existence of that movie caused me to research them and learn a lot about it.

I'm a war buff but a Euro centric one so this was a little shocking in the way it starts only when the US enters the war.