Search - American Experience - Victory in the Pacific on DVD

Great Film / Insights

Robert Stone | Midwest / Ohio | 04/08/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this a couple years ago after coming across it toward the end on TV and wanting to see the whole show. I was very impressed. I very much enjoy history especially WWII history and this presentation was superb and filled with new insights about the war, especially the end of the war. Good use of footage and voice-over along with animations of maps, etc. The story is told in a logical fashion in chronological order.

[Begin Digression] There has been a lot of revisionist historical speculation about the necessity of using atomic weapons to end the war and this documentary very effectively reviews the evidence regarding that. After watching this any doubt I ever had that Truman made the right decision both for the US troops and also ironically even for the Japanese people has been erased. Though it was a terrible thing to have to do, if not done many, many more Japanese would have died along with more than a million US troops. If you doubt this, please look at the evidence in this film before flaming me or labeling this review unhelpful. [I'll get off my soapbox now]

The DVD is well done, minimalist in terms of extra features as I recall (it has been a little while since I last watched it), but it gets the job done and no issues there with picture quality / transfer issues, etc. I do highly recommend this film for anyone with an interest in what happened in the Pacific. I suspect many more people will discover this movie with the HBO miniseries The Pacific currently running - this film would likely be a great companion to that."