The Pacific: Complete HBO Series (Tin Box Edition) [Blu-ray][Region Free]

Executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, The Pacific is an epic ten-part miniseries from HBO and the team that made Band of Brothers.

The Pacific tracks the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S Marines, Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War 2. The miniseries follows these men and their fellow Marines from their first battle with the Japanese on Guadalcanal, through the rain forests of Cape Gloucester and the strongholds of Peleliu, across the bloody sands of Iwo Jima and through the horror of Okinawa, and finally to their triumphant but uneasy return home after V-J Day.

The Pacific is primarily based on two memoirs of US Marines, Eugene Sledge's With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa and Robert Leckie's Helmet For My Pillow. The series also draws on Eugene Sledge's China Marine and Chuck Tatum's Red Blood, Black Sand, as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers.

Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. It’s absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength.

All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work that’d put many blockbuster movies to shame,

Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster