FTA-TV Band of Brothers

[gaskin]

Right up there as one of my favourite T.V series of all time. No matter how many times I re-watch it the quality stays the same. My only 2 qualms are that Michael Fassbender didn't have a bigger role as he is one of my favourite actors and also that they made Webster look like a bit of a c**** when in reality he supposedly wasn't.

 

[BotsMaster]

By the way, if you've not read the book of the same name (by Stephen E. Ambrose), do yourself a favour. Great read!

Will do.

Also tempted to buy Masters of the Air which is the basis for the next series.

 

[Goodo73]

My only 2 qualms are that Michael Fassbender didn't have a bigger role as he is one of my favourite actors

In fairness he wasn't "Michael Fassbender" at that stage. I suspect he wasn't a big name until X-Men: First Class.

 

[gaskin]

Also tempted to buy Masters of the Air which is the basis for the next series.

What series is this?

 

[Goodo73]

What series is this?

Listed on IMDb as a mini-series and 'in development'.

From the book description on Amazon:

The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War Two, the story of the young men who flew the bombers that helped bring Nazi Germany to its knees, brilliantly told by historian Donald Miller and soon to be a major HBO series.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.

Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America—white America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.

Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world’s first and only bomber war.

 

[gaskin]

That sounds like it will be pretty good. It's a shame they didn't make it a decade ago when they could interview the actual people depicted in the show like on Band of Brothers.

 

[Goodo73]

All this talk of BoB fired me up to take my Bluray version off the shelf and whack it in the PS3.

 

[Marlowe]

Am re-watching this again and I still can't get over how well this series is done. Every episode is movie quality, the soundtrack is amazing and the performances by all involved is outstanding. For a 13 year old series it has aged well.

Just watched episode 7 where they fight their way through Bastogne and survive the German mortars. Still gets me in the feels.

Eps 6 & 7 - two of the greatest hours in television history.

 

[BotsMaster]

Found a photo of Easy Company at the Eagles Nest:

 

[NUFC Tiger]

Amazing show, even so many years on some of the memories of this show are among my favourite from any show or movie.

The D-Day drops, Spiers running through German lines back and returning, the epic speech by the German General to his men. Just pure quality.

 

[Goodo73]

The Wikipedia article about Sobel is a short, yet interesting, read. Attempted suicide, which left him blind, for one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Sobel

 

[BotsMaster]

The Wikipedia article about Sobel is a short, yet interesting, read. Attempted suicide, which left him blind, for one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Sobel

In the late 1960s, Sobel shot himself in the head with a small-caliber pistol. The bullet entered his left temple, passed behind his eyes, and exited out the other side of his head. This severed his optic nerves and left him blind

That is just horrible.

 

[NUFC Tiger]

The Wikipedia article about Sobel is a short, yet interesting, read. Attempted suicide, which left him blind, for one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Sobel

That's really sad. Was it definitely an attempted suicide? I thought I read he married and had kids?

I liked his character in Band of Brothers, he was pretty likeable (in an incompetent sort of way).

 

[Kram]

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1535309

 

[Goodo73]

That's really sad. Was it definitely an attempted suicide? I thought I read he married and had kids?

I'm only guessing it was a suicide attempt, but unlikely any other reason behind putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

Definitely a sad end for the guy.

 

[gaskin]

Found a photo of Easy Company at the Eagles Nest:

Great find mate. It would be better if we could put names to faces. I have my suspicions as to who a couple of them are but the rest I'm not sure of.

 

[Marlowe]

Great find mate. It would be better if we could put names to faces. I have my suspicions as to who a couple of them are but the rest I'm not sure of.

Ron Livingston is the spitting image.

 

[Kram]

lol how bad was it when Sobel gets them all that spaghetti to eat and then makes them run up the hill.

 

[HeavyPop]

that they made Webster look like a bit of a c**** when in reality he supposedly wasn't.

I thought they redeemed him pretty well after he initially received a harsh welcoming when returning from hospital. I love the scene where he gives the little German boy the chocolate.

 

[gaskin]

I thought they redeemed him pretty well after he initially received a harsh welcoming when returning from hospital. I love the scene where he gives the little German boy the chocolate.

That chocolate scene was in Holland before he went to the hospital. I agree they did redeem him somewhat in the last 2 episodes.

 

[NUFC Tiger]

I'm only guessing it was a suicide attempt, but unlikely any other reason behind putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

Definitely a sad end for the guy.

Yeah definitely not wrong, on the surface, definitely seems like an attempted suicide...though perhaps it could have been some kind of freak accident of some kind.

Just would have been a shame to survive the war and then end like that - though I suppose when you think about it, things like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could have impacted many veteran's who survived the war.

Great find mate. It would be better if we could put names to faces. I have my suspicions as to who a couple of them are but the rest I'm not sure of.

One of the best things about the show for me was when they interviewed the actual men for their recollections about each experience in the war. Also the end when they are playing baseball at the end of the war and you find out what each man did after the war.

Also, my favourite quote at the end was when one of the veteran's grandson asked ""Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" Grandpa said, "No... but I served in a company of heroes".

Perfect quote to sum of the series and what those men went through.

 

[gaskin]

Also the end when they are playing baseball at the end of the war and you find out what each man did after the war.

This part is one of my favourite scenes from the series along with finding the concentration camp and the German General speech (which I can recite word for word).

 

[BotsMaster]

Also, my favourite quote at the end was when one of the veteran's grandson asked ""Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" Grandpa said, "No... but I served in a company of heroes".

Perfect quote to sum of the series and what those men went through.

 

[gaskin]

This is easily one of the best scenes in the series.

 

[BotsMaster]

If you guys want to watch the interviews you can watch them here: