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WW2

Not as much as when James Ryan came to the cinemas, but there's still money being made from World War 2. The stories are being retold, reimagined, and some new ones dug up. Dunkirk being one to the more recent epics.

Most of those movies are from an American perspective. One that's telling the story of the US being the saviour (in Europe) or the repelling force of justice (all over the Pacific). Obviously the German / Axis perspective isn't put on screen as much. Technically se germans should do that, but those dudes are still stuck in apoligizing to the Jews and all other countries they invaded, even if the main population in Germany isn't even old enough to have lived through WW2. And I really don't believe in inherited guilt, because that would render everything dead. If inherited guilt exited, and with the amount of wars fought just across Europe, everyone would be guilty of something, and that's the thing with guilt, you can't just say: but WW2 was sooooo much worse than say the Napoleonic Invasions. Counting the deaths, sure it was, but that isn't my point. My point is, every agression has heavy impact on someone, so they'd be guilty anyhow.

From time to time I dig out the epics and watch them. Half a year back I watched through Band of Brothers again and found it quite lacking towards the end. It was probably thruthful to the source, but still, it drifted off the main characters and it's a mixed bag of following a group of soldiers and also telling a greater story in which not all of those group always participated. I watched through James Ryan. Das Boot. A Bridge Too Far. And a few more. I used to own all of them. Those are all gone. Just one single epic remains. The Pacific.

Somehow it did an amazing job at leaving the good, bad, evil, saint calssification behind during the episodes. Sure it had a greater setting it followed, and there's context the brain adds automatically. But the characters are different from Band of Brothers. My biggest complaint is that in the first few episodes literally all of the fights are slaughters of the Japanese.

When you compare that with Hamburger Hill you'll find a similar overall mood, but there they actually lose a fight. In any case I am not quite sure whether I'll be getting rid of The Pacific as well. I'm halfway through now, and I guess I won't watch it again, so it makes little sense keeping it. It's one of the best cinematic WW2 stories I know of though.