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Solkanar512 posted:If you turn on closed captioning, it says, "My Country 'Tis of Thee". Different words to mock the original. Oh that makes so much more sense now! edit: Oh it's straight up a Liberation Anthem(tm) that's a really cool use of it.
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Sep 21, 2017 15:45
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The selection of the photos they show during the credits is fantastic. It's crazy how close some of those photographers got to the soldiers in combat.
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Sep 22, 2017 22:13
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:Apocalypse Now was a documentary. So, i just finished watching that (for like the 10th time) and it made me remember that Burns' documentary has started airing. The question i have is not "is it good?" because i think i can guess, but "should i start watching it right now, or maybe let my mind recover a little bit before diving in?" Note: i'm a big emotional baby who easily emotionally invests in stories (fictional or otherwise).
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Sep 23, 2017 01:33
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a kitten posted:So, i just finished watching that (for like the 10th time) and it made me remember that Burns' documentary has started airing. The question i have is not "is it good?" because i think i can guess, but "should i start watching it right now, or maybe let my mind recover a little bit before diving in?" Note: i'm a big emotional baby who easily emotionally invests in stories (fictional or otherwise). Maybe best to watch some videos of puppies beforehand.
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Sep 23, 2017 01:57
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:Maybe best to watch some videos of puppies beforehand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDz599SBRNA
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Sep 23, 2017 02:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-CkMBr4Ga0
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Sep 23, 2017 02:08
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I'm floored by this documentary, and it hasn't even gotten to the Gulf of Tonkin yet. The war has always been framed as Communism vs Capitalism in my head, but the first episode establishes the core idea that none of this would have come about hadn't Vietnam been a colonial subject under the French. People don't take kindly to being ruled by foreigners. Oh, and literally all of the war in Afghanistan is one giant repeat of the French and American attempts at pacification in Vietnam. I have no idea how professional historians stay sane while fully living as a Casandra.
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Sep 24, 2017 01:36
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all the veterans are amazing in this show.
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Sep 24, 2017 01:48
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Just started episode 3, this is amazing. I am curious to see someone do a documentary on exactly why and how we have so much archival film of old events that happened in hellholes though, not just of wars but of everything. So many times during the first two episodes I was wondering "who is filming this, and why, and HOW?" I feel like that would be a fascinating documentary.
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Sep 24, 2017 12:14
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precision posted:Just started episode 3, this is amazing. I would also watch that. Combat cameramen are the craziest military people I've ever met. Hyper-overachiever daredevil types. The ones I went to school with straight-out bragged about having higher casualty rates than infantry. They are actively pushing like madmen for that footage.
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Sep 24, 2017 17:51
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There was one about the second iraq war from memory. I remember two anecdotes, one was PJ O'Rourke saying everyone in Iraq got their news from CNN who got it from their reporters in Iraq so it was a mystery how anyone knew anything. And the other was a reporter saying they wished they didn't get upset by seeing a dead body, but didn't want to be someone who didn't get upset seeing a dead body.
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Sep 24, 2017 18:12
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Jesus, it's something I don't think about often, but less than a decade before I was born the US government was actually forcing 30 THOUSAND men per month to serve in the military. Jesus that is hosed up.
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Sep 24, 2017 18:39
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"I thought they were apricots..."
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Sep 24, 2017 20:57
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It's all entirely 100% Afghanistan to the bottom. How didn't we learn from this?
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Sep 24, 2017 22:27
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MadJackal posted:It's all entirely 100% Afghanistan to the bottom. How didn't we learn from this? The more important question to ask is that France literally went the through the exact same thing right before we did it and how we didn't learn from that. Arrogance will always get you.
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Sep 24, 2017 22:41
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Read the book Embers of War to get all your answers on why the United States decided to first help France and then stick its own dick into the hornet's nest after they left. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
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Sep 24, 2017 23:34
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I wonder how different history could have been if Ho Chi Minh had managed to get the US to listen to his pleas for freedom (and also if it wouldn't fall on deaf ears)
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Sep 25, 2017 00:34
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Shima Honnou posted:I wonder how different history could have been if Ho Chi Minh had managed to get the US to listen to his pleas for freedom (and also if it wouldn't fall on deaf ears) Well, that would be predicated on people not completely dismissing other people based on ethnicity, which would likely preclude colonialism and then we're living in a world where Ho Chi Minh doesn't even need to plea for freedom.
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Sep 25, 2017 00:57
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Yeah seriously, white people are the loving worst. I'm on episode 2 and am already enthralled. loving Ken Burns man.
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Sep 25, 2017 04:17
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Holy poo poo the part with Bill Clinton and George W Bush 
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Sep 25, 2017 04:23
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The documentary is great, but does anyone know why they are calling the background score by Trent Reznor "new, original music?" It's just the Ghosts album from 2008. In some ways, I actually find it a bit distracting as I've listened to it off and on since release.
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Sep 25, 2017 04:27
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reagan posted:The documentary is great, but does anyone know why they are calling the background score by Trent Reznor "new, original music?" It's just the Ghosts album from 2008. In some ways, I actually find it a bit distracting as I've listened to it off and on since release. They did new music but they also used some old stuff from various Reznor soundtracks like the social network. Its 18 hours long you have to make some concessions to efficiency I guess.
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Sep 25, 2017 04:41
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Yeah I've definitely heard some new material. I love Ghosts though, probably the last relevant/good thing that Trent has done under the NIN moniker.
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Sep 25, 2017 12:09
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I re-watched that scene where they showed archival footage of John Mccain, clearly in immense pain right after capture, as he tearfully says "Tell my wife I love her" in what amounts to a good bye. 
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Sep 25, 2017 16:29
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Popelmon posted:The selection of the photos they show during the credits is fantastic. It's crazy how close some of those photographers got to the soldiers in combat. Those photos are awesome and it's a great way to get people watching through the credits. The veterans that they've interviewed through all the episodes are awesome. You can tell they are holding on to some serious emotional baggage.
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Sep 25, 2017 17:30
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I re-watched that scene where they showed archival footage of John Mccain, clearly in immense pain right after capture, as he tearfully says "Tell my wife I love her" in what amounts to a good bye. yeah. too bad he became a bitch later in life
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Sep 25, 2017 21:08
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In a recent article, John Pilger does a thing I'm seeing a bit much of, reviewing on the basis of 1 episode. I'm not going to spoil for those who haven't seen it all, but he's basically wrong on every count. But he's not the only one I've seen knee-jerking because it's Ken Burns.
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Sep 26, 2017 00:45
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I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Ken Burns in the first place, honestly what I've heard are some of his best stuff like Baseball or Prohibition, I've not seen. His Civil War is fine but I didn't really dig his WWII doc at all. I feel this documentary is going a little more for historical substance than I've seen him do before. I'm not done yet but I'm leaning right now towards this being one of the definitive documentaries on this war. I'm not sure I put it up there with The Great War (1964) or World at War (1973), but it's a lot closer to those than something The War that he put out 10 years ago.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:52
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Jose Oquendo posted:The veterans that they've interviewed through all the episodes are awesome. You can tell they are holding on to some serious emotional baggage. My favorite is the one guy that joined the war because he honestly thought he was going there to help the Vietnamese people. Then like literally the day he gets there his CO warns him that if any of his fellow soldiers see him helping captured and wounded NV and treating them like actual human beings, then they will probably cave his face in and no one will stop or reprimand them.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:24
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X-O posted:I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Ken Burns in the first place, honestly what I've heard are some of his best stuff like Baseball or Prohibition, I've not seen. His Civil War is fine but I didn't really dig his WWII doc at all. I feel this documentary is going a little more for historical substance than I've seen him do before. I'm not done yet but I'm leaning right now towards this being one of the definitive documentaries on this war. I'm not sure I put it up there with The Great War (1964) or World at War (1973), but it's a lot closer to those than something The War that he put out 10 years ago. The War is his worst doc by far. Watch The National Parks or The Roosevelt's and see how he can take much more mundane subjects than wars and make them absolutely riveting.
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Sep 26, 2017 05:28
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ewe2 posted:In a recent article, John Pilger does a thing I'm seeing a bit much of, reviewing on the basis of 1 episode. I'm not going to spoil for those who haven't seen it all, but he's basically wrong on every count. But he's not the only one I've seen knee-jerking because it's Ken Burns. What the hell is this guy talking about? The entire first episode is like the overture of an opera. It goes over every leitmotif about how the US is going to gently caress up just like the French did and how loving terrible it's going to be, especially for the Vietnamese. I mean poo poo, I'm only five episodes in and we're already bluntly discussing war crimes and other atrocities. That's the exact opposite of the revisionism this author is claiming.
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Sep 26, 2017 05:50
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precision posted:Jesus, it's something I don't think about often, but less than a decade before I was born the US government was actually forcing 30 THOUSAND men per month to serve in the military. Jesus that is hosed up. And very deliberately targeting people of lower socioeconomic status. The human race was a bad idea.
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Sep 26, 2017 06:26
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Can I reccomend "Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu" By Bernard Fall about the Dien Bien Phu siege and the French in Indochina. A very well written and researched book about the battle that kicked the French out of Vietnam.
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Sep 26, 2017 06:54
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:They did new music but they also used some old stuff from various Reznor soundtracks like the social network. My favourite is when The Wretched is just under one of the battle scenes.
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Sep 26, 2017 07:01
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I'm so glad this thread pointed me towards the PBS website. I was wondering how I was going to catch up on the episodes I'd missed! I've read more about individual parts of the war but interested in learning more about the "big picture". Also seeing as I've studied My Lai and the aftermath a fair bit, I'm curious how/whether the documentary covers that.
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Sep 26, 2017 07:03
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Watching this is utterly surreal when you consider that absolutely no lessons were learned among the US leadership to carry forward from the Vietnam war. Not to mention that the private conversations of Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara make them sound like people completely out of their depth when it came to foreign intervention.
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Sep 26, 2017 07:13
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algebra testes posted:My favourite is when The Wretched is just under one of the battle scenes. haha i noticed that too. El Pollo Blanco posted:Watching this is utterly surreal when you consider that absolutely no lessons were learned among the US leadership to carry forward from the Vietnam war. Not to mention that the private conversations of Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara make them sound like people completely out of their depth when it came to foreign intervention. Wait till you get to Nixon haha.
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Sep 26, 2017 07:30
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Marchofthepenguins posted:I'm so glad this thread pointed me towards the PBS website. I was wondering how I was going to catch up on the episodes I'd missed! The PBS website is loving awesome! There's so much good stuff on it, not just this. Try watching some American Masters or America Experience while you're there. I recommend any of the Presidents episodes or the 4 hour Walt Disney episode which is my favorite. Also, this might might be of interest to those in this thread. There's a whole episode of American Experience on My Lai and it's devastating to watch, but you need to see it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/mylai/
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Sep 26, 2017 07:53
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I really liked how the story of Mogie Crocker was layed out, how they slowly built it up over the course of the episode then the next episode *boom* he is dead. Instead of ending there his story just continues into how his sister was dealing with it all. It was really beautifully done.
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Sep 26, 2017 08:10
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Solkanar512 posted:What the hell is this guy talking about? The entire first episode is like the overture of an opera. It goes over every leitmotif about how the US is going to gently caress up just like the French did and how loving terrible it's going to be, especially for the Vietnamese. It doesn't suit his agenda that the documentary works. The depressing thing about Pilger is that he was once a good journalist but he's way too committed to a lefty conspiracy viewpoint and fudges everything to support it. Right-wingers have made hay with his BS for years. El Pollo Blanco posted:Watching this is utterly surreal when you consider that absolutely no lessons were learned among the US leadership to carry forward from the Vietnam war. Not to mention that the private conversations of Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara make them sound like people completely out of their depth when it came to foreign intervention. I think McNamara's story is very sad, he was a genuinely brilliant guy but had weird tunnel-vision about stats combined with an exceptionalist world-view. Just a tragic combination. But I'm more saddened by that same realisation that nothing got learnt except media management. The leadership learnt to blame the media instead, which is not an obvious conclusion from the documentary.
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Sep 26, 2017 10:03
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