Generation Kill started to screen down here tonight…at the end of Episode One, I had two first impressions…
First up, it blows The Pacific away – totally. Like many viewers, I lost interest in The Pacific before it was halfway through…the characters were wooden and difficult to identify with and all the pretentious hype months prior lead to expectations it just could attain. Conversely, after 58 minutes of Generation Kill, the characters are people, easy to identify with…if there is to be a classic to follow in the vein of Band of Brothers, it may be Generation Kill.
Second, even though the events covered in Generation Kill were ‘only’ seven years ago, the first episode reminds me of a younger, more innocent time…before the blood and the brutality we take for granted in our contemporary environment…
The World According to Me... 
I’ve been trying to push the series into awareness amongst some of my fellow Digs for a while, when everyone is busy raving about the Pacific.
Which was rubbish. I really tried to enjoy it too.
Generation Kill on the other hand, I think can sober the uninitiated’s ideas of the stresses of conflict all wrapped up in a consumable viewing. Its a shame it won’t be advertised as well as The Pacific was.
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I think that the Hanks/Speilberg team entirely missed the point that Band of Brothers was successful because it was about people and not about hype or their own ego polishing…it was our eldest daughter’s birthday last week and, as she’s expressed a consistent interest in such things, I bought a copy of Over There which hasn’t screened on mainstream TV here…gave it to her yesterday, dropped in to see her this morning and she was already half-way through the series – had a whole bunch of insightful questions that we’ll discuss further next time I’m over that way…she too gave up on The Pacific halfway through and specifically ask for no Pacific items for her birthday…she felt that Over There was a natural follow-on for her from Generation Kill in building up her lay-person’s information base on the war in Iraq…
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