Band Of Brothers: Complete HBO Series [DVD] [2001] [2010]

Incredible acting, production- one not to miss

I love this series

While the number of films perpetuating how America won World War II is legion, most are nothing more than Hollywood BS.HBO’s Band of Brothers is an entirely different kettle of fish. In this case we are priviledged to follow Easy Company, part of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from the time they parachute into Normandy on June 5th 1944, (the day before D-Day) until the end of hostilities.What makes this television drama so compelling is that some of Easy Company’s survivors, including Richard Winters, (played by Damian Lewis in the television drama) give us their personal recollections of each battle they fought. The overall impression of Major Richard. D. Winters is that he was not only respected, but also loved by his men. They gladly followed him throughout their time in the European Theatre of War.The drama sticks to the facts, unlike most American Second World War depictions, sans the usual Hollywood flashbacks to loved ones, not to mention extremely annoying background music. Unlike Hollywood’s usual bulletproof clean cut all American hero leading his men into hell, Major Winters was a born leader who cared for his men, often mixing with them socially, whether back behind the lines, or sharing a fox hole with them.I first saw this on television back in 2001. I’m glad I now own a copy of this truthful tale of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances, and what they went through together in time of war. Were I asked to rate Band of Brothers, I would give it ten out of five stars!!! That’s how much I enjoyed it…

This 6-disc-in-tin-box Blu-Ray edition of possibly the greatest TV drama series ever made is the one to go for. Five disks each contain two episodes of the series and the sixth disk of extras includes extended personal interviews with surviving members of Easy Company to give the viewer the opportunity to appreciate how character-defining and life-changing were the experiences these guys went through in WW2, and how superb was Spielberg's and Hanks' casting for the series in managing to get the actors exactly right. Some even look like the real men they portray (Frank John Hughes looks so like the real Bill Guarnere it's actually spooky, and all surviving members of Easy attest to the fact that British actor Damian Lewis's portrayal of Dick Winters captures the understated integrity, intelligence and leadership qualities of their real-life CO to perfection).There's little to say about this epic, landmark drama series that hasn't already been said. It's essentially a true story based on the real-life recollections of surviving members of Easy Company through their paratrooper-training in Georgia through 1942, to their deployment to England in 1943 in preparation for finally jumping into action with the 101st Airborne on the night of 5-6 June 1944 as part of the first wave of the allied invasion of Normandy, through their subsequent actions in France, Holland (Market Garden), holding Bastogne against the Waffen SS during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, to finally confronting the horrors of a Nazi death camp in Germany and occupying Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat in the Alps in May 1945. The drama is gripping, the action sequences utterly realistic and viscerally real, the character portraits complex, the dialogue rich, cliché-free and tinged with irony and humor. Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and the entire Dreamworks production company excelled in every way with this series and produced a kind of masterpiece which it is difficult to imagine might ever be equalled. The seriousness of the subject matter is treated with respect, and every aspect of the writing, casting, direction (each episode has a different director but you'd hardly notice, so seamless is the production and the continuity) and editing is flawless.The Blu-Ray edition looks and sounds superb, and brings an even sharper realism to the original TV series. It's very nicely presented with the quality befitting this superlative piece of work. Since Spielberg proved with "Schindler's List" in 1993 that he could make grown-up films for a grown-up audience he has evolved into a serious, mature and intelligent film-maker of the highest calibre, and BOB may prove to be his crowning achievement in a lifetime of first-class work (though "Pacific" might run a very close second).BOB is not just first-class, genre-defining TV drama: it's also a fitting, respectful testimony to a generation not just of Americans but of all allied citizen-soldiers who fought and eventually won the greatest war in human history against a ruthless and totalitarian enemy who needed to be defeated: the most obvious and probably the only acknowledged "just" war of the past century, undiminished from the perspective of our more fortunate but generally less principled times where current issues of good and evil are far more opaque.Respect, Easy Company. Spielberg's epic may cause your names to live forever, as they should.

Really really good

I have seen this series a few times, I watch it every few years to remind me if what they went through and it never fails to amaze me how courageous those men where. Great series, one of the best.

Brilliant series could watch over and over

Without doubt the best WW2 series