Victory In The Pacific (PBS Home Video)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Documentary: B
One of the most important installments of the PBS/WGBH
series American Experience has been issued by PBS Home Video/Paramount
and is the program that best-yet recreates just how dire and disturbing the
final months of World War II were. Victory
In The Pacific (2005) covers how difficult the Nazis were, but how much
tougher, hysterical and radical Japan and Japanese Militarism was. This leads up to the decision to use the
then-new weapon of the Atom Bomb.
Of course, dropping bombs is a bad thing, especially when
they are nuclear. The victims of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are mourned often and for good reason, especially
because no one ever wants to see that happen again. However, too much dangerous revisionist history has been
introduced in recent years that make the United States look like the aggressor
and only aggressor. What this program
does is show how ugly things still were, how Japan was never going to surrender
unless the U.S. used the bombs (Japan thought the U.S. only had one) and how it
proves the U.S. has had to deal with terrorism before.
Even after the first bomb, Emperor Hirohito was not going
to relinquish power and even negotiated terms of surrender that were so out of
touch with reality that the madness that marked their Militarism blinded them
at least as much as it did Hitler. It
was only after the second bombing that they finally just began to realize the
wart and their drive was over. Even
when this happened, Hirohito was still in denial as defined by his very
different first-time radio addresses to the Japanese people and Japanese
troops. He hid behind everything from
the Soviet threat to anything else but the reality that The Allies had sent he
war to the end.
Yes, innocent civilians died, but it was their misguided
government who gave the U.S. no choice.
The alternatives included allowing Japanese Militarism stay in tact,
allowing the Soviets to make half or all of Japan Communist and allowing
hundreds of thousands equally innocent Americans would have been tortured and
killed in combat trying to take the island with much less of a guarantee of
victory. That the bombs had to be
dropped should instead be a reminder of how ugly the situation was, and time
has proven and vindicated America did the right thing, no matter how ugly,
nightmarish or terrible. Victory In
The Pacific is free of dangerous political correctness that PBS is too
often accused of, while showing once again the value of thorough, detailed
journalism. What a great title to have
on DVD.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 x 1/16 X 9 image looks
good and originated in digital High Definition, but some of the older footage
is just a bit rough and detail in general is sometimes limited. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has good Pro
Logic surrounds that make the stories and facts very engaging. Extras are more than usual here, including a
brief piece on dropping the bomb that last about 10 minutes (though our copy
accidentally repeated the final minutes) and a government film narrated by
then-actor Ronald Reagan from 1945 called Target Tokyo is on black and
white, runs about a half-hour, is 1.33 x 1 and is in decent shape. Cheers to writer/director Austin Hoyt for
such a fine main program.
- Nicholas Sheffo
