Attack on Pearl Harbor - Minute by Minute

I love studying military history. And I know the story of Pearl Harbor quite well. Even still, I found myself gripped by this well-paced and thoroughly researched series that does justice to this critical event in American history.

If you think you know all about that fateful day, you don't.

This is an excellent and complete account. Very well done. I wish every Netflix documentary was this intelligent and classy.

Terrible footage was used in this documentary. In some cases they showed footage featuring American dauntless dive bomber when they were describing the Japanese bombers attacking Pearl Harbor. In other cases they were using footage from other battles that had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. What was even worse was there using footage that look like models from an old Godzilla movie. Very disappointing. I realize there is limited footage but don't use fake stuff or inaccurate footage. I have seen better documentaries about Pearl Harbor. This seems to have been made on a low budget and many other scenes describe was using canned or previously used film footage. In some cases it was shown over and over again in the same chapter.

Basically, I like the narrative of the script. It does encompass the key points of the raid and the aftermath. For people who know little or nothing of the attack on December 7, 1941, I highly recommend it.

However, for a documentary that claims it uses only "archival footage" of the attack, I was sorely disappointed to see practical special effects scenes from the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" included. In my opinion this cheapens the whole experience. Why did the producers do this? For dramatic effect? Was not the iconic image of the destroyer USS Shaw exploding not enough?

In my opinion, there was enough actual film in the Pearl Harbor raid, as well as footage from the Imperial Japanese Navy (iJN) that the producers did not have to resort to plagiarizing Hollywood to get the required content.

I always thought the Japanese flew their planes from the homeland to attack. I was not aware of the mini subs either.

Unless I missed it there was no mention of the kamikaze pilots or their tactics. There was also a lot of hype about the US and their retaliation but never an outcome. Only the Japanese signing a surrender agreement at Pearl Harbor.

Regina Akers breaks off at one point explaining the racial divide by the Navy at that time. I'm not really sure what race has to do with anything when you're being attacked. I was always told that everyone in the military is the same color... Green.

Overall the documentary was great and it kept my attention through all three episodes. Not mentioning the Kamikaze pilots, Hiroshima or Nagasaki but adding racial divide was somewhat disappointing.