WWII from Space

Glad to see that a few other reviewers have commented this is not WWII but USA's part of WWII.

I was so hoping to see the politcal plays that started the war on a 'from space' viewpoint. It literally starts at the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

It is a shoddy mix of interviews, poor CGI and just a mess of visuals with the all too annoying 'American Hero' voice over.

If you are American, you will probably enjoy it. If you are interested in WWII avoid it like the plague.

Horrible.

WWII was nearly over when I was born, and among friends and family I grew up around veterans who had done the fighting, had killed, and who mostly did not talk about their experiences. During those years and the years after, I was exposed to a lot of material about the war. But I realized how fragmented my understanding was as I watched this unique presentation. When it was over, not only had it filled-in all the blanks, it also gave me an understanding of the incredible effects WWII had on this country when it ended. For me, it was an interesting and educational film that was not one minute too long. (This and Band-of-Brothers may be all you need.) BTW, the film goes along nicely, then at some points the screen will go black for a couple of seconds, and when the picture returns you might feel like it jumped ahead (it had me rewinding to see what was skipped). But it is just a story-telling device that I began to recognize and not worry about, as the movie comes back together nicely. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Revinionist attempt to rewrite history from the Americans' point of view, with many special effects. Trash!

This movie would have you believe that WWII started at Pearl Harbor! Nothing of what happened before seems to matter, the USA were not in it! So forget about WWII, this movie should be called: the USA in WWII, with an overview of what the lesser players did too.

Of course explaining WWII in that short duration would be a challenge, but in this case it seems to go for a lot of over simplification, the imagery is very gimmicky too and doesn't really add anything.

The "from space"perspective, is no more than a marketing trick, there isn't anything new there and it doesn't add to the comprehension more than moving maps etc... that we've had for decades.

Painful to watch if you know anything about the subject.

A friend of mine who is a World War Two history buff like myself texted me that this show was on and urged me to watch, so I found it and started. While I found the concept of tracing the progress of the War from space intriguing, inaccuracies from the very beginning quickly soured me on the show. The program opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor (neatly ignoring the fact that the War had been raging for over two years at that point). Initially I was impressed with the graphics, but I soon noticed several things that made no sense. Firstly, the scene showed a Japanese Zero fighter perform some sort of acrobatic maneuver and then release a bomb, the bomb that destroyed the battleship Arizona. In reality, it was a Japanese Kate torpedo bomber being used in a level bomber role that dropped the bomb. As the bomb fell, the smaller ship next to the Arizona came into view. However, instead of that other ship being the repair ship Vestal, the CGI image appeared to be a sort of scaled down battleship, complete with turrets. Moments later, as the narrator talked about the missed opportunity of catching the American carriers at Pearl, the CGI image that was supposed to be the Enterprise was instead that of a later Essex class carrier. With all of these inaccuracies hurting my brain in the first five minutes of the show, I snapped it off.

To some, the things I've pointed out might seem trivial to the telling of the overarching story of the Second World War. However, to me, if the producers had the budget to create such an elaborate show, there's no excuse to miss or leave out these details. If the creators of this documentary couldn't be bothered to get these details right, it tells me they didn't care enough. This show appeared to be less a labor of love for the creators and more of a cash grab to capitalize on the continuing popularity of World War Two. Could they not have hired a technical advisor to review those scenes and graphics before they were finalized?

While I realize that this show may have been aimed at younger viewers and a more general audience, rather than history buffs like myself, there's no reason not to get the basic facts right. The basic story of the war is well known and covered in many other documentaries. If you're going to produce a new show and the focus is going to be on using fancy CGI graphics, getting those graphics right would seem to be important. While many viewers might not notice these things, it's a show stopper for someone who actually knows a bit about the subject. I can't recommend this show.