The World Wars

I was flipping channels and came across this dreck a little less than 1/2 way through. I started to watch and within seconds found myself saying, "How did that...?" " When did....?" "That's not right." "I'm not genius or expert, but WHAT THE....?" and so forth.

VERY few of the actors looked much like their characters as if the casting director simply said, "If they're white and male, feh, it works. Oh, but put a pair of glasses on that guy."

As other reviews have mentioned, poetic license is to be expected to some degree and honestly, with that much of a timespan to cover and all that material, one has to be realistic enough to know that you can't include every detail or you'd end up with a movie almost as long as the war itself. It's just not going to happen. But with that in mind, isn't it in everyone's best interest to get what you ARE covering more than a LITTLE right?

The History Channel has become a joke. What was once one of the most fascinating and informative channels for us history buffs has become a hodgepodge of reality crap shows. It's heartbreaking, but my anti-TV executive rants are common in my reviews, so, here's more evidence to back up my beliefs. When they DO an actual history show, I guess we shouldn't expect much more from them than this.

And this stinker is now 4 years old. Sheesh, now I'm starting to cry.

The History Channel presents a miniseries of six hours on three nights as an overview of the concept that the beginnings of WW I and the events that occurred in that first World War were played out by the same set of characters and in doing so the series presents the backgrounds of each of the major world players in a manner that allows us to see them as individuals rather than historical tropes. Until Amazon makes this available this review is pictured by another series made two years ago with a bit of a different approach. But for those who may be deciding whether or not to catch the current series, hopefully this brief overview will assist.

As the description for the series state, 'The World Wars tells the story of three decades of war told through the eyes of various men who were its key players: Roosevelt, Hitler, Patton, Mussolini, Churchill, Tojo, DeGaulle and MacArthur. The series examines the two wars as one contiguous time line starting in 1914 and concluding in 1945 with these unique individuals coming of age in World War I before ultimately calling the shots in World War II.

Narrated by Jeremy Renner and with comments throughout the series from Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta, John McCain, John Major, Mario Monti and many historians and correspondents form the US and Britain, the series is a collage of battle scenes (some repetitive, but war is repetitive), but adding the young and old versions of Stalin (Jacopo Rampini /not listed), Mussolini (Nabil Vinas/Jonathan Hartman), MacArthur (Prescott Hathaway/not listed), DeGaulle (Michael Perrie. Jr./Don Meehan), Churchill (Tom Vickers/Ian Beyts), Hitler (Maximillian Klas/not listed ), Lenin (C Conrad Cady), Patton (Matt Dearman/Don Hartman), FDR (Kevin McKillip/not listed), and Tojo (not listed).

The series is directed by John Ealer and written by Chelsea Coates, Zachary Hartmann, Claire Lawton, Alec Michod, Jordan Rosenblum, and David White. No, it isn't all the information about he wars but it is a psychological study of the men who were at the helm of each country involved. It is disturbing but the series does provide insights we should appreciate. Grady Harp, May 14

Do not watch this series expecting a comprehensive study of both World Wars a la Ken Burns's Civil War. It's not. However, it presents a cause-and-effect survey of how connected the two wars were.

First the negative: This program focuses on a few key figures yet totally omits any mention whatsoever of Eisenhower. How do you cover D-day without at least mentioning the name Eisenhower? Eisenhower was the ONLY 5 star general, yet two others in this program erroneously wore 5 star insignia.

Positive: Jeremy Renner did a great job narrating. The series is educational and worth watching. Although it's imperfect, I learned a few things from this series. I like how it treats both World Wars as one conflict because it was. The Treaty of Versailles wasn't a peace treaty at all and set the stage for resumption of fighting.

This series will leave you hungering for more, in depth programs that once were offered by The History Channel before they chose to waste our time on such nonsense as Pawn Wars.

It was bad enough that Chamberlain is shown flying to Germany in a Lancaster bomber, a plane that did not exist at the time, but the true problem was the fact that they showed just Chamberlain and Hitler discussing the fate of the Sudetenland, nobody from France, nobody from Italy.

The statement was made at one point that French and English troops were stationed in the Rhineland when, in 1936, Hitler sent troops in to that area. The British and French troops left in 1930.

The Japanese did not go to war in the 1930's because they had been snubbed at Versailles, they got all of the German possessions in the Pacific at Versailles. That is hardly a snub.

The US did not enter WWI because of the Zimmerman telegram, but because Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare would resume.

There is plenty more but I could not stand to watch all of it. I turned it off about halfway through.

This series can be commended for trying to tackle and combine WWI and WWII. Most historians agree that WWI directly led to WWII. However, this writers constant combining and oversimplification of important facts and events leads to inaccuracies and just straight falsehoods. If you are going to invest several hours watching World War 'history', your time would be much better spent watching "The World at War" series.