"Oh God!!! There's an Extended Edition!!!!" Topic

On June 22nd H2 (the other History (sic) Channel) will be showing an EXTENDED edition of "The World Wars" with "never before seen footage".

More MUST NOT see TV.

Considering it was obviously meant for a general (non-history minded, non-wargaming) audience and also considering that very few "historical" productions of ANY degree of veracity make it to US television or movies, this "series" wasn't terrible. Compared to the usual fare of Nostradamus/Ancient Alien/Book of Secrets nonsense, "The World Wars" was at least a shaky "primer" for the historically "challenged" amongst us. If it entices a few folks to at least "google", "wiki" (or pick up a good book) on the subject(s) perhaps it will serve a purpose over and beyond the waste of "talent" and videotape – Stuart tanks and all.

Hell, I even liked "Battle of the Bulge" and "Zulu" in the movies when I was a kid.

But then, I'm from Brooklyn.

Charlie

I gotta agree totally with Charlie.
But then, I'm from Virginia.
Peter

My coworkers were talking about it. Seems to me it did a good job.

Ancient Aliens isn't nonsense.

/ducks

If they wanted to cover the major political players of the countries involved that would have been fine, but they didn't.

A lot of the military information they presented was wrong. Timelines were skewed, reasons for events weren't true (Hilter did not invade France because Churchill was brought into the British government).

I don't give a damn about correct uniforms, tanks or smallarms. But there is enough achival film footage that they didn't need to show "Germans" parachuting onto the Maginot Line and fighting what looked to be late-war US Marines with bazookas.

As for doing a "good job", I'm sorry but matching the leaders names with their correct countries is setting the bar too low.

Yes, I saw that too, probably would watch it if I had H2 … with a jaded eye, based on what I saw in the original airing. As I said on another post, they are going for the lowest common denominator.

I watched about an hour of it during a lunch break recently. I found myself wishing the History Channel had aired Storage Wars or some other "reality" drivel instead.

"Oh God!!! There's an extended edition!!!!"

Probably just bloopers, on-set pranks and out takes. Oh, wait… that was the original edition!

Perhaps you good folks could write up something more historically accurate with a bigger budget and pitch the idea to a TV or movie producer. In the mean time, "welcome" to USA in the 21st century.

Complain as you will, even the spurious information contained in that series is as much "history" as you're apt to get in any American-made TV or movie made this year.

Sad.

Very sad.

I didn't so my mind so much that Patton invented the mechanized warfare concept driving a model T Ford with a machine gun shooting at three bandits and missing, or the Poncho Villa attacked a train, let alone Columbus New Mexico to start the Mexican intervention. Did we care that Hitler was training in 1914 with coal scuttle helmets, or was roaming the trenches with no weapon, as his colleagues were shooting left-handed rifles. I wasn't troubled by the surprise intervention of gas into the trenches because the soldiers already had gas masks available. I wasn't even bothered by the fact that Winston Churchill in the trenches was firing what appeared to be a 45 colt, automatic, not even a nice Broomhandle Mauser. What was the rifle those British troops were using certainly was not an Enfield.

I guess I wasn't shocked by Lenin coming and meeting his longtime Communist Party buddy Joseph Stalin, and they put together a workers militia and Seized the country. Why worry about the footnote of Kerensky. The trio standing on the balcony of the Kremlin was interesting, Stalin in the middle and Lenin on the side and perhaps Trotsky way off on the other side, unnamed.

What troubled me the most was Winston Churchill's plan to invade the Straits of Gallipoli, so they could sail into the Black Sea and then they could set up a second front in Russia to fight the Germans. And they had John McCain, and Colin Powell, and other "serious" politicians and historians giving some credence to this trash. Let's hope they made comments without having actually seen the the production.

Oh yes one last thing, when Italy enters the war, Germany attacks them setting up a whole new front for Mussolini to go out skirmishing, shooting three Germans without anybody shooting back.

And that was all and just the first hour.

Don't know what it says about me, but my wife and I managed nearly 5 hours of the program before I finally cracked. Or else my incessant carping about it caused my wife to snap. I forget which of us deleted it from the DVR.

I'd rather have been watching Ancient Aliens. More accuracy.

Ancient Aliens. More accuracy.

One of my favs, but should be on the Sy-Fy or Science Channels …

So, if it is wrong, but gets people to become more interested in a subject it's OK?

Like if I make a documentary about how we went to Mars in 1969 in a rocketship made of stone, with no glass in the windows, it would be OK if it got kids thinking about science?

I do not buy that argument, and never have. I see it as just an excuse for people being lazy, or cutting corners so they make more money.

As for money, this show has turned THC (get it?) into a total laughingstock. It's probably never be rerun much or sold to other nations. Had they done it a bit better, it would have had legs- rerun all the time and all over the pace. people would have bought the DVD, the folks involved would have made even more money on their next project due to the good reviews of this one.

There are some pretty grim offering on History channel, but a lot of that is the fault of production companies who churn out rubbish with a 'hook' that History Channel will think might appeal to viewers. History Channel buy programmes on the basis of what they think will appeal to the viewers, not whether it is any good. I've been in a few programmes (talking head) and while you're taking part you know in your heart that the end-product will be rubbish.