Thread: Generation Kill

Not sure if this belongs to Issues or Multimedia, this is the excellent HBO series about the Iraq War, and the events that effects the lives of those soldiers,

I have been watching that series for 2 days now, and it's quite nice, raw, horribly realistic it seems, and wonderful acting

it's the story of a small US Marines battalion on the eve of the invasion, with the mission to do reckon of the Iraqi territory, and as they are Marines, their superiors expect a lot from them despite little resources, rank politics and a bunch of retards as officers, and they have a reporter with them on board.

This is what you could imagine how the war is conducted, and I believe the writers must have had first account materials to write such wonderful pieces.

Basically, the platoons are made of young retarded kids, full of hormones, ready to kill, and trigger happy, only waiting to empty their guns on anything that move. It's Vietnam all over, but only worse. The officers seems to know what's going on at times but eventually get disillusioned by what they are doing when they realize that the whole exercise is a big joke. The CO and higher ups seems obsessed with petty objectives, no matter the costs, and making all kind of stupid mistakes so they can "please" and suck up to their "generals". It's all political and career move.

Of course all of this would be funny if it wasn't a real war and the bad guys were losing, but unfortunately it's war and the bad guys turn out to be good guys defending their country like any patriot would do. Shooting women and children deliberately seems to be the name of the game, to "mark" the territory. It gets worse when some Marines in the platoons start to realize they have become the bad guys, and start to revolt against their commanders orders, but eventually have to take it because they have no choice. From there, their illusions are all going downhill, and each one reacting differently from their ordeal.

The whole job seems boring, despite a few shooting missions, they sit all day in their Hummer and go through third world shithole villages by shooting at the locals, make derogatory remarks about the population, are obsessed with gayness and gay jokes, and the only entertainment they have is to sit on their cardboard box to take a long shit in the middle of the desert. It's fucking hell. It's basically everything we expected in a nightmare scenario of incompetence mixed with ignorance and prejudice about everything with a certain lack of decent equipment that you could only expect from a third world Army. They are indeed fighting like amateurs, no clue, and there are no warriors. Just kids with guns.

Despite all this, the different lead actors are doing absolutely great, as you can see their emotional change through the different episodes from being enthusiastic about the invasion to depressed in only a few days.

This is based on a book, the author could be the silent reporter taking notes, so all of it might be very true, and not entirely fiction at all.

A must see,

just about to watch the last episode.

written by the same guys thast did the wire.

very, very good.

this is a good read by the rolling stone embedded journo.

The Killer Elite : Rolling Stone

definitely a multimedia thread butterfly.

Great entertainment, I'm sure.

I hope you paid for it.

Not sure if this belongs to Issues or Multimedia

Butterfly. I hate to break this to you but TV drama isn't real. It's make-believe.

I imagine you'll get redded by the numpty's but good review, thanks.

^^^ ah CMN, I see you did you research

who is the author of the book ? was he a soldier or another reporter ?

if this series was on mainstream TV in the US, they would be revolt in the streets, or worse the series would be banned from every network

How did this end up in issues?

Yeah some the officers being incompetent has been shown really well as well as the everyday mistakes in war.

"Sir, if you shoot that AK one more time, I'm going to fuck you up."

Basically, the platoons are made of young retarded kids, full of hormones, ready to kill, and trigger happy, only waiting to empty their guns on anything that move.

Disagree a bit with this though. As well as showing the trigger happy rednecks it also shows the more intelligent guys that are there to do a job and know exactly what the score is regarding the war. To quote the Iceman "We're not warriors, we are just tool operators, semi skilled labour."

Definitely well written, and an excellent cast.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Great entertainment, I'm sure.

actually this article below is the exact description of what happens in the episode, so I will assume that the series is based on first accounts materials, not HBO creative writers

The Killer Elite : Rolling Stone

I would recommend you watch the series, tex, you might learn something. In that regard, I can only understand why you would want to leave such a fuckup organization to retire in Thailand.

Whats happened to that torrent we were downloading last night?

If the series is action-packed, full of drama, personal tragedy and triumph, difficult decisions, awesome soundtrack, clever camera work, interesting angles and dialogue -- rest assured it's created in a studio and bears little resemblance to any real military unit.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

if this series was on mainstream TV in the US, they would be revolt in the streets, or worse the series would be banned from every network

People are not as naive anymore and a series like this has to show the harsher realities and incompetencies in war in order to have any credit as being realistic. But only up to a certain degree. If there was a real 'all accounts taken' series on the war then there would be a problem. I think it's been softened up a bit.

What channel on the US is this being shown on then? Not a mainstream one I guess from BF's comment?

Originally Posted by CharleyFarley

Whats happened to that torrent we were downloading last night?

it will be back online in a few hours, uploading to LOM server for faster seeding

^^^ Do real military units not have a good soundtrack and clever camera work then Tex?

Originally Posted by bkkmadness

Not a mainstream one I guess from BF's comment?

it's on HBO, a NYC pay TV network for movies only,

they have been focusing on producing their own TV series and movies for the last 20 years, and they have won many cinematographic awards as they have no "pressure" in terms of artistic creativity, it's all paid by the premium members, not advertising

Originally Posted by Texpat

If the series is action-packed, full of drama, personal tragedy and triumph, difficult decisions, awesome soundtrack, clever camera work, interesting angles and dialogue -- rest assured it's created in a studio and bears little resemblance to any real military unit.

well, it's actually better than that, it's almost like a documentary, very realistic, I am sure you will feel like home when you watch it

I don't suppose they chronicled the six hour wait at the airport before boarding or the three hours a day spent cleaning weapons or mind-numbingly long hours sitting in briefings ... straight to the blood and guts. The more the merrier.

I've seen a couple episodes and it looked pretty good. I read somewhere as well that one of the real life sergeants in the book was an advisor on the film and had the authority to nix anything that strayed from their experiences.

Originally Posted by Texpat

I don't suppose they chronicled the six hour wait at the airport before boarding or the three hours a day spent cleaning weapons or mind-numbingly long hours sitting in briefings ... straight to the blood and guts. The more the merrier.

Actually the first episode I saw showed them mostly sitting around bored talking about life and joking. The blood and guts didn't come until the end.

Originally Posted by Texpat

straight to the blood and guts. The more the merrier.

interesting perspective tex, actually you should add your own experience in this thread, no matter how boring

actually, like I said, you can see it's quite boring, a lot of waiting, not that many battle scenes, only the last few episodes but that's only because they are moving through towns

Yes, I suppose I should reserve comment until I've seen it. But I'm usually greatly disappointed with military movies. They're always dressed up to look so exciting and thrilling. And they fuck up the dialogue so badly I have to continuously rewind to review the parts I missed while laughing.

Anyway, I'm not a grunt. Getting your hands dirty is left to those semi-skilled tool operators.

Originally Posted by Texpat

And they fuck up the dialogue so badly

the dialogue is quite good actually, definitely real, there is actually more speaking than actions, so like I said, you won't be disappointed

some of it I couldn't understand because they spoke too fast, more difficult to understand than "niggers" slangs,

no battle music, battles going wrong because of trucks breakdown etc... I tell you, you will feel like home

Out of interest Tex, how did you rate that 'Jarhead' movie?

never saw it.

Jar Head was a bit boring, nothing of interests, but real dramatic story about GW1

If you like Generation Kill, checkout "Over There"

Over There (TV series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)