How challenging was it to create The Pacific, HBO’s 10-part miniseries about the epic World War II showdown between the United States and the Japanese? Well, it took three years longer than the war itself. But Bruce C. McKenna didn’t mind a bit. For him, it’s the project of a lifetime.
“I’ve always been attracted to the Pacific. I actually started working on this when I was about six years old,” says McKenna, who, as a Co-Executive Producer on the series, developed its storyline and oversaw a writing team that includes George Pelecanos, Michelle Ashford, Graham Yost, Robert Schenkkan and Laurence Andries. “It is the apotheosis of my career.”
Beginning immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Pacific follows the wartime exploits of three Marines -- Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge -- as they wind their way through the Pacific Theater and such legendary battles as Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Along the way, they encounter a ruthless enemy, the misery of the jungle, and the death of colleagues and friends. As they do, the true toll of war on the human soul unfolds.
The idea for The Pacific was always in the back of the mind of one of its other Executive Producers -- Steven Spielberg. It just seemed an obvious companion piece to Band of Brothers --another WWII miniseries that Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman produced for HBO. It is therefore only fitting that for McKenna, The Pacific actually began at a celebration for Band of Brothers.
That series, set in WWII’s European Theater, had just won the Emmy for Best Miniseries. McKenna, who had written three of its episodes, approached Spielberg at the afterparty and told him he wanted in when Spielberg was ready to tackle the story of the Pacific conflict. “You’ve got it,” Spielberg replied.
Friday, March 12, 2010
About a year later, McKenna got the call. Spielberg, Hanks and Goetzman wanted to talk about The Pacific. During the meeting, they came to one conclusion -- none of them really had any idea as to how to do justice to this sweeping saga. And, after bantering about a range of ideas, they left it in McKenna’s hands to figure out. At Spielberg’s suggestion, McKenna brought in Hugh Ambrose (son of American historian and presidential biographer Stephen Ambrose) to collaborate on the research. Ambrose is credited as the series Historical Consultant.
The duo starting pouring through books on the subject -- 50 in all. They were also able to track down about 75 veterans of the war and began collecting their insights. Armed with this knowledge, McKenna started plotting.
“My idea was to do it like Traffic -- have these characters that may not have direct interaction, but over time could be weaved together,” says McKenna. Ready to pitch the series, he travelled to the set of The Terminal where Spielberg was directing Hanks. They liked what McKenna had to say and he got the greenlight to take the project to the next level.
McKenna assumed there will be comparisons between Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but he hasn’t given much thought to this. He believes the series serve as good companion pieces and have many similarities -- the brotherhood of the soldiers, the horrible crucible of what they go through, and the extraordinary bravery that results because of it. But McKenna also knew from the start that The Pacific was going to be very different from its European counterpart.
“It wasn’t like we had a mandate that we’ve got to be better than Band,” says McKenna. “Band is really good. I loved working on it, but there definitely is a different feel to this series, and that was intentional.”
Instead, he believes the goal of The Pacific is to portray the face of war in a grimmer and more accurate way.
“It’s a darker series. We really had an agenda to show the moral cost of war -- when it’s very personal and intense,” McKenna continues. “Whether you outdo Band or not is -- it’s outside of your constraint -- you’ve just got to do your job.”
Bruce C. McKenna (center) on the set of The Pacific
From the research, McKenna began focusing on two books --Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed by Eugene B. Sledge. Additional material was drawn from Red Blood, Black Sand by Chuck Tatum and another of Sledge’s books, China Marine. Over the next 18 months, a team of writers was assembled and scripts slowly but surely sprang to life. McKenna ended up scripting four of the ten parts himself and co-writing another three.
Though the books were instrumental in shaping the plotline for The Pacific, the series wouldn’t have had its heart without the help of the veterans that McKenna and Ambrose questioned endlessly.
“Without those interviews, without the commitment of those men to dredge up some very painful memories, the series would never be as good as it is,” says McKenna. “They trusted us. They’ll told us things they haven’t even told their own wives.”
McKenna marvels at how forthright the vets turned out to be. He credits them for giving The Pacific its “you are there” feel, saying that he wasn’t afraid to ask them anything about their experiences -- including such trivial things as the toilet paper situation on Guadalcanal or the password on a given day. As the veterans began to trust him more and more, they also began revealing the more shocking details of their trials. “They told us things that they didn’t want to tell us,” continues McKenna. “And it’s in the series.”
The Pacific doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the battle scenes. They are horrific. Make no mistake, this isn’t your father’s John Wayne movie. McKenna believes it’s the most intense depiction of combat that has ever been shown on television. But he is quick to add, that as devastating as these scenes are, they are an honest portrayal of what happened and necessary to the story.
“One thing I’m really proud of with the series is that there is not one act of gratuitous violence in the entire 10 hours,” says McKenna. “Every act of violence, and there are some real brutal ones, have an incredible impact on the characters and that impact grows exponentially. By the end of the series, you know the burden that these men carry inside of them for witnessing what they witness.”
As major a role as the violence plays in The Pacific, one of McKenna’s favorite moments occurs in an episode that is completely combat free. The war-weary Marines, fresh from a victory at Guadalcanal, travel to Melbourne for some R&R. During the trip, one of the characters meets a girl and falls in love. When the girl breaks up with him, he is heartbroken. McKenna, who doesn’t want to spoil the story by revealing the character’s name, believes this perfectly portrays wartime’s heightened emotions.
“In war, those feelings and emotions are much more fraught with danger and intensity,” says McKenna. “It’s a really important moment for that character in the arc that he goes through in the series. I’m really proud of a little moment like that that most people are just going to skip over to get to the gory stuff.”
Band of Brothers
