WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		1.5
Audio		1.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie Review

A subpar AV presentation sinks this rickety but seaworthy documentary series...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown July 1, 2012

World War II has the been the subject of a great many documentaries, even the least compelling of which are still quite engrossing. WWII: Battlefront, split for whatever reason across two separate 3-disc releases -- The Pacific Campaign and its sister series, The Atlantic Campaign -- unfortunately falls under the "least compelling" banner. Production values are bottom of the barrel, the full-color archive footage has been poorly remastered, and each set is hindered by a DVD-quality AV presentation. And yet somehow both The Pacific Campaign and The Atlantic Campaign claw their way out of the depths of bargain bin hell with an informative and engaging forty episode run (for those counting, that's twenty per release). Is either one better than A+E's WWII in HD or PBS's The War? Absolutely not. But for history buffs scouring Amazon for every last World War II documentary, these low-priced alternatives will prove to be quite tempting and, by and large, reasonably rewarding. Good? Yes. Great? No.

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy's unprovoked assault on Pearl Harbor brought America crashing into the world's first truly global conflict, transforming the once aptly named "Pacific" into a brutal war zone. For the next several years, from the Philippines to Midway Island to Okinawa, battleships, carriers and a deadly new breed of navy planes clashed in a life-and-death struggle for control of the Earth's largest body of water. Episodes include:

• Fall of Singapore


• Pearl Harbor


• Battle of Midway


• Solomon Islands


• Philippines


• Burma


• Gilbert Islands


• Palau


• Kwajalein


• Fall of the Philippines


• Last Stronghold


• Battle of Okinawa


• Mount Hot Rocks


• Mt. Belvedere


• Commerce Raiders


• U-Boat War


• Dieppe


• El Alamein


• Battle of Stalingrad


• Bombing of Ploesti

WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Pacific Campaign and The Atlantic Campaign share virtually identical 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfers, and both are equally underwhelming and equally disappointing. The full-color archive footage the series' creators have assembled has its share of inherent issues -- print damage, scratches, vertical lines and other blemishes that trace back to the source and the source alone -- but that's to be expected and, to cut to the chase, the least of each presentation's problems. Severe artifacting, banding, aliasing, smearing, mosquito noise, and other unsightly anomalies make it abundantly clear that the episodes were produced in standard definition and merely upscaled to 1080p for the WWII Battlefront Blu-ray debut. In other words, the high definition image isn't high definition at all, and it shows. Even the recently filmed interview segments are DVD-quality at best, even if the colors, skintones are black levels of these segments have a slight (almost negligible) richness that stands apart from the rest of the presentations. It doesn't amount to a saving grace, mind you, not by any means. But it is a bit of a relief when it comes to the dull, dreary, washed out, blocky hues of the colorized WWII footage.

Adding insult to injury, the hurried, slapdash nature of the encode takes its toll. Bursts of macroblocking, prickly noise, ringing, thick edge halos, and brief but complete video disruptions are distracting and disheartening. The WWII footage is already grainy -- soupy and soft as that grain may be -- and the results are messy, unpolished and unpredictable. Less discerning noise reduction tools have also been utilized and, when combined with the mediocre definition, lead to indistinct textures, pudgy definition and reduced clarity. Again, WWII archive footage will never look as if it were shot yesterday, but there's a big difference between source shortcomings and encoding inadequacies. And both The Pacific Campaign and The Atlantic Campaign are racked with encoding inadequacies, all of which beg the question: why release the WWII Battlefront duo on Blu-ray at all?

WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Not much separates The Pacific Campaign's 192kbps Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track from its Atlantic Campaign counterpart. The actual quality of each mix is essentially the same (which isn't saying much), but The Pacific Campaign has the misfortune of being defective. You don't even need to be a diehard audiophile to catch the error. The last episode on Disc 1 -- "Burma" -- is paired with an incorrect audio track. Amazon has responded by pulling the set from its inventory, even though third party sellers are still being permitted to sell the set. Beyond that, though, there isn't any major cause for concern... other than the tracks themselves. Voices and narration are clear and intelligible, sure, but lack the crispness, clarity and presence one might expect. Without LFE support or rear speaker activity to speak of, it also isn't an immersive or memorable experience. Music, effects and other elements are crammed beneath the narration and are rarely given the opportunity to carve out a notch in the mix. All in all, the WWII Battlefront audio tracks aren't anything to write home about. They're serviceable at best, flat and uninvolving at worst.

WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Pacific Campaign doesn't offer any special features.

WWII: The Pacific Campaign Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Pacific Campaign and The Atlantic Campaign are a part of the Madacy/Image 3-disc documentary wave, and just so happen to stand as the best of the bunch. That doesn't mean they're very good, though. Each 20-episode WWII series is decent, sure, but the sets' DVD-era video presentations, feeble Dolby Digital stereo tracks and barebones supplemental packages make $12 seem a bit too pricey. History buffs eager to scoop up every WWII documentary or series on the market will be mildly pleased. Everyone else will wonder how they were tricked into adding a DVD-esque release to their Blu-ray collection.