Vietnam in HD (2011)

Lyrics excerpt - "All we are saying is - Give peace a chance." This is a picture about war - And, believe me, it isn't a pretty one.This was a war that the Americans had no business being in.This was a war where two-faced, US President, Lyndon Johnson promised his gullible citizens that American involvement would only last for a few months.This was a war that endured (under direct US occupation) for 10 years (1964-1974) and took the lives of 60,000 American military men (with 300,000 wounded) - Not to mention the dead Vietnamese.This was a war where blacks (and other racial minorities), along with under-privileged whites, were the ones sent to the front lines to fight.This was a war that was condoned by 2, hypocrite, US presidents (Johnson & Nixon) in order to save political face.Through interviews, narration, and archival footage - This is a mighty powerful re-telling of the reality of that war, which, as you'll see, is like nothing that Hollywood has ever shown you.

I was born just shy of 10 years after Saigon fell so I had no relation to the war. I do have a strong interest in history, especially military history, but I must be honest, I avoided this documentary for a long time because Vietnam can be a hurtful subject and everything about the war since it ended has been so negative. I would never argue we, America, won the war, but everything I have ever been shown, taught, or read pretty much makes the point that everything about the war was evil or wrong. No exception. One evening I finally watched this documentary and I have to say it was perspective changing. I cannot tell you firsthand what Vietnam was like, but I can tell you first hand that if you started school in the 1980s or later, you have never been taught an unbiased view of the war. This documentary is the closest thing to an unbiased take on Vietnam I have yet encountered. This documentary does exactly what a good documentary should; open you to multiple perspectives by exposing you to film and primary sources and interviews. That exposure challenges you to think on your own. I came away with a new opinion on the whole war.Many reviewers criticize and say this documentary is jingoistic by trying to convince people the war was being won. On the contrary, the only reference to 'winning' I saw was the quotations of the Johnson administration about how we were 'winning' in body counts and the documentary uses this directly as a contrast to the reality the soldiers were facing of the ground. That is the endless Search and Destroy runs where people would die and gained territory was quickly abandoned. This documentary pulls no punches and is not afraid to showcase the insanity of the Vietnam War. Lots of stupid things were done. Lots of opportunities were missed. This documentary does not hide it.On the other side, this documentary doesn't write off the war as inherently evil or as a perpetually lost cause. It does not hide the fact we now know the NVA was nearly crippled after Tet and the US didn't capitalize on it. Similarly it doesn't hide that Nixon balked at destroying Vietcong supplies in Cambodia after Kent State. Are those things controversial? Yes. Missed opportunities? Maybe so. The documentary doesn't tell you what to think, it simply exposes you to fresh perspectives that my grade school teachers never offered me.Don't let commercial reviews fool you. This documentary is not overly simplistic. It is simply a fresh overview of a very complex subject. Overviews have their place. I guarantee that you will take new things away from this film. This documentary overviews the good bad and the ugly. Before I saw it all I was ever taught was the bad and ugly.Ultimately, this documentary really shines in giving our G.I.s the credit they deserve for sacrificing everything in the absence of clear objectives. Don't marginalize them or this documentary just because a majority of historians feel that Vietnam has to be portrayed a certain way.

The focus of this series is supposed to be the historical footage, but the makers seem to resent the aspect ratio that was historically used, so all the footage is crudely stretched and everything in it is made to look thicker. The end result is that the movie is better viewed in 4:3 so that the contemporary footage would be distorted instead.The most accurate description of the narration is that it's overacted. The makers seem to have been aiming to give the series a dignified overall feeling, but it ends up feeling more cheap instead. The result would have been significantly better and more respectful of the actual history if they took a more hands-off approach and just presented the historical footage and the interviews without as much editing, editorializing and remastering.

I'm giving this one a 5 for the footage. It's nice to see so much original footage and that's what I'm always looking for. I admire the people with the cameras in the field. So using their footage means giving them credit for what they did. They shot with cameras, not with guns. Too bad, however, that it's almost all US footage, almost no North VN footage was used.Other than that, this is yet another very one-sided documentary of the Vietnam war. From the first second to the last everything shouts "look at us heroes, we're so awesome, we did so good". Americans seem to be utterly incapable of objectively reporting on the subject of war. It seems to me that with every documentary on the subject they're doing all they can to cover up the fact that they got their asses kicked. By a much weaker force by the way. Just admit it and move on. Terrible things happened and those are the facts. That's what I want from a documentary, the facts! Not a deep-sounding voice telling me how difficult some General's decision was, how long he had to think about it just to portray him as a good guy. State the facts please, and leave it at that. Don't put the ever-American gloss over it to make it look more than it is.Conclusion : If you want a 50/50 mix between some Band Of Brothers with some info put in and everything video and audio pointing out they were incredible heroes, than watch this. If you're looking for a good documentary stating the facts and looking at this war from both sides, keep looking, this is not it.