Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks already had saved Private Ryan and had shown the relatively tame exploits of a brotherly band in the Pacific Theater when they bravely took-on the challenge of recreating the bitter, brutal battles that made Pacific Islands household names in the darkest hours of World War II. Most Americans can trace the broad outlines of the Allies' liberation of Europe, but few can recall the highlights of American Marines' fierce struggles over "tiny specks of earth that we have never heard of." HBO's ten-part mini-series, "The Pacific," retrieves the war against Japan from the threshold of obscurity. Based on survivors' accounts of the battles, and rendered as vividly as the small screen will allow, "The Pacific" tracks three Marines' odysseys from Guadalcanal through Cape Gloucester to Peleliu and ultimately to the epic battle for Iwo Jima. Testifying to "The Pacific's" intense realism, the mini-series collected Emmy Awards for Art Direction, visual and sound effects. More amply testifying to "The Pacific's" overwhelming genius and power, however, the Television Academy awarded it the 2010 Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.

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