YMMV / The Pacific

• Awesome Music: The opening credits, as scored by Hans Zimmer; hell, the whole score's Awesome Music.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: First episode: Guadalcanal, Tenaru. The literal mountains of Japanese dead seems ridiculously excessive, like an action movie. But it really happened just like that. The Japanese lost over 700 men at night, in that one sandbar. The Marines only lost 44.
  • The second episode has a similar massacre take place. Much like the first example, the Japanese really did take that heavy amount of casualties.
  • It has to be a case of Artistic License that Sledge's best friend Sid Phillips ends up in the same company as Leckie, right? The odds of these two famous memoirists being so closely connected is basically zero, right? Well, Phillips and Leckie really did both serve in H/2/1 of the 1st Marine Division. Whether Sledge and Leckie ever met during the war as Episode 5 portrays it is not as likely, but Sid's inclusion in the Leckie storyline was actually not that unrealistic.
• Creepy Awesome: Snafu bullies newcomers, pries golden teeth out of dead Japanese soldiers' mouths and amuses himself by throwing pebbles into their blown-open heads. It's unnerving as hell, but fascinating to watch.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The show generally manages to keep this to a minimum, at the very least. Everything is so brutal, so muddy and shitty, and just so goddamned miserable that it is in no way glorious or jingoistic; it even does a good job of shining a light on whether or not a few of these combat actions were even really necessary or being commanded competently (the Peleliu section is heavy with this). The only real exception are scenes involving John Basilone, and, well, the guy was inspiring to his own men in real life, so it's hard for him to not come across as completely amazing. Even he gets unceremoniously cut down at the end of Episode 8, though, to the horror of just about everyone, his men included.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Snafu is probably the character most beloved by the fandom. You know why.
  • Gunney Haney, helped by being a borderline out of his mind badass. It starts with the scene of him yelling at the sky when the rain squall he was using as a shower comes to a sudden end before he was finished, and just keeps building from there.
    Haney: "Woof!"
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Joseph Mazzello (Sledge) and Rami Malek (Snafu) would go on to again portray good friends in Bohemian Rhapsody. The difference is that this instance had Rami portraying the temperamental one going through an emotional crisis (Freddie Mercury) while Joe portrayed the (one of a few) reserved friend trying to help him (John Deacon).
  • This isn't the last time Jon Bernthal would play a U.S. Marine.
• Ho Yay: Sledge and his best friend Sidney Phillips. The homoerotic subtext between these two "best friends" is just too obvious to ignore. Their reunion in Part 5 makes it more blatant.
  • Sledge/Snafu seems to be popular in fandom as well. The fact Snafu seems to have no concept of personal space when it comes to Eugene just adds fuel to the fire.
    • Hello, the oh-so-wonderful scene with the letter about Sledge's dog stands out.
    • Snafu's fixation on Sledge in general, though it comes off as a bit one-sided.
  • Strangely enough, Ack-Ack/Hillybilly. They have such little screen time together, yet a good part of the fandom still ships them.
    • Probably has something to do with the fact that every time they're on screen they're together, and Ack-Ack's seemingly heartbroken reaction to Hillbilly's death.
  • Leckie/Hoosier has a solid fanbase as well, mostly because of Leckie's (sarcastic) declaration of wanting Hoosier to be his date if they ever have a fancy dress ball on the island, and Hoosier's amiable response.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Japanese killing and using civilians in combat on Okinawa.
• Nausea Fuel: Goes without saying.
• One-Scene Wonder: He's only in a few episodes, but Gary Sweet as the Gunny is a pure comedy/badassery package every second he's on screen.
• Paranoia Fuel: The Japanese love to launch night assaults, pouring out of the dark jungles right at the tired Marines. They also frequently sent small teams of infiltrators to kill sleeping Marines in their foxholes.
• Retroactive Recognition: Manny is more recognizable to modern audiences as Shane Walsh and the MCU's take on Frank Castle.
• Spiritual Licensee: To the Pacific Campaign of Call of Duty: World at War, since both take place in mostly the same locations.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To Band of Brothers, the miniseries version of Saving Private Ryan.
  • To The Thin Red Line—this series has the same relationship to Thin Red Line, the Pacific version of SPR, as Band of Brothers has to SPR—including a Very Similar Soundtrack by the same composer.
• Tear Jerker: See here.

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