a nitpicking rant, if you will, about a WW2 documentary

[steve2470]

Second War Diary - The War Day by Day

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KXSS326/ref=nav_timeline_asin?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true

That's 73 hours of your life, if you care to watch WW2 history drilled down every day from 9-1-1939 to 9-2-1945 and including the war crimes trials beyond. I watched it for free, because you can try Amazon Prime with your credit card not being charged for 30 days. I cancelled my credit card payment immediately after starting my viewing, so I cheated Amazon's shareholders out of a few pennies. Sorry ladies and gents!

So, in a sense, I have absolutely no right to complain, since I got to watch that enormous body of work for FREE. However, I might buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KRGYDE6/ref=s9_simh_gw_g74_i3_r?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=0AHYNP4FGTW3X1M0FZ1E&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop , a steal at $15.49.

Ok, my nitpicking rant: Don't documentary makers usually double-check content for inaccuracy and inadequate pronunciations ? I know enough about WW2 that I was able to detect them. The saving grace is that it IS 73 hours long, and it would be pretty tedious to have to watch the entire damn thing (which I did) and have to constantly watch for inaccuracies.

I'm probably going to buy it to add to my collection. Am I being too hard on these people ?

This is the publisher, if anyone is interested: http://pacific-media.es/

eta: I did buy it. It's too good of a deal to pass up for WW2 history buffs like me.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Nitpick about your nitpicky rant...

WTF are you talking about? A couple of examples of the things you are complaining about might be useful.

[steve2470]

2. ok let me remember here...

At times they would state casualty numbers only in the hundreds, when it was clear it should have been in the thousands because of the context. I didn't write all of them down, so I'm going by memory here.

Another one that grated on my nerves was the word ARCHIPELAGO. I see now that you CAN pronounce it ARCH instead of ARK, but I've always heard the ARK pronunciation. See this: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archipelago . There were other words that sounded mispronounced but I'm willing to concede that I'm not an expert.

On their maps, they would frequently get spelling wrong. Mind you, this was obviously aimed at an English-speaking audience, so you'd think they would have the names in English or at least in the correct German or Italian etc spelling. The production company is in Spain, so it appeared that they sometimes tailored spelling to a Spanish audience instead of an English-speaking audience. Example: Irak, instead of Iraq. There's other examples I'm forgetting. eta: The Irak thing is no big deal. I know Iraq is spelled Irak in Germany and France and I guess Spain also.

A few times the narrator actually stated the wrong date.

I'd have to go back and spend another 73 hours to write down every inaccuracy that I KNOW is wrong or that I suspect is wrong. To their credit, they were correct (or at least seemingly correct) probably at least 99% of the time, so I'm thinking maybe I'm being too hard on them.

eta: http://www.amazon.com/Second-War-Diary-The-Day/product-reviews/B00KXSS326/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent

It's too bad that they didn't research how to correctly pronounce names and places...which are really vital in a historical production. It's all about who did what and where. German Admiral. Karl Doenitz is pronounced as "Donuts" when it should be more like Durnitz... the "oe" in German has an "er" sound. The Gestapo is pronounced Jestapo. Joseph Goebbels is the same. Go-bels instead of Gurbels. Places like Guadalcanal have the emphasis on the wrong syllable. They put the accent on "dal"...so they sound like Canal-Canal with the Guad up front.

In the comments on Amazon, several commenters raise the point about pronunciation and accuracy. It does get 4.2 stars out of 5, so, yeah, we're being nitpicky.

[Wounded Bear]

3. OK, thanks...

I was kind of wondering. TBH, I get the same feeling sometimes. Being a bit of a history buff myself, that kind of thing grates for me too.

I recently bought a cheap computer game about the Civil War. Supposed to be the Battle of Gettysburg. After firing it up, I couldn't play it. They had the uniform colors wrong! Union in gray, Rebs in blue.

[steve2470]

6. wow that's a giant error

That does ruin the immersion factor completely for a game. I could understand getting very obscure details wrong, but NOT uniform colors. Oy!

[madinmaryland]

4. Not to be obvious, but if you have seen it, then why in the hell would

you want to buy the hardcopy of it. Seems like a Youuuuuge waste of money.

BTW, my wife is the same about books. I support my library and get my books there, while she feels compelled to go and buy snd bring more ****ing books into the house which she will only read ONCE.

[steve2470]

5. it's 73 hours worth of history for $15 bucks....

I'll probably watch it again in the future. At least parts of it. I agree, if I was never going to watch it again, why buy it ?