The top rated war series Band of Brothers and the Pacific are not available to stream as part of a subscription in the UK, a quick blog looking at why that is?
War films are hugely popular and the genre has produced loads of seminal movies. Glance through any top list of films and there will be dozens of war movies like Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, The Great Escape, Hacksaw Ridge and so on and so forth. These are the kinds of films that are available to watch on streaming services (check out my current list of Netflix and Amazon war movies to watch) but what about series?
It's odd that streaming services and how we consume entertainment these days is typified by the phrase binge watching, services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix offer seasons and seasons of tv series, they even make their own 'tv' shows. Yet when it comes to war, there's really not that many options, other than documentaries. It comes to me as a great surprise that currently neither Band of Brothers nor The Pacific is available on any of the streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, BBC Iplayer). Sure you can download and watch it, you can buy it on DVD or Blu Ray but you can't watch it right now as part of a subscription.
In fact it's very difficult to find any sort of war/ combat/ army/ navy content to stream. I had a good look around and the choices are bleak in the extreme. You might satisfy that combat fix with a single series of Dad's Army on BBC iplayer or go wild with 3 seasons on Now TV, but somehow I doubt it. I don't mean to criticise the series, I do love it dearly, but is it really war content? or simply a sitcom revolving around the Land Army of World War Two. The great BBC shows merits aside, there really isn't much to cater for those of us that want to see this kind of content.
Interestingly the only serious war series to stream (on Netflix) is a German mini-series called Generation War (2014), I haven't yet seen it, so I won't criticise it either way, but it's worth noting that it has 8.5/ 10 on IMDB which would seem to recommend it but only 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is curious, I definitely must watch it. I just watched the trailer on YouTube and linked it here, looks pretty good.
What I did discover or realise I guess from looking around for war series is that it's not exactly a crowded market place. Other than the superb Band of Brothers and Pacific, what else actually is there? The answer I came to is not a lot, I did a list to check what was streaming and I struggled to find 5 serious shows, sure there's comedies like the brillliant M*A*S*H and Blackadder Goes Forth (but sadly neither is currently available to stream as part of a subscription). There's a lot less serious shows that focus more on action than war like The Unit, Ultimate Force and Strike Back, entertaining or not do they count? Anyway that's besides the point for me and this website as neither of the trio is available to stream. The only one war series that I've watched before that I'd happily watch again, is a 2008 mini-series called Generation Kill which follows a US Marine unit in the early stage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Before I get any further it's not available to stream anywhere, nonetheless it was a gritty real account of front-line soldiering in a modern conflict, which is apparently a very rare thing.
It just strikes me as really odd that of all the war movies out there and the huge popularity of watching tv series more aren't made. What should us lovers of the military genre binge watch? Or even just watch the old fashioned way on tv? Anyone have any ideas why there aren't more tv productions? But for now I can definitively say, check out Generation War and that will have to fill the binge watching military void.
If I've missed something or you understand why there's not more war tv, or for any other reason feel free to comment below or on the War Movies Online Facebook Page.
Amazon is offering free trials to Amazon Prime (unlimited one day deliveries, ebooks, videos and more) link here and Amazon video only link here both free trials via the links, normally Prime is
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