abhishekkulranjanrao One can really preempt the tenor of the "documentary" when it begins with Obama showering platitudes about sacrifices of the Allied forces and the atrocities of the "Evil Powers" and how history has been redefined.The basic agenda of this documentary is to show American Military as the Salvation Army and they really make no bones about it. With McArthur and Patton shown as some sort of Demi-Gods with unmistakable swagger and pride and Churchill depicted with similar brush, only makes the subtle very obvious.Like any other history buff, I appreciate objective view of history even if it invites lacerating self introspection. Propaganda's weakness lies in its inability to mask the contradictions and this documentary is full of contradictions and haphazard attempts to self aggrandizement. 4/10

dundeal78 Spoilers, perhaps? (The whole thing is spoiled.)I don't see much value in excoriating an already amply panned production, but this mess needs all the dumping on it can get. This was bad enough for a history buff as myself, but to present this as a primer for WWI and WWII "neophytes" is an outrage. The evidence of low budget/low quality is evident immediately to anyone who has even the most rudimentary knowledge of either war. The late 1915 helmets showing up in 1914 and earlier, the mismatched weaponry represented in re-enactments of both wars-- B-17s serving as Heinkels and Dorniers??? Germans using cold war era Russain armor? When I first saw an SS officer (?) standing behind Hitler, it was one thing to have the collar tabs of an Unterscharfuehrer with officer's epaulets, but seeing a Wehrmacht general's hat tucked under his arm was something inexcusable.(Yeah, I'm 'showing off' a bit...) It was that type of indifference to detail that exemplifies what's wrong this entire production. If the big details are grossly inaccurate, and the little details reinforcing an overt indifference to the thought put into a project, how can there be any reason to believe there is a shred of merit in the project? Which, ultimately, there wasn't. If this channel is attempting to get back to its "roots" this is a miserable way to do it. I have no problem with them trying to simplify history for a new generation of viewers, but for crying out loud, at least be accurate. That's the shame of this half-a**ed production. It demonstrated how far this channel has fallen, and how indifferent they have become to their viewers.

Zach Hiatt This mini-series has a lot of great narration and historical facts. I will give it that much. The first scene really draws you in with Adolph Hitler and the First World War, but that is just about as good as it gets theatrical wise. Everything after that tends to slope constantly. The re-enactments were the most pathetic I've ever seen. Multiple times a ship would be sailing in the ocean with either a British, American, Nazi, and Japanese flag attached to the rear. Each time the ship was the exact same and it had a helipad and satellite dishes all over the main section. Multiple times American Marines from the Pacific theater were show as Italian, French, or Polish soldiers. Half of the time Hitler would speak short sentences in German with subtitles, but when there were full dialogued scenes, he would speak in English. Many scenes with Patton as a Junior officer referred to him as a Captain pre World War I, then as a Lieutenant post World War I while wearing Lieutenant Colonel Silver Oak Leafs. It was a poor representation of the uniform in my respect.

dfarhie-811-176368 I had a lot of interest in The World Wars, because I've been interested in World War history in general since I was a lad. The resulting tripe was terribly disappointing. Not only was it badly edited, but the narrator was a plodding, monotone voice that showed little or no emotion during the program. What I thought was an adult level program turned into a middle school level show with frequent recaps just in case the watchers were morons and couldn't remember from one segment to the next. The only factoid I gleaned from this rehash of the facts was the English soldier who possibly had Hitler in his sights during World War I and didn't shoot. I hadn't heard that one. Inaccuracies, distortions and just bad history were the norm. What do you expect? The show featured numerous republicans who love to skew history to their ends, and how can anybody take a show seriously that has former Bush administrators who lied to the American People about WMD's. I'm surprised they didn't dredge up John Poindexter and Oliver North! Shame on you History Channel for turning what could have been a monumental show into a pig trough of slop.