An Outstanding WWII Documentary
War is a terrible thing, few will tell you different. The World War from 1939-1945 shaped the very nature of our world today, and it’s something that no one should ever forget. WWII In HD helps preserve those events by merging a typical documentary with new footage with the lives of twelve people who were involved with the war. Several of the twelve people are still alive today and provide fascinating first hand accounts of their memories. Viewers will follow the lives of Jack Werner, Charles Scheffel, Archie Sweeney, Bert Stiles, Jack Yusen, June Wandrey, Jimmie Kanaya, Shelby Westbrook, Nolan Mabrey, Norman Hatch, Richard Tregaskis, Roscoe Blunt, and Robert Sherrod.
The interviews with these folks are nicely intertwined with Gary Sinise’s top notch narration. The documentary starts in the early 30s with Hitler’s rise to power. We meet Hans Werner first, an Austrian Jew who managed to escape Europe to come to New York (at which point he changed his name to Jack). Soon after, the documentary introduces Charles Scheffel. Charles was a student and skilled basketball player in Oklahoma when news of the Pearl Harbor bombing changed the course of his life forever. The other ten people are similarly introduced and profiled during the course of the documentary, although not all of them are as featured as others.
WWII In HD is comprised of ten episodes that run about forty-three minutes each. I think it’s worth pointing out that each episode has a nearly two and a half minute introduction that can be skipped (you won’t need to see it more than once or twice). Each episode builds off of the previous one, with a focus on the events from Pearl Harbor to VE and VJ Day. This isn’t the most in depth documentary you will find, but it does cover the major events and provides those personal stories from those that were there. That combination with the HD video leaves an impression to say the least.
You may be wondering, just how good does WWII In HD actually look? You might be surprised as I was. The point to make here is that the film in its original state has a much higher resolution than 1080p. As you’ll learn in one of the extra features, the footage, during digital preservation, was actually scaled down in resolution from its analog source. Of course, anyway who knows much about analog audio and video will tell you that the raw analog source is always going to be the most robust, lossless format. Another important point about this footage is that most of it was in fact captured in color originally — so what you’re seeing here isn’t just black and white footage that has been colorized. That said, you have to keep in mind this is sixty-plus year old footage; but at no point was I disappointed with the quality of the video, nor the sound, for that matter. On that note, there is a lot of graphic content, so bare that in mind if you’re showing this to the young or squeamish. War is not a pretty thing, and I applaud the decision to keep the graphic content in place.
A lot of work went into making this documentary, and that’s the focus of two of the extra features. There are three extra features total, all found on the second disc of this two disc set. The extras are:
-Character Profiles of Jack Werner, Charles Scheffel, Jimmie Kanaya, Shelby Westbrook, and Jack Yusen (15m, HD) – A quick bio on these five men along with a few minutes of additional footage of them today that did not make it into the documentary.
-Finding the Footage (2.5m, HD) – A “behind the scenes” look of how the team was able to locate the footage.
-Preserving the Footage (2m, HD) – Basically a continuation of “Finding the Footage.” This is just another interesting, albeit very short, look at how the team preserved the footage.
More extras would have been nice, but other than that minor point, this is a superb release.
To the summary…