Over the last thirteen or so years, The History Channel has created a variety of documentaries and episodes of some of their popular series that are about the two Great Wars, WWI and WWII. These include The Color of War, an excellent five disc, 13 episode documentary about WWII from 2001, on up to The World Wars, a 2014 production that takes a more Hollywood movie approach and focuses on a few of the most popular figures from the two wars. There’s certainly no shortage of content here as, all told, it’s just under 2700 minutes, or over 44 hours, with obviously a lot of overlapping content. While contained inside of one box and focusing on the same subject, the ‘flow’ or connected-ness of this set is somewhat jarring. The mixture of documentaries along with episodes from History Channel series like Modern Marvels, Ultimate Weapons, and M3: Man, Moment, Machine give you a lot of views on these two gigantic subjects, but keep in mind this set is just a collection of these distinct productions, not a re-edited or new documentary that attempts to tell one massive story from start to finish. That would have truly been an epic undertaking that even Ken Burns would have had to tip his hat to, I suspect. That said, it’s perhaps obvious that this set, even with forty-four hours of runtime, is no where near complete or deep enough to cover all angles, stories, and events from the 30 years or so between the Wars. Still, for those seeking a single resource to serve as both a good high level overview and provide some rare footage and details, this is a great option.
As I sat down to write this review, I should make it clear that I have not watched this entire set. I have watched some of it in the past, and most of the new-to-me material in preparation for this article. Anyway, here are a few general notes I made that I’ll list before looking more closely at the included content:
-All video is presented in 16×9, 1.78:1 ratio with 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital. English subtitle support is mostly included; Worlds of War has subtitles for example, while at least one documentary did not (that I unfortunately did not jot down the name of).
-Several modern trailers for things like Houdini and BIG History and other History Channel shows are used at the start of some of the discs, which is annoying, but you can skip these. Also from the disc menu you can go to Trailers to watch them anytime. I would have much preferred that a Definitive set be completely focused on the material at hand rather than including ads for other History Channel content.
-Some of these shows, like WWII In HD, Patton 360, and The World Wars, are available in HD on Blu-ray, but this set contains DVD/SD only, which undermines the idea of this being the most definitive way to view this content. It’s especially awkward when considering WWII In HD and D-Day In HD are obviously not in HD in this set.
-I thought the disc packaging was confusing, actually. Inside of the box are two cases with ten discs each. These cases are twice as thick as a standard DVD case and use the ‘book page’ type of disc holders. The packaging itself is sturdy and functional, but the way the discs are split up isn’t really optimal. On the front cover art, you can clear see that one case has Discs 1-10, and the other has 11-20. The back of the art shows what’s included, although strangely, it’s not completely accurate compared to how the discs are laid out. Here’s how mine came packaged, which will also serve as a way to list the content of what’s in this set:
Box 1: Discs 1-10: The World Wars (2), 100 Years of WWI (2), 75 Years of WWI (2), WWII In HD Collector’s Edition Discs 1 & 2, and then The Color of War Disc 2, and then WWII In HD Collector’s Edition Disc 5, oddly enough.
Box 2: Discs 11-20: WWII In HD Collector’s Edition Disc 4, WWII From Space, The Color of War Disc 1, WWII In HD Collector’s Edition Disc 3, The Color of War Disc 3-5, Patton 360 Season One Discs 1-3.
This is a minor point, but it seems to make more sense to package The World Wars, 100 Years of WWI, 75 Years of WWII, WWII From Space, and Patton 360 in one box, and the two five disc documentaries in the second box. Ultimately, who cares? This was just something I noticed wanted to mention.
So, in years past, I have reviewed Patton 360: Season One (to my knowledge, the series only had one season), and WWII In HD. Other than this Definitive set being in SD, as there are no Blu-ray discs, the content is the same. So how about the others?
–The World Wars – This three part mini-series aired on The History Channel earlier this year and was released on DVD and Blu-ray just a couple of months ago, so it’s nice to see it included here. It’s an enjoyable show that’s worth your time, although in examining several other reviews it seems to have a pretty high number of historical inaccuracies which is disappointing. Still, it’s very entertaining and provides a good high level overview of WWI and WWII told almost exclusively through analysis of several of the key figures, including Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, MacArthur, and Mussolini. If you’re looking for a lot of vintage footage, you won’t find it here, but the acting and production is pretty captivating.
The second of two discs of The World Wars contains the third and final episode as well as well several bits of bonus content:
-Characters In Depth: FDR, Hitler, Truman, Stalin, Churchill, and Eisenhower are discussed by the panel of historians and professors who also contributed to the main feature. Clips from the main feature are shown as they discuss each figure for about four minutes each.
-Featurettes: A grouping of several 3-5 minute pieces that cover a specific topic from which the “experts” speak about. Specifically, these are: WWI: One Word, Tech Developments of WWI, Life In A Trench, The US In WWI, Did WWI Lead to WWII?, Legacy of WWI, WWI: Global Connections, One Thing You Should Know About WWI, Nationalism And WWI, and Harlem Hellfighters.
–100 Years of WWI – First released on disc this July, this two disc set was very interesting. No “Play All” function is a minor gripe; both discs contains a few distinct episodes. These include “Armored Beasts,” “Clouds of Death,” “Massive Air Attacks,” “Underwater Killers,” and then disc two has “Modern Marvels: WWI Tech,” “Dogfights: The First Dogfighters,” “M3: Man, Moment, And Machine: The Red Baron & The Wings of Death.” This documentary focuses more on the tech and how the industrialized world innovated to make horrific weapons of war ranging from tanks to gas to flamethrowers and submarines. The blend of vintage footage with modern, re-enactment footage (that is intentionally made to look old) is nice. The “Dogfights” episode is very CG heavy, but worth a watch.
–75 Years of WWII – Released in August, this is another two disc set with disc one containing both parts of “D-Day In HD,” and the second disc has three: “Bloody Santa Cruz,” “Enterprise Vs Japan,” and “WWII Ultimate Weapons.” I thought the D-Day material was good, the second disc takes a step back however.
–Patton 360: Season One and WWII In HD: Please see my original reviews from a few years ago here and here, respectively.
–The Color of War – Probably the highlight of the set. First released in 2001, this nearly-ten hour documentary includes a lot of color, vintage footage and it’s not just battlefields and warfare either, but also provides a candid view of the civilians and home front. There is however lots of battle footage, including violent imagery that can be difficult to view, but, this was war, sadly. Narration is excellent and done by actor Peter Coyote.
–WWII In Space – I had not seen this before but liked it. The visual presentation includes many more maps and CG animations of said maps than any documentary I had seen before. This overhead view helps keep the geography in perspective, and also reminded me of just how small of a world it is we live in.
To the summary…