Hanks: 'Pacific' producers sparred with HBO

TCA -- HBO's "Band of Brothers" follow-up "The Pacific" opens with archival footage, a map and executive producer Tom Hanks narrating about the post-Pearl Harbor challenges faced by U.S. Marines. Then we see a Lt. Col. -- standing in front of another map -- essentially reiterating the same information from the narration. "The Pacific" is very big on maps. By a few minutes into the second episode, we've seen a map of the Pacific several times and can practically draw obscure atolls from memory. 

At least for the first couple hours, "The Pacific" is a narrative that tries to find ways to impart information through exposition -- characters giving toasts, narration, testimonials, soldiers reading letters from home and, sure, maps.

At HBO's press tour session, a critic asks the "Pacific" panel why producers choose to open each episode with a mini-history lesson.

Tom Hanks' answer is to be taken, the actor-producer emphasized, as not as "a true complaint, but a sarcastic complaint."

"We bowed to the pressures of the studio -- I'm joking there," Hanks said. "There was a thought that it was hard to get people excited about a battle in a place like Guadalcanal without context. There were those of us on the producing team that thought context was a waste of time once we got involved in the characters and story ... we fought over every single one of these moments ... [but] we didn't take marching orders."

"Tom Hanks and I are marvelous collaborators," Spielberg said dryly. 

"We got $250 million to blow," Hanks said, drawing laughs. "We took it and ran."

"Band of Brothers" (aka "The Best TV Miniseries of All Time" -- not sarcasm) sets the highest possible bar. Even if "Pacific" doesn't end up clearing it, the action sequences are riveting. One critic asked Spielberg about how "Saving Private Ryan" and "Brothers" set a new style for filming war scenes.

"It wasn't that I was trying to break the mold visually, but validate all of this testimony that had been communicated to us who had lived and survived that battle," Spielberg said. "I didn't know it established would have a look fro war movies."

For "The Pacific," Spielberg chose a different look.

"There's a strong desaturated look to 'Band of Brothers,'" he said. "Here they're fighting in blue skies -- hot, dry, humid. So there are more vivid colors in 'Pacific' because that's the way it was."