Blu-ray Box Set Review: 'WWII in HD: Collector's Edition'

(C) 2011 A&E Home Video

WWII in HD: In November of 2009, History aired a 10-episode miniseries titled simply WWII in HD, which was "shot and remastered in high definition" and culled from - as the package blurb puts it - "three thousand hours of color film few knew existed" from several countries' archives.

Essentially, producer Lou Reda and writers Matthew Ginsburg, Bruce Kennedy and Liz Reph take a page from the Ken Burns playbook and follow the wartime experiences of 12 American men and women who participate in World War II either as combatants (Jack Werner, Shelby Westbrook), caregivers (Jane Wandrey) or reporters (Robert Sherrod, Richard Tregaskis) from Pearl Harbor Day to VJ Day.

The narrative, which combines color footage collected over a two-year world-wide search in Allied and Axis archives, interviews with now-elderly veterans and dramatic readings from the 12 "characters'" letters and journals to recreate as vividly as possible what they saw, heard, tasted, smelled and felt during World War II

WWII in HD is narrated by actor Gary Sinise (CSI: New York), who has done voiceover work for many documentaries, including When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions He does a good job of stitching the various storylines and complements the readings of the other cast members very nicely.

The People We Follow and the Actors:

* Jack Werner: Justin Bartha
* Rockie Blunt: Rob Corddry
* Richard Tregaskis: Tim DeKay
* Archie Sweeney: Mark Hefti
* Jimmie Kanaya: James Kyson Lee
* Charles Scheffel: Ron Livingston
* Shelby F. Westbrook: LL Cool J
* Robert Sherrod: Rob Lowe
* Bert Stiles: Josh Lucas
* Jack Yusen: Jason Ritter
* June Wandrey: Amy Smart
* Nolen Marbrey: Steve Zahn


About the HD:

Of course, when this aired on History in 2009 it was aired in two formats, HD and "standard definition" so that basic cable subscribers without HD packages or TVs could see it, and that's how it is presented on the standard definition three-disc DVD set, so I can't say that I was able to get the full visual impact of the series' "immersive HD" format.

My Take:

While WWII in HD is nowhere as moving or powerful as The War or as instructive as The World at War, it does give viewers a very personal view of the American experience in the Second World War.

The series' structure is fairly chronological, following the course of events from the start of the "European War" on Sept. 1, 1939 till the end of the conflict. Most of the pre-Pearl Harbor events are dealt with in pro-forma fashion because - as many international viewers will note - its focus is on America's participation in World War II.

That having been said, the series covers battles and campaigns that overlap, so sometimes the narrative skips backward and forward in time depending on which "character" it is following.

The 12 main characters, as I mentioned before, are real persons who in one way or another were caught up in the maelstrom of World War II. Some, we know (because we see them on screen) survived to the present time, while others either die during the war or a short while after.

Obviously, which format you buy will determine how HD WWII in HD is for you on home video. On DVD, naturally, playback will be standard definition on DVD players even if you have an HD TV set.

On Blu-ray,  playback is fully HD, so the sound and audio should match the intentions of its creators if you have a Blu-ray player.

Though when WWII in HD aired on History (see Episode Guide below) the stated running time was 10 hours, the home version has a run time of seven hours and 35 minutes because there are no commercial breaks or channel promos.


Episode 1: Darkness Falls
Original Air Date-15 November 2009

Episode 2: Hard Way Back
Original Air Date-15 November 2009

Episode 3: Bloody Resolve
Original Air Date-16 November 2009

Episode 4: Battle Stations
Original Air Date-16 November 2009

Episode 5: Day of Days
Original Air Date-17 November 2009

Episode 6: Point of No Return
Original Air Date-17 November 2009

Episode 7: Striking Distance
Original Air Date-18 November 2009

Episode 8: Glory and Guts
Original Air Date-18 November 2009

Episode 9: Edge of the Abyss
Original Air Date-19 November 2009

Episode 10: End Game
Original Air Date-19 November 2009

WWII in HD: Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Set

On November 15, 2011, two years after WWII in HD aired on History and over a year since the 10-part series was “dropped” on DVD, A&E Home Video released WWII in HD: Collector’s Edition, a box set that consists of four Blu-ray discs (BDs) packaged in an oversized “Army” green cloth-covered outer box which houses a pressed cardboard “digibook” inner box. 

Official History Channel promo video for WWII in HD: The Air War.

Inside the digibook box, Discs One and Two contain the original WWII in HD series; each BD presents five episodes of the Emmy-winning documentary in 1080p high definition and 5.1 surround sound.

 Disc Three features an unrelated to WWII in HD supplement, The Battle for Iwo Jima, a 48-minute (sans commercials) look at the battle made famous by Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of the second flag raising on Mt. Suribachi. Though it, too, takes color combat footage from 1945 and presents it in high definition, The Battle of Iwo Jima takes a more traditional Big Picture approach to its narrative rather than keep to the main series’ “as told by eyewitnesses” storytelling technique.

Sure, as in most traditional war documentaries, The Battle for Iwo Jima gives individual participants some air time, but in essence this documentary focuses on strategy, logistics, and the thorny issue of whether Operation Detachment, as the invasion was code-named, was militarily necessary.

Disc Four presents 2010’s WWII in HD sequel, WWII in HD: The Air War. Made by the same creative team behind the original 2009 series, WWII in HD: The Air War should have been more aptly called WWII in HD: The Eighth Air Force Goes to War.

Rob Lowe, who had participated in the first series as the voice of war correspondent and Presidential speechwriter Robert Sherrod, takes over the narrator’s role from Gary Sinise. And because this time the focus is on one organization – the United States Army’s Eighth Air Force, director Sammy Jackson and writers Bruce Kennedy, Alec Michod, and Liz Reph follow the trials and tribulations of four Americans – bombardier Joe Armanini (Casey Affleck), P-47 fighter pilot Steve Pisanos (Sean Astin), B-17 pilot John Gibbons (Chris O'Donnell), and Stars and Stripes correspondent Andy Rooney (Elijah Wood).

Although the scope of WWII in HD: The Air War is limited to the three-year period between the Eighth Air Force’s activation in Savannah, Georgia with a total of seven Army Air Force personnel and the bomber campaign that involved one of the mightiest air forces ever assembled and paved the way for the D-Day invasion, it is faithful to the original series’ approach. Once again, we get a personal perspective from the men who went up to the skies over German-occupied Europe and faced off against the Luftwaffe’s fighters and flew through deadly flak barrages to take the war to the enemy.

The supplement is more poignant because the real Andy Rooney – seen in the contemporary segments of the documentary – died on November 4, 2011, 11 days before this collector’s edition box set hit store shelves. Rooney had participated in the interview portions of WWII in HD: The Air War during his last year as a CBS commentator – some readers of this review may remember Rooney as the curmudgeonly guy who, in the “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes, offered satirical comments about trivial everyday things.

Here, you can tell that Rooney’s World War II experiences still haunt him when he speaks to the camera, even though he was proud of his service as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, the Army’s official newspaper for the troops in Europe and the other theaters of war.

Obviously, WWII in HD: Collector’s Edition is a good Blu-ray release. It goes without saying, though, that the quality of the images is not pristine or “so clear and vivid that you will feel that you are in the thick of battle. Getting film that is nearly 70 years old to look like it was shot by a digital camera is, of course impossible, especially when you are talking about footage taken with small (16 mm) handheld cameras. The film used, of course, is real 1940s vintage color stock, so it’s not as though Lou Reda Productions colorized black-and-white footage. But the images are grainy, dirty in places, and often scratched or otherwise damaged.

That having been said, I must say that if the video images are not “virtual reality” immersive, the sound mix certainly is. On a 1080p HD television hooked up to a decent 5.1 home theater system, WWII in HD proves its worth. The sounds of battle and audio tracks attached to footage – which was originally silent when shot – of events such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speeches to the Congress and whatnot are expertly mixed by sound designer Allison Casey and her team of sound mixers and editors.

Naturally, since this is a series made by an American cable network (A&E Networks) for a primarily American audience, much of the story is told from a U.S. point of view. The campaigns and battles depicted in WWII in HD – especially those in the Pacific Theater tended to involve larger numbers of U.S. forces than those of the other Allies. Nevertheless, the contributions of Britain, the Soviet Union, and – to some extent – France and other Allied nations, are referred to, even if they are mentioned in passing.