Search - WWI War: The War to End All Wars on DVD

Jim Z. (zdvd) from WAUNETA, NE
Reviewed on 7/16/2015...

This documentary had some good information and was worthwhile in some aspects. For a WWI novice or even for the knowledgeble it highlighted many points of view and details. Overall, however, it is a disappointment. It was not a cohesive coverage based on a comprehensive overview of the war. There was no real rhyme or reason for topics presented and no attempt to coordinate on aspect of the war with another. It got worse as it went along; there were mistakes and contradictions about things previously said and covered, some films were shown over & over again with no reason at all. It got hard to watch near the end.

2 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.

Steve B. (smb900) from MARIETTA, PA
Reviewed on 8/21/2010...

This is not one of the better made documentaries that I have seen on WWI. It looks to be very cheaply made & the narrator mispronounces many names. I watched this once & that was enough for me.

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Great information and entertainment

Roger Long | Port Clinton, OH USA | 10/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The salvation of a dismal education system may be the Internet, the DVD and the interactive CD-ROM. Thos set of DVDs on the first World War is a case in point. As a teacher of history I know that if one is to inform a student, a certain amount of entertainment must go with the facts. This set meets both criteria.



This may not be the ultimate, in-depth set of DVDs on the subject, but it is a superb start. It should be viewed by students and then discussed. The disks put this war in perspective with other events in Europe at the time of the war and in the decades leading up to it. After all, the war did not come out of the blue one day in Sarajevo.



But this is also for the adult student with even a modest interest in history."

Pretty Good and Different

David Ahlstrom | Hong Kong | 05/26/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have several DVD series on World War One. The Complete Story of World War I, narrated by Robert Ryan is an older series and dated in some ways, but is pretty good. The more recent "The First World War," based on historian Hew Strachan's new work on the war, is also very good and covers some different material. This series, "WWI: The War to End All Wars" differs from the other two in some ways. That is, you can own all three and learn something different from each one. Having said that, this series could have been a lot better in many ways. The narration is so-so in that the narrator mispronounces a number of names and places. The series editor should have caught those mistakes. The music is inappropriate; sometimes it reminds me of Ken Burns' "The War" which inexplicably used very slow jazz and other inappropriate music when describing a battle or related events. This series does the same, and it can be distracting. The theme song of this series is a fast, happy, Dixieland tune - very inappropriate for the material covered. Another weakness in the documentary that could have been a signficant strength are the interviews with several WWI veterans and some recordings of actual high-level officials (or nearly contemporaneous readings from their speeches and writings). For some odd reason, these excellent interviewees were not identified in the documentary. Sometimes you could figure out who they were from the script, but you had to listen carefully. It would have been good for the series editor to put the names of the interviewee at the bottom of the screen. If they didn't know who was speaking, they probably could have figured it out from the script or from historians familar with these figures (one appeared in World At War also and was a staff officer in the First World War, and wrote up diaries and other narrative accounts of WWII, Sir Edward Spears). Why names were omitted from the DVD is hard to understand. Other aspects of the historical narrative that are better understood today should have been corrected, such as the myth, popularized by Barbara Tuchman, that the generals and their timetables started WWI. The documentary mentioned this, and given that it is a very new production, I would have expected this to be corrected (the origins of the war are more properly rendered in the Hew Strachan DVD, though also covered rather briefly there). Overall, this is a pretty good DVD production with a lot to recommend it. It is ashame that the editor was not much more careful with the narration and other aspects of the production. We are still waiting for the definitive 'World At War'/'Civil War' documentary for WWI - an enormously important event in modern history."

A good effort

john423 | Arlington VA | 05/18/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"
I picked up my copy from a jobber rack at a local supermarket. Given the price I wasn't expecting much but thought may would be worth a gamble compared to the Hollywood dreck in the neighboring bin.



The well considered script, along with the substantial period film footage and inclusion of interviews - culled from an older program - kept my interest and left me ready each following program.



The narration, is far from memorable, though seemingly competent in execution, save the pronunciation problems as pointed out in another review.



I do concur with Mr. Graham in his review on the use of music in the soundtrack which will alter randomly between asynchronous an annoying. Even the music selection for the end credits seems flippant given the subject matter.



For general consumption though these problems can likely be overlooked. This was a good effort by the producers.







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