From variety.com:

And from The Hollywood Reporter, news on the cast. I’d watch this for David Simon and Ed Burns alone. But it also has an interesting cast, including Lee Tergesen from Oz. It won’t be a sixth season of The Wire, but I think it could be pretty awesome.

Here's the book it’s based on.

I remember reading an article that said it'll probably air near the end of 2008. Lee Tergesen is playing Evan Wright, the author of the original book. It'll interesting to see Simon take on a subject outside of Baltimore. His straightforward, journalistic, non-preachy style will be a welcome contrast to most of the Mid-East set films that Hollywood's putting out currently. I'm really looking forward to this. Once The Wire is gone, HBO's upcoming miniseries such as this, John Adams, and The Pacific War are the only things on the channel that I'm looking forward to.

I bought the book off eBay and before it airs I intend to read it. I sat through Lee Tergesen on that horrific TNT series Wanted, so I think it proves I can watch him in anything.

I didn't realize his part was so big - that makes me happy for him.



But did you sit through the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Beginning????

Bumping this thread because a trailer for this was shown following the finale for The Wire. Looks like it's coming in July, which was sooner than I was expecting it. It's looking pretty good.

Bumping this thread again because the show's HBO page has been given a spiffy new update with all the released trailers so far along with various wallpapers. It's also now got an official premiere date of July 13. In addition, the first two episodes were recently screened at the Nashville Screenwriters Conference. Here's a nice review of those episodes.

Now, come on Wireheads! Isn't about time we start talking up this project? We can't all still be burnt out from the now 3 months old Wire finale, can we?

First time I saw the promo on HBO I thought "Oh, no! Ziggy went to Iraq." I'll likely have to remind myself throughout not to call him Ziggy.

I was interested to see that Susanna White is listed as a director. She's known for Masterpiece Theatre series like Bleak House and Jane Eyre. Here's to branching out...

A very positive and intelligent review of the first two episodes from the most unlikely of places: Ain't It Cool News.

Apparently someone's leaked a scene of the show. I wonder if any others will come out?

HBO has posted seven 2-3 minute character snippets on YouTube:

Evan Wright

Sgt. Antonio "Poke" Espera

Lt. Nate Fick

Sgt. Brad "Iceman" Colbert

Lance Cpl. James Trombley

Lt. Col. Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando

Cpl. Ray Person

I'm even more excited about this show after seeing "Making Generation Kill" on HBO this weekend. It looks like it's going to be fantastic.

Back in March, "Day to Day" on NPR had a great interview with Evan Wright and Sgt. Rudy Reyes. Definitely worth a listen.

Time to get nitty and gritty! So did Ziggy bulk up for this show or what? He was skinny as a rail in Season 2 of The Wire. I noticed from the promos he doesn't have that Bawlmer accent.

Some pretty detailed episode descriptions can be found by perusing HBO's schedule for the next two months. I'd warn of spoilers, but since this is a nonfiction adaptation, I don't think the word applies. Here they are:

1. Get Some

2. The Cradle of Civilization

3. Screwby

4. Combat Jack

5. A Burning Dog

6. Stay Frosty

7. Pending

HBO's On Demand channel just added the character shorts that were on YouTube, as well as a short about the Humvees they're using, and the fifteen-minute, "Making Generation Kill," that kenyaj mentioned. They're listed under "Boot Camp" rather than the show title for some reason.

"Making Generation Kill" had some quick shots of Evan Wright talking about the show, with Lee Tergeson (who plays him) sitting next to him, looking at him as intensely as if he were going to devour him. It made me laugh, anyway. Tergeson then describes the show as a road trip movie, but with ambushes instead of flat tires.

Also, there are a couple of good interviews with Ed Burns in the Sunday NY Times, and in Salon.

I went to a special screening of Generation Kill last night at which David Simon, Evan Wright, and Eric Kochner (sp?) spoke and did a Q&A. They showed episode 2 "Cradle of Civilization" and I am glad to be able to say that it is effing brilliant. Also, the actors are perfectly cast (even Ziggy - his character drove me nuts on The Wire, but he is surprisingly likeable in Generation Kill).

During the Q&A Simon and Wright said that the trend in war journalism is to focus on the officers and the higher ups and then interview "the grunts" for colorful quotes and to fill in gaps. With Generation Kill, Wright and Simon wanted to focus on the lower ranks (staff sargeants and below), the 23 and 24 year olds who are forced to make to make instant life or death decisions.

I had never seen Simon speak in person before, but he was fantastic. I now have a major brain crush on him.

I just finished reading the book...well, I sped through it and will probably want to go through it again before the show starts. I liked it a lot. I am wondering how it will translate into a show. There are a few brief flashbacks and flashforwards in the book, as well asides that give context to what is happening and asides that are relatively unrelated to what is happening. I know that The Corner had flashbacks, but they were kind of meditative and contemplative, while some of the flashbacks and flashforwards came right before or after (or even during) some intense battle scene. I am also wondering whether there will be clues as to what will happen later, as the book concludes just as the insurgency is picking up.

I am actually quite interested to see how James portrays Person. Maybe it was because I heard that he would be playing Person, but it seemed like a perfect fit as I was reading. He is sort of like Ziggy in terms of his mouth, but more competent and less prone to acting out.

It looks like Michael Shoup had some issues with the book. He does not mention the show, so I have no way of knowing if Simon and Co. had talked to him. I am curious as to how faithful the show is to the source material, given how some of the people in the story may have a different perspective from Wright's.

Yeah, I read that piece about a week ago. While his concerns are in many ways legitimate, he seems to be primarily taking issue with the fact that the book is written from a defined perspective that is different from his, that of the junior enlisted men. Most of his issues aren't with the actual accuracy of events, but how they're described, which will be different for just about every individual. Quite a few of criticisms are really just matters of opinion. For example, he thinks Ferrando comes off as careerist, but personally, I thought Ferrando came off pretty well in the book. Sure, the stuff with the grooming standard was a little much, but he makes a reasonable defense of it and he had a clear understanding of the combat & warfare. Finally, one thing he said seemed simply nonsensical when he implied that a statement made by Wright's editor has anything to with what's actually written in the book.

Regarding the series itself, I think wanderklutz's report from the recent screening and Q&A pretty says that Simon actually embraced this grunt perspective that Shoup takes such issue with:

While I kind of thought that Ferrando was a bit of a jerk, he seemed pretty good otherwise, particularly compared to how Captain American, Casey Kasem, and Encino Man were portrayed.

In terms of the grunt perspective, I was more thinking along the lines of the grunts in the story as opposed to grunts in general. Things described in the book may happen, but they did not necessarily happen when described. I wouldn't want a Terry Hanning situation.

How sad, the forum was closed just when I finally started to understand how the posting works here. And most of the world has yet to see the series.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I am still figuring out whether I liked the show very much or did it just bother me a lot. I have to say, Generation Kill left me confused, exhausted, emotionally drained and without any easy answers. Like life itself, I guess.

About Shoup's post:

I only scanned through that the first time. Reading it later I read a couple comments. One from someone who claimed to be Boom Boom, which we'll remember as the callsign for a helicopter that carreid Ferrando. Weather this is genuine or not is something I can't attest to.

Another one, although labeled Anonymous, was signed by Evan and consisted of a lengthy counter-argument against Shoup's. Does anyone know if either of these two comments are the real thing?

Wright's comment is legit.

David Simon will be on [i]The Colbert Report[i] on Wednesday, presumably to talk about the GK DVDs coming out in six weeks or so. It will be interesting to see how he plays off of Stephen.

Here's the first DVD review that I've come across. It looks like they managed to line up some pretty good commentaries:

Stark Sands has won a Bayfield Award for his performance as Ferdinand in The Tempest

My GK DVDs showed up from Amazon today. Squeee! Sorry... Hoo-rah! Stay frosty.

Congrats to Stark! And, I swear, that man does not age; he looks about 15 years old in every picture I've seen.

AllAboutMBTV, I got the disc with the extras on it from Netflix yesterday--have you watched any of them yet? I watched Eric Ladin's video diaries (fun--I had no idea the cast had to execute a mission before graduating from boot camp) and the making of special. They were both really interesting and I liked seeing which actor was really like his character IRL and who was vastly different (Alexander Skarsgard seemed much more gregarious than Colbert, from the few glimpses I saw). I just wish there were more extras.

I haven't yet, Emma, but I will during the Christmas break. I remember watching the panel discussion with the actual Marines (ack... I almost called them "soldiers") on HBO On Demand during the run of GK and being amazed at how the casting department hired actors who were largely very physically like their Marine counterparts (Ray/Ransome notwithstanding).

But Alexander "Iceman" Skarsgard is still my TV Boyfriend (Alexander "Eric Northman" S., not so much -- I gave "True Blood" six or seven eps, and I just couldn't get into it, despite some serious hotness involved).

Looks like Brad Colbert has done a photoshoot and interview for Ride Magazine December edition. The pictures are fabulous.

Is it anywhere online? I am guessing that it was from last month.

...aaaaaand I guessed incorrectly. Serves me right for not reading the comments.

MBTV, I think the panel discussion is an extra, too. I missed it the first time on HBO so I'm excited to watch it now. I had no idea how different James Ransone looks from the real Ray Person--what was the story behind that?

I also watched "Combat Jack" last night with the audio commentary of Alexander Skarsgard, James Ransone and the director Simon Cellan Jones. It was really great but there were many times where I wished Cellan Jones would have just shut up and let AS and JR tell stories. Usually I like when directors give technical details about certain scenes but AS and JR were so funny and dorky and chatty that CJ's long winded comments irritated me.

I got the impression that JR is not really a big fan of Lee Tergeson and also, there is apparently video of AS full frontal from the scene where Brad hops out of the Humvee to take a dump (and moons the camera a bit). AS seemed fine with it, he laughed and said he's Swedish and Swedes love nudity. Those two guys were very cute and seemed like good friends.

It's killing me there are only 2 pages for GK! I am in the middle of it (also watched Combat Jack last night). I am telling you, full frontal AS might give me an actual heart attack. He is SO FINE.

This is why I'm not usually a fan of audio commentaries -- because I want them to hush up so I can watch/listen to the show. But for AS? I'm all ears. And I'd be all eyes if that full-frontal clip ever surfaced. The man is a walkin' streaka sex.

And DrSparkles, there was a lot more chatter about GK here when it was airing and being recapped. Good times...

He and JR really are adorable during the commentary, MBTV. In between Cellan Jones' long winded speeches about sound editing, they tell some really funny stories (my faves included the ones about JR freaking out over seeing AS naked from the waist down during the dump scene, how they compared themselves to parents--JR was the housewife, AS was the dad, Billy Lush was the unruly kid, Pawel Szajda was the dog with its head out the window and Lee Tergeson was the neighbor's kid who somehow came along, and how much they both seemed to adore Rudy). They both jokingly complained whenever they weren't on screen--I forgot how much Alpha storyline there was in this one.

DrSparkles, you can find the old threads (that were active when the show was airing) archived here. There are threads for each episode and for the major characters. You can't add anything to them at this point, but if there was anything you wanted to discuss, you could copy out of those threads and paste it into a post here.

You can also find Jacob's recaps here. They are very much more than just a narrative of events.

Aside from Colbert's snapping back to being the Iceman & his rant on religion, I'm not sure why Ransone & Skarsgård were chosen/chose to do the commentary on this episode. It sounded like they had recently been to the premiere at Camp Pendleton, so maybe they didn't want to watch 1 & 2 again?

Orion7 Merry Cmas to me!!! thankx

Finally having a chance to watch some of the Gen Kill audio commentaries (!!!); I'm up to episode 4 so far...

Initial thoughts:

I really, really wish they had done two audio commentaries per episode, to get more of the actors and/or real Marine perspectives in the mix. I actually don't mind Cellan Jones' insights on 4; love Burns/Simons/Wright as I do, some of their anecdotes have already been repetitive, so it was nice to hear a different take. I am far more annoyed that Skarsgaard/Ransone are only featured on one commentary, because those two are comedy gold. And I think it would have been interesting to hear from other actors as well...Billy Lush? Chance Kelly?

And speaking of being annoyed, WTF Golden Globes?!?! Not one nomination for Generation Kill? GAH, I'm still angry thinking about that gross oversight.

I've listened to three of the commentaries (episodes 3, 4, & 5). I'm actually pretty content about the marginal representation of actors in the tracks. While they're usually entertaining, I usually find actor commentaries to be lacking in genuine insight. Skarsgard and Ransone were fun to listen to, but you could tell they had pretty much run out of real stuff to say by about the 40 minute mark of the episode. The best one I've heard so far was for episode 3. Stark Sands didn't have much to say, but Wright and Benjamin Busch had so much intelligent stuff to say that it didn't really matter. Busch, in particular, is a really smart guy. His observations had a nice unique perspective, being an ex-Marine officer who was working solely as an actor on this project but who wasn't that far away from the events being portrayed in the series.

As for the Golden Globes, I'm not that shocked. The Globes like to nominate stars, and considering that the most recognizable face on this show was Lee Tergesen, there wasn't much possibility of Globe traction. I'm still reasonably confident that it'll do well at the Emmys since, HBO was smart enough to keep it in a different eligibility period then John Adams, and that there basically won't be any real competition. HBO pretty much wins the best miniseries Emmy every year by default. The actor categories might be a bit more difficult due to lack of name recognition. Recall that The Corner, Simon's previous critically acclaimed miniseries, won Emmys for miniseries, direction, and writing, but didn't get a single acting nomination.

I was watching HBO last night and in between movies they had one of those "here are the great shows we had in 2008" montages on and it heavily featured GK. I'm hoping there's a big campaign for Emmy nods, even though I expect most to come in areas that are more for sound, directing, etc., rather than acting (not that I don't think certain actors deserve it!).

ITA. Those two cracked me up, especially when they would go off on little tangents and it almost seemed like they forgot they were being recorded.

My attention has been diverted to the Emmys. I feel better. Thanks!



I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but I do agree that actor commentaries can be really touch and go. On the flip side, I've heard some pretty horrendous (non-GK) producer commentaries (like when they read a speech? hate that)...in any case, I still think it's nice to have as many perspectives as possible represented, which is why I would have preferred having more than one per episode. Or how about at least one commentary on 6?

Re: Ransone's Lee Tergeson digs. I didn't think he was that serious, I'd even bet they're friends. Kind of like towards the end of that commentary when he's acting really indignant about Evan Wright not wanting him to play Person, and he says something to the affect of "we're friends now, so I can say that."

I got the DVD set for Christmas. I am happy with it.

I do wish, though that there were more commentaries, and at least one for episode six. The ones with the actors or crew were fine, but my favourite was the one with Evan, Eric and, Dirty Earl. Personally, I would have liked to hear stuff from Dave McGraw or Ray Griego. Maybe even from Stephen Ferrando or Craig Schwetje, but I am guessing that Ferrando wants nothing to do with the project and Craig may be just boring. But Dave seemed intelligent enough, just in over his head and too wrapped up in the moment. And Griego has been pretty open about his opposition to the book and it may have been amusing to hear him pick apart every frigging thing on the show, especially Fick. He also had apparently redeemed himself afterwards, so it may have been nice to have had the DVD set acknowledge it somewhere.

I did like the making of documentary, the marine conversation, and the video diary. I found it interesting that it was Ladin doing it as opposed to Lutz. I did not quite get if the moto video subplot was a real thing or a fictionalised version of moto video. I could not figure out if Simon meant that Lilley was originally meant to not be seen or if the person shooting the video was meant to be anonymous. Ladin did seem to be a nice guy, which kind of altered the way I saw Chaffin, just a little.

I can sort of understand why Wright initially had problems with Ransone as person. They look and sound practically nothing like each other. Sure, J. Salome Martinez looks and sounds nothing like Jeffrey John Carisalez either, but Person was a major major character. The binocular gag would never work with Ransone. I would have had reservations about Ransone as well if I was Wright.

I saw Pappy in a BMW commercial the other day! Well, not the real Pappy, but the actor who played him. It was so weird--he looked about 10 years younger and without the serious North Carolina accent I had a hard time figuring out where I knew him from. (And my exclamation of "holy hell, that's Pappy!" in front of non-GK watchers cemented my status as the crazy one in the family so, thanks again, GK. I wasn't weird enough before when I was spouting off Marine terms like "we're oscar mike" or "screwby".)