Carrier

This documentarty is good. What I am writing about is Amazon's HORRIBLE Unbox Video Player. First it took it nearly 19 hours to download 11 Gig of movie on a 1.5mbps connection. The player will not use a network drive so if you want to watch it on 2 PCs (which is legal) you have to endure the downloads twice. I will never ever download an Unbox video again and have told everyone I know that it would be a very bad decision for them to do so. Amazon ought to be ashamed to present a product like this.

DON'T Download this or any other unbox video. If you want to see this find it on DVD (maybe through Public TV directly) or some other means. This is NOT the way

My wife's name may appear as the author of this review.

I was on the maiden cruise for the Nimitz back in 1975, a NATO cruise to the North Atlantic following workups in the Caribbean. I was then on the first full Med cruise in 1976.

Much has changed aboard the ship, and yet so much is still the same. The mess deck (chow hall) looks a lot nicer, the workout area far exceeds the dinky gym we had, there is no comparison to our little stores and what is there now, and of course no phone calls or email. And most notably, no women.

But beyond that I felt like I could nearly recognize many of the sailors and marines portrayed in the show. The same kind of emotions, doubts, enthusiasm, and bonehead actions were there 30 years ago as are there now. The documentary did a wonderful job of showing what life on a carrier is like.

And that seemed to be the point of the show. There are other documentaries, many of which get rather boring, that go through and talk about all the technical aspects of a carrier, but you get the feeling the people there are just a highly evolved ant taking care of the machine. This documentary showed the people and how it is a microcosm of America. Very rightly so we often referred to it as the small town of Nimitz, Virginia.

I look forward to passing this DVD set on to my daughter and her family so they can see where I spent a year and change and understand a bit of what my life was like.

RVAH-9 Hoot Owls - HHMF!

This DVD looked like it was going to be interesting, but then the soundtract started: bad pseudo-rock with inane lyrics played continuously just loud enough to interfere with the dialogue. I returned it in spite of the $17 loss. Don't buy it unless you like to listen to Grand Funk Railroad at full volume while trying to balance your check-book.

I highly recommend this DVD set. The story and production was excellent and provided a real sense of what it is to be in the military. Very well done!

Carrier is a well produced DVD - no question.

The problem, as I see it, is that there is far too much repetition and far, far, too much extraneous material. The endless 'interviews' with - mostly - the same individuals fails to provide a true overall picture of the thinking of the crew - which numbered over 5,000 souls.

Far to many of those interviewed made me, personally, ashamed to be proud of a Navy and seriously doubtful whether some of the crew of this vast Carrier would perform adequately in times of a 'real' war. The tremendous naivety of more than a few crew members was compounded by the demonstrated ignorance of 'normal' everyday life and living. In this, it must be stressed, it was largely the 'lower deck' and younger crew members who caused this perspective to become most evident. The Officers and Senior Ranks certainly appeared a much better educated and cosmopolitan group of individuals.

The whole programme could have been contained, without loss of interesting or important comment, in a three hour - maximum four hour - programme/DVD.

The actual working life of those aboard was very interesting - but seriously curtailed.

Sadly, for I was keenly anticipating viewing the DVD, I found myself glad it was over! 2 stars out of 5 is the maximum I can, with any conscious, accord this DVD.

Incidentally, the BBC did a similar programme some 30 or so years ago. It was far more to the point - and, therefore, more interesting.