Hi,
I hope this question isn't too "off-topic" for this subreddit. Basically, I haven't seen the series yet, but wanted to watch it as I want to learn more about the Vietnam War. Though I've been hearing some mixed things about it. Some say it is very good and pretty thorough, others are criticizing it. This article in particular seems to take issue with it's supposed lack of focus on civilian costs of the war, and a lot of people in the comments say it gives a biased view of the US perspective (that it's not critical enough of US government and military) and that it glosses over or ignores Vietnam's perspective on the war.
Has anyone here seen it and can give their thoughts? Note, I'm not asking for someone to list out all the nitpicked minor inaccuracies and little details. I'm just looking for big picture things. Obviously almost every documentary has some issues, but I just want to know if there are any glaring fundamental flaws before I spend hours watching it.
Thanks!
It seems like any responses here will be more in the nature of discussion or opinion, so perhaps this should be moved to the Friday Free-for-All.
Based on my reading and recollection of the era, I found it a good, balanced overview. We heard the voices of the Vietnamese in a way we haven't before, and the human suffering on both sides was ever present. We got the French colonial and World War II backstory that has often seemed too hard to understand. We got the wearying picture of South Vietnamese corruption and ineptitude that wasn't fully understood by Americans at the time. We were reminded of the severe doubts within the Johnson White House, but books by Clark Clifford and Robert McNamara made those public knowledge two decades ago. I thought it did a good job of weaving the antiwar movement into the timeline of policy decisions that finally led to the US's exhaustion and, essentially, abandonment.
As one who's been struggling for 20 years with the question "why were we there?" I hoped for additional illumination, but never really heard anything that we didn't already know. If anything, I thought the documentary gave short shrift to the "domino theory." We couldn't know at the time that Vietnam wouldn't be the pivotal battle against international Communism, or that Khrushchev's 1956 threat "we will bury you" could safely be ignored.