Generation Kill: Iraq and Roll

Stark Sands and Alexander Skarsgard as Fick and Colbert. / HBO photo: Paul Schiraldi

As I mentioned last week, I'll consider doing a weekly Generation Kill post if it seems like the miniseries is generating sufficient interest out there, but having just reviewed it, I'll go light the first week, mention a few things I couldn't fit in my review, then turn it over to you:

* As has been widely mentioned—and as I confirmed by thumbing back and forth to the book while I watched—the miniseries stays very faithful to Evan Wright's writing (not surprising considering he helped adapt it), right down to many stretches of verbatim dialogue. The bits, however, where the series expands on the dialogue in the script are often the most conspicuous. I'm thinking here of Person's extemporized response to the peace-loving schoolkid who wrote a letter to the Marines. His response is in the same spirit of what he says in the book:

"Hey, little tyke," Person shouts. "What does this say on my shirt? 'U.S. Marine!' I wasn't born on some hippie-faggot commune. I'm a death-dealing killer. In my free time I do push-ups until my knuckles bleed. Then I sharpen my knife."

The speech in the series, though, is a little too perfect, distractingly so. On the other hand, there are similar arias (e.g., some of Espera's rants about racism and American culture) that more or less exactly match the book.

* Nancy Franklin's review in the latest New Yorker is puzzled as to why Simon and Burns chose this material to remake. But the big parallel between Gen Kill and The Wire becomes abundantly clear, and pretty soon: whether you're a Marine, a cop or a drug dealer, the chances are that most of your bosses are idiots, and there's not much that you can do about it.

* Second parallel: "The Army goes to war, they bring it all. But Marines--we make do." More with less.

* All of which is to say that, while the miniseries is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the war, it also generally places blame higher up the chain of command than the level at which we spent most of our time. So while the first episode closes on the unit refusing to accept the surrender of the Republican Guard troops—against the requirements of the Geneva Convention—it also shows the Marines' regret about doing so, on orders coming down from above.

* Incidentally, for those of you who weren't watching the episode with a copy of the book in hand, how confusing (or not) did you find keeping the names and faces straight?