Product Details

• Actors: Peter Coyote, Bob Ballard, John Ford, Tom Brokaw, Carl Carson
• Writers: Michael Dolan, Frank Nesbitt, James Barrat
• Producers: Michael Dolan, Stephen Burns
• Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
• DVD Release Date: October 1, 2002
• Run Time: 233 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006G8K7
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,724 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Ultimate National Geographic World War II Collection (Untold Stories/The Battle for Midway/Pearl Harbor - Legacy of Attack)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

ULTIMATE WORLD WAR II COLLECTION - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Out of their Element?, March 13, 2005

By 

Randy Keehn (Williston, ND United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Ultimate National Geographic World War II Collection (Untold Stories/The Battle for Midway/Pearl Harbor - Legacy of Attack) (DVD)

I was looking for some of those old National Geographic nature specials when I came upon this selection of WWII DVD's. I had a lot of respect for the quality of the National Geographic specials based on what I'd seen on TV over the years. I expected the same when I ordered this set of DVD's. I have to admit that the quality of the production is very good. It's the overall content that disappointed me.

The first DVD I watched was titled "Untold Stories of WWII". It had several sideline stories about supposedly little known developments during the war. The main subject was the Nazi Germany early-stage development towards an atomic bomb. The events primarily take place in Norway and you probably would enjoy watching the movie "Heroes of Telemark" more than this segment. There's another on the development of the other super weapons that Germany developed towards the end of the war. There's is also a segment on the Japanese mini-sub which segues into the next DVD I watched.

The second DVD of this set that I watched was "Pearl Harbor-Legacy of Attack". This and the final DVD of the series apparently grew out of the funding that the National Geographic Society provided for a couple of undersea explorations. One was the search for a Japanese mini-sub supoosedly lost during 12/7/41 and the other was for the USS Yorktown lost after the Battle for Midway. The modern day underwater searches were a questionable aspect of the Pearl Harbor and Midway DVD's. I enoy the views of sunken ships that have become technologically possible in the last decade or so. However, they did seem to detract from the recounting of the history of the two battles. There is a lot of good original films of the two battles, good narration and outstanding reminiscences by surviving veterans.

The Pearl Harbor DVD, I felt, was the most worthwhile of the three in the set. Frankly, I'd recommend that you save money and just buy that one. It gives a better overview of the battle than does the Midway DVD. The one on Midway seemed rather sporatic in its' narrative.

I'm still looking for those great National Geographic nature specials that I saw when I was growing up. I'm not sure what to make of the National Geographic's journey into the realm of history. Maybe if the underwater discoveries are put on the center stage and the rest was just used as background, I might have appreciated these videos more. As it was, the two battle DVD's seemed to be trying to tell two seperate stories simultaneously and I didn't think that worked too well.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "regifting"; "used"; "scratches on DVDs" -$3.00 Special Return?, June 3, 2011

By 

Terrence P. Urbanis (Hines, OR 97738) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Ultimate National Geographic World War II Collection (Untold Stories/The Battle for Midway/Pearl Harbor - Legacy of Attack) (DVD)

If people are going to return DVD purchases to get the $3.00 credit*, then Amazon has an absolute moral responsibility to indicate on the web page that the product is used/returned.

*I think this is incredibly stupid. You should give it to your public library or other do good entity in your community.

I bought the Criterion edition of "Seven Samurai" (kind of expensive for me) but there is no way in hell am I going to return it for a $3.00 coupon!Seven Samurai: The Criterion Collection (Three-Disc Edition). There is a segment where one of the true samurai knocks off 3 or 4 bandits lickity split and the young wannabe samurai goes to him and in Japanese with english sub-titles, blurts out "you were magnificant!". So, we don't have to ponder how American producers came up with the name, "The Magnificant Seven" for their Mexican based movie.

Amazon people: When are you going to put a spell checker in the review section?