The Legendary Actor - Chapter 54

The ninth episode of “The Pacific” was a real sensation after it aired.

This episode was about the famous Battle of Iwo Jima, but the movies “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of Our Fathers” had already shown that moment in history from different angles, so “The Pacific” avoided the battle itself and re-examined the repercussions of it from a different perspective.

While walking through the ruins of the war, Eugene accidentally finds a family dead in a house by the roadside. It had only a wailing baby inside, a remnant of that family.

The subtle contrast between numbness and indifference in the face of an infant, and tenderness and emotion in the face of a dying woman, has ignited a firestorm of discussion, not only among viewers on the Internet, but also among, professional and not, film critics.

As Kyle Smith said in the Wall Street Journal, the subtlety and menace, the depth and thickness, that Renly showed in this scene was not only amazing, but was also the sublimation of the whole show.

Hollywood Times stated, “After its controversial opening, “The Pacific” has shown a surprising depth of thought, with its meditation on human nature, the scars of war, and the return of faith once again producing a rare classic!”

Vanity Fair, on the other hand, stated, “Low and high, “The Pacific” went through a thrilling roller coaster ride, but as exciting as the whole thing was, the lows and peaks near the end just bombarded the audience. The wounds of war are unabashedly presented to everyone. Renly Hall’s performance stares straight to the very soul!”

The New York Times commented, “This is a work that makes one re-examine oneself and the veterans, as we see the cruelty and horror of war without looking at the soldiers’ wounds. As Renly Hall’s Eugene Sledge tenderly embraces the dying woman, the blending of life and death is the first time the audience feels how hard it is to be alive.”

…

For the first time, the authoritative press was on the same track as the Yahoo community, and while most of the media still refused to give credit to Renly as Wall Street Journal did, insisting that the success of the show was the strength of the series as a whole, especially the weight of ideas, they were still unanimous in acknowledging that Renly’s performance was the highlight of the second half of the series, and that the twenty-year-old newcomer shone like a comet.

The IMDB score soared to 8.5, and the press roundup was an unbelievable 87 – slightly ahead of “Band of Brothers”, and with only one episode of “The Pacific” left to go, HBO breathed a sigh of relief, not only because professional critics and netizens alike had agreed to give the series their stamp of approval, but also because subscriber satisfaction had returned to normal levels and even surpassed expectations – the show was a great success!

According to HBO’s official feedback, subscribers are more satisfied with “Pacific War” than with “Band of Brothers”. This is an unexpected result, even considering the negative feedback at the opening.

As stated in a previous Yahoo community post, “The Pacific” is a miniseries, not a movie, and should not be judged purely by the content of one episode, but as a whole; similarly, “The Pacific” focuses on three individuals, and as long as viewers can connect with the three characters, the series is likely to have more impact on viewers than “Band of Brothers”.

When “The Pacific” is fully aired, it is likely that the series will have a greater impact on viewers than “Band of Brothers”.

The enthusiasm of the netizens was finally released somewhat.

At the end of the story, Eugene sits alone and lonely under the sycamore tree in front of his house, staring blankly at the reddening sky in the distance. Although he survived, he is now only a broken wandering soul, the once enthusiastic, energetic, sensitive, determined and hopeful son of the Sledge family, left forever on the bloodstained battlefield.

The frenzy has completely exploded the Yahoo community, with a record number of responses to the discussion posts, and users eager to express their views on “The Pacific”, on the war itself, and on Eugene Sledge, and then to find like-minded people to share it with. This wave of debate and discussion has far surpassed that of “Band of Brothers”.

If “Band of Brothers” brought people’s blood to boil, then “The Pacific” brought people’s minds to a cold waterfall.

The IMDB rating for “The Pacific” has surpassed 100,000 people with a bang, and the score has stayed steady at 8.6, making it one of the top seventy on the list of two hundred and fifty classic episodes.

If we compare it with the drama “Band of Brothers”, which scored 9.5, this score is nothing to brag about, but for “The Pacific”, which had a bad start, this is already a happy ending. It remains to be seen where the score will go once the DVD is released and until more viewers see the series. It took nine years for “Band of Brothers” to become the number one IMDB series, but “The Pacific” still had a long way to go.

In 2001, “Band of Brothers” created a frenzy of interest in the war drama, and when it was released on DVD, it set a new sales record for the series that still had stood for nine years and had yet to be broken, which shows how influential the series was.

However, the real success of “Band of Brothers” is the fame that it brought to Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ partnership, because it is the success of the series as a whole, not of any single individual. As time passed, one could see that the series featured many familiar actors, including Damian Lewis, Kirk Acevedo, Michael Fassbender, Tom Hardy, Simon Pegg, James McAvoy and so on.

When you revisit “Band of Brothers” years later, you will see that it was a star factory, and that every familiar face was a surprise. But the fact is that for a long time after 2001, none of these actors were able to benefit from the “Band of Brothers” magic – no hits, no offers, no careers, none of it.

In 2010, “The Pacific” reawakened people’s enthusiasm for the war genre, and the Yahoo community was buzzing from the very first episode, challenging the nerves of millions of viewers with its upward and downward curve of development, that still managed to create its own story of “masterpiece”! While there is still debate as to whether the set can be called a classic, there is no denying that Tom and Steven once again delivered a great performance.

However, this time, “The Pacific” had one actor who stood out, “Eugene Sledge,” a character who supported two-thirds of the series and brought tears to the eyes of millions of viewers, especially in the touching scene in Episode IX, which made viewers waiting for the live broadcast cry.

At one point, people began to ask: who is playing Eugene Sledge? Who was the actor who gave a calm, atmospheric performance?

Yes, his name is Renly Hall, he is a new actor, and he is the heart and soul of “The Pacific”. … This information was already well known at the premiere, through Tom Hanks’ introduction, as a quick search will show it on the news.

Now it seems that Steven and Tom made a desperate gamble that led to the success of “The Pacific”. That risky decision became a wise and discerning choice.

But what about the rest of the information?

Searching the entire Internet, but there is still so little information about Renly that it’s as if the actor literally popped out of a rock, with no personal history, no profile, no resume, not even his birthday – wait, does someone know how old Renly is this year! How old he is exactly?

Such confusion fed even more to that enigmatic mystery. You know, nowadays, when social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are ubiquitous, everyone can become a news source, not to mention personal information, and even the embarrassing things happened in elementary school could be uncovered. As long as Renly’s elementary school classmates or real life friends, after seeing the Internet craze, come forward with some information, that’s enough, the tip of the iceberg can become a breakthrough to unveil the whole picture.

But, no, nothing. Even during the two-and-a-half months that “The Pacific” has been on the air, the Internet has been abuzz with discussion, but still no one had taken the initiative to come forward with information about Renly.

Weird, this is really too weird. Was Renly living in a backward countryside before? The people there are so simple, everyone doesn’t like gossiping, doesn’t like the Internet, and the news is isolated from them, they won’t even notice the craze. This is the single most plausible explanation at the moment.

The Internet discussion hadn’t suffered any setbacks, but rather had intensified, and all indications were that the biggest winner of “The Pacific” was Renly. It was the success of the series, and it was the rise of Renly.

But how long will this fervor last? Netizens are always forgetful, and fads come and go even faster. What can such a fever bring to Reny? The enthusiasm of the Internet has only a limited impact on the movie industry, especially since “The Pacific” is just a mini-series, with no box office pressure, no word-of-mouth burden, and probably no awards season involved.