Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Superb
Review: I remember watching this when I was very small, I was enthralled then, as now. The music at the beginning makes me cry as it is so poignant. Simply the best documentary series ever made. Watch this and learn something.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most comprehensive documentaries about world war.
Review: I think the world at war is the best documentary about world war II I have ever seen. Comprehensive! Deep! and Inspiring! My only complaint, if I have to say, is that it has not put the same efforts documenting what occured in China, Korea, and some other Asian countries during that period. Still, I admire the director and producer's efforts. Lord Lawrence Oliver did a terrific job in narrating.
Rating:
Summary: War is hell...War is brutal...here it is for all to see.
Review: If there is one video history of World War Two worth owning this is it. Between the incredible footage and Olivier's narration, this collection is absolutely riveting. Interviews with soldiers from both sides, civilians from both sides, even Albert Spaer(Hitler's Minister of Industry) place you inside the greatest conflict of our times.Watching this collection will make you rethink your place in the world today. It is something every person should see. Remember.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Series
Review: When investing in any DVD, especially a boxed set, you might ponder the question, "How often will I watch this?" Let me say that your purchase of The World at War will offer you endless viewing opportunities! Besides the 26 original episodes, all of the extra features that were produced afterwards are included in the set. There is so much information generated in over 30 hours of material that you will discover something new with each repeated viewing. Each episode will hold your attention from first to last, and they are efficiently indexed so you can easily review a map or replay a speech. Along side the emotional impact of the pictorial images, you have Carl Davis' moving score, a judicious use of period music, personal accounts from all the major powers, and Sir Laurance's strong narration, making this the most comprehensive documentary on the subject. Now if we can only have World War I, narrated by Robert Ryan, available, we would have the documentary bookends to the two most devastating wars in the 20th century.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: This was a wonderful documentary as originally broadcast, but I'd avoid this product if I had it to do over again: the maker's quality control is awful. Disk 1 skipped badly. And I the same problem others have reported: two copies of one of the five disks (with me, disk 5), and one disk (disk 4) entirely missing.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good. Probably THE documentary set to own
Review: This kept me going for months (in one hour segments at a time). There is so much material presented here and I learned a lot.I wanted to give 4.5 stars and only knock a half off for the sometimes annoying menu (it could have been presented in a more orgnaized fashion, I thought), or other small problems, but half points aren't allowed on the system. Very close to perfect!
Rating:
Summary: World at War documentary mini-series
Review: One of the most impressive, non technical video treatments of the conflict. Reasonably thorough in discussing the percursors, strategies, outcomes, and horrors across the three theatres of war. If you want to understand WWII and do it quickly, this is the series to view!
Rating:
Summary: Somewhat Disappointing
Review: As a student of WWII, and a veteran of Vietnam (USN), I was a bit disappointed in this series. I had originally seen bits and pieces of the series when it aired on PBS in the early 80's and had the expectation that the entire series would be the definative view of WWII (understandedly with a British perspective). This series is much more slanted than I expected.
For instance, the series concerns itself almost entirely with the European theater and European issues (such as the Jewish genocide). The Pacific theater is almost completly missing. The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor is barely mentioned and turning points in the Pacific, such as Midway, are mentioned only in passing. Indeed, there are a number of events in the Pacific theater which would have been of interest to European viewers (the fall of Singapore, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales) which are almost completely ignored even though there is a rather lengthly piece about the atomic bomb attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war in Burma. The American island-hopping strategy is not explored in detail and no explanation for the very costly invasion of Okinawa is given. (Since the American air forces were already able to bomb Japan from other islands why was it necessary to invade Okinawa killing over 100,000 civilians and 12,000 American soldiers in the process?)
Not taking anything away from the makers of this series, for it was indeed a formibable undertaking, it is incomplete if the purpose was a historical depiction of the war around the world. As it pertains to the European theater it seems much more complete although there are several areas which are virtually ignored (Greece, the Balkans etc.).
I am glad I bought and viewed it but have to admit it didn't add substantial knowledge to what I already knew. Luckily, I have a son who is deeply interested in Germany's role in the war and this will be a good starting point for his continuing studies.
Rating:
Summary: We-e-e-ll, I guess Clarence gets his wings anyway
Review: I have always wanted this collection but never was motivated to plop down $100+ for it until I broke my arm. My mother and temporary caretaker could not find anything we could agree on to watch. Now, war documentary is the last thing my mom would watch if not tied down with a gun pointed to her head, but I convinced her that when I saw this on TV in the seventies, Jimmy Stewart was on this show all the time talking about his squadron leader experiences, she said, "OK, let's watch it." And indeed, Col. Stewart is one of the interviewees credited. Problem is, we watched 2 2-sided DVD's before seeing Mr. Stewart's very fine, but brief, explanation of the reason for strategic bombing and its effectiveness. And off he went to shoot the "Shootist" or fly to the "Airport 77" set or whatever. HE NEVER IS SHOWN AGAIN. I guess I was so impressed at the age of 12 simply by the fact that an actor who was already a star would risk everything to go and fight in this war that I remembered him being in every real.
N'importe! as our sometime ally would say. There is no star in World at War. Unless it is the documentarist, Jeremy Isaacs, or the crowds of civilians in film from Leningrad, Dresden, London, etc., as they wake up to death and devestation, rebuilding and reshoring themselves instead of allowing themselves to feel defeated.
Today WAW is difficult to watch because we are used to the Ken Burns style of using acting and sound effects to bring the protaganists "alive". Any guest interviewees are expected to keep within the dramatic framework. In WAW, what we get is newsreel-type film and a bunch of talking heads, not chosen for their acting ability (although the aforementioned Col. Stewart might be there for a Hollywood draw). So it takes some patience to listen to. But it is well worth it. If you want to know anything about World War II, you want to hear Mitsuo Fuchido talk about the details before and after the Pearl Harbor attack. You want to hear Albert Speer tell of how, from the inside, the rotting of the great Third Reich became obvious to all within, even as the Allies were closing in. You want to hear Mrs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's first nauseating understanding, from a fellow market customer in Berlin, of where the "resettlers" were really being taken in the crowded freight trains they saw daily. Perhaps it was she who told her husband, the great theologian, eventually hung for attempting to kill the Fuehrer.
Then there is John Kenneth Gilbraith, Kay Summersby (Ike's secretary and possibly a leetle bit more), and oh. Ladies. You haven't lived until you've seen Stephen Ambrose with a ponytail.
But the most poignant talking head...and she who seems to remember the most detail of the key personage of the war...is Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary during the last 2 years of his life. Given her appearance in 1973, she could not have been more than 17 at the time. And since of course there are no newsreels to complement her story, she tells it all. And very well.
WAW was long, but it was written as a season-long television series. In some ways, it's better viewed piece by piece, if only because of the more disturbing reports. It is said that if citizens could see what was going on in World War II as it happened, it would have ended sooner. I don't know if it would have ended sooner (sometimes the best way of ending a war is winning it); but WAW brought WWII in our living rooms in the same way Vietnam had come into our living rooms in the 70's, providing a chance for a great deal of debate that had been absent in discussions hence about that conflict.
Rating:
Summary: Indescribable
Review: This is by far the best WWII documentary I have ever seen. I'm in the middle of my 3rd viewing (since 1991).
Laurence Olivier's mesmerizing narration along with the first rate selection of material makes for an experience you will never forget.
Of the thoughts I've pondered by watching this series, these standout:
1) Never think, "Surely nobody could be that evil." There is no abomination imagined that human beings will not do to one another.
2) Humanity never learns. Lethargy, apathy, appeasement---these mindsets left unchecked in free nations almost always creates a power void, and given such an opportunity, despots take full advantage.
3) I am so thankful that I was born after the war. It's beyond me how that generation survived not only the war, but the tens years of economic depression that preceeded it.
Buy it! You will not be disappointed.
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