Great Commanders 2

Produced in 1993 by Channel 4, Britain, The Great Commanders is a series that examines six of the most significant military commanders over the course of human history. Volume two presents episodes four to six in the series, starting with the most ancient of the six commanders – Alexander the Great, and finishing with the most modern – Georgi Zhukov. With each episode in the series focusing on a particular battle and commander, they begin with an overview of the commander’s rise to prominence, and their political motivations. An in-depth examination of the battle then follows, exploring the opposing forces, the lie of the land/sea, and the tactics employed. Concluding with the consequences of the battle, the political outcomes and their effects on the commander’s continuing military career are discussed. For information on the first three episodes, see my review of Volume One.

Alexander the Great: Battle of Issus
Inheriting the battle hardened and highly trained Macedonian army on the death of his father, the king, Alexander decided that a little conquest was in order and invaded ancient Persia with a mind to liberate king Darius of his enormous empire. The battle of Issus, fought in 333BC in and around the Pinarus River on what is now the soil of modern Turkey, saw Alexander use the thin strip of land between the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea to full advantage. Overcoming an enemy numbering over 100,000 with his own force of only 30,000, Alexander’s victory at Issus showed his ability to risk all – leading from the front of his cavalry charge, and removing the incumbent Darius to secure him the largest empire the Western world had ever seen.

Horatio Nelson: Battle of Trafalgar
1805 was the year in which it seemed, at long last, Napoleon would invade England. For twelve long years, Britain had stood in the path of the Grand Armée´s complete domination of Europe. Under the threat of invasion, it fell to the venerated British naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson to destroy the combined Franco-Spanish fleet and eliminate the threat. After sitting in port for literally years, Nelson’s adversary was finally ordered out of port by Napoleon and the British fleet was finally able to meet them in battle. In spite of reduced numbers, the English fleet decimated its opponents and thwarted Napoleon’s plans of invasion forever; Nelson employing brand new naval tactics dubbed ‘The Nelson Touch’ to win the day.

Georgi Zhukov: The Battle for Berlin
After defeating the Japanese in their attempt to invade Russian ally Mongolia in 1939, Zhukov rose to prominence as Stalinist Russia’s most pre-eminent general. When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Zhukov was called upon to mount the defence of Moscow; inflicting heavy losses on the invaders and eventually pushing them back. In 1942 he repeated the feat at Stalingrad, and after revitalising the Russian forces, went on the offensive. Although his methods of attack were expensive in manpower, sheer numbers aided by clever deception allowed Zhukov to win every battle that he fought. By 1945 the Red Army was camped outside Berlin and readying itself for the final push into the capital. Despite Russian losses of over 300,000 men, Zhukov triumphed in taking the heavily defended city, marking him as the most respected commander of the 20th century.

While I had trouble getting into the first three episodes of Volume One, I found episodes four to six much more enjoyable; the information is much more accessible, seemingly better researched and definitely better written. In particular the final two episodes are just great. While the delivery of each episode remains quite 'text-book' in their approach, they do seem much less dry than at the start of the series; each painting a much more vivid picture of the individual and of the battle. Of course it’s possible that I’ve just gotten used to the series’ style (finally).

And while all the episodes use CGI and 3D rendering in a limited way to relate the lay of the land and the placement of opposing forces during the battle, the episode on Nelson takes this one step further, employing computer enimation very effectively to illustrate the progression of the ensuing naval battle, and its one-on-one duels. Of course the final episode on Zhukov needed no such recreation, drawing heavily from archival footage of the actual battle. The results are a completely enthralling group of episodes this time around, which will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in the history of western civilisation.

Produced by Magna Pacific, the three episodes that make up this second volume of The Great Commanders are presented in an identical manner to the first disc, and display an equally poor video transfer. While the full-frame (obviously non-anamorphic) image is certainly watchable, it suffers terribly from grain, and to my untrained eye it appears that the transfer may have been taken from video source material. The grain, whilst distracting in itself, has played havoc with the MPEG compression, and the transfer displays many instances of shimmering and pixelation.

Of course you don’t need me to mention that the archival film from world war two is dirty, scratched and generally in poor condition!

In terms of colour the news is better, with nice deep blacks and faithful colour reproduction; despite the majority of the colours being quite muted. Although sharpness is adequate, a little aliasing and moiré has been introduced, and detail is on the disappointing side; reduced significantly by the grain. Shadow detail is especially poor, again pointing to video source material. The layer change, coming half way through the second episode, seems arbitrarily placed yet remains only mildly distracting.

In terms of audio, the first volume of The Great Commanders was obviously limited by production budget, and the second volume is no different. The two-channel Dolby Digital soundtrack is typical of documentary offerings, and is composed almost entirely of narration and interviews. Consequently, heard through your Prologic decoder, the soundstage dominates the centre speaker. However, from time to time the mix is given the opportunity to open up to the front channels when sound effects such as cannon blasts and the cries of battle can be heard.

The surround channel is not utilised at all by the mix, and despite many perfect opportunities to shine, the subwoofer is also silent. OK, so it's not that audio demo disc you’ve been after, but with no lip sync issues, it represents a faithful rendition of the original content to DVD, and is perfectly serviceable given the nature of the production.

In terms of extras, Volume Two of The Great Commanders is identical to the first disc, providing teaser previews of the first three episodes comprising Volume One. Presented in full-frame and with video transfers equivalent to the rest of the disc, they run for around one minute each.

While the poor transfer remains, this second volume of The Great Commanders is a great improvement over the first. With one episode able to take advantage of real footage, another making great use of computer animation, and seemingly more time put into research and writing, I must say that I enjoyed these three later episodes a great deal. If the first disc in this series at all tempted you, then you’re definitely going to enjoy this second volume even more!