Before watching this documentary, I knew very little about Hitler's inner circle aside from their names, what their jobs were, and what happened to them after the war. I did learn a lot more from watching this, but there were definitely problems with the production.
I agree with other reviewers that the show was way too repetitive. The filmmakers had enough material to fill 10 hour-long episodes without having to rehash the same facts over and over. They could have spent more time on people they gloss over, like Donitz. He shows up at the end and the viewers barely get a glimpse of him. Or they could have introduced other prominent Nazi leaders like Keitel and Ribbentrop who aren't mentioned at all.
This is less important, but I didn't like the change in actors halfway through the production. It was confusing and the "older" actors especially didn't look anything like the men they were portraying (most notably Hess and Göring). Why not keep the same actors and age them a bit with makeup? It was distracting.
Finally, the filmmakers overly simplify these men. We get it: Bormann was conniving. Himmler wanted to be a soldier. Hess was a bit of a looney. That's interesting and all, but in order to understand these evil men more fully, we need to delve deeply into their histories and characters rather than focusing on only one or two of their personality traits.
Really, I wanted more on what made these men who they were. How can we learn from history's mistakes if we don't fully understand the villains?
I agree with other reviewers that the show was way too repetitive. The filmmakers had enough material to fill 10 hour-long episodes without having to rehash the same facts over and over. They could have spent more time on people they gloss over, like Donitz. He shows up at the end and the viewers barely get a glimpse of him. Or they could have introduced other prominent Nazi leaders like Keitel and Ribbentrop who aren't mentioned at all.
This is less important, but I didn't like the change in actors halfway through the production. It was confusing and the "older" actors especially didn't look anything like the men they were portraying (most notably Hess and Göring). Why not keep the same actors and age them a bit with makeup? It was distracting.
Finally, the filmmakers overly simplify these men. We get it: Bormann was conniving. Himmler wanted to be a soldier. Hess was a bit of a looney. That's interesting and all, but in order to understand these evil men more fully, we need to delve deeply into their histories and characters rather than focusing on only one or two of their personality traits.
Really, I wanted more on what made these men who they were. How can we learn from history's mistakes if we don't fully understand the villains?