I thought the same thing after watching the first episode. However, it turns out that the “Captain America” character is taken straight from the (nonfiction) book. Many of his more outlandish actions are taken from the book as well, such as his haphazard firing of an enemy AK-47, and his bizarre bayonet charge when they “seized” the undefended airfield. I don’t remember if the crying incident was in the book.
I haven’t watched the last episode yet, but overall, the series followed the book pretty closely.
As a HUGE fan of The Wire, I watched and recorded every episode of Generation Kill. As with the earlier series, it was brilliantly written and acted, and it was clear they paid scrupulous attention to detail. The characters were brilliantly drawn, and I’m quite sure that the military is as filled with assholes, goofs, and competent people trying to do their best as depicted. It was interesting to see Simon and Burns’ favorite theme – no good deed goes unpunished – played out in a setting even more dangerous than the streets of Baltimore. Also like The Wire, there’s so much detail that multiple viewings would obviously reveal many interesting details that one missed first time through.
That said, I was just not as drawn in to Generation Kill as I was to The Wire. I think the main reason is that there didn’t seem to be much of a plot arc to the series. It seemed to be just one damn thing after another, with no sense of progress or change.
Now I’ll grant that that’s probably just how it really was in the first few weeks of the war. But from a dramatic point of view, it just didn’t hold my interest as much as I expected and hoped. And there didn’t seem to be much development or arc to the characters, either, probably because the time frame of the story was so short.
One of the parts I found most interesting was the conflict between Lt. Fick and Encino Man (and his slimy sergeant), because it was interesting to see Fick be so effective at defending himself and his unit from the ignorance and malice of his CO. A cliché in military films is the naive and inexperienced lieutenant who has to learn a lesson about the real world, usually from his sergeant. So it was interesting to see Fick as a highly competent, well-trained officer who had the brains to see the bigger picture and who consistently tried to do his level best to accomplish his mission and take care of his men, despite the incompetence of his superiors.
But in the end, although I saw all its virtues and strong points, the show just didn’t grab me. It was kind of like those comedians you watch and say, “He’s very talented and funny,” but you don’t laugh. It’s probably something wrong with me, but there it is.