I saw this tonight, it showed one night only, and I went with my father in law. - Oddly enough it reminded me of my own Dad, who was a WW2 vet. Most especially it left me feeling somber and sad at the enormity of it all, the loss, the horror, the waste, the fear, the terror. Jackson gave an incredible gift. The number of people who could offer the resources necessary, and the creativity, to generate this, worldwide, might be a handful. The number with a past association and involvement with WW1 history could only be him. The 3D was a surprise, the panoramic view and the transformation into color, the use of real life interviews with vets just made this special, unique.
The WW2 Museum in NO has these sorts of oral interviews, I know because my uncle, a bronze star recipient, gave one himself. My Dad could never really speak about the war, though somehow watching "World at War" at a tender age somehow maybe filled in for that, he'd watch it in stony silence and would occasionally answer my bewildered questions. Somehow surprisingly this movie, with its first hand accounts. gave me some insight into what he went through, albeit a half world away decades later in a successor war.
God Bless all the veterans, of all war everywhere.