User Panel
Posted: 3/31/2006 8:09:09 PM EDT
The last time I watched this movie I was 12, which is too young to really appreciate it.
I'll avoid the political and philosophical messages and how I feel about them one way or t'other, and just say that the cinematography is beautiful and terrible (that is, the destruction and devastation, not it was crappy) at the same time. Coppola sure knows what the hell he's doing. Discuss. |
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SUCKED (well teh extended version sure as hell sucked enough to ruin it for me, I wish I never rented that)
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"You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill..."
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A slur on the name of all Viet vets.
This was a Hollywood fantasy of what Vietnam was, and as such it does a disservice to the veterans. Many people only know about that war from this and other hateful filth like Platoon. It's just a rip-off of the Conrad story anyway. |
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I just don't know why Sheen had to steal Robert's surfboard.That was what the movie was really about.
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The movie would have been better if Harrison Ford could have shot an alien in a bar or something (and shot first!!), instead of the boring role he played. |
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Watched it when I was 13ish, didn't "appreciate it".
Watched the Redux version a year or two back. Absolute garbage. |
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One of the greatest movies ever once you quit thinking of it as a "Vietnam War movie" and more as a story wrapped around the context of the Vietnam War.
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Agree, just watch it a a movie with Vietnam props. It means a lot more after reading the Conrad novella. I think Coppola improved the Conrad work. and it becomes even more interesting when you see how Coppola went off the reservation making the movie. |
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The best helicopter attack scene in any movie, ever, bar none.................................
"We play Wagner, scares the hell out of the slopes, my boys love it!" |
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Some of the best cinamatography ever. Beutifull. So many wonderfull characters and great one liners. But the plot was like crew was on the last half of a 48 hour acid trip.
Hold on... wait a second... They WERE! |
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relax... it's one guys interpitation of a couple days in a 10,000 day war. If someone bases their opinion of the Vietnam war from this movie... they don't have an opinion on the Vietnam war. |
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That movie really has nothing to do with Viet Nam. It's based on "Heart of Darkness".
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Hey buddy, you going to shut the door!?
and... You can't go out in space, I mean, what are you going to land on? Five sixteens? A half? |
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Incredible movie whose message wasn;t really about Vietnam at all.
I real really really love this movie. Makes me think I am not crazy after all. The world is crazy. I'm the sane one. Sanity is basically a way of saying "Do you go along with our program? Recognize and fear our authority?" |
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+a billion You guys are too wrapped up into the whole "omg, there wasnt enough action!! It portrays soldiers as renegades! Ban the bamboo for the children!" |
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That movie is so ridiculously overhyped it's silly.
I watched it for the first time four or five years ago and I actually used the FF button on my remote. |
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Yup, awesome movie. Right up there with FMJ, Platoon, and Hamburger hill for my favorite VN flicks. ETA: For anyone who hasn't read "hearts of darkness" you should, the movie is so much cooler when you see the amazing job they did of adapting the story. |
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+1 Another must-read: Michael Herr's Dispatches. Apocalypse Now was like Hearts of Darkness adapted through the tone set in Dispatches. |
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I liked it. I couldn't get into redux though. I know now why they originally cut those scenes.
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You'll do yourself a diservice by assuming the original version is as bad as the redux. I totally agree, that extended version totally sucked. I don't know how Cuppola let that thing out. The original version, though, is one of the best films I have ever seen. |
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I always liked the original. The Redux version added a bunch of unnecessary frenchmen. The extended dialog with Kurtz makes him seem less mysterious.
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+1 If you haven't read the Heart of Darkness you will not understand anything about the movie. Vietnam is just the background. The real story concerns the human condition in any setting. |
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I loved the movie, I loved J. Conrad's book, and more importantly, I loved the movie SOUNDTRACK!
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I have Redux on DVD..........
I cannot stand to watch the scenes where they are at the Frenchies place. I always fast foreward through those scenes. |
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that's great, that's just fucking great man. I mean I thought you were going to blow up a bridge or something, not kill one of our own guys!
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"I don't know how you feel about those shrimp captain, but if you eat one you'll never have to prove your bravery in any other way"
Since we're all putting up our favortite quotes.... |
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Doesn't R Lee Ermey have a couple of lines during the helicoptor attack?
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I liked both versions. And "I love that smell, that gasoline smell. It smells like victory. "
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When it came out, I fell asleep the first three times I tried to watch it.
Five years later, I finally made it to the end. Interesting, but; 1. Not great. 2. Not even a war movie. |
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Correct, I read the book for english class in high school. Damn good book, and a damn good porting from book to movie. |
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Caught the high-definition redux version as the choppers were on the way to the beach for surfing. If you haven't experienced this series of scenes in hi-def, and with a superb surround sound system with sub woofers, you just haven't felt the thump, thump, thump of the hueys, or the thunder of the incoming morters unless you actually served. On a 50" Pioneer plasma, in Hi-Def, with surround sound and sub-woofer - it is awesome, that series of scenes anyway. Changed channels after that...
that smell, that gasoline smell of the naplam... smells like,... victory. |
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I enjoyed all three versions I've seen (original video release, Redux, and the collector's edition). While long, I enjoyed Redux - the FOB scene with the stranded playmates was weak, but the French estate and extended Kurtz dialogue were good.
I know a few Vietnam vets who enjoyed it, and don't consider the movie an insult or slur in any way. While a far cry from a true "war movie," or an accurate depiction of any real events, the one "war" aspect I enjoyed about the movie was the "surrealness/insanity" factor - when you just step back, look around and say "this is absolutely fucking nuts." |
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That's exactly it. As a war movie, it... well, it doesn't even exist as a war movie. As a drama about the human condition, sanity, life and death, it is powerful. The photography, the scenery of Vietnam contrasted with the destruction is moving. The extended version added too much without adding anything, though. Perhaps that's why I didn't like it when I first watched it (I guess I must have been 13 or 14, not 12, not that it makes much of a difference), we watched the extended version because it's among my mother's favorite movies and the extended version was just released on video. |
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I've always considered it to be a piece of shit .... nothing better. Talk about horrible.
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Worst...film...ever. It served absolutely no purpose. Francis Ford Coppola can blow me.
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I still yell "PUT THAT RIGHT SKID UP HER ASS !" when somebody cuts Me off in traffic. ...never saw part duex. |
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It had nothing to do with Vietnam (the way I saw it) It was an adaption of Heart of Darkness, set in Vietnam. The message was the same. |
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Ya don't say! A movie doesn't have to be about war to be great. |
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I think if your alittle bit dense and have no imagination you might not like it.
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