Saw the movie yesterday night... Actually the best Vietnam movie I ever seen! What do you think about the movie?

Jamal. I too like this movie. I have seen it many times and recently I had an opportunity to see the directors cut version of the movie. It adds another 45 minutes to the original release.

I love the movie as a movie, not a historical work.

I don't care much for the extended Redux version. I think the extra scenes aren't so hot. It makes a long good movie a too long OK movie.

But, it sure is memorable and the helicopter attack is one of the best action scenes of all time!

Steve

“Apocalypse Now” is a good flick, as far as it goes. But I think the “best” Vietnam war movie would have to be “Full Metal Jacket,” with “Hamburger Hill” coming in a close second. I am basing this on story line and historical accuracy.

“How can you shoot women and children?”
“It’s easy, you just don’t lead ‘em as much.”

Enough said…

I know that the movie was made in the early 70:s, but is there anybody else that have seen this movie? Do you like it?

You will find that there are many film critics, etc. who consider this one of the greatest films of all times. It is also a very talked about and studied film. Almost everyone has seen it.

When it first came out, I saw it as a pretty little kid and it had quite an impact on me for a long time.

The helicopter attack is probably one of the greatest scenes in cinema history. Wagner's Ride of the Valkry (sp) will never be heard in the same way.

Steve

Good movie. The Redux sucks. WAAAY too long, and the cut scenes don't really add anything to the movie.

Full Metal Jacket: The best first half of a movie ever.

My opinion.

While the movie is entertaining (I love the smell of napalm in the morning) It's a joke and too artsy-fartsy. Platoon got rave ups from veterans about how it feels, but I think the story depects a tremendous amount of negativity. Hamburger Hill and Full metal jacket are great Nam fims, But I don't think anything compares to We were Soldiers.

Apocolypse Now is one of my favs, but I don't think of it as a Vietnam movie, but a movie about human nature. I really enjoyed the Redux version, sure it's long, but I guess I have a long attention span.

As far as fav Vietnam movies, probably Platoon. Bleak, grim, depressing. FMJ was good, but I didn't think that the second half was all that great. I thought that We Were Soldiers was one of the worst movies I ever saw. It reeked of Hollywood.

I totally agree with you! The explosions looked like a fireworkshow!

Apocalypse Now "best ever" Vietnam War movie???? While I agree that it is interesting to watch and has some very memorable scenes, it is pure fantasy. AN has about as much to do with the real Vietnam War as Star Wars has to do with actual manned space flight. You should check out the documentary on the making of AN -- the cast and crew were stoned and/or drunk most of the time. Martin Sheen even had a heart attack during the filming ...

On the other hand, We Were Soldiers is based upon a book by Col. (now retired Lt. Gen.) Hal Moore and journalist Joe Galloway about a REAL operation early in America's involvement in Vietnam. While the movie did take liberties with a few of the facts (i.e., Moore did NOT personally lead the mission to find the lost platoon), I have personally spoken to several veterans of the battle who have seen the movie and they say it captures events pretty well. As has been noted elsewhere on this site, the movie only covers the first half of the book -- the battle of LZ X-Ray -- and skips the massacre of the 2nd Battalion on its march to LZ Albany, which was thouroughly covered in the second half of the book.

As for the pyro effects in WWS looking like fireworks, I'd say the effects are as good or better than those shown in most war flicks. The truth is that most Hollywood effects are way overdone -- way too many flames and balls of fire. For instance, a real fragmentary grenade explosion is not "sexy" enough for Hollywood -- in the movies it always has to have a ball of flame and the explosive force of a HEAT round ...

BTW, I think Platoon was overrated. Full Metal Jacket was very good (I liked both halves), The Boys in Company C (R. Lee Ermey's debut performance) is halfway decent, Hamburger Hill is pretty good, Go Tell the Spartans is good, and The Green Berets is propaganda trash. One of my favororite Vietnam flicks of all time is the little-known 84 Charlie Mopic -- the story of a LRRP, which was entirely filmed with one camera, ala Blair Witch Project.

My two cents ... the balcony is closed.

Actually, it was released 1978 or 79. It does not pretend to historical accuracy and should be seen more as an allegory. As you may know, it is based on Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness and looks more at one man's (everyman's?) descent from relative innocence to the darkness of evil when faced with a task that will surely make him as bad as that which he has been ordered to destroy.
That being said, I do like the movie a lot. Some amazing visuals and acting.

Green Berets was written by a well known author and is based on several true incidents.It is more of a historical fiction.You also have to think of the time it was made in since it has nowhere near the special effects the other movies listed do.Green Berets is actually one of the best war movies of all time.It was also directed by the Duke himself I believe.

Sorry, but by all objective standards, The Green Berets qualifies as propoganda. Yes it was very loosely based on the book by Robin Moore, but it floows the story ONLY as far as the title page. The book, and I remember this afther having read it almost 40 years ago deals far mor withthe Montagnards than the Soutt Vietnamese regulars)., The movie is about as historically accurate as Apocalypse Now! . " John Wayne stars as Colonel Mike Kirby. Costarring, Jim Hutton, Bruce Cabot, and David Janssen. This movie was first based about the Vietnam War. John Wayne made the movie to support our forces in Vietnam at the time, 1968. " ( http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/strangelove/2/gberet.html " TARGET="_blank"> http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/strangelove/2/gberet.html ) and that is the exact purpose of propoganda. The cinematic quality of the film proves The Duke showed have styaed in front of the camera.

I thought that the book was based on (don't know the book's name) the book where some people in late 19:th centery was traveling on a boat in Africa... Do you know the name?

The book is Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness which is as you described. Francis Ford Copolla updated the locale and time to something more accessible to an audience in the late 1970's. Of course, moving the story to Vietnam circa 1969 means adding a lot of modern technology. It is not a literal translation of the book, as [b] Gettysburg [/] is of [i] The Killer Angels [/] but the book is used as a starting point and the main story outline follows the original.

Actually, George Lucas pitched the idea for AN but his friend Copolla made it first.

Lucas got his revenge by keeping his basic idea of an overwhelming force being defeated by an inferior one and made the SW trilogy.






I couldn't agree more. IMO, it's at least as good as the movie.

I thought the movie was great! I own it on VHS and watch it very often.

~Chip

It's a great movie, but it's not historically accurate. Of course hardly any war movie is. It had great dialogue, great visuals, and a great story. I have the Redux DVD and I watch it more than any other DVD I got. I liked the add ins. I agree, it does drag it out, but I think it adds more to the story and makes it seem more your there in real life than just watching a movie showing the main points. The only part that really bores me is the French Plantation part, but if you watch it closely you get a small insight of the French involvement in Vietnam. Probably the most enjoyed Nam movie would have to be Full Metal Jacket. The lines in that movie are just GREAT! :-) I think it shows the common soldier as young bad asses, which I think they’d like to be thought of as. I know I would. :-) As with most Nam movies, they touched on the fraggin' and baby killin'. They always seem to at least touch on the bad stuff that went on in Vietnam, just to add drama. They include baby killing, superior fraging, racial clashes, drug abuse, civilian women raping, insubordination, cowardice, etc. Of course that's there in every war, but Hollywood made it out to be the norm in Vietnam. That's the good thing about We Were Soldiers, is it showed that the soldiers who fought there were normal professional soldiers who were doing their job. It gave them the respect the other films didn't quite give them. Sure the explosions were over done, but at least you didn't have grenades blowing up entire hills and guys flying through the air every second like in Windtalkers Also, them being equipped with M-16s instead of M-14s. They have to make money, so sometimes history takes a back seat to save money and make money. I think Hamburger Hill was one of the few movies that captured the feeling of the Vietnam soldier and actually points out the main reason we lost the war. The part where the guy reads the letter from his girl back at home stating that she's going to stop writing him because her friends says it's not disrespectful (forgot the actual phrase) sums up the main reason we lost the war. They didn't have the support at home, even though they were determined and wanted to win. The U.S. never really lost a main battle in Vietnam, just the one at home.

Hey I love "Apocalypse Now" and used to know the entire screen-play by heart. It is a clasic Vietnam war movie. As far as I am concerned it is up there with "Full Metal Jacket" and "Platoon" as some of the best Vietnam films ever made. "Charile don't surf"...how can you dimiss that?

I consider A.Now one of the greatest movies ever made,however with the following provisos. It is long and yes it does reflect a very important period in recent American history. In that respect it does show how vietnam rapidly got out of control of in both the U.S. administrations and the severe damage it caused to the U.S. military. It also deals with the dangers of allowing a war to develop with no clear military or political objective, a lesson the soviets were unable to grasp in Afghanistan. No one movie will ever show the reality of any war, however the vast majority of movies are done from a liberal point of view, the counterpoint to this is without doubt, The Green Berets, a really dumb movie but fascinating from a political historian's point of view.... Jim

We Were Soldiers was a great flick and whoever hasn't seen it should do so immediately. Platoon was great also and so was Full Metal Jacket.. Hamburger Hill was great also.. but I think We Were Soldiers was the best...