Platoon vs. Apocalypse Now
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!!!deleted!!! (14789810) — 13 years ago(October 20, 2012 08:24 PM)
Apocalypse Now for me.
I find Apocalypse Now more mesmerizing, harrowing, and superior in all aspects.
http://www.imdb.com/list/rJuB9UoASlQ/ -
michaeluk26 — 13 years ago(January 04, 2013 11:38 PM)
Depends on what you are looking for but for me its Platoon and its not even close. Matter of fact its my favorite movie. It was the first Vietnam movie to show what the grunts went through on the ground accurately and showed people that instead of looking down on Vietnam Vets, understand what they went through.
Platoon is the greatest war movie period for me. It really has no central plot, kind of like the war having questions that no one could seem to answer definitively. This movie perfectly illustrated why the war turned out the way it did and why atrocities happened in Vietnam. Fighting any war dehumanizes you, but the effect is two fold when you are fighting an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere. There were no uniforms to distinguish who was friend and who was foe so civilians are treated like the enemy because they have to be. Plus having no real objective or coherent strategy for winning and its effects were shown to people who had NO idea what these vets went through.
Platoon is important, it matters. Apocalypse Now has a mythical quality rooted in fantasy that was not really about the war. Frankly speaking, I think it and Full Metal Jacket are tremendously overrated.
Haters gonna hate -
creegah-3 — 10 years ago(August 30, 2015 06:39 PM)
I could never give Platoon more than a 5. because the language was so artificial and stilted, especially Barnes. The first time I saw it on the big screen and Barnes began to speak, I laughed out loud. I have several hundred pages of notes and over a hundred hours of recordings as I intended to write a book some day on GI speech, especially words and phrases which were indigenous to the 'Nam and never heard back in the world.
6th Msl Bn 56th Artillery
Long Binh -
rascal67 — 13 years ago(March 31, 2013 06:47 PM)
I find
Platoon
a much more grounded and emotional experience.
Apocalypse Now
is an amazing technical feat and visually awesome to watch, but I have to be in the mood for it. I can watch
Platoon
much more readily. -
degree7 — 12 years ago(April 21, 2013 06:51 PM)
I notice the people that prefer AN and FMJ seem to be cult fanboys who's reasoning are that they're "deeper" films, while actually failing to elaborate on these supposed themes. I'm not saying that they're empty films, but it just seems like the fans are quick to jump on the Coppola and Kubrick bandwagons because it's cool to do so.
Greatest Films Not in the IMDB Top 250
http://www.imdb.com/list/bc9x1QAFat0/ -
terokivinen — 12 years ago(April 25, 2013 03:39 PM)
This is the case, no question. I like both FMJ and AN, but they don't portray war as thoroughly as Platoon. This is also the opinion of any war veteran I've talked about these movies with. FMJ focuses on the training and part in Vietnam is too weird. AN is a story of one guy traveling down a river with not much actual war action. The villain is a ex-soldier who now think he's god, what the beep? The only battle scene is when a comical cavalry(I'm figuring from the stupid hat) is leading soldiers to fight on a beach because it's good to surf there. What the beep, seriously? AN narrating, music and visuals are awesome but the main plot is pretty stupid and has nothing to do with real war. My list is: P>FMJ>AN. It's very hard to convince Coppola fanboys who won't accept that newer movies are sometimes better than old ones
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degree7 — 12 years ago(April 25, 2013 04:00 PM)
I'd rank AN ahead of FMJ, but otherwise I'd agree with you.
But to me, Kubrick and Coppola are making these sort of surreal, grander, theological statements with their films. Whereas platoon is a very heartfelt drama. Different kinds of war films really.
Greatest Films Not in the IMDB Top 250
http://www.imdb.com/list/bc9x1QAFat0/ -
drystyx — 12 years ago(June 16, 2013 09:14 PM)
PLATOON in a landslide.
It is basically a modern version of the timeless classic ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. The chief difference is that they battle more among themselves, and we see an America that has no camaraderie.
This is not the fault of the Peace lovers, but of the Barnes and his ilk. Their insistence on spreading terror for which they could see coming, having been in one part of it, enabled them to always stay safe, while their comrades were massacred. There were enemy troopers of the same ilk, who engaged in the same circle, always knowing when "not to be in the village".
APOCALYPSE NOW is pure Hollywood, and thus purely topical for the time. It has no chance of passing the test of time. Once its fans hit old age, it will wear away like a bad stench everyone shoos away.
I fart in your general direction -
rascal67 — 12 years ago(July 05, 2013 02:37 AM)
..and we see an America that has no camaraderie.
This was an important and major theme of PLATOON. Since Vietnam was a war being fought by men, who really had no solid compounded reasoning as to why they were fighting and what they were doing over thereunlike WWII.
APOCALYPSE NOW is pure Hollywood, and thus purely topical for the time
APOCALYPSE NOW impresses me more with it's technical qualities, rather than any real profound message that it has to deliver about the Vietnam War..other than that it can make you crazy. Plays out more like an adventure film down a mysterious river. The setting for the story was changed from the Congo, so Vietman was just really a topical backdrop as you have mentioned.
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Untouchable757 — 11 years ago(April 13, 2014 04:39 PM)
Apocalypse Now, hands down.
One of the greatest villains in cinema history (Col. Kurtz) and was really the first Vietnam moviehell, the first war movie period to really portray the extreme psychological horrors of war with such gritty realism.
Platoon is almost cartoonish in comparison. -
Inspector81 — 11 years ago(April 14, 2014 12:19 AM)
One of the greatest villains in cinema history (Col. Kurtz) and was really the first Vietnam moviehell, the first war movie period to really portray the extreme psychological horrors of war with such gritty realism.
"The Green Berets" was the first Vietnam War film and it was made while the war was still going on.
Platoon is almost cartoonish in comparison.
You obviously weren't alive in the 80's if you think that.
Platoon was by far the better film and for once I agreed with the Academy Awards which named Platoon best picture of 1986 and didn't do the same for Apocalypse Now in 1979 which lost to Kramer vs Kramer.