Did anyone feel bad for Sgt. Hartman (spoilers)?
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ameckert2000 — 10 years ago(February 04, 2016 09:34 AM)
I felt badly for him for getting murdered, HOWEVER, it was a situation that could have been avoided had he handled the situation better.
The guy was a great Marine, however, people in position of power (cops, military, even teachers who deal with mentally unstable and violent students) HAVE to learn how to deal with situations like that and learn how to de-escalate situations and prevent them from getting worse. It seemed like Joker was trying to do that. Maybe with time, Joker could have talked him down.
To go in there, in full Gunnery Sgt. mode, yelling and barking was 100% the wrong thing to do. All Pyle was doing was waiting for a reason to pull that trigger, and the Sgt gave it to him. In a smaller scale, true life story, a teacher in a rough public school, was yelling at a very large and scary student. She screamed at him to go to the office. The kid left to go to the office. Rather than calming down and letting that be the end of it, the teacher kept yelling, yelling, yelling, and following the kid down the hall, while the kid kept telling her to be quiet. Instead of de-escalating the situation, the woman kept yelling. Guess what? The kid turned around and punched her, full force, in the face. Do I feel badly for the teacher? Yes. HOWEVER- it was something that totally didn't have to happen.
The fact that the Sgt. couldn't see that the man was OBVIOUSLY severely mentally unbalanced really makes me question his judgement. Was it a pride thing, that he kept pushing and pushing Pyle until he got shot? Was he trying to "save face" and be a big, bad, tough guy by making fun of him and "oh, poor little baby, didn't your parents love you?" On what planet would you say that to someone with a loaded gun, who is also really unbalanced? Did he think Pyle would say "Oh, wow. You are right, this is really stupid. Clearly I have issues. Let's go. I'm sorry" And put his gun down? It really makes me question how good the Sgt was at his job, beyond yelling and ordering around. Being a "tough guy" isn't the only important thing to being a military leader. It's about keeping you and your men safe. How he acted was stupid and reckless, and yeah, by that point it didn't surprise me at all that he got killed. -
NewCliches — 10 years ago(February 14, 2016 02:18 PM)
The fact that the Sgt. couldn't see that the man was OBVIOUSLY severely mentally unbalanced
He could see that. That is why he paused slightly after being told the rifle was loaded. Given only a second or two to react, before the initative moved to the armed madman, he relied on the fact that Pyle had spent the last few months being trained to automatically obey him in DI mode.
Granted, if he had thought about it, his last sentence would have been different - but he did not have time to think about it before speaking. If I confronted you with a problem outside your experience and gave you one second to solve it, your response would not be perfect either. You would slip up over something. And if that slip killed you, that would be just too bad.
So I sympathise with Hartman AND Pyle.
BTW - it occurs to me there is a parallel between Hartmans problem in the bathroom, and the Pentagons problem in Vietnam. Both were confronted with a problem they had not really encountered or thought about before, and came up with a solution that did not quite work, with disasterous results. The difference is that Hartman only had a second or two to plan and carry out his response, but the Pentagon had ten years. With that much more time to think, you might have expected them to do better. -
taticat — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 02:10 AM)
NewCliches has won the entire Internet for their short, direct, complete, and wholly correct answerprobably the only one of its kind on IMDb. I wish I could grade that, NC; it's a beautiful thing.
That, chirrin, is how to be intelligent. -
Hutch — 7 years ago(October 31, 2018 09:44 AM)
I don't feel bad for Sgt. Hartman for the simple fact that I did not like Hartman. Maybe he was just doing his job, but in the end, "doing his job" did not serve him well at all. He wanted these boys to become killing machines. Well, I guess in that case, Hartman would have been very proud of 'Pyle'. Hartman got what he asked for. No sympathy whatsoever. He chose a violent way of life and behaved violently toward others, so his violent death seemed righteous.
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gavinbailey666 — 9 years ago(May 29, 2016 07:40 PM)
As I said once ago a few years ago when something similar came up on here, Hartman didn't know when to shut up.
If it would've happened in real life, you'd think Hartman would've told Joker to go get everyone out of the barracks and get the mps while he tries to talk him down. Anyone who says they would've done what Hartman did or rushed Pyle is an idiot. -
stevenackerman69 — 9 years ago(December 12, 2016 11:28 PM)
Well, I don't know if you are supposed to like Sgt. Hartman, since he yells at everybody and insults them. I know he is trying to turn them into lean, mean, fighting machines and you have to be thick skinned to handle him, but I'm sure there were many people who quit over him and if they had heard of his death they didn't lose a wink of sleep.
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jason-l-parker — 9 years ago(February 02, 2017 11:47 AM)
I hated that the Sgt. was killed.
He was simply one of the most entertaining characters in American movie history. Every insult was funny. His facial expressions, his voice, his absolute conviction makes him the most convincing Military drill sergeant in movie history.
Is he really going to be scared of Private Pyle. All he did was slap him around hoping to make him mad and tough to prepare him for war. He liked how serious Pyle had become. He probably admired Pyle for his audacity! -
KeiraVatt — 9 years ago(February 06, 2017 06:45 PM)
R. Lee Ermey made this film.
Too bad he was blown away after the first half, but he must have hated being
an oldish
Gunnery Sergeant so he was probably glad to be put out of his misery. He also said that they would not like him. He didn't concern himself with the sensitivity of others in gaining popularity; that wasn't his job. They got to Parris Island. The more they hated him, the more they would learn. He wanted to create indestructible men. Private Pile was too unhinged at that point and Hartman misread him.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others WHENEVER they go.