I am happy you did not just shit on one side, however i must state that MAC-V-SOG was not just some shady black ops organisation. MAC-V-SOG was more about deploying into hostile territory and doing suicidal mission rather than just some assasinations like the CIA did and still probably does. (Operation OSCAR EIGHT). Btw: the movie was supposed to end on a scene where the NVA and kurtz's forces were gonna engage in a large stupid suicidal battle.
Are you talking about the Russian band with a lead singer that stared in a film and then got the John mcafee treatment while driving to a gig? I doubt it but I don’t want to be corrected either.
Kino is a slang term to describe something as very good from 4chan specificly movies, but just like the band the word it got inspired by the russian "Kinography"
@@a-star-called-the-sun Believe it or not it was cod black ops zombies that actually taught me what the meaning was, one of the maps which takes place in a theatre was called "Kino der toten" which is German. I am aware of its usage and I believe apocalypse now to be an actual kino movie.
Kurtz says that if someone killed him, he would want that person to go back to his family and tell them everything. Willard remarks in the beginning that if Kurtz story is a confession then so is his. I believe Willard's narrative perspective is that of him leaving a letter with kurtz family personally in the state.
The entire hippie scene was a CIA psy-op. It’s all bullshit. The only “real” hippies are just spoiled rich kids traveling the world and doing drugs funded by mommy and daddy.
"You have no right to call me a madman. You have a right to kill me... but you have no right to judge me." I love the emphasis that Kurtz puts on judgement. As he says, a proper soldier can do his job and kill without judgement, because it's judgement that defeats us.
The ones doing the fighting and killing are merely the tools. Not saying there aren't terrible people in war. But as I grew older I realized how much I enjoyed movies and shows that depicted the other sides and the troops. See things from other points of view. For all we know, which we do now, some troops were just like us. Doing their job. Unfortunately there's orders that need to be followed. And if things go wrong, or even right, the wielder of those 'tools' can throw them under the bus and wipe their hands clean of any involvement.
little known fact: apocalypse now is a confluence of 2 books. the first, and most well known, is "heart of darkness" by Joseph Conrad. the 2nd book, and least known, is Michael Herr's "Dispatches". Michael Herr was an embedded journalist in Vietnam. This book is the sum of that experience. i CANNOT emphasize enough how lauded by Vietnam vets "Dispatches" is for getting Vietnam "right". Michael Herr worked on apocalypse now. he worked on the screenplay and wrote all of martin sheen's inner monologues. i assume this is because Michael Herr has a distinct voice in his writing. You'll know what i mean if you read anything from the book it sounds like the speech used in apocalypse now. there's quite a few scenes in the movie directly from "Dispatches". it good.
The boat scene where the crew guns down the villagers, is a prime example of why draftees are a mistake and big Army should never be used in an asymmetrical war. The fools got all anxious over some girl scrambling for her puppy. Chef's overly focused on procedure despite being in Cambodia and having main priority of escorting Willard. The crew's anxiety & nerves leading to trigger happy. Then they're all in shock over Willard mercy killing the girl. Kurt says it in one of the narrations how the Army, full of draftees, is incompetent and lack the motivation to win. He concludes the war could be won quickly & decisively with a smaller number of well trained men. Heck that's the purpose of US Army Special Forces, aka Green Berets. Their whole thing is about building relationships with locals and working together to counter the enemy, guerilla warfare & living off the land Rambo style. No need for 18 or 19 year old foolish infantry guys. Whereas in cases like the My Lai massacre, it was caused by terrible leadership , undisciplined & poorly trained darfted soldiers who didn't care about the locals. The village massacre scene in Platoon captured it perfectly. Contrast that massacre with all the known missons done by MACV SOG. Highly effective and probably did more for the war effort than thousands of draftees. Which by the way, if you read their stories one of their mayor complaints was again, bad leadership & bureaucracy. I see this everyday in my country, Mexico. Coventional soldiers get little to no training, so they have constant screw ups due that lack of training. Leadership is incompetent and often corrupt, this being the reason why cartel bosses are able to get away during operations. And the guys who are better trained for this (Army SF Corps) aren't allowed to do their job, due to being bogged down in bureaucratic bs. This why wars like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the French intervention in Mali and the Sahel, and so many more are never ever won.
That might actually be why Afghanistan became so complex. Extremist group heavily staffed and trained (for lack of better word) by former US trained extremists making powerful ties with locals in rural regions. There's way more to it, but I'll simplify it to that
My grandfather fought in Vietnam and Korea, he came home and was spat on and called a baby killer. That got to him, because they sent children to the soldiers because they could get close, then they would pull the pin on the grenade they were given. He never got over that, along with watching his friend get split in two by shrapnel, and getting hooked on morphine.
Who spit on him, and what did he do. How did anyone know he was a vet? They did not fly on commercial airplanes back home in full get up, but on military planes, landing on bases. Or is he just the plot of Rambo? Could they tell her was a soldier in civilian clothes everyday? And then weak beta hippies tried to spit on him with no consequences? Hearing this story every time nam is brought up, doesn’t add up logically
Killing children cause people put them to defend their country from you is also bad. Besides that usa killing machine of children in vietnam famously didnt targered only those who were armed
@@Horsemanray right when he got back, idk where he landed, nor when exactly. It's a story that was passed down, he never got a chance to tell me himself.
@@RecluseBootsyit's not so much "might makes right" it's "the victor writes the history books" and "if we are defeated they will damn us for eternity" We should never avoid studying the losers of war and History lest we only see one side of things
I had thirteen men in my family directly fight against Sherman’s armies in Southeast Georgia starting around 1862. None of them owned slaves. Even if you read the memoirs of Union soldiers, most never mentioned slavery until after the War, to justify the raping and pillaging done by the US, especially to Cherokees. Just like Iraq- “we went to free them with democracy!” Complete lies
1. The french colony is the final cut is what I’d consider as equal on point in describing the vietnam war as any other part of the movie. It’s more than just the known facade that the American entry into the war that we all know. It’s showing that the reason to fight simply does not exist, not even on the individual level, meanwhile, the french had been there and built a jungle empire from nothing. 2. The b-52 in the final cut amongst the sunset at a distance is still creepy. The skewerd winged beast with it’s taillight still blinking is beyond eerie. 3. Turns out: Jai Paul’s *Jasmine* has an unoffical music video in the form of the latter quarter of the movie. I beg you all watch it.
My father was in nam, one of the things he would say about that time and one of the hippy slogans was, "They liked to say, 'what if they threw a war and nobody came', but I always thought what if they threw a war and only one side came."
@@yum9918Nope, we had forced the North Vietnamese into a treaty that would have recognized the South as an independent country (a la South Korea). However, those dummies in Congress impeached Nixon over Watergate, and the communist realized the US wouldn’t bomb them so they could just Waltz into Saigon. Unfortunate it ended up being such a waste of lives and money, but that’s what happens when the media turns on something and attempts to vilify it.
@@sirtonyedgar lol wat? The US was NOT backing the good side in that war (note this is in the same sequence as backing d**th squads in Nicaragua), and by everything that is sacred, even discounting wanton bombing of civilian targets, did NOT get involved due to any humanitarian concerns.
"Charlie don't surf and we think he should, Charlie don't surf but you know that it ain't no good, Charlie don't surf for his hamburger mama, Charlie's gonna be a napalm star"
Somebody once wrote, "Hell is the impossibility of reason." Well, that's what this place feels like - hell. I hate it already and it's only been a few hours. I'm so tired. We get up at four in the morning... At first I thought they handed me the wrong dossier. I couldn't believe they wanted this man dead. Third Generation West Point, top of his class, Airbourne, Korea, about a thousand decorations, etc, etc... I loved you in Wall Street!
10:24 It's the same thing with the napalm girl photo; South Vietnamese aircraft dropped napalm on her village, because her village was being overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. This was in June 1972, at the height of the North's Easter Offensive, which aimed at overrunning the South now that American troops were all but gone, and the province the photo was taken in, Tay Ninh, is just one province over from the south's capital of Saigon. But it's only the United States and RVN (Republic of Vietnam) who are the bad guys for the girl's village being 'naped,' with the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam), the VC, and their Soviet and Chinese backers receiving no censure whatsoever.
I don’t need any of the propaganda photos from hippies. We shouldn’t have been in Vietnam. Neither with Korea. But that’s just the message of Captain Hindsight. In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed. Turns out, it wasn’t a good system of governance. Who knew?
@@badasscrusader Not only that, the Russian government actually said, the US undersold it. They had WAY more people there than even the most "Better Dead Than Red" ranter at the time believed. It's no surprise why so many media companies and universities all seem to share one particular school of thought.
9:50 I remember seeing this photo in my photography class in high school( we were studying a lot of anti war photos from Vietnam ) I remember the shock from seeing this and then later that day I look up the photo and found the story behind it, I tried telling people about it but for some reason (some people not all of them) just said I was an imperialist trying to justify war crimes weird right
Sad but standard reaction. The hippies/liberals spent a LONG time selling "Muh US Imperialism" thread that it's hard to actually get some people to talk about the war in a fair assessment. They operate on this, "You said the USA wasn't pure evil, therefore you are evil." But you can absolutely point out how this picture is missing context even the photographer wanted to make known AND state how Mai Lai and the cover-up that followed was Fucking sickening. I
Not weird at all, i think schools put too little emphasis on critical thinking and doing your own research. And the fact that most things covered in schools aren't interesting enough to warrant doing your own research on it after school doesn't help either. Protip: If someone calls you names in an attempt to invalidate what you said, just call them out on it and don't get pushed on the defense.
@@zeldies1976 oh yeah with the name calling I know that now this happened a few years ago so I really didn’t know how to defend myself with arguments but now I gotten better so thx
When I think of the line to cross in war, I’m reminded of a short story I once listened to (can’t remember the full details, just the general gist of it) about a survivor of an extinct alien race speaking with an alien alliance council composed of other races/species, pleading with them to “agree to the Humans’ rules of war.” He goes on to detail how his race challenged the Human race in a galactic war, believing they would be an easy target with how technologically-inferior they were to themselves, and they met with the Humans to declare open war and the Humans simply responded by asking for their rules of war, and the aliens laughed in their faces, saying that war has no rules. The Humans responded in turn, with no line to cross, no war crimes to reprimand, nothing. Nothing was off the table, and the aliens eventually found themselves pushed back to their home planet to ready for one last defense against the Humans that were coming. But when the airships dropped, they found themselves facing not Human troops, but their own kind, either forced to fight as war slaves with death collars on them, or their own dead forced back to life with machinery that moved them like grotesque puppets. By the time their own was wiped out, the surviving aliens were demoralized enough for the Human troops to drop in and wipe them out, sparring not even their women and children. And that survivor begs the council once again, agree to the Humans’ rules of war.
It's absolutely astonishing that Coppola managed to finish this movie, yet alone made such a timeless classic, with all the craziness going on during the production.
Surprised you didn't talk about Willard's haunting monologues that you hear throughout the movie. They were written by Michael Herr, an actual war correspondent for the Vietnam War, who witnessed a lot of the horrifying stuff that the film portrays, along with his other peers being kidnapped or hit-and-runned during his stay. He published his memoir Dispatches years after returning shellshocked, and he funnelled a lot of his experiences and emotions into the movie as well. Also cowrote Full Metal Jacket as well, so that's spiffy.
I think more impactful is that the French family argues explicitly in favor of Colonialism, attacks the Americans for helping to dismantle it, and then says they are fighting the war anyway, and THEN urges them not to lose it. It's a very telling scene that summarizes much of the post WWII world order and the chaos that ensued.
Heart of Darkness: The horrors of civilisation. Apocalypse Now: The horrors of war. Spec Ops: The Line: The horrors of heroism. Black Lagoon: The horrors of Crime-Action.
Speaking of Black Lagoon, there is that scene where Revy guns down a severely wounded FARC mercenary after he was promised to be taken to a hospital by Fabiola. I honestly never thought that even the OVA had a direct influence from Apocalypse Now.
I can understand Kurtz and Williards position. Simply because war is not a damn game. It's Something that is a zero sum deal. You win, or you lose. You lose you go home in a body bag. You win you survive. You don't play around with people's lives by declaring wars and police actions and spending your peoples lives like currency for no gain. You don't draft people and then send them to die pointlessly and expect things to be hunky dory.
One thing that's still abscent in media about the Vietnam War is that fundamentally it was a civil war with neighbor against neighbor in partisan fighting even beyond the two sides, with America and Australia just happening to be helping one side.
One of the worst aspects of this is that these types of wars pretty much can’t happen without outside agitators pumping money and propaganda into them.
I love the sound of a notification for Almighty Loli. Sounds like victory. P.S. : can you a video on Tarzan or his author and the legacy they left in popular culture? If Conan is the Grandpa, then Tarzan is his Gigachad dad
This is going to sound pretentious as shit, but I think Apocalypse Now is one of the few war movies I've seen that succesfully makes the war itself a character, rather than just the environment.
I love how you had that Hot shots scene at the end with Charlie and Martin sheen together, it's funny when you think about the fact they both starred in award winning war film classics.
I still can't get over how crazy of a life Conrad had, if y'all haven't read it the biography by Aubry is fire (I'm not a fact checker tho, so idk how accurate it is)
Something not often talked about is how south Vietnam basically had a series of awful leaders and borderline dictators that were never popular and very often caused problems for everyone. I believe at one point the country was lead by an eccentric purple suit wearing, ivory pistol Carrying, Air Force commander and having metal gear solid characters as the President is never a good sign.
I saw Redux one night, on a whim. It had no title card, no credits. It just WAS. I forgot what I did after it concluded. I felt like I'd been dragged through broken glass and shoved into a box. I don't remember a LOT about it, but I can't forget that I saw it.
Marlon Brando was a truly mystifying talent. Even when he put negative effort when getting ready for a role he would still deliver next-level performances that make you think he was method acting for months. Wish I knew how to channel that kind of juju. Performances in this movie are golden across the board though. I was amazed to learn that Willards monologues werent performed by Martin Sheen, but his brother Joe Estevez (who also stood in for him in several scenes while he was recovering from a heart attack.) He beautifully captured the leads state of mind by the end: Forever damaged, but with a renewed, resolute sense of self.
One small correction: the 289 minute cut exists online, it's a bootleg version in lovely 240p but it does exist and the Assembly Cut as it's called is terribly mixed audiowise from the 10 minutes I've seen of it but definitely on my watchlist whenever I have close to 5 hours of free time on my hands
This is a good essay. Your vitriol towards the hippies of the day is understandable. My old man wasn't in the military during those days but he has just as much disdain for the hippies and media coverage of that time.
One of the best cinematic retellings of classical literature ever! Heart of Darkness as Military movie seems so simple now but it’s still conceptually brilliant
What I find most impressive about Apocalypse Now is that it's a prime example of what Doug Walker called "epic filmmaking". That opening shot where the air force drops napalm on the forest? They really set the forest on fire. All the stuff you see on screen is really there, which is insane if you think about it.
it will never cease to amaze me how strong the myth that the war was unwinnable for the americans really is, when the vietnamese government that fought them, has stated openly and on public record that if america kept the war going one or two more years, they would have had to throw in the towel due to logistics. Not a comment on the morality of the war, just how much left and right alike have rewritten history together completely for their own reasons.
The lack of self awareness is astounding, yeah I'm sure the 10th consecutive "just two more years bro" would have worked. Maybe they would have won in Afghanistan is they had just stayed for two more years ten more times.
@@chadthundercock4806 the difference between vietnam and afghanistan is that the north vietnamese were an invading army. despite how history likes to portray them, they werent the people who lived in south vietnam, they were an outside force who had come to conquer. hence why they could in fact lose due to logistics and the loss of enough men. And again, im not the one saying it. That would be the north vietnamese government(then the whole vietnamese government) themselves. But i guess they diddnt know what they were talking about.
@@chadthundercock4806So that justified another foreign government to use proxies to overturn a native government? One that was its own territory, separate from the territory where the revolutionary forces that were bankrolled by commies came from? Fuck off you shill.
@@bo-fg8rw I think you're kind of ignoring the imperial occupation by France and near decade of internal conflicts in the south and border conflicts before 1964. Can't really be simplified as, "they were an invading force"
Funny to think that's theirs two Movies with Marlon Brando, Both adaptions of Novels, Both well known for the behind the scenes chaos. One turning out to be the Masterpiece of Apocalypse Now, The other being the disastrous Island of Dr. Moreau
Just like the Apocalypse Now documentary, theres a really documentary about Dr. Moreau called "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau" Give it a watch sometime
Your video comparison between Spec Ops: The Line and TLOU2 was the 2nd video I ever saw from you - and that was 3 years ago??? Man, how time flies! Even though I know it was "growing pains" for you, I still enjoy that video. Cheers!
Funny you do this right after Starship Troopers. In the novel of Starship Troopers they discuss the difference between proper war and meaningless brutality. I think what seperates Kurtz from Mai Lai is that he understands that killing and brutalizing people for it's own sake is pointless and that you need to excercise practical displays of brutality. You gotta measure the cost benefit analysis. Brutality is often necessary to a degree to win but you can embolden an enemy with it and lose yourself as well. The Jackal talks about this in Far Cry 2, the art of Wartime Brutality to break the enemies spirit is a display like a gorilla beating his chest, if you forget that and lose yourself in the display you become less than a man and it can be fatal.
I still see this sort of censorship within the modern military. Blood on the risers is a famous WWII song, that the modern military is darn near forbidden to sing. Charlie is not allowed to be used as a term for an enemy combatant, depending on the commander. Any insult towards the enemy is forbidden. Shoot, this is why you hear critics of the military say that our current military will lose the next war. Our soldiers will cross dress, and start crying as soon as the enemy shouts a bunch of slurs at them. Then the government will attempt another bribe with the US dollar which will be worthless by that point. The the government will raid the jails for soldiers, who will simply desert, or ignore orders to do whatever.
Yup. The USA has betrayed and misused it's warriors time and time again. There's a reason both the USA and the UK polls for public opinion on conscription were pretty much a unanimous "Fuck Off" for the government. We've seen how they treated the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The fact that the people in charge are more concerned with protecting your enemy than you is already a pretty big reason not to consider joining, let alone if you actually do survive, you'll probably get treated like shit while some activist nepobaby gets the royal treatment. I mean shit, so man Nam vets went homeless but Jane Fonda, a traitor, is out there in her mansion praising Covid as "The gift to the Left." Who the Hell would wanna join after that?
Let's not forget that leadership will actively stab their soldiers in the back and hem them up in bull crap and get them court martialed or sent to prison if they're anywhere near effective soldiers. The material side of things, the us military sold off their stategic oil reserve, they sent the strategic weapon reserve overseas. All that war fighting equipment is sitting in poland and will never return to the usa. How do you expect to train soldiers without teaching them how to use the equipment they're not going to be issued.
Very true. Rules are meant to be broken. We all insult our enemies, especially ones trying to take our lives. This isnt a game where a ref is going to come in and start penelizing points. there is no score, just victory or defeat.
As annoying as censorship is I fail to see how being able to shout slurs at the Chinese (or Russians) will somehow significantly effect our ability to wage war. In fact those two major countries that were once considered peer opponents to us have been revealed to be corrupt frauds with a barely effective defense industry, let alone military. Whether or not anyone in the US military would start cross-dressing in the future (highly doubt that will be allowed, even here, considering how nosy the Pentagon is with uniform standards) isn't going to magically make our unmatched air and sea power ineffective. Now what's interesting is you mentioned the DoD might resort to chain gang recruitment in the future, for some odd reason. I don't want to assume, but I'm sure you're aware that Russia has resorted to this since the 1st year of their "special military operation" and it has gone badly for them. In fact, Russia went the extra mile in portraying their military as merciless warriors who do not hesitate at the slightest, and look how well that's gone for them.
I love this review! I think Willard became the ultimate warrior,then decided not to be one. We can have dark talents and decide not to indulge them. Maybe we have brighter talents too.
The first time I saw this movie was still in the theaters, sometime around 1981 . I took some LSD and walked five miles through a Wisconsin blizzard. There is no way to describe what it was like having Marlon Brando telling me "You must make a friend of horror and moral terror" with a head full of acid It occurred to me that Col. Kurtz has some very valid points. He was a warrior. This was his essence as a human being. Yet, he was forced to take his orders from people whom he knew to be cowards, liars, and hypocrites whom he couldn't possibly respect. After the traumatic experience that cracked his sanity, he made the irreversible decision to be what he knew he was, and accept the consequences without regret. Willard understood this, not only because he was a warrior, but because he had reached the same turning point.
I see it as Kurtz realizing that this war needed a perfect monster to fight it and he was being built up to be that monster against his will, but since he still wanted everything to be done for this war to be won he chose to reconcile the two by defecting in the jungle and making it the perfect bait for someone else who could become that monster to be sent to him. Willard killing him and then choosing to return means that Kurtz succeeded in finding and shaping the perfect monster of war he did not want to be. It was a man realizing the hypocritical insanity that was asked of them and giving up in the hope someone else would answer.
What's so bad is watching this movie you look into a mirror. I'd be the same way, I would have lost my mind over there. My personality i know for certain I would have went primal and not wanted to come back. Even filming a movie like that would be dangerous to me. Awesome video
The strange thing is every war is treated differently in ww2 vets were showered with praise in vietnam they were spat on my pawpaw told my when he came home after being wounded from korea he said alot of people were only vaguely aware that we were in a real war with china in which MILLIONS of troops were mobilised from all corners of the earth.
The us hasnt been officially at war since ww2, the korean war is called the forgotten war for a reason... it was a conflict born out of executive action that wasnt explicity shown to the american populace, the vietnam war was another conflict but couldnt be hidden from the public because our reserves were unreplenished from korea so they initiated a draft, which hurt way more than it helped. Viet nam veterans were treated horribly because know nothing civilians finally got their first views of "modern combat" and the unfortunate reality of warfare via sensationalist media being extremely hyperbolic. The gwot era mirrors this, how many people believe we were guarding poppy fields in afghanistan based off of one photo of marines pulling security while stopped at a poply farm? Nevermind the fact that troops pull 360° security literally every time we stop anywhere in an active warzone...
I remember watching the Redux version one night when I was alone at home, and man, that traumatized me 0_0 but after watching your video and looking back at it, it's truly just a sad tale of what happens to good men who are sent to war and become something that they never wanted. War in itself is horror brought into the light, it's dark, cruel, vile, and twisted by men of power who don't have the stomach to fight the war themselves. Moving to a personal note, I have a brother who's in the military right now, in the Marines. He's eager to go to war, he's talked about from time to time with my parents and with me. I honestly dread the thought of war, i dread the thought of my brother stepping into it, now i know someone would say, "Well it's what he signed up for on the doted line." Yes, i understand, my own father also signed that line as well and he's still alive today, but no one truly survives a war. There's something in the human body, the soul, that's been destroyed or taken out. That's what I fear and dread, i fear for my brother. I fear that he might not survive but i know he will, along side with brothers in arms but I just hope they all come back safe. Though i know, it won't be the case in the end
A few years ago I saw what I think was the "final cut" in theaters, and being in that setting for the air cavalry attack scene will always be one of my favorite cinema memories. From what I recall, it had the plantation scene and a bit of the USO show.
Your video really makes me want to see an in-depth compare and contrast video essay that apprises the three colonels we see. They all have similar agendas but differ on how they want those carried out, and Willard's interactions with all three of them each say something different about MACV and upper command in general.
I always assumed that Roach was supposed to be nodding-off on heroin, and that they woke him from his stupor, and the heroin brought his mind to enough of a standstill to be able to easily and steadily aim without flinching or overthinking.
The more you learn about Vietnam and the generation who grew up during it, the worse of an opinion you will have of them, especially given their response to more modern conflicts. Also, if you were ever in doubt that Hollywood was always full of awful people, look up what Jane Fonda did during Vietnam and the reaction of her contemporaries, the first Rambo movie will make a lot more sense afterwards.
The difference in how we see Korea and Vietnam despite fundamentally being the same conflict tells you a lot about how much the 60s screwed up America.
My favorite thing about this movie was revealed when I was eighteen and my AP English IV teacher had to have us all over to her house (with parents' permission) to watch the movie. We were reading the OG, "Heart of Darkness", and she wanted us to watch the movie along with it, but because of the rating it wasn't allowed to be shown on school property. So we all went to her house and had a great time and ate popcorn and sandwiches and laughed when Kyle was angrily demanding the hanging corpse without pants stop spinning because he didn't want to see penis that night. Yeah, that was all fun and childish. BUT.... The thing about my teacher is she was a VERY GOOD teacher, because she explained her interpretation...and it was clearly anti-American and very leftist. And she said that's the message she sees, and she backed it all up with certain lines, scenes, etc. And they were all quite compelling and legitimate! She knew how to back her arguments, like any good Lit teacher should. But here's the important part--SHE DIDN'T DEMAND WE SEE IT THAT WAY. She said if we see things differently, write about it and defend it. I got an A+ on my essay that was the complete opposite of her interpretation that was way closer to this one right here. And that's why I love this movie. It doesn't tell. It doesn't say, "This is how you need to think." It simply SHOWS. It shows, it has characters say things, and you can take whatever side you like. This movie clearly has a message--and it is your choice as to what message you see. Yes, the creators probably had one in mind, as all creators do. But truly great art allows the viewers to draw their own conclusions, even though they might be diametrically opposite of what they'd intended, and a truly great artist LETS THEM.
I know I’m going to get shit for this, but I recently replayed Tomb Raider 2013 and I have to say that on this playthrough I had a better understanding of Mathias, the antagonist and leader of the cult. As you described with Kurtz, its easy and simple to call him insane, a madman, a murderer (the game does this as well) but the reality is that he’s actually a sane man in an insane situation doing the only logical thing to survive. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the game.
Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.
@Brotherken1234 th-cam.com/video/Decko2h-S20/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3I79V9YggjfCyal_ narration at the end of this scene. My favorite line in any movie ever, honestly. It perfectly explains why the US lost the war in Vietnam IMO.
What a strange stroke of chance, I just watched this film a few weeks ago and then just realized this channel covered it recently. All according to causality
"Against all the evil that Hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send unto them... only you. Rip and tear, until it is done."
I think the scene that freaked me out the most is when they finally get to Kurtz's compound and they're showered in headless arrows from all angles. They're absolutrey outnumbered by these crazy people who could kill them at any moment. The locals are probably quite willing to die fighting modern soldiers using nothing more than ancient weapons.
I'd love for you to cover war films like the Deer Hunter, Ivan's Childhood, or Before the Rain. The latter isn't so much a war premise like the first two, but it analyzes the backdrop of war very well.
After reading Blood Meridian, the Judge and Kurtz may have their similarities but in truth they complete antithesis of each other One is good man turned into a monster out necessity for brutality in war and the other a absolute inhuman monster that view war as God (and may or not be the devil himself). All in all Kurtz is more similar thematicaly and physicolocaly with Konrad kurze from 40k and probably a reference.
I think something is missed if one overlooks the fact that both the story and the film version end with a glimpse of Kurtz's records including a note to essentially "kill them all" Under all the philosophizing, both versions of this story hint that the final solution one comes to when faced with increasing degradations is ultimately genocidal etc. Saying that the corpses and skulls scattered about the temple complex were a way to warn off intruders could be a bit of a rationalization. They were I think, rather, implied to be the point in themselves, once one has reached the heart of darkness, hence the name of the film - as all roads lead to despair and killing when the logic of war, or colonialism, is taken to its ultimate conclusion. From a practical perspective, a counterpoint to the Kurtz viewpoint though might be to point out that an opposing nation is usually not actually cowed by horror or making a friend of horror and all that, anymore than armies fold just due to "shock and awe" bombings etc. The civilian bombings during WWII never did, by themselves, lead to a conclusion of hostilities due to lowered morale, even though it was long assumed that an attack on morale was a good motivation for them. And the brutality of the Nazis during the same war when invading the East not only didn't cow the Russians, it instead only steeled them to greater resistance.
If I had a nickel for everytime a psychological horrors of war movie used footage of an actual killing of a cow; I’d have two nickels, which isn’t much but it’s weird it happened twice
When you think of what Coppala achieved with making The Godfather,The Conversation,The Godfather 2,this and helping Lucas with American Graffiti among other things like Rumble Fish,The Outsiders,Tucker and even Peggy Sue Got Married it's no wonder why he is frequently considered one of the best filmmakers of all time. With the state of films now and their DEI,ESG garbage we could use a filmmaker of this caliber now.
I always enjoyed the psychological interpretation of apocalypse now and heart of darkness of an internal journey going further into the mind to meet the pure id that is Kurtz.
Unironically the Sheens meta meeting each other in the parody of Martin Sheen's Vietnam epic was one of the shortest, but best moments of meta comedy I've ever seen
I've actually never seen this and omg is it on the list now. What a great review though, I feel like many youtubers would be a little afraid to delve into the moral hypocrisy with such confidence, but it's very refreshing. Feels like we're not all just pretending. But maybe I'm missing something, anyways great vid
I need to watch the movie again, it has been over 15 years! That said, I get the sense that Colby failed in his mission partly because his sanity was something more akin to Lt. Col Kilgore or General Corman. Colby could not process the savagery that Kurtz’s band regularly committed. A highly effective savagery committed against an enemy Colby already knew to be quite savage themselves. I think Colby joined Kurtz’s ranks because he saw the truth of how effective the savage methodology, but he did so as a broken man. By Colby accepting Kurtz’s methods Colby had to come to the realization that men like Corman or Kilgore were frauds and his entire military existence was serving frauds for a lie. Willard was already profoundly disillusioned by the time he met Kurtz. Willard had a tenuous hold on sanity aided by alcohol but he was able to see the truth of what Kurtz was doing without it breaking him.
I watched this movie when it first came out in 1979, in fact I came on the first day. I became so temporarily obsessed with it, I watched it 5 more times within the first 2 weeks. My friend came along and watched it with me during those subsequent times and the ending we saw in the theater was always the same, yet it cannot be found on any of the versions that exist today. I lived in Ontario Canada back then and I don't know if this ending was experimental or what, but what I saw at the end of this film was when Capt. Willard took Lance with him onto the boat, you hear the radio blurt out "PBR street gang this is almighty over", and again it blurts out, but Willard shuts the radio off before it can finish a second time. Then the screen goes black except for a very small red flare that slowly descends almost center screen while you start to hear periodic musical sound effects in the background, then suddenly as the flare falls to the ground the entire screen lights up in an explosion. Then strange weird guitar sounds tear into the sound track playing in unison with the explosions tearing apart the entire military compound that Kurtz was holed up in. They also played the ritual music that was used for the killing of the buffalo scene at the same time. I sat there and watched those ancient stone works being destroyed, bomb after bomb with this crazy guitar tearing into your ears while the jungle and compound got pulverized. This all takes place while the credits rolled past. Then the bombs finally stop and the music gets quiet and the credits finish. I recalled that Kurtz had written in red marker in his manuscript that Willard took with him which read on a specific page that Willard stopped at, which said, "drop the bomb exterminate them all", and it made sense to me that Kurtz might have been telling Willard to call in the air strike to destroy his compound. That was the ending I watched all those years ago and to this day I don't understand why there isn't a version with that ending in it. Why show an ending that made perfect sense but never offer that ending to the public later on in a video format? It just doesn't make sense to me and pisses me off knowing people will never see that ending that I and my friend saw at the theater so many years ago because it was very powerful.
I remember seeing Apocalypse Now the first week it was out at the Big Newport theater in So. Cal. (The largest movie screen on the west coast at the time and for decades after). But the ending we saw was the same as it's always been. What you described sounds good- but then we wouldn't have the iconic "The horror. The horror." I've found that statement useful in numerous situations to get a specific point across succinctly. It's also comes in handy when you want to cap off a semi-serious conversation with humor- when things become unnecessarily solemn and levity is needed. A great line with so many uses.
My head canon ending is that when Willard kill Kurt’s he also killed “the man that kills” that the French lady was talking about and can now be the man who loves with his French waifu and lance is there to
Often the idea of a "any means necessary" character is used for a basic villain to establish a black and white morality. They're evil, so it's okay for Heroman to stop them for the good feels. But it certainly is much more interesting when it's used with an antagonist/character that's meant to make you wonder about its merits. If it can work and should be done.
Sorry for the slideshow. Copyright fought like hell on this one. Alt Tech sites have the uncensored version.
No they don't.
It’s fine bro, as long as we get to see some slide of the movie without it screwing you over is better than nothing.🐱
There a Bitchute Link?
@@frankie3010 Now they do.
I am happy you did not just shit on one side, however i must state that MAC-V-SOG was not just some shady black ops organisation. MAC-V-SOG was more about deploying into hostile territory and doing suicidal mission rather than just some assasinations like the CIA did and still probably does. (Operation OSCAR EIGHT).
Btw: the movie was supposed to end on a scene where the NVA and kurtz's forces were gonna engage in a large stupid suicidal battle.
We train young men to watch V-tubers, but we won't allow them to write "KINO" on their aeroplanes because it's obscene.
I write the N word on my aeroplanes.
@@coltonwilkie241 Imagine you fly to Africa XD
Are you talking about the Russian band with a lead singer that stared in a film and then got the John mcafee treatment while driving to a gig? I doubt it but I don’t want to be corrected either.
Kino is a slang term to describe something as very good from 4chan specificly movies, but just like the band the word it got inspired by the russian "Kinography"
@@a-star-called-the-sun Believe it or not it was cod black ops zombies that actually taught me what the meaning was, one of the maps which takes place in a theatre was called "Kino der toten" which is German. I am aware of its usage and I believe apocalypse now to be an actual kino movie.
Kurtz says that if someone killed him, he would want that person to go back to his family and tell them everything. Willard remarks in the beginning that if Kurtz story is a confession then so is his. I believe Willard's narrative perspective is that of him leaving a letter with kurtz family personally in the state.
I figured that what Kurtdz wrote iis what he took; giving an homage.
“Oh yeah I’m a huge movie buff. I’ve seen all the greats. Apocalypse Now? Nah, I’m not a big fan of disaster movies. Too cliche.”
What?
Is this a complaint?
People haven't even seen Armageddon, they won't get this.
Was talking to this kid at school and asked him if he’d ever seen apocalypse now and he said “no I don’t really watch zombie movies”
That’s clever but the reply’s make it better take ya like boss
The more I learn about hippies, the more I fully understand why Cartman felt the need to start a pest control business based around them.
Hippies where never good people or peaceful.
Maybe cartman wasnt so bad at all
The entire hippie scene was a CIA psy-op. It’s all bullshit. The only “real” hippies are just spoiled rich kids traveling the world and doing drugs funded by mommy and daddy.
Yep. They’re really scummy.
I recently watched Oliver Stone's The Doors and it just made me angry
"You have no right to call me a madman. You have a right to kill me... but you have no right to judge me."
I love the emphasis that Kurtz puts on judgement. As he says, a proper soldier can do his job and kill without judgement, because it's judgement that defeats us.
You're neither you're an errand boy.
The ones doing the fighting and killing are merely the tools. Not saying there aren't terrible people in war. But as I grew older I realized how much I enjoyed movies and shows that depicted the other sides and the troops. See things from other points of view. For all we know, which we do now, some troops were just like us. Doing their job. Unfortunately there's orders that need to be followed. And if things go wrong, or even right, the wielder of those 'tools' can throw them under the bus and wipe their hands clean of any involvement.
Calling Apocalypse Now "Dark" is like calling a flashbang "a bit bright and a little loud"
It's really like a horror film
@@kaspersaldelllol are you 12?
@@alphaotakux You are very rude
little known fact: apocalypse now is a confluence of 2 books. the first, and most well known, is "heart of darkness" by Joseph Conrad. the 2nd book, and least known, is Michael Herr's "Dispatches". Michael Herr was an embedded journalist in Vietnam. This book is the sum of that experience. i CANNOT emphasize enough how lauded by Vietnam vets "Dispatches" is for getting Vietnam "right". Michael Herr worked on apocalypse now. he worked on the screenplay and wrote all of martin sheen's inner monologues. i assume this is because Michael Herr has a distinct voice in his writing. You'll know what i mean if you read anything from the book it sounds like the speech used in apocalypse now. there's quite a few scenes in the movie directly from "Dispatches". it good.
The boat scene where the crew guns down the villagers, is a prime example of why draftees are a mistake and big Army should never be used in an asymmetrical war.
The fools got all anxious over some girl scrambling for her puppy. Chef's overly focused on procedure despite being in Cambodia and having main priority of escorting Willard. The crew's anxiety & nerves leading to trigger happy. Then they're all in shock over Willard mercy killing the girl.
Kurt says it in one of the narrations how the Army, full of draftees, is incompetent and lack the motivation to win. He concludes the war could be won quickly & decisively with a smaller number of well trained men.
Heck that's the purpose of US Army Special Forces, aka Green Berets. Their whole thing is about building relationships with locals and working together to counter the enemy, guerilla warfare & living off the land Rambo style. No need for 18 or 19 year old foolish infantry guys.
Whereas in cases like the My Lai massacre, it was caused by terrible leadership , undisciplined & poorly trained darfted soldiers who didn't care about the locals. The village massacre scene in Platoon captured it perfectly.
Contrast that massacre with all the known missons done by MACV SOG. Highly effective and probably did more for the war effort than thousands of draftees. Which by the way, if you read their stories one of their mayor complaints was again, bad leadership & bureaucracy.
I see this everyday in my country, Mexico. Coventional soldiers get little to no training, so they have constant screw ups due that lack of training. Leadership is incompetent and often corrupt, this being the reason why cartel bosses are able to get away during operations. And the guys who are better trained for this (Army SF Corps) aren't allowed to do their job, due to being bogged down in bureaucratic bs.
This why wars like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the French intervention in Mali and the Sahel, and so many more are never ever won.
That might actually be why Afghanistan became so complex. Extremist group heavily staffed and trained (for lack of better word) by former US trained extremists making powerful ties with locals in rural regions. There's way more to it, but I'll simplify it to that
LoL Lmao like they would learn
You still need cannon fodder
@@magicjohnson3121 I'd argue real life should not be played like an rts game where all you need is to spam conscripts to win
My Lai was ALL of our lie, maaaaan
My grandfather fought in Vietnam and Korea, he came home and was spat on and called a baby killer. That got to him, because they sent children to the soldiers because they could get close, then they would pull the pin on the grenade they were given. He never got over that, along with watching his friend get split in two by shrapnel, and getting hooked on morphine.
Who spit on him, and what did he do. How did anyone know he was a vet? They did not fly on commercial airplanes back home in full get up, but on military planes, landing on bases. Or is he just the plot of Rambo? Could they tell her was a soldier in civilian clothes everyday? And then weak beta hippies tried to spit on him with no consequences? Hearing this story every time nam is brought up, doesn’t add up logically
@@Horsemanray who what?
Killing children cause people put them to defend their country from you is also bad. Besides that usa killing machine of children in vietnam famously didnt targered only those who were armed
@@Horsemanray right when he got back, idk where he landed, nor when exactly. It's a story that was passed down, he never got a chance to tell me himself.
@@Horsemanray airport
The line in how you win a war is don’t lose. Because the morality of the victor judges you.
Learned from Doflamingo himself, the winner is always Justice, as the winner will define justice.
@@donttrustme6262 In One Piece, it's a underlying theme of how the victors get to write history and forbid those who want to learn of the defeated.
Dangerous ideology to tote. "Might makes right." with extra words.
@@RecluseBootsyit's not so much "might makes right" it's "the victor writes the history books" and "if we are defeated they will damn us for eternity"
We should never avoid studying the losers of war and History lest we only see one side of things
I had thirteen men in my family directly fight against Sherman’s armies in Southeast Georgia starting around 1862. None of them owned slaves. Even if you read the memoirs of Union soldiers, most never mentioned slavery until after the War, to justify the raping and pillaging done by the US, especially to Cherokees. Just like Iraq- “we went to free them with democracy!” Complete lies
If you're curious how old Laurence Fishburn was, he was 14 when filming.
That's one tall ass 14 year old lol
MF already looked 34 as a teenager! 😅😅😅😅😅😅
1⁰
1. The french colony is the final cut is what I’d consider as equal on point in describing the vietnam war as any other part of the movie. It’s more than just the known facade that the American entry into the war that we all know. It’s showing that the reason to fight simply does not exist, not even on the individual level, meanwhile, the french had been there and built a jungle empire from nothing.
2. The b-52 in the final cut amongst the sunset at a distance is still creepy. The skewerd winged beast with it’s taillight still blinking is beyond eerie.
3. Turns out: Jai Paul’s *Jasmine* has an unoffical music video in the form of the latter quarter of the movie. I beg you all watch it.
My father was in nam, one of the things he would say about that time and one of the hippy slogans was, "They liked to say, 'what if they threw a war and nobody came', but I always thought what if they threw a war and only one side came."
I imagine the term would be "slaughter"
I mean, you guys lost anyway, so you would have the exact same result but with a lot less bloodshed and warcrimes.
@@yum9918Nope, we had forced the North Vietnamese into a treaty that would have recognized the South as an independent country (a la South Korea). However, those dummies in Congress impeached Nixon over Watergate, and the communist realized the US wouldn’t bomb them so they could just Waltz into Saigon. Unfortunate it ended up being such a waste of lives and money, but that’s what happens when the media turns on something and attempts to vilify it.
@@yum9918 the US would be compared like the UN with how they did nothing to stop the Rwandan genocide
@@sirtonyedgar lol wat?
The US was NOT backing the good side in that war (note this is in the same sequence as backing d**th squads in Nicaragua), and by everything that is sacred, even discounting wanton bombing of civilian targets, did NOT get involved due to any humanitarian concerns.
"Charlie don't surf and we think he should,
Charlie don't surf but you know that it ain't no good,
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger mama,
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star"
My brother in Christ what did you see
@@MakeLoveNotWar687 It's a song by The Clash
@@theduxabides9274 AFRICA IS DROWNING IN COCA-COLA.
Somebody once wrote, "Hell is the impossibility of reason." Well, that's what this place feels like - hell. I hate it already and it's only been a few hours. I'm so tired. We get up at four in the morning...
At first I thought they handed me the wrong dossier. I couldn't believe they wanted this man dead. Third Generation West Point, top of his class, Airbourne, Korea, about a thousand decorations, etc, etc...
I loved you in Wall Street!
Hot Shots Part Duex :P
“War! It’s Fantastic.”
@@Dark-Stranger
GUMMY BEARS!
GUMMY BEARS!
SPRINKLES!
SPRINKLES!
🍬🍩
🥊🥊
10:24 It's the same thing with the napalm girl photo; South Vietnamese aircraft dropped napalm on her village, because her village was being overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. This was in June 1972, at the height of the North's Easter Offensive, which aimed at overrunning the South now that American troops were all but gone, and the province the photo was taken in, Tay Ninh, is just one province over from the south's capital of Saigon.
But it's only the United States and RVN (Republic of Vietnam) who are the bad guys for the girl's village being 'naped,' with the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam), the VC, and their Soviet and Chinese backers receiving no censure whatsoever.
Hasn't the conspiracy that the soviets infiltrated are media been proven correct,because this is pretty good evidence
I don’t need any of the propaganda photos from hippies.
We shouldn’t have been in Vietnam. Neither with Korea. But that’s just the message of Captain Hindsight.
In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed. Turns out, it wasn’t a good system of governance. Who knew?
@@badasscrusader Not only that, the Russian government actually said, the US undersold it. They had WAY more people there than even the most "Better Dead Than Red" ranter at the time believed.
It's no surprise why so many media companies and universities all seem to share one particular school of thought.
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 Ah but you see, that wasn't Real Communis-HAHAHA, sorry, can't even finish that without chuckling.
Its almost like media since the end of ww2 has completely ignored communist atrocities
9:50 I remember seeing this photo in my photography class in high school( we were studying a lot of anti war photos from Vietnam ) I remember the shock from seeing this and then later that day I look up the photo and found the story behind it, I tried telling people about it but for some reason (some people not all of them) just said I was an imperialist trying to justify war crimes weird right
Sad but standard reaction. The hippies/liberals spent a LONG time selling "Muh US Imperialism" thread that it's hard to actually get some people to talk about the war in a fair assessment. They operate on this, "You said the USA wasn't pure evil, therefore you are evil." But you can absolutely point out how this picture is missing context even the photographer wanted to make known AND state how Mai Lai and the cover-up that followed was Fucking sickening.
I
Not weird at all, i think schools put too little emphasis on critical thinking and doing your own research. And the fact that most things covered in schools aren't interesting enough to warrant doing your own research on it after school doesn't help either.
Protip: If someone calls you names in an attempt to invalidate what you said, just call them out on it and don't get pushed on the defense.
@@zeldies1976 oh yeah with the name calling I know that now this happened a few years ago so I really didn’t know how to defend myself with arguments but now I gotten better so thx
@@CJDunehew1 I couldn't defend myself with arguments for the life of me
@@tkim72003 Same here but I’m getting better I think, last argument I had was about the gulf war and the highway of death shit and I won so yeah
When I think of the line to cross in war, I’m reminded of a short story I once listened to (can’t remember the full details, just the general gist of it) about a survivor of an extinct alien race speaking with an alien alliance council composed of other races/species, pleading with them to “agree to the Humans’ rules of war.” He goes on to detail how his race challenged the Human race in a galactic war, believing they would be an easy target with how technologically-inferior they were to themselves, and they met with the Humans to declare open war and the Humans simply responded by asking for their rules of war, and the aliens laughed in their faces, saying that war has no rules. The Humans responded in turn, with no line to cross, no war crimes to reprimand, nothing. Nothing was off the table, and the aliens eventually found themselves pushed back to their home planet to ready for one last defense against the Humans that were coming. But when the airships dropped, they found themselves facing not Human troops, but their own kind, either forced to fight as war slaves with death collars on them, or their own dead forced back to life with machinery that moved them like grotesque puppets. By the time their own was wiped out, the surviving aliens were demoralized enough for the Human troops to drop in and wipe them out, sparring not even their women and children.
And that survivor begs the council once again, agree to the Humans’ rules of war.
Now that sounds like an engaging read
It's absolutely astonishing that Coppola managed to finish this movie, yet alone made such a timeless classic, with all the craziness going on during the production.
Surprised you didn't talk about Willard's haunting monologues that you hear throughout the movie.
They were written by Michael Herr, an actual war correspondent for the Vietnam War, who witnessed a lot of the horrifying stuff that the film portrays, along with his other peers being kidnapped or hit-and-runned during his stay. He published his memoir Dispatches years after returning shellshocked, and he funnelled a lot of his experiences and emotions into the movie as well.
Also cowrote Full Metal Jacket as well, so that's spiffy.
Achievement unlocked: participated in production of two of the most influential (Vietnam) War Film in history.
The French scene has a pretty good line that puts things into perspective: "You Americans are fighting for the biggest nothing in history."
I think more impactful is that the French family argues explicitly in favor of Colonialism, attacks the Americans for helping to dismantle it, and then says they are fighting the war anyway, and THEN urges them not to lose it. It's a very telling scene that summarizes much of the post WWII world order and the chaos that ensued.
Reply to this comment if you love transsexuals
@@tylercollinsworth9075*most
@@tylercollinsworth9075Yeah, WW2 was the biggest nothing burger we’ve ever eaten. Good point.
@@christopherkinsella3912This shit had me stifling laughter at 3 a.m.
Heart of Darkness: The horrors of civilisation.
Apocalypse Now: The horrors of war.
Spec Ops: The Line: The horrors of heroism.
Black Lagoon: The horrors of Crime-Action.
Black Lagoon: the horrors of your ship not getting together
Black lagoon the horror of living in asia
Speaking of Black Lagoon, there is that scene where Revy guns down a severely wounded FARC mercenary after he was promised to be taken to a hospital by Fabiola. I honestly never thought that even the OVA had a direct influence from Apocalypse Now.
Holy shit I haven't thought about spec ops: the line in YEARS. I'm getting flashbacks about saving Lugo
I'd like to believe that Apocalypse Now, Black Lagoon, and Far Cry 3 all exist in the same universe.
I can understand Kurtz and Williards position. Simply because war is not a damn game. It's Something that is a zero sum deal. You win, or you lose. You lose you go home in a body bag. You win you survive. You don't play around with people's lives by declaring wars and police actions and spending your peoples lives like currency for no gain. You don't draft people and then send them to die pointlessly and expect things to be hunky dory.
One thing that's still abscent in media about the Vietnam War is that fundamentally it was a civil war with neighbor against neighbor in partisan fighting even beyond the two sides, with America and Australia just happening to be helping one side.
France where???
@@ASlickNamedPimpback not the same war
It was the same war to the (North) Vietnamese.
One of the worst aspects of this is that these types of wars pretty much can’t happen without outside agitators pumping money and propaganda into them.
Ahh just they were just simply "helping" lmaoo😂😂😂
I love the sound of a notification for Almighty Loli. Sounds like victory.
P.S. : can you a video on Tarzan or his author and the legacy they left in popular culture? If Conan is the Grandpa, then Tarzan is his Gigachad dad
The Tarzan book goes freaking hard, like if Guts was raised by gorillas
@@grandparagnar6709 precisely :)
listening to the audiobook and it's pretty fucking metal
This is going to sound pretentious as shit, but I think Apocalypse Now is one of the few war movies I've seen that succesfully makes the war itself a character, rather than just the environment.
Not a pretentious take at all the war is a living entity of chaos and horror, it’s the horror Kurtz spoke of
I love how you had that Hot shots scene at the end with Charlie and Martin sheen together, it's funny when you think about the fact they both starred in award winning war film classics.
Make sure you read Heart of Darkness to pair with this movie. Just Conrad in general.
I still can't get over how crazy of a life Conrad had, if y'all haven't read it the biography by Aubry is fire (I'm not a fact checker tho, so idk how accurate it is)
💯, Lord Jim is good too
Something not often talked about is how south Vietnam basically had a series of awful leaders and borderline dictators that were never popular and very often caused problems for everyone.
I believe at one point the country was lead by an eccentric purple suit wearing, ivory pistol Carrying, Air Force commander and having metal gear solid characters as the President is never a good sign.
Nguyen Cao Ky. He also publicly declared he admired the Austrian Painter.
South Vietnamese politics were wild
I saw Redux one night, on a whim. It had no title card, no credits. It just WAS.
I forgot what I did after it concluded. I felt like I'd been dragged through broken glass and shoved into a box.
I don't remember a LOT about it, but I can't forget that I saw it.
Do you feel like a Hero yet?
Yeah. War is cool 😎
Rising Storm 2 soundtrack in the background, hell yeah
That has to have been the most intense multiplayer game I have ever played.
Marlon Brando was a truly mystifying talent. Even when he put negative effort when getting ready for a role he would still deliver next-level performances that make you think he was method acting for months. Wish I knew how to channel that kind of juju.
Performances in this movie are golden across the board though. I was amazed to learn that Willards monologues werent performed by Martin Sheen, but his brother Joe Estevez (who also stood in for him in several scenes while he was recovering from a heart attack.) He beautifully captured the leads state of mind by the end: Forever damaged, but with a renewed, resolute sense of self.
Joe Estevez, star of hit films like Soultaker and Werewolf? That only elevates the film.
He put all stats in Charisma and 0 in self-discipline
One small correction: the 289 minute cut exists online, it's a bootleg version in lovely 240p but it does exist and the Assembly Cut as it's called is terribly mixed audiowise from the 10 minutes I've seen of it but definitely on my watchlist whenever I have close to 5 hours of free time on my hands
This is a good essay. Your vitriol towards the hippies of the day is understandable. My old man wasn't in the military during those days but he has just as much disdain for the hippies and media coverage of that time.
Personally I hate hippies because of all the godawful cringy music they wrote
One of the best cinematic retellings of classical literature ever! Heart of Darkness as Military movie seems so simple now but it’s still conceptually brilliant
Hey soldier you know who's in charge here? " yeah "
What I find most impressive about Apocalypse Now is that it's a prime example of what Doug Walker called "epic filmmaking". That opening shot where the air force drops napalm on the forest? They really set the forest on fire. All the stuff you see on screen is really there, which is insane if you think about it.
watch 1971's Waterloo, sir.
@@itsoktobewhite4278 That‘s another prime example.
20:28 so basically the Vlad the Impaler strategy
To quote the classic British war movie 'Play Dirty' (1970): "War is a criminal enterprise. That is why we work with criminals."
it will never cease to amaze me how strong the myth that the war was unwinnable for the americans really is, when the vietnamese government that fought them, has stated openly and on public record that if america kept the war going one or two more years, they would have had to throw in the towel due to logistics.
Not a comment on the morality of the war, just how much left and right alike have rewritten history together completely for their own reasons.
The lack of self awareness is astounding, yeah I'm sure the 10th consecutive "just two more years bro" would have worked. Maybe they would have won in Afghanistan is they had just stayed for two more years ten more times.
@@chadthundercock4806 the difference between vietnam and afghanistan is that the north vietnamese were an invading army. despite how history likes to portray them, they werent the people who lived in south vietnam, they were an outside force who had come to conquer. hence why they could in fact lose due to logistics and the loss of enough men. And again, im not the one saying it. That would be the north vietnamese government(then the whole vietnamese government) themselves. But i guess they diddnt know what they were talking about.
@@bo-fg8rw South Vietnam was an incompetent and unpopular government for it's entire existence, it required US boots on the ground to not collapse.
@@chadthundercock4806So that justified another foreign government to use proxies to overturn a native government? One that was its own territory, separate from the territory where the revolutionary forces that were bankrolled by commies came from?
Fuck off you shill.
@@bo-fg8rw I think you're kind of ignoring the imperial occupation by France and near decade of internal conflicts in the south and border conflicts before 1964. Can't really be simplified as, "they were an invading force"
Funny to think that's theirs two Movies with Marlon Brando, Both adaptions of Novels, Both well known for the behind the scenes chaos. One turning out to be the Masterpiece of Apocalypse Now, The other being the disastrous Island of Dr. Moreau
For a second I thought "Wait, there was chaos behind the scenes of The Godfather?"
@@Salantor lmao
Just like the Apocalypse Now documentary, theres a really documentary about Dr. Moreau called "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau"
Give it a watch sometime
37:43 if only you could put the scene of Charlie on the Huey yelling I’m not going I’m not going in the video
The snail on a razor is literally me
Your video comparison between Spec Ops: The Line and TLOU2 was the 2nd video I ever saw from you - and that was 3 years ago??? Man, how time flies! Even though I know it was "growing pains" for you, I still enjoy that video. Cheers!
Funny you do this right after Starship Troopers. In the novel of Starship Troopers they discuss the difference between proper war and meaningless brutality.
I think what seperates Kurtz from Mai Lai is that he understands that killing and brutalizing people for it's own sake is pointless and that you need to excercise practical displays of brutality. You gotta measure the cost benefit analysis.
Brutality is often necessary to a degree to win but you can embolden an enemy with it and lose yourself as well.
The Jackal talks about this in Far Cry 2, the art of Wartime Brutality to break the enemies spirit is a display like a gorilla beating his chest, if you forget that and lose yourself in the display you become less than a man and it can be fatal.
Oh, man, your spec ops review was so long ago, lmao, you grow so much.
Deserved 100%, you are a man of culture and wisdom.
I still see this sort of censorship within the modern military.
Blood on the risers is a famous WWII song, that the modern military is darn near forbidden to sing.
Charlie is not allowed to be used as a term for an enemy combatant, depending on the commander.
Any insult towards the enemy is forbidden.
Shoot, this is why you hear critics of the military say that our current military will lose the next war. Our soldiers will cross dress, and start crying as soon as the enemy shouts a bunch of slurs at them. Then the government will attempt another bribe with the US dollar which will be worthless by that point. The the government will raid the jails for soldiers, who will simply desert, or ignore orders to do whatever.
Yup. The USA has betrayed and misused it's warriors time and time again. There's a reason both the USA and the UK polls for public opinion on conscription were pretty much a unanimous "Fuck Off" for the government.
We've seen how they treated the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The fact that the people in charge are more concerned with protecting your enemy than you is already a pretty big reason not to consider joining, let alone if you actually do survive, you'll probably get treated like shit while some activist nepobaby gets the royal treatment.
I mean shit, so man Nam vets went homeless but Jane Fonda, a traitor, is out there in her mansion praising Covid as "The gift to the Left." Who the Hell would wanna join after that?
Let's not forget that leadership will actively stab their soldiers in the back and hem them up in bull crap and get them court martialed or sent to prison if they're anywhere near effective soldiers. The material side of things, the us military sold off their stategic oil reserve, they sent the strategic weapon reserve overseas. All that war fighting equipment is sitting in poland and will never return to the usa. How do you expect to train soldiers without teaching them how to use the equipment they're not going to be issued.
Local dumbass thinks machismo is what wins wars
Very true. Rules are meant to be broken. We all insult our enemies, especially ones trying to take our lives. This isnt a game where a ref is going to come in and start penelizing points. there is no score, just victory or defeat.
As annoying as censorship is I fail to see how being able to shout slurs at the Chinese (or Russians) will somehow significantly effect our ability to wage war. In fact those two major countries that were once considered peer opponents to us have been revealed to be corrupt frauds with a barely effective defense industry, let alone military. Whether or not anyone in the US military would start cross-dressing in the future (highly doubt that will be allowed, even here, considering how nosy the Pentagon is with uniform standards) isn't going to magically make our unmatched air and sea power ineffective.
Now what's interesting is you mentioned the DoD might resort to chain gang recruitment in the future, for some odd reason. I don't want to assume, but I'm sure you're aware that Russia has resorted to this since the 1st year of their "special military operation" and it has gone badly for them. In fact, Russia went the extra mile in portraying their military as merciless warriors who do not hesitate at the slightest, and look how well that's gone for them.
I love this review! I think Willard became the ultimate warrior,then decided not to be one. We can have dark talents and decide not to indulge them. Maybe we have brighter talents too.
The first time I saw this movie was still in the theaters, sometime around 1981 . I took some LSD and walked five miles through a Wisconsin blizzard. There is no way to describe what it was like having Marlon Brando telling me "You must make a friend of horror and moral terror" with a head full of acid
It occurred to me that Col. Kurtz has some very valid points. He was a warrior. This was his essence as a human being. Yet, he was forced to take his orders from people whom he knew to be cowards, liars, and hypocrites whom he couldn't possibly respect. After the traumatic experience that cracked his sanity, he made the irreversible decision to be what he knew he was, and accept the consequences without regret. Willard understood this, not only because he was a warrior, but because he had reached the same turning point.
This is imo Martin Sheen best role, I also love he cameo in Hot Shot Part Duex where he referenced the dossier scene
It’s been years since I’ve seen this film and I feel inspired to go see it again, thanks for that Loli.
I see it as Kurtz realizing that this war needed a perfect monster to fight it and he was being built up to be that monster against his will, but since he still wanted everything to be done for this war to be won he chose to reconcile the two by defecting in the jungle and making it the perfect bait for someone else who could become that monster to be sent to him.
Willard killing him and then choosing to return means that Kurtz succeeded in finding and shaping the perfect monster of war he did not want to be.
It was a man realizing the hypocritical insanity that was asked of them and giving up in the hope someone else would answer.
9:25 “BUT SOMEBODY WOULDN’T LET US WIN”
What's so bad is watching this movie you look into a mirror. I'd be the same way, I would have lost my mind over there. My personality i know for certain I would have went primal and not wanted to come back. Even filming a movie like that would be dangerous to me. Awesome video
holy shit, this content is getting frequent! You're spoiling us!
This is the movie that made me always use the tiger camo on grenade launchers.
_Always_
🎩
🐍 no step on snek! 🇺🇸🇭🇰
When I was younger, I thought this movie invented gun camo lol
Tiger stripe camo on any gun just works well. Same with netting over a matte color.
The strange thing is every war is treated differently in ww2 vets were showered with praise in vietnam they were spat on my pawpaw told my when he came home after being wounded from korea he said alot of people were only vaguely aware that we were in a real war with china in which MILLIONS of troops were mobilised from all corners of the earth.
The us hasnt been officially at war since ww2, the korean war is called the forgotten war for a reason... it was a conflict born out of executive action that wasnt explicity shown to the american populace, the vietnam war was another conflict but couldnt be hidden from the public because our reserves were unreplenished from korea so they initiated a draft, which hurt way more than it helped. Viet nam veterans were treated horribly because know nothing civilians finally got their first views of "modern combat" and the unfortunate reality of warfare via sensationalist media being extremely hyperbolic. The gwot era mirrors this, how many people believe we were guarding poppy fields in afghanistan based off of one photo of marines pulling security while stopped at a poply farm? Nevermind the fact that troops pull 360° security literally every time we stop anywhere in an active warzone...
I remember watching the Redux version one night when I was alone at home, and man, that traumatized me 0_0 but after watching your video and looking back at it, it's truly just a sad tale of what happens to good men who are sent to war and become something that they never wanted. War in itself is horror brought into the light, it's dark, cruel, vile, and twisted by men of power who don't have the stomach to fight the war themselves. Moving to a personal note, I have a brother who's in the military right now, in the Marines. He's eager to go to war, he's talked about from time to time with my parents and with me. I honestly dread the thought of war, i dread the thought of my brother stepping into it, now i know someone would say, "Well it's what he signed up for on the doted line." Yes, i understand, my own father also signed that line as well and he's still alive today, but no one truly survives a war. There's something in the human body, the soul, that's been destroyed or taken out. That's what I fear and dread, i fear for my brother. I fear that he might not survive but i know he will, along side with brothers in arms but I just hope they all come back safe. Though i know, it won't be the case in the end
A few years ago I saw what I think was the "final cut" in theaters, and being in that setting for the air cavalry attack scene will always be one of my favorite cinema memories. From what I recall, it had the plantation scene and a bit of the USO show.
Your video really makes me want to see an in-depth compare and contrast video essay that apprises the three colonels we see. They all have similar agendas but differ on how they want those carried out, and Willard's interactions with all three of them each say something different about MACV and upper command in general.
I love your breakdowns makes me enjoy the movies and shows I love in a different light, stay up my homie!
I always assumed that Roach was supposed to be nodding-off on heroin, and that they woke him from his stupor, and the heroin brought his mind to enough of a standstill to be able to easily and steadily aim without flinching or overthinking.
The more you learn about Vietnam and the generation who grew up during it, the worse of an opinion you will have of them, especially given their response to more modern conflicts. Also, if you were ever in doubt that Hollywood was always full of awful people, look up what Jane Fonda did during Vietnam and the reaction of her contemporaries, the first Rambo movie will make a lot more sense afterwards.
And she's only gotten worse with age. And...even less sane.
Though it does make me chuckle her photos were on a lot of urinals in US army bases.
The difference in how we see Korea and Vietnam despite fundamentally being the same conflict tells you a lot about how much the 60s screwed up America.
My favorite thing about this movie was revealed when I was eighteen and my AP English IV teacher had to have us all over to her house (with parents' permission) to watch the movie. We were reading the OG, "Heart of Darkness", and she wanted us to watch the movie along with it, but because of the rating it wasn't allowed to be shown on school property. So we all went to her house and had a great time and ate popcorn and sandwiches and laughed when Kyle was angrily demanding the hanging corpse without pants stop spinning because he didn't want to see penis that night. Yeah, that was all fun and childish.
BUT....
The thing about my teacher is she was a VERY GOOD teacher, because she explained her interpretation...and it was clearly anti-American and very leftist. And she said that's the message she sees, and she backed it all up with certain lines, scenes, etc. And they were all quite compelling and legitimate! She knew how to back her arguments, like any good Lit teacher should. But here's the important part--SHE DIDN'T DEMAND WE SEE IT THAT WAY. She said if we see things differently, write about it and defend it. I got an A+ on my essay that was the complete opposite of her interpretation that was way closer to this one right here.
And that's why I love this movie. It doesn't tell. It doesn't say, "This is how you need to think." It simply SHOWS. It shows, it has characters say things, and you can take whatever side you like. This movie clearly has a message--and it is your choice as to what message you see. Yes, the creators probably had one in mind, as all creators do. But truly great art allows the viewers to draw their own conclusions, even though they might be diametrically opposite of what they'd intended, and a truly great artist LETS THEM.
I know I’m going to get shit for this, but I recently replayed Tomb Raider 2013 and I have to say that on this playthrough I had a better understanding of Mathias, the antagonist and leader of the cult. As you described with Kurtz, its easy and simple to call him insane, a madman, a murderer (the game does this as well) but the reality is that he’s actually a sane man in an insane situation doing the only logical thing to survive. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the game.
My favorite war movie BY FAR. thanks for the video man this is one I've been waiting on just like the Conan video. Cheers!
This video made me finally watch the whole thing and HOLY SHIT that was a wild trip.
This is the end. Beautiful friend. This is the end. My only Friend, The End.
Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.
Rst meat??
@Brotherken1234 th-cam.com/video/Decko2h-S20/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3I79V9YggjfCyal_ narration at the end of this scene. My favorite line in any movie ever, honestly. It perfectly explains why the US lost the war in Vietnam IMO.
What a strange stroke of chance, I just watched this film a few weeks ago and then just realized this channel covered it recently. All according to causality
"They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you. You will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done."
"Against all the evil that Hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send unto them... only you. Rip and tear, until it is done."
I think the scene that freaked me out the most is when they finally get to Kurtz's compound and they're showered in headless arrows from all angles. They're absolutrey outnumbered by these crazy people who could kill them at any moment. The locals are probably quite willing to die fighting modern soldiers using nothing more than ancient weapons.
Ancient means for an ancient task.
I'd love for you to cover war films like the Deer Hunter, Ivan's Childhood, or Before the Rain. The latter isn't so much a war premise like the first two, but it analyzes the backdrop of war very well.
After reading Blood Meridian, the Judge and Kurtz may have their similarities but in truth they complete antithesis of each other One is good man turned into a monster out necessity for brutality in war and the other a absolute inhuman monster that view war as God (and may or not be the devil himself). All in all Kurtz is more similar thematicaly and physicolocaly with Konrad kurze from 40k and probably a reference.
Mccarthy was inspired by Kurtz when creating the judge
@@Fauwkes and also Lucifer from Paradise Lost
Man, seeing this review really makes me want to re-watch...Hot Shots Part Deux.
I think something is missed if one overlooks the fact that both the story and the film version end with a glimpse of Kurtz's records including a note to essentially "kill them all" Under all the philosophizing, both versions of this story hint that the final solution one comes to when faced with increasing degradations is ultimately genocidal etc.
Saying that the corpses and skulls scattered about the temple complex were a way to warn off intruders could be a bit of a rationalization. They were I think, rather, implied to be the point in themselves, once one has reached the heart of darkness, hence the name of the film - as all roads lead to despair and killing when the logic of war, or colonialism, is taken to its ultimate conclusion.
From a practical perspective, a counterpoint to the Kurtz viewpoint though might be to point out that an opposing nation is usually not actually cowed by horror or making a friend of horror and all that, anymore than armies fold just due to "shock and awe" bombings etc.
The civilian bombings during WWII never did, by themselves, lead to a conclusion of hostilities due to lowered morale, even though it was long assumed that an attack on morale was a good motivation for them. And the brutality of the Nazis during the same war when invading the East not only didn't cow the Russians, it instead only steeled them to greater resistance.
Ending the video with the spec ops the line ost was a nice touch
Wonderful review. THANK YOU
Love the smell of new review in the morning!
If I had a nickel for everytime a psychological horrors of war movie used footage of an actual killing of a cow; I’d have two nickels, which isn’t much but it’s weird it happened twice
When you think of what Coppala achieved with making The Godfather,The Conversation,The Godfather 2,this and helping Lucas with American Graffiti among other things like Rumble Fish,The Outsiders,Tucker and even Peggy Sue Got Married it's no wonder why he is frequently considered one of the best filmmakers of all time. With the state of films now and their DEI,ESG garbage we could use a filmmaker of this caliber now.
Didn't Coppala film the literal battle of Midway from Midway Island itself surrounded by Marines taking up defensive positions?
Digging the stalker soundtrack in the background. You should do a review on some soviet films like Solaris and Stalker
He did stalker and come and see
I always enjoyed the psychological interpretation of apocalypse now and heart of darkness of an internal journey going further into the mind to meet the pure id that is Kurtz.
Unironically the Sheens meta meeting each other in the parody of Martin Sheen's Vietnam epic was one of the shortest, but best moments of meta comedy I've ever seen
I've actually never seen this and omg is it on the list now. What a great review though, I feel like many youtubers would be a little afraid to delve into the moral hypocrisy with such confidence, but it's very refreshing. Feels like we're not all just pretending. But maybe I'm missing something, anyways great vid
thank you Joseph Conrad for making this video!
I need to watch the movie again, it has been over 15 years!
That said, I get the sense that Colby failed in his mission partly because his sanity was something more akin to Lt. Col Kilgore or General Corman. Colby could not process the savagery that Kurtz’s band regularly committed. A highly effective savagery committed against an enemy Colby already knew to be quite savage themselves. I think Colby joined Kurtz’s ranks because he saw the truth of how effective the savage methodology, but he did so as a broken man. By Colby accepting Kurtz’s methods Colby had to come to the realization that men like Corman or Kilgore were frauds and his entire military existence was serving frauds for a lie.
Willard was already profoundly disillusioned by the time he met Kurtz. Willard had a tenuous hold on sanity aided by alcohol but he was able to see the truth of what Kurtz was doing without it breaking him.
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin."
I watched this movie when it first came out in 1979, in fact I came on the first day. I became so temporarily obsessed with it, I watched it 5 more times within the first 2 weeks. My friend came along and watched it with me during those subsequent times and the ending we saw in the theater was always the same, yet it cannot be found on any of the versions that exist today.
I lived in Ontario Canada back then and I don't know if this ending was experimental or what, but what I saw at the end of this film was when Capt. Willard took Lance with him onto the boat, you hear the radio blurt out "PBR street gang this is almighty over", and again it blurts out, but Willard shuts the radio off before it can finish a second time. Then the screen goes black except for a very small red flare that slowly descends almost center screen while you start to hear periodic musical sound effects in the background, then suddenly as the flare falls to the ground the entire screen lights up in an explosion. Then strange weird guitar sounds tear into the sound track playing in unison with the explosions tearing apart the entire military compound that Kurtz was holed up in. They also played the ritual music that was used for the killing of the buffalo scene at the same time. I sat there and watched those ancient stone works being destroyed, bomb after bomb with this crazy guitar tearing into your ears while the jungle and compound got pulverized. This all takes place while the credits rolled past. Then the bombs finally stop and the music gets quiet and the credits finish.
I recalled that Kurtz had written in red marker in his manuscript that Willard took with him which read on a specific page that Willard stopped at, which said, "drop the bomb exterminate them all", and it made sense to me that Kurtz might have been telling Willard to call in the air strike to destroy his compound. That was the ending I watched all those years ago and to this day I don't understand why there isn't a version with that ending in it. Why show an ending that made perfect sense but never offer that ending to the public later on in a video format? It just doesn't make sense to me and pisses me off knowing people will never see that ending that I and my friend saw at the theater so many years ago because it was very powerful.
I remember seeing Apocalypse Now the first week it was out at the Big Newport theater in So. Cal. (The largest movie screen on the west coast at the time and for decades after).
But the ending we saw was the same as it's always been. What you described sounds good- but then we wouldn't have the iconic "The horror. The horror."
I've found that statement useful in numerous situations to get a specific point across succinctly.
It's also comes in handy when you want to cap off a semi-serious conversation with humor- when things become unnecessarily solemn and levity is needed.
A great line with so many uses.
th-cam.com/video/0X_XSqOy-zE/w-d-xo.html
For anyone who hasn’t seen it
th-cam.com/video/0X_XSqOy-zE/w-d-xo.html
For anyone that hasn’t seen it
In the redux version you got that endind AND the french colony dinner with mr clean funeral
The horror...the horror.
Bro your videos are art love the song intros fabulous content keep making them 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼.
My head canon ending is that when Willard kill Kurt’s he also killed “the man that kills” that the French lady was talking about and can now be the man who loves with his French waifu and lance is there to
your spec ops the line video convinced me to buy the game and i love it so much. what a masterpiece
Funny thing me and a couple of friends were talking about this movie last night
"Wake up babe literally me review just dropped"
Gonna watch tf outta this, one of my all time favorites
Often the idea of a "any means necessary" character is used for a basic villain to establish a black and white morality. They're evil, so it's okay for Heroman to stop them for the good feels.
But it certainly is much more interesting when it's used with an antagonist/character that's meant to make you wonder about its merits. If it can work and should be done.
I’ve been thinking of this movie a lot lately and been listening to the doors. Thank you for letting my mind indulge more apocalypse now!