Apocalypse Now vs Platoon!

Which of these two Vietnam War movies do you prefer?

This is a tough choice and I won't actually vote until later this afternoon.

Apocalypse Now by far although I would agree that Platoon is a more reliable depiction of the Vietnam War. 

I'm not sure Apocalypse Now tries to be realistic in any way other than to llustrate it's underlying questions: could the US have won if they'd resorted to Kurtz' ways? Is the complete and utter surrender to war no matter how twisted and evil it may appear the answer to winning it?
In many ways you could look at this movie as an ode to or indeed a jam on Nietzsche. Wille zur Macht.

Martin Sheen over Charlie Sheen, even if the latter has tiger blood....

In terms of a film that I actually like re-watching, Apocalypse Now! by a mile.

A rather redundant post considering that it's in the other poll and has already been mentioned in this thread. I expect that most of us who are interested in the subject matter will have seen Full Metal Jacket (I prefer it to Platoon). To be honest, it's commonly a peeve of mine when people mention "other" choices without saying anything about the listed options. Not that I would mind someone saying something like "Please excuse my ignorance, I haven't seen these, but one that fits the theme that I like is such-and-such." Sometimes it comes across as, "Your choices suck, you should have included these instead."

Logan wrote: A rather redundant post considering that it's in the other poll and has already been mentioned in this thread. I expect that most of us who are interested in the subject matter will have seen Full Metal Jacket (I prefer it to Platoon). To be honest, it's commonly a peeve of mine when people mention "other" choices without saying anything about the listed options. Not that I would mind someone saying something like "Please excuse my ignorance, I haven't seen these, but one that fits the theme that I like is such-and-such." Sometimes it comes across as, "Your choices suck, you should have included these instead."

Thanks for your input Greg. No offence is taken by me, however. Some feel that they have to stress a contrary view, as if anyone really cares.

Edited by SteveG - April 20 2017 at 04:19

Apocalypse Now is not about The Vietnam War.

TBH, I find Platoon better, partly because of the awesome music

Surprised The Deer Hunter wasn't in the choice... Even if different, it was also one of those early Nam movies (same generation as AN)

aglasshouse wrote: Full Metal Jacket.

I kinda liked that one too (it came out soon after Platoon), but really disliked Hamburger Hill that also came out atround that time

But TBH, I was kind of sick of Nam movies by the Good Morning Nam movie later that year...Not sure I ever saw one again, since

Interesting comparative post, TeleStrat

Kepler62 wrote: Apocalypse Now is not about The Vietnam War.

Jungle fever... A river runs through it....

Apocalypse Now! is not about colonialism in the Belgian Congo either during the 19th century. Obviously A.N! is based on Heart of Darkness and parallels the plot and character development. A.N. is an updated version/adaptation of HoD which updates the setting to the Vietnam War. I have no problem with someone saying that A.N. is a Vietnam War movie since it takes place during that time and that is the setting. One could update Conrad's novel to various settings of course, and clearly the book and film have differences beyond just the setting.

Like many, Heart of Darkness was required school (think an English 100 course) reading. I wrote an essay comparing themes in both the Conrad and Coppola works about colonialism/ imperialism [edited sentence for coming out horribly garbled]. Wish I had kept such stuff.

On a personal note: I once pitched a script to Francis Ford Coppola and was shot down worse than anything in his film. "The horror, the horror".

Edited by Logan - April 20 2017 at 12:05