Vietcong Blow It Back Up Again Apocalypse Now

"It'southward impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do non know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face up. And you must brand a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies!"

— Kurtz

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 epic psychological state of war motion picture directed by Francis Ford Coppola at the height of his career that very loosely adapts the classic Joseph Conrad novella Center of Darkness, transporting the events of that book from late 19th-century Africa to 1970 Vietnam and Cambodia.

Special operations Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent to kill Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a Dark-green Beret Colonel who has gone mad and formed a personality cult in Cambodia. After Colonel Neb Kilgore (Robert Duvall) clears off his initial path, Willard and his coiffure — including George "Chief" Phillips (Albert Hall), Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), and Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (a 14-twelvemonth-former Laurence Fishburne) — go up a river and into the recesses of humanity.

Leading up to its release, Coppola workshopped an extensive number of cuts of the picture that ran from 139 minutes to effectually three hours, the latter being its runtime when information technology premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the first-always instance of the festival showing an unfinished work in competition ^note a epic move even at the time that was only approved considering Coppola's prior film The Conversation had won high honors at the festival and further awarding one the Palme d'Or. While it opened broad to mixed reviews, Apocalypse Now is at present firmly considered one of the all-time greats. Packed to the gills with now-iconic scenes and quotes, information technology is a mutual choice for not simply the definitive anti-war motion-picture show just the definitive cinematic depiction of state of war not as battle, or even equally purgatory, only as an illogical fever dream.

The picture show is besides legendary for having what is considered to exist one of the most troubled productions in Hollywood history. To draw all of the mishaps that occurred on set would require an unabridged page, to the point where the flick's nightmarish production was documented by Coppola's wife Eleanor, who would after use footage she shot on set to make the 90-minute documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. The highlights can be read on the Trivia section.

In 2001, Coppola drastically Re-Cutting the picture once more, extending the running time past virtually an hour, adding some additional scenes and re-shuffling some existing ones effectually. The new version was released (to mixed reviews) as Apocalypse At present Redux: some reviewers felt it was a beautiful expansion on the themes of the original, others thought it diluted the bear on and bloated the movie. ^note For what it's worth, the original cutting has a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Redux has 93%. It was recut again in 2019 equally the "Final Cut", with a new runtime of just over three hours, 19 minutes less than Redux.

Not to be confused with Apocalypse How or Apocalypse Wow, which deal with destruction apocalypses.

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I love the smell of tropes in the morning time:

• Above Practiced and Evil: In a deleted scene Kurtz visits Willard while he is in captivity, bringing upwards the subject of how he thinks the Vietnam War could exist won. A lecture ensues well-nigh how Americans care too much nigh their public image and how the residue of the world views them, it is a error to let public opinion prevent victory in a war. If state of war wasn't a popularity contest then America could exercise whatsoever was necessary to win. Willard calls Kurtz cruel and that his methods destroy all moral standards of right and wrong in appropriate bear of warfare. Kurtz responds simply, "Information technology is 'right' to win. And it is 'wrong' to lose."
• Player Innuendo:
  • The flick of Kurtz in military machine compatible in the dossier is Marlon Brando in Reflections in a Golden Eye, for which Francis Ford Coppola had contributed to the screenplay.
  • Dennis Hopper playing an unstable hippie photographer is quite plumbing equipment.
• Audio-visual License: Kilgore has his air cavalry play "Ride of the Valkyries" from speakers attached to one of six helicopters as they ride in to bomb a Viet Cong base of operations, saying his men use the music to psych themselves upwards and terrify the enemy. Nosotros hear the music from the perspective of the village as the choppers wing in. Nevertheless, those speakers could not hope to break through the incredible noise that half dozen attack choppers put out.
• Adaptation Championship Change: Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness.
• Adipose Rex: Kurtz, although this was absolutely not the original plan. Kurtz was supposed to exist a robust and fit eye anile homo, but Brando showed up for the role at least a hundred pounds overweight. Coppola compromised past keeping him in the shadows as much as possible, but it's often obvious how obese the human being is. It really works well as it highlights Kurtz has completely allow himself go and his pretensions to being a proud soldier are so much wind, much like the Kurtz of the novel.
• Alas, Poor Villain: There's a strong sense of tragedy regarding the decease of Kurtz.
• Annoying Arrows:
  • Subverted. Villagers (unseen at this betoken, as in Conrad's volume) attack Willard's boat with arrows. Due to the 20th century setting, Willard does not take them seriously. He refers to them as "toy arrows," and in a shout out to Conrad, he says "they're just piffling sticks, they're trying to scare u.s.a.!" Subsequently the sailors get-go shooting back, they switch to spears, and one of the sailors dies every bit a result.
  • Lance, at one bespeak in the same scene, breaks an arrow in one-half and sticks the 2 halves in his hair.
• An Arm and a Leg: Kurtz tells a story most the time he was with the Special Forces and they inoculated children:

  Kurtz: We left the army camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this former man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. Nosotros went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. At that place they were in a pile. A pile of little artillery.

• Asskicking Equals Authority:
  • Willard's prowess is shown early on in Redux and Concluding Cut when he beats some sense into a war machine orderly who is red-taping fuel supplies.
  • Kurtz gave up his life equally a staff officer in club to join Special Forces as an agile duty soldier. He graduated the grueling Airborne Schoolhouse at 38 years old, which Willard struggled to complete at 19. And despite his mental and physical decay after going rogue in the jungles of Cambodia, his army has a fanatical devotion to his leadership and view him equally a god.
  • Kilgore appears to be dear by his men despite, or maybe because of, his willingness to send them into extremely dangerous combat zones. To Kilgore'south credit, he leads from the front end and does non appear the to the lowest degree bit concerned when shells explode right next to him.

• Dazzler Is Never Tarnished: Subverted. Lance, the blond surfer boy and arguably the handsomest man on Willard'south strike team, smears lots of night camouflage makeup on his face up and leaves information technology on for the entire film.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Apparently Cambodian street kids ask foreign soldiers for money in Filipino.
  • Also, the scenes in the Redux version that take place on the French Plantation. None of the French dialogue is subtitled.
• Black Dude Dies Start: A peculiarly savage example in that both black crew members dice before the others. Style before that, a black soldier dies in the helicopter explosion in the village.
• Bookends/Motif: "The End", performed past The Doors, is featured in the introduction and during Colonel Kurtz's murder to establish and reinforce the movie'south underlying surreality.
• Break Them by Talking: When Willard is captured by Kurtz the Colonel asks a simple question, "Are y'all an assassin?" Willard'southward response is that he is a soldier. Kurtz mocks Willard past saying the following, "You lot're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill."
• Intermission the Cutie: Chef, Make clean and particularly Lance exercise not appear to be hardened soldiers. Willard remarks that Lance looked like he'd never fired a weapon in his life. Clean ends up massacring a sampan full of civilians before existence killed himself, Chef suffers several mental breakdowns and Lance ends upwardly completely detached from reality.
• Broken Ace: Kurtz was groomed to become a superlative war machine officer but something in him snapped later his first bout of 'Nam. Willard discovers by reading Kurtz's dossier that the Broken aspect was intentionally self inflicted past Kurtz. Kurtz was going to be a high ranking General in the "corporation" i day, but he was dissatisfied with being a desk jockey and decided to join the Special Forces. As a Lieutenant Colonel at the time Kurtz could take been anything he wanted, but being a Special Forces operative would put a blast in his career'south coffin so deep that he would never go in a higher place Colonel. Willard is astonished that such a gifted officer would screw his ain career over like that.
  • Willard is one to an extent. While not as brilliant or accomplished as Kurtz, he's still a highly trained black ops agent and assasin who'southward well regarded for his skills and for the about office handles the chaos around him but fine. All the same he's likewise a combat junkie who can't part in civilian life and he's got a head full of broken drinking glass.
• Broken Pedestal: There'south a interesting example as much of the moving-picture show is about Willard reading about Kurtz and coming to believe they're not that different. Also, that Kurtz has a much clearer view of the Vietnam War than his superiors who are Mildly Military incompetents at best and Colonel Kilgore at worst (or maybe it's the other way around). Past the fourth dimension Willard really reaches Kurtz, Willard finds Kurtz genuinely is insane and committing atrocities for flimsy excuses.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Kilgore wears a stetson and bandana like he's still riding a horse, and seems to exist more focused on surfing than fighting the war. However, at that place appears to exist no question of his competency by his superiors or by his men.
  • Past contrast, Kurtz is declared insane by his superiors for what he considers to be a methodical, pragmatic approach to counter-insurgency. Kilgore can impale civilians indiscriminately, whereas Kurtz is being charged with murder for killing Viet Cong agents that he spent months gathering evidence on. However, Willard's view of Kurtz'southward sanity changes in one case he reaches the compound.
• Calling Menu: Colonel Kilgore throws "Death cards" with the emblem of his Air Cavalry Regiment around corpses to permit Charlie know who killed them.
• Cat Scare:
  • Quite literally, just with a considerably larger-than-usual true cat. Hell, even the actors were scared!

    Chef: Fuckin' tiger!

  • One during an inspection of a local boat ends tragically when Clean reacts poorly to it.
• Cavalry Officer: Colonel Kilgore, the commander of an air cavalry unit.
• Glory Paradox: Kurtz reads aloud from The Hollow Men (1925), which contains an epigraph quoting from Heart of Darkness (i.eastward. the basis of the movie), written xx years before. The paradox was not present in the original script, where Kurtz was originally called "Col. Leighley". A scene with Harrison Ford has the original proper noun redubbed.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys/Vestigial Empire: In Redux and Final Cut, the declining might of the French Empire is discussed by the French plantation owner, who is ready to defy the defeat streak with a Final Stand up at his domicile, if it comes to that.
• Chekhov'southward Skill: Chef'southward francophone background comes in handy when the party comes across a plantation total of wary Frenchmen.
• Chiaroscuro: We get a lot of this, especially in the scenes with Kurtz.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Colonel Kilgore and definitely the Photojournalist. Lance becomes one by the end of the movie, when he's on acid.
  • Willard comes across several men at the Do Long bridge who have been driven insane by the surreal chaos.
• Cluster F-Bomb: It is one of the very earliest films to have frequent usage of the F-give-and-take throughout its unabridged duration.
• Cold Sniper: Roach is this with a grenade launcher.
• Colonel Badass:
  • Both Lt. Colonel Kilgore, and Colonel Kurtz. Probably can be considered a Trope Codifier. Kilgore loses some badassery in Redux and Concluding Cut; he's distressing when Willard steals his surfboard and his attempts to retrieve it are mocked.
  • A notable aversion with Col. Lucas (played by perennial badass Harrison Ford), who is a meek Desk-bound Jockey.
• Colonel Kilgore: The Trope Namer is introduced casually Strolling Through the Chaos of a cruel battle. He later speaks poetically about his beloved of napalm, which "smells like victory." He seems to share equal enthusiasm for combat every bit he does for his hobby, surfing. He attempts to indulge both pastimes at one time, ordering his men to surf in a warzone despite their discomfort (and the bullets whizzing past them into the water). He looks downright sad when he says to Captain Willard and Individual Lance that "someday this war is gonna finish." Kilgore loves war as much as he loves life itself.
• Combat Pragmatist: Colonel Kurtz praises the tenacity and dedication of the Vietnamese enemy who are willing to do any it takes to win, fifty-fifty going so far as to cross the Moral Event Horizon if that is what it takes.
• Crazy Bird Lady: One of the playmates love birds a niggling too much.
• Cool Lid: Colonel Kilgore'southward cavalry hat serves to raise his mystique.
• Creator Cameo: Coppola appears ◊ every bit the Disguised Director making a Documentary and is aided by key crew members Dean Tavoularis and Vittorio Storaro.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Air Cavalry set on on the VC Village. Armed with just their AK-47s and a few 12.7mm auto gun nests confronting a swarm of attack choppers (armed with much deadlier armament), the VCs are apace torn to shreds.
  • Although non shown, it is implied in the Do Long Bridge scene that the Viet Cong attempted to charge a .50 cal auto gun and were massacred. One VC remains live by hiding under all the corpses.

    "They're all expressionless stupid! Simply ane left alive underneath them bodies."

• Deadly Prank: The but time Principal's PBR comes across 2 other US patrol boats, the opposing crews taunt them...commencement by mooning and whipping upwards wake, and then by throwing an activated flare into the command deck, which could take easily, badly burned someone on Principal's PBR. Not that those other jerks cared.
  • In the extended cutting Willard steals Kilgore'southward surfboard and stows it on the PBR. Willard says that the Colonel would have shot him if he'd seen it happen.
• Death from Above:
  • Behold. Kilgore orders and leads an attack by the Air-Cavalry and then a napalm strike on the jungle. The phrase is as well seen written in the front of Kilgore'due south helicopter.
  • Willard tells Chef to call an airstrike in case he doesn't go far. Coppola had to change the terminate credits because the Stuff Bravado Up was interpreted by audiences as the air strike happening.
• Decapitation Presentation: This happens to Chef.
• Despair Event Horizon: Kurtz is a war hero who resigned from the officer grade to keep his boots on the footing. From the very beginning of his tour, he was intent on insubordination. He believed his ex-colleagues were impeding the state of war effort. Then he lost his marbles later seeing horrors similar the VietCong mutilating and killing a group of children who were being treated by Western doctors.
• Downer Ending: Like to the vast majority of American soldiers who survived the Vietnam War, Willard leaves even more deeply disturbed than when we saw him, having seen how insane the state of war has become and watched 3 of his allies dice and the only remaining one lose his sanity.
• Dramatically Missing the Betoken: The French plantation owner poignantly accuses the Americans of this. He believes that North Vietnam is not fighting for Communism but for national independence, and the Vietnamese detest the Russians and the Chinese more than they detest the Americans.

  If tomorrow the Vietnamese are communists, they volition be Vietnamese communists [...] You are fighting for the biggest zippo in history.

• The Dreaded: Our starting time glimpses of "Walt" Kurtz come from 2d-hand accounts, grainy photographs, and a rambling, stream-of-consciousness cassette tape of Kurtz trying to certificate his delirium. When Willard is finally hauled off to see the Colonel, he's dragged into a blackened room, where the frame centers on a majestic, glowing doorway through which Kurtz is expected to pass through. However, Kurtz is already in the room with Willard, seated on the floor and rinsing his face, almost like a boyfriend prisoner.
• Dwindling Party: Equally shortly as the squad gets upriver near Kurtz, they start dropping like flies.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The Redux and Final Cut has an interesting implication of a possible "new life" for Willard, with the French daughter at the colony. They have a melodramatic romance scene, and for all Willard's concerns most how he'south got cypher to "settle downwardly" to in the beginning, the fact that he has the option open up of living with the woman in question gives the Redux and Final Cut an air of promise that the original doesn't have.
• The '80s: While Apocalypse Now is considered by many to be the ultimate '70s moving picture, information technology inspired a very important '80s movie trope: synthesizer scores. Although synths had been used in Hollywood films before, Apocalypse Now started the trend of not but incorporating synths into the soundtrack but seamlessly integrating them as well, making them a "normal" part of the groundwork instead of exploiting them as "science-fiction" gimmicks.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Willard is with the 505th of 173rd Airborne Brigade assigned to MACV-SOG, ordered to electrocute Colonel Kurtz, who was Operations officer of the fifth Special Forces Grouping, and is helped by a Patrol Boat, Riverine, crew, and is escorted up the Nung River by Colonel Kilgore of the 1st Squadron of the 9th Air Cavalry.
• Elite Army: Colonel Kurtz points out in his dossier that an Elite American Army could win the Vietnam War easily if the Commanders were willing to put in the resource to train them. He scoffs at the idea that the drug addicts, party animals, and soldiers that just obviously don't desire to be there are going to assist attain an American victory. Kurtz recommends that the American military machine downsize to approximately 200,000 or 300,000 highly trained soldiers and plough them loose on the Vietnamese enemy so they could win with quality over quantity.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Colonel Kurtz. It goes a keen deal into establishing an aura of mystery and subtle evil almost Kurtz's character.
• Brainy Stoner: Appropriately for Dennis Hopper'due south character, a one-half-crazed, stoned, hyperactive ex-hippie. He can quote Rudyard Kipling and T. S. Eliot, just his riff on dialectics (and nigh everything else) is pure gibberish.
• Face Framed in Shadow:
  • Kurtz throughout his appearances. Brando himself wanted this for aesthetic effect, claiming that it suited the character of Kurtz because he'southward a person who is flirting with darkness and the primal instinctual fears of humanity. Brando wanted Kurtz to wait like a man who is going to be consumed by the darkness, merely he has plenty mastery over it to (semi)safely dwell in it.
  • At that place'due south also a shot of Martin Sheen with his confront half-covered in shadow and half in light while another graphic symbol is talking about how every man has both good and evil in them.
• Facepalm: Kurtz does an iconic one ◊.
• Imitation Shemp: While he was recovering from his heart attack, Martin Sheen was doubled by his brother Joe Estevez.
• Fanservice: The Redux version has a sequence where the Playmates, whose helicopter is grounded due to conditions, are whored out to Willard'due south men in exchange for aviation fuel. Cynthia Wood and Colleen Campsite appear topless.
  • In the Redux and Final Cutting, also, at the French plantation, Roxanne appears naked. Same as for the Playmates, it'southward weird, and tending slightly towards...
• Fan Disservice: Colleen Military camp'south grapheme appears just fine with the above, though her parrot'southward antics and Chef's request to have her vesture a wig quickly makes the scene feel bizarre. Cynthia Wood's character, on the other hand, talks about her miserable life and failed dreams as Lance has sexual activity with her...unaware of the dead soldier a foot away.
  • Same for Roxanne. The characters are drawn dorsum to war, with the Meaningful Echo reminding that she is a widow, and that later loving, Willard will go back to killing. There is much despair in both scenes, emphasized past the characters beingness doped.
• Fatal Family Photo: A recording apropos Mr. Clean's family unit, but it has the aforementioned effect.
• Fighting for a Homeland: It's why the Vietnamese are disciplined and committed while the American forces are falling apart. It's really hammered domicile in the Redux and Final Cut when Willard arrives at a vestigial French plantation who view their situation as this, considering they arrived in Vietnam and ready upwardly a safe plantation with the Vietnamese every bit labor, which they held for generations. As a consequence, they consider Indochina as their true home, as opposed to France.
• Picture Noir: In a sneaky case of Genre-Busting, the moving-picture show follows the standard format of a movie noir, with Willard as the Hardboiled Detective investigating a example (being sent on a mission). John Hellmann explains it all in "Vietnam and the Hollywood Genre Film: Inversions of American Mythology in the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now". Information technology has the Chandleresque voiceover, the aloof superiors, the strange tangled plot...
• From Bad to Worse: Both in-universe, as well as the pic production itself, where things just got worse and worse and worse.
• Front Line Colonel: Kilgore not merely personally flies the lead helicopter into the set on, information technology's shown he's a pretty darn expert pilot and an fantabulous shot.
• Gender Is No Object: During the Air Calvary Attack, several women are shown in the thick of the carnage, carrying ammo and stretchers. This is Truth in Tv, as the Viet Cong frequently used women in combat.
  • The Air Cav take no trouble killing a female person VC and her mother subsequently the one-time throws a grenade into a medivac chopper.
• General Ripper: Deconstructed with Colonel Kurtz, a highly decorated officer (one scene has Helm Willard going over his dossier and marveling at Kurtz's accomplishments) who one day only snapped and went native, becoming every bit much a cult leader every bit a soldier, taking his orders from only the jungle, as Willard says. Even so, Kurtz is a unique instance, being quite aware that he is in fact a General Ripper. He thinks that if America wants to win the Vietnam War, it cannot afford to "play off-white"—it needs "Rippers" to exercise the dingy work and is acting hypocritically by pretending that the war can be won "cleanly" with nothing merely a technological reward over the enemy (and history tells u.s.a. he was right, besides). He basically gives his superiors two choices: either get the hell out of 'Nam, or embrace their savagery like he has. His final deportment indicate that he prefers they choose the start option, or at least doesn't believe they can afford to cull the second.

  Willard: "Never get out of the boat." Absolutely goddamn correct. Unless you were goin' all the fashion.

• Genre-Busting: "Flick Noir Surreal Horror psychological thriller war drama" is nigh as close as it can be succinctly described.
• George Lucas Contradistinct Version: Redux in 2001, ''The Final Cut" in 2019.
• The Ghost: Bated from the scene where the Air Cav is assaulting a village, the Viet Cong aren't directly shown, often hiding in the bushes or the cover of darkness to occasionally attack American soldiers. Information technology keeps the viewer on border, never knowing when they might strike next.
• Become Mad from the Revelation: Kurtz refers to it as "a diamond bullet right through [his] forehead," his epiphany that rules and morality had no identify in state of war, and indeed, the fewer the better. Once he realized his special forces were no match for the VC killer instinct, he abandoned his principles and cobbled together his ain unique "unit" out of the worst of the worst.
• Adept Morning, Crono: Nosotros first meet Willard in a dingy apartment in Saigon. He tidies himself upwardly before meeting with the Generals who are operating out of Nha Trang.
• The Gunslinger: Roach hits his mark on the other side of a wall with a modest grenade launcher, at the first effort, aiming only past sound and smell!
• Heroic BSoD: Chef has one later on the tiger incident.
• Hidden Depths: Deconstructed with the playmates. Below the offset impression of being a couple of pretty, braindead bimbos, one of them shows truthful enthusiasm for ornithology and the other has a deeply complicated and troubled personality...none of which the soldiers care well-nigh, as they're so tired, desperate, and horny they'd much rather let the playmates babble about their lives while they dispassionately accept sex with them.
• History Repeats:
  • It's discussed in Redux and Final Cutting that the Americans are post-obit the same path of the French, despite their superior might.
  • Kurtz makes a bespeak by showing Willard two nigh identical and over-optimistic - if not Blatant Lies - reports in the media virtually the "improving" state of affairs of the Vietnam War. The first 1 was written under LBJ and the 2nd one years subsequently, now with Nixon in power.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Discussed in the plantation. The French patriarch accuses the Americans of creating the Viet Minh to undermine French imperialism, and now its offshoot, the Viet Cong, is giving the Americans hell.
  • Happens metaphorically with Col. Kilgore. After firebombing a village, which results in a furious fight in which several Americans and countless Vietnamese are killed and a helicopter is lost, all for the sake of clearing up a beach to surf on (and after poetically professing his dearest for the napalm used to practise so!), Kilgore discovers that the napalm fires have heated up the air so that the waves have died out. Of course, existence himself, he's mostly pissed about non getting to surf.
• Holiday in Cambodia: Southeast Asia is portrayed as a war torn badland, cruel and wild. Justified in that information technology's set up during the meridian of the Vietnam War; of grade it would exist a war torn badland.
  • I of Kurtz'south criticisms in his dossier is that the American soldiers behave like tourists. They are given brusque tours of duty and receive luxuries that only remind them more of what they're missing at home. They cannot promise to win against a Vietnamese enemy who can tolerate all amounts of hardship. This is demonstrated by Kilgore and his unit, who accept footling strategy and behave similar a rampaging beach party. Kurtz'south proffer is that most of the Americans should be sent home and replaced by a much smaller strength with proper training and motivation.
• Hollywood Darkness: Averted — we get Chiaroscuro instead. When information technology'southward dark, it'southward dark.
• Hypocrite:
  • Colonel Kurtz goes out of his style to telephone call the Commanders running the Vietnam State of war this. He detests how they refuse to do what is necessary to win and and so lie to everyone about how everything they are doing is adequate. Multiple points in the movie have Willard reading excerpts from Kurtz'due south dossier where it'south recorded that he had criticized the way the state of war was existence run. Willard eventually comes to agree with Kurtz and wonders why the hell he is even meant to impale this human being. This comes to a head in the ending where it is shown that Kurtz records his philosophy on war equally a sort of machine-biography where he famously states this:

    Colonel Kurtz: We railroad train immature men to driblet fire on people...and notwithstanding their commanders won't allow them write, "Fuck!", on their airplanes because it's obscene!

    • Becomes a subversion equally Colonel Kurtz abandons all restraint he has left in him with no existent loyalty to his state or ability to wage the war effectively. Non that his superiors were right, heed you, just Kurtz wasn't, either.
  • Willard realizes that his superiors are full of it when he's assigned the mission to end Kurtz:

    Willard: Charging a homo with murder in this place was similar handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.

• I Warned Y'all: Principal decides to end and investigate a Vietnamese boat even though Willard asks him not to. Everything goes south and an entire innocent family ends up dead except for the mother, who'south gravely wounded. Main wants to take her to a doctor, but Willard, not wanting his mission delayed, shoots her in the head before reminding Chief that he (Willard) had asked him not to stop the boat in the commencement identify.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Chief gets impaled by a native spear as they nearly Kurtz's lair. He tries to kill Willard with information technology by pulling his confront downward onto it, but expires earlier he tin can terminate doing and so.
• Improv: Unabridged scenes rely on information technology:
  • Coppola granted Brando a lot of creative freedom out of necessity. Brando had experience writing dialogues for films before but was skeptical most Coppola depending on him. He did write a lot of fabric for the flick, basing it on his reading of Hannah Arendt and other authors, all of which Coppola put to adept use.
  • Similarly, Dennis Hopper was allowed to forget the script (in the odd instance he had learned information technology) because his quirky graphic symbol worked better that mode.
• Interservice Rivalry:
  • Betwixt the Army and the Navy.
  • Kilgore and his Air Cav soldiers tease Capt. Willard for being airborne. ^note Willard is from the 505th of 173rd Airborne Brigade assigned to MACV-SOG just spends the rest of the movie traveling in a Navy PBR, which is considered peculiar to most personnel from whatsoever branch. While he does travel in a utility helicopter, information technology is simply shown briefly during the beginning of the film.

• Kick the Dog: Kurtz gets ane of these moments when he has Chef, arguably the most likable, relatable character in the film, ruthlessly decapitated to preclude him from radioing for help. Surely there were other methods that would accept sufficed.
• Impale Information technology with Burn down: Plenty, with the "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" scene existence the most memorable.
• Klingon Promotion: Willard predicts he'll be fast-tracked to Major for offing the renegade Kurtz. For a cursory moment, he sits at Kurtz's desk-bound, contemplating the opportunity to take the Colonel's place as a new god-king. The throng of natives lay down their weapons and bow as he leaves the compound.
• Large and in Charge: Kurtz, chieftain of the Montagnards, looks similar a juggernaut. Angled photographic camera shots and some body doubles reinforce this advent. Brando weighed more than than 300 pounds at the moment of filming.
• Big Ham: Colonel Kilgore is not exactly low-key.
• Lens Flare: Very mutual. When the Playboy Bunnies' helicopter arrives, we become horizontal flares over the whole width of the screen.
• Lethally Stupid: Lance foolishly and pointlessly making fume signals in a hostile zone immediately costs the life of Make clean. Ironically Lance is the only grunt to survive the picture.
• Madness Mantra: "Never become off the boat! Never get off the boat!"
• Male Gaze: In the managing director'south cut, a Playboy bunny complains that no one sees her equally a real person or respects her for her mind...all while Lance, and the camera, is focused on her breasts.
• Mathematician'due south Answer: Roach gives a simultaneously funny and creepy i when Willard asks him if he knows who's in command of the span outpost.

  "Yeah."

• Meaningful Echo: In the French plantation, during the opium scene.

  Roxanne: There are two of you lot, don't yous see? Ane that kills and one that loves.

• Meaningful Name: The unabridged crew of the PBR have them, especially when y'all consider the order they dice in. Clean is the most innocent of the crew, and the first to dice (right subsequently killing the people on the sampan, no less). Next is Chief, the one who kept order, and finally Chef, the 1 who made their food. It might be seen as a metaphor for aspects of civilization slowly chipping away during their journeying upwards the River of Insanity. And the only one who survives, to be led back into the earth afterwards the climactic meeting with Kurtz, is called Lance.
  • The name "Lance B. Johnson" is very similar to the proper noun "Lyndon B. Johnson," the U.South. President under whom the war in Vietnam escalated.
  • The name "Benjamin Willard" suggests two 1970s horror films featuring rats trained to kill: "Willard" (1971) and "Ben" (1972).
• Mercy Kill:
  • A particularly cruel ane when Willard shoots the wounded Vietnamese woman...not because she'south dying, but considering he doesn't want to take her along with them, most likely to prevent interfering with his real, but [even so kept] secret, mission.

    Willard: I told y'all non to stop.

    • Willard'due south justified his action from the hypocrisy of the crew that did this in the get-go place in his following monologue.

      Willard: We'd cutting them in one-half with a machine gun and give them a band-help.

  • By the terminate of the story, Willard views killing Kurtz as a mercy on his part. Willard realizes that the mission to kill Kurtz is bogus because the Colonel isn't really whatsoever more insane than the commanders that want him dead. Yet, Kurtz is a thorn in the side of the American armed forces, and they will inevitably transport someone else afterward Kurtz if he doesn't practise the human action. Furthermore, Willard feels that Kurtz is very broken up over what the war has turned him into, and that he actually wants the death that he has been marked for, equally he would rather go out similar a warrior past the hand of someone who tin understand him (Willard being that person) than by some faceless, passionless assassinator.

    Willard: Anybody wanted me to exercise it, probably him well-nigh of all. I felt every bit if he was waiting for me, waiting for me to have all the hurting away. He wanted to become out similar a soldier, not similar some poor, wasted, rag-ass renegade. Even the jungle wanted him expressionless, and that's where he took his orders from anyway.

• Mighty Whitey: Thoroughly and surgically deconstructed. Kurtz was sent to Vietnam to defend information technology from communism. His experiences have led him to believe that the style to practice this is to build a cult of personality around himself and behave similar a tyrant king. His superiors have lost all command of him to the point that they lodge some other officer to assassinate him. The American military is depicted as largely ineffectual, with senior officers designating targets not for their strategic value but considering they have bang-up surfing potential, while individual soldiers spend their time getting loftier and shooting uselessly into the darkness. (Roach is a rare exception in that he's an incredibly skillful shot, but he's not exactly a model soldier. He has to be roused from slumber to kill an unseen VC soldier, simply because the guy's continual screams of abuse are annoying anybody.) To a man, the Americans hate and fear the very people that they are ostensibly there to defend, and the one time an American serviceman shows the slightest business organisation for the well-being of a Vietnamese person, information technology passes almost instantly. ^note Kilgore admires the bravery of the wounded VC soldier and gets all gung-ho with the ARVN soldier who thinks the human being should exist given dingy water to potable, shouting most how any man brave enough etc. can potable from his own water bottle, but earlier he even lets the man accept the water he gets distracted by the presence of famous surfer dude Lance, forgets all about the VC and walks away, leaving the guy flailing in desperation on the basis. The whole incident is the entire film condensed in microcosm. In the finish, the only solution the Americans have to the whole mess they've got themselves into is to bomb the shit out of everything.

• Mirror Character: Kurtz and Willard are more than a little similar, and both men pick up on it correct abroad. While Willard may not accept gone across the pale like Kurtz did, he does have some of the same big problems like becoming a Blood Knight junkie for gainsay, being fed up with the military command'south bullshit, being deeply afflicted by the violence he'southward seen, and realizing that they are both screwed up in the head. Neither Kurtz nor Willard makes excuses for what he does and freely admits to his own reprehensible deportment. This is one of the reasons why Kurtz takes special interest in Willard, who he sees as a kindred spirit and the merely i who can sympathise without judgement but what Kurtz is going through.
• Mood Whiplash: All over the identify. The film's scenes interchange between: hedonistic merrymaking similar getting high, joking around, oggling women, shooting off weapons randomly for fun, surfing, etc; horrific violence; sensual intimacy; a swish political discussion over a posh dinner; deep, dark introspection and social commentary; mystery; and and so on.
• Moral Event Horizon:invoked
  • While Willard refuses to disclose his mission with the PBR crew, he is relatively affable with them despite outranking all of them considerably. The crew realizes his truthful nature after he mercy kills the Vietnamese girl without hesitation or remorse.
  • In his backstory, Kurtz goes over by killing four Vietnamese individuals he thought were spies, interim on his ain. The armed services charges him with murder for that and later on puts out a hit on him.
• More Dakka: The gunkhole's machine guns exist to spray bullets everywhere.
  • The Air Cav wields an incredible amount of firepower, as well as air back up. Their Vietnamese opponents only take small arms and a few heavy automobile guns.
• Motive Rant: Kurtz's monologue suggests he suffered a breakdown later Vietcong guerrillas came into a native village and hacked off the left artillery of Southward Vietnamese children who had been inoculated against polio by Kurtz's special forces. This epitomized everything that was going wrong (in Kurtz'due south point of view) with the American war effort: over-reliance on scientific discipline, cultural ignorance and unmeant efforts at "humanitarianism" to win over the Vietnamese which have the exact opposite effect. Nil short of total destruction volition work.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Willard almost has a breakdown afterwards sneaking in and murdering Kurtz.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Kil-gore.
• New Meat: Willard comments that the members of the boat are "by and large but kids...rock 'n' rollers with one human foot in their graves."
• No Animals Were Harmed: Shockingly averted with the ox. However, in that instance it was a Real Life sacrifice that Copolla merely filmed and took no role in.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Willard gives one to Kurtz in the climax while using a machete.
• Noodle Incident: In his narration, Willard mentions that he's killed half-dozen different people, and all of them had been "close plenty to blow their last breath in my face." No farther details are given.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The story Kurtz tells of the fate of the children inoculated by American medics — having their inoculated arms cutting off past the Viet Cong — is scarier and more agonizing than anything actually depicted onscreen.
• Quondam Soldier: Kurtz's backstory. He was able to hack information technology at airborne preparation. At 38 years old, he was twice the age of the side by side graduate. An impressive feat.
• Only Sane Man: Played with, in tandem with Dysfunction Junction.
  • Colonel Kurtz believes himself to exist this, and is a subversion.
  • Primary and Willard could besides count as this.
  • The Photojournalist is hardly sane, merely he understands Kurtz amend than anyone else does, even (at first) Willard.
• Pan and Scan: Every habitation video release prior to the 2010 Blu-ray cropped the picture from 2.35:1 down to either 1.33:1 or 2.00:ane.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Remarked with awe by Willard, who keeps poring through Kurtz's file in search of some sign of madness. Willard says that before he went off the reservation, Kurtz's record was flawless — a little too flawless, for his money.
• Passing the Torch: Kurtz to Willard, at the end.
• Pet the Domestic dog: When he's not killing people or distracted by incredibly unsafe surfing, Kilgore cares for his men and for civilians; he is concerned about them receiving medical treatment equally soon as possible.
• Playboy Bunny: Cynthia Wood (Miss February 1973, Playmate of the Year 1974) and Linda Carpenter (Miss August 1976). Perhaps examples of As Herself, since Woods and Carpenter are both playing Playmates.
• Popular-Cultural Osmosis: Many lines of this movie are downright legendary, in detail the "I love the odor of napalm" speech, and "The horror, the horror...", the latter taken directly from Middle of Darkness.
• Pretty Male child: Lance, the blonde California surfer whom Willard describes as "Looking similar he never held a gun in his life".
• Professional Killer: Willard'due south shtick in the military. He has a history of at least three assassinations, but is uneasy about having to terminate an American, an unprecedented job.
• Dial-Clock Villain: Discussed by Kurtz. Kurtz recommends that you detect men of potent moral fiber and who are loving and kind to their friends and family, merely when push comes to shove are capable of putting that aside and killing for the greater skillful. He believes a soldier has to realize his chore is to win, and that once he has won then he can go back to existence a expert person. Kurtz praises the Vietcong for getting information technology right for they were willing to commit horrific atrocities to demoralize their enemies, yet were still normal men who loved their friends and family later on all was said and done.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Willard successfully kills Kurtz. But three out of four of his men are expressionless, he'll be forever scarred past what he's witnessed on his journey, and he'll eventually observe that the unabridged state of war was fought for nothing.
• The Tranquility Ane: Jerry, the CIA officer who silently eats his meal every bit Willard is being briefed on his mission. He doesn't say annihilation the entire scene until the end when Willard is told what he must exercise once he finds Col. Kurtz:

  Terminate. With extreme prejudice.

• Rage Against the Reflection: Yes, Martin Sheen actually simply punched a mirror, and it's non the kind made from Soft Glass. Information technology wasn't staged as he was drunk at the fourth dimension. Martin Sheen actually noted in afterwards interviews well-nigh his involvement with the movie that he was struggling with personal demons at the time, so you could say that Willard's insanity/despair is actually Sheen'southward being imposed on the character. An unplanned Anger Montage is used for continuity issues because Sheen injured himself.
• Rated Thousand for Manly: Ends up beingness Deconstructed, every bit even the manliest and bravest of men aren't immune to the horrors of war.
• Re-Cut: There are at to the lowest degree iv versions.
  • The theatrical cutting ends with Stuff Blowing Up while the credits roll. This was widely misinterpreted every bit an air strike called in by Willard, and so it was removed in other cuts.
  • A version shown by some streaming services removes the credits sequence entirely, but is otherwise identical to the theatrical cut.
  • The Redux has no credits, adds almost an hour of footage, and alters the club or stride of some scenes. Notably it puts back the French plantation scene, a contextual encounter that Coppola grudgingly had to cut due to problems with the illumination.
  • The Final Cut, Coppola's preferred version of the motion-picture show, uses most scenes from the Redux cutting, but is shorter than the Redux version due to the removal of two Redux scenes, including the outpost scene and the scene where Kurtz reads the Vietnam reports on Time Magazine while Willard is imprisoned. This cut was the simply modern version of the flick to add together ending credits.
• The Remnant: In Redux and Terminal Cut, Willard and the coiffure go far at a plantation run by a large French family who have remained long after France abased Vietnam.
• River of Insanity: Which was codified by Center of Darkness. The river is also 1 of metaphorical time travel, every bit the soldiers feel the history of Vietnam astern.
• Rule of Symbolism: The sacrificial ritual of killing the water buffalo is intercut with Willard killing Kurtz, stressing the ritual nature of the assassination.
• Sanity Slippage: The horror of the Vietnam War churns out sociopaths. Combine it with the apparent lack of mental handling given past the American military and it'southward a World Gone Mad.
  • The boat coiffure pretty much goes through this the further it goes upwards the river, all going steadily crazy and traumatized in their ain ways...with the exception of Clean, the first to be killed, and thus, killed before he can feel whatsoever lasting trauma.
• Scenery Gorn: Mixed with Scenery Porn as well - the tiger in the jungle scene is something to behold.
• Spiral the Coin, I Have Rules!: Kurtz was earmarked for a big promotion, possibly even to the Pentagon, but striking a wall when he slammed the U.S. Military's inefficient and counter-productive tactics in Asia. In protest, he transferred to the Dark-green Berets and, later, launched a wildly successful counter-insurgency op without letting his superiors in on his plans. They were forced to make him a full Colonel out of embarrassment, but the White House was beginning to tire of him even and so.
• Screw the War, Nosotros're Partying!:
  • Willard concludes during a USO show that the Viet Cong volition exist victorious because, "Charlie's thought of cracking R&R was cold rice and a niggling rat meat."
  • The scene in the Redux cutting where the main characters trade their fuel for some private fourth dimension with Playboy models.
  • With his insistence on going surfing in the middle of a battle, the character of Kilgore definitely exemplifies this trope.
  • Colonel Kurtz comments on this in his dossier. Kurtz expresses his concern to his commanders that having too many delinquent war machine personnel in Vietnam is going to compromise the state of war attempt and that they should only utilize the very all-time trained men they tin detect.
• Secretly Dying: The photojournalist hints that this may be Kurtz's case, a nod to the the original source left cryptic in the film and discussed past Coppola during interviews.
• Send in the Search Squad: More than like send in the assassination team. The American Command has decided that Colonel Kurtz's continued operations in Laos and Cambodia are a threat to the war attempt and desire Willard to terminate Kurtz's control by terminating Kurtz himself.
• Shadow Classic: Is Willard, in the terminal analysis, whatsoever meliorate than Kurtz? Probably not. Kurtz points this out during his haunting monologue to Willard. Tin can Willard guess Kurtz when he's basically the same as him?

  Kurtz: I have seen horrors, horrors that you lot have seen. You have a right to kill me, you accept a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me.

  • Much of Willard's ongoing monologue is echoed, in so many words, by the Colonel one time they finally run into (and vice-versa).
• Shirtless Scene: Sheen spends a lot of fourth dimension shirtless, and is naked in the beginning. Robert Duvall, besides, right in the eye of a boxing. Vietnam is hot.
• Shout-Out:
  • There are several to the Werner Herzog movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God, also based on Middle of Darkness and which, oddly enough, had a similarly troubled production. One scene (of the natives attacking with arrows) is a shot-for-shot remake of Aguirre.
  • John Milius, screenwriter of the film and a close friend of Coppola's (and one of the two directors Coppola tapped to finish the movie if he died - the other was George Lucas), makes a adequately convincing case for the film's plot existence based on The Odyssey - the illustration works better for Redux than for the theatrical cut.
  • General Corman'southward name is an homage to Roger Corman, Coppola's mentor. Colonel Lucas is named afterward George, Coppola's close friend.
  • The finale with Kurtz's murder intercut with the tribesmen slaughtering a buffalo is an homage to Sergei Eisenstein'south Strike.
  • Apocalypse Now in itself has been referenced and parodied many times. The Clash named one of their songs Charlie Don't Surf from Sandinista! subsequently a famous quote from this movie.
• Signature Line: The film spawned quite a few:
  • "Terminate. With extreme prejudice."
  • "I dearest the smell of napalm in the morning." [...] "Smelled like...victory."
  • "Charlie don't surf!"
  • "The horror...the horror..."
• Skewed Priorities: Colonel Kilgore is annoyed with Charlie (who don't surf) considering the VC are occupying a terrific beach that should exist used for surfing. His Expiry from Above air-strikes are meant to articulate the zone and so he tin practice his hobby, military importance of the zone not existence the issue. In fact, Kilgore never would have escorted Willard and his crew there if he hadn't gotten discussion of a nice beach being in that location aslope Willard's destination.
  • Kilgore is hardly the worst example. The U.s. War machine thought it was a great thought to transport a small patrol boat deep into enemy territory so they could assassinate one of their own officers. This war is so god damned insane that the US military is pitting its own troops against each other, when those allocations of resource could easily exist directed toward fighting the Vietnamese enemy.
  • Even Kurtz gets in on it when he mocks the policy of what fighter pilots are allowed to put on their airplanes. He points out that the Air Force trains young men to drib fire on people, but they won't allow those same pilots to write the word "fuck" on their airplanes because information technology's obscene! One would think that murdering people with bombs is far more "obscene" than a simple curse word.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Willard is a rather soft Blazon 3 and Kurtz a definite Type 4.
• Spiritual Successor: Unremarkably compared to Aguirre, the Wrath of God of 7 years prior, another movie based on Center of Darkness most the journey of white armed forces conquerors in a journey down the River of Insanity and their eventual mental and physical self-devastation, and which, on a meta level, was almost as much of a nightmare to motion picture as Apocalypse was.
• The Stoic: Chief, although even he cries when Clean is killed.
• Surreal Horror: The picture show'southward iconic delineation of war: non every bit battle, or fifty-fifty as purgatory, but as a nightmarish, illogical fever dream a la Aguirre, the Wrath of God, where the biggest threat to American soldiers is each other, commanding officers ignore the war they're fighting to pic documentaries and go surfing, and the further downwards the river they go, the crazier anybody gets. "The horror," indeed.
• Sycophantic Servant: Dennis Hopper'south photojournalist grapheme. He comes and goes with no rhyme or reason; apparently he was chronicling the Colonel's work for posterity, but even he knows the earth won't mind to a burnout similar him and demands that Willard return and tell everyone the truth.
• Taking Y'all with Me: Chief'due south last-gasp endeavour to impale Willard's face up on the spear sticking out of his chest.
• Team Mom: Primary. He runs the gunkhole and keeps the crazy kids in his coiffure from killing each other one-half the fourth dimension.
• Tell Me Well-nigh My Father!: Inverted, every bit Kurtz asks Willard to tell the true story to the Colonel's son.
• There Are No Therapists: The mental state that many of the characters are in is deeply troubling. No mention is ever made of therapists, fifty-fifty in the off-hand, and the movie is filled with gung-ho, traumatized, and arguably sociopathic soldiers that could sorely employ one. Upon seeing the unhinged Blood Knight insanity Kilgore lives by, Willard laughs at the notion that Kurtz is whatever sort of special evil if goons like him are fighting the war on a daily basis. Speaking of Colonel Kurtz, the events of the entire movie could have been avoided had someone sat down with Kurtz and helped him deal with the trauma of the securely horrific things he had dealt with during the war. Even more troubling is that they send Willard, a recently divorced soldier and conspicuously traumatized veteran, to go out and kill Kurtz. All of these factors should requite you an idea of how god-forsaken the field of therapy was in professional armed services settings back in that fourth dimension period.
• At that place Is No Kill Similar Overkill:
  • The scene where the coiffure boards the Vietnamese cargo boat.
  • Calling in an airstrike with napalm to impale some VC hiding in the jungle, a staple of the Vietnam War.
• Thousand-Yard Stare:
  • Willard sports i right at the end, later on he completes his mission.
  • "The Roach" is catatonic until the gunner shakes him out of it.
• The Unfettered: The moving picture's central concept: exactly how effective a person with no restrictions tin exist, and how much of a monster, are intrinsically tied.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The men sent to escort Willard to Nha Trang do not announced shocked when they observe a 'wetwork' officeholder naked, hungover, and covered in blood.
• The Vietnam State of war: The Trope Codifier for the contemptuous accept on the war.
• Visual Pun: Invoked by the young hot-blooded Frenchman in the plantation by breaking an egg: "The white leaves, the yellow stays."
• Visual Title Drop: Textually. The words, "OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW," can be seen painted on a wall behind the Montagnards in the scene outside Kurtz's temple when Chef tries to convince Willard to leave. Supposedly this was to satisfy copyright requirements, since the picture show lacked opening credits.
• Vitriolic All-time Buds: Chief and Clean. They seem to be pretty close, despite bickering fairly often. Master is extremely distraught when Make clean is killed.
• State of war Is Glorious: Colonel Kilgore's take on the subject. Willard and his men would probably disagree, given what they go through.
• War Is Hell: One of the near iconic examples ever. A surreal experience full of horrors that transform sane men into madmen.
• Warrior Poet: Or so Kurtz's followers think he is (the photojournalist calls him "a poet warrior in the classic sense"). The reality is that, while he does have some poetic flair to his words and he is a adept soldier, he has gone insane and has lost almost all decent sense of restraint.
• Nosotros ARE Struggling Together:
  • Through stories told by Willard'due south escort, it's clear the Due south Vietnamese and the Americans are not getting along.
  • The boat crew are not entirely thrilled with the assignment of escorting Willard upward river, Chief in particular. When Chief is dying with a spear through his chest, he tries to impale Willard'south face on information technology earlier finally succumbing to his death.
  • Chef is appalled when he learns that the mission the entire time has been to kill an American officer. However, they are now then deep in the jungle that they accept no choice simply to stick together until the mission is complete.
  • The troops at the USO show riot amongst themselves to effort and get at the Playboy Bunnies.
  • The U.S military is sending their own assassin to kill one of their own colonels gone rogue. The movie has Americans killing each other while trying to fight this damned war. Information technology isn't like those resource couldn't be used fighting the Vietnamese enemy instead...talk about skewed priorities.
  • Field of study and command have completely deserted the units at Do Lung Bridge. Half the soldiers are zonked out, and the other half are trying to desert.
• We Have Become Complacent: Kurtz can be viewed as a rational, if brutal, character—he realizes how the war can exist won, but his commanders refuse to see things the style he does. His task as a soldier is winning the war, not being prissy. Naturally the motion-picture show leaves plenty of room for other interpretations such equally The Unfettered and Knight Templar.

  Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?

  Willard: I don't run into whatsoever method at all, Sir.

• We Used to Be Friends: When General Corman is relating how the brilliant Kurtz felt from grace, the tone of his voice and the sadness in his face indicate that they were close.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Or rather, the puppy? The almost asked question to all the actors from the picture. Gets lampshaded at 1 point in the picture show. Given that it disappeared during the attack that killed Clean, it was most likely shot or jumped off the gunkhole to escape the gunfire.
  • In the theatrical, Redux, and Terminal Cut versions, the photojournalist tells Willard that he's getting out of the compound and that's the last nosotros run across of him. In the workprint, he gets shot to death by Helm Colby, who was largely cut out of all released versions. Willard promptly kills him past throwing a knife into his chest.
• "What At present?" Ending: Correct after Willard kills Kurtz, he has a Thousand-K Stare, he makes his manner back to the Army, and the motion picture just...ends.
• Why Isn't It Attacking?: "Why the fuck aren't they attacking?!"
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Kilgore praises a mortally wounded VC soldier who has killed a lot of American allies and declares that he will give him water despite opposition to his doing so. Played with in that Kilgore gets distracted by the surfing and forgets to actually give the man whatever water.

    Col. Kilgore: Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen any mean solar day.

  • Colonel Kurtz praises his Vietnamese enemy, saying that due to their unfettered resolve in doing whatever it takes to win, they're stronger than the Americans. He goes so far as to say if he had 10 divisions of men similar his enemies, expressly the ones that were willing to butcher children to send a message, then he believes the Vietnam War could be won with alarming speed.

---

"The horror...the horror..."

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ApocalypseNow

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