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Originally posted by P250UA5:
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I've actually never seen it. Will need to remedy that.
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Same. I shy away from all things Vietnam for some reason, but I need to make an effort to watch this movie.

I really wouldn't call it a Vietnam movie. The war is mostly in the background as Willard and the boat crew as they travel up the Nung River. If you get into the Redux or the Final Cut versions, it very much feels like they're going back in time to earlier points in Vietnam as they get closer and closer to Kurtz.

I still recall the emotions that permeated the dark wardroom aboard ship when the recently released original film was shown after the dinner meal. <shiver>

Watched the Redux version this morning for the first time. Particularly intriguing was the scene at the French Plantation.

"Street Without Joy" written by Bernard Fall covers the French involvement in Indochina prior to the Vietnam War. I appreciate the Redux version acknowledging how France was involved in the region prior to the American's arrival.

I recently watched this again with my son as he had never seen it. It's incredible to think, in the age of CGI and green screens what was accomplished in Apocalypse Now. This film draws you in so deeply at every level. You can feel that the actors were drawn in the same way as the performances are so real.

I don't know if it's part of the extended version but I hadn't remembered them stealing the surf board from Col. Kilgore and then in the subsequent scene, the choppers searching the river for them to get it back. The insanity of it all.

Just published. This guy has an entire series on Apocalypse Now. This episode is very interesting. Until now, I didn't realize that Charlie Robinson was an extra on the film. Don't recognize the name? He played Mac Robinson in Night Court!

BTW, did you know all the severed heads in Kurtz's camp were real, living people? Neither did I.

In the years prior and after Apocalypse Now, Hopper was one Hollywood's heavy hitters as far as debauchery is concerned. He admitted to Piers Morgan that during these years, he drank two quarts of rum and a case of beer, along with an eight-ball of cocaine, every day. George Hickenlooper, who directed Eleanor Coppola's documentary Hearts of Darkness, claimed that Hopper was given an ounce of coke when he arrived to the production as a means of helping him in his job. And it is interesting that Hopper got along fine with John Wayne, but his idol, Marlon Brando, couldn't stand him.

I thought Hopper's creation in the film was brilliant. Crazed genius.

Speaking of Hopper, he was pretty great in Blue Velvet.

Played a nut in Hang Em High, too.

Here he is in True Romance: