Apocalypse now - redux

[Oligo]

I just bought and watched Apocalypse Now - Redux DVD on my home theatre. Man I was totally glued to the sofa for the whole three plus hours. The whole movie is a totally enthrilling trip to insanity, from the beginning scene of cross-fades and Doors playing in the background to the fractured ending of feverish mirages. As far as war movies go, they can't get much better than this.

As a contrast, I watched Saving Private Ryan right after Apocalypse Now - Redux. But I only managed to tackle the first hour, before I became sickened by the constant flag waving. So I stopped and was left in thought.

Why did I think the first movie was so cool and the second one so sucky? I made the conclusion that I personally probably appreciate movies which picture war as pointless insanity as opposed to a patriotic glory ride. In Apocalypse Now the enemy is pictured as humans whereas in Saving Private Ryan the enemy is pictured as evil nazi zombies who should all be killed.

Maybe the yanks need to lose a war in order to produce good war movies for a while?

[christophercles]

I dont think you can campare the two, one was a story about the horror of the war, and the other about the people in the war, not just thier feelings during it. Not to start an argument or anything, but where did you feel the flag waving was in spr? I never heard "im doing this for liberty, justice, and the american way!" or anything, so where did you feel it was?

[Oligo]

1. The movie starts with a U.S. flag waving filling the whole screen
2. The germans defending the beach (also elsewhere) are pictured as faceless stormtroopers (as in Star Wars). When they show the machinegun firing on the assaulting yanks, they never show the gunner, who probably was clutching the weapon in horror, firing in semi-panic on the approaching hordes of people trying to kill him.
3. The righteousness of their mission is underlined at all times by dear captain Miller, who in reality would probably have told his dear CO to fuck off.
4. Only the suffering of americans is shown. The germans always die right up, only the americans cry for their mothers when they perish in agony.
5. The movie clearly implicates that the machinegunner they capture and then let go should have been shot, because if you let any of those nazi scum alive they return to kill all your friends as the german machinegunner did in the end of the movie. Luckily Upham got cured from his erroneous thinking and wasted the german in the end.
6. The germans cannot fight. Do you think they would have taken whole europe with that kind of combat performance? Maybe they were badly trained germans.

Those are the points I could come up right now.

[Black Op]

The flag is there at the start to show respect to those that died.

its in the middle of a graveyard ffs

[christophercles]

Maybey all those things happened because the movie was about the americans, not the germans...... also the americans are supposed to be the "hero's" of the story, so they can just say "oh but in real life, the germans could have easily taken that shot, so im afraid ryan will have to die". And no, I dont think anyone said "ahahahah that nazi scumbag died!" infact they where showing that it happened, because the americans where angry at them for killing thier mates on the beach, but they wernt happy about it. they didnt say "hey, nice shot larry!". How about the scene with the captured german gunner from the radar base? your saying that they were conveying him as evil then? nobody in the audience though that it would be the good thing to do to kill him, infact the scene conveyed the opposite. BUT they did when he was going and killing the troops again, i dont see why that is a point to say that its american flag waving, its just common sense.

[ran]

far from the "ethic" debate :
i've seen apoclypse now redux ..............fantastic way better than the normal version , i love the end when willard become almost as insane as kurz
the scene in the camp under the rain ......... in the helo
the tiger hunt on the board of the river...........
the super show in the middle of the jungle............
the boat attack with the flares and the arrows ......
the attack of the village with the huey and the valkyrie march
the french plantation with the actors with their fucking accent ............. to many anthology moments

[Black Op]

most ppl think that when they capture the German they want to kill him cos hes a German, but if u watch the film closely u will see that Wade never actually carrys a weapon, and by killing him the German has broken the Geneva convention. There is a rule that unarmed medics are not allowed to be shot at

which is why they were so angry with him and wanted to kill him

[Longinius]

"most ppl think that when they capture the German they want to kill him cos hes a German, but if u watch the film closely u will see that Wade never actually carrys a weapon, and by killing him the German has broken the Geneva convention. There is a rule that unarmed medics are not allowed to be shot at

which is why they were so angry with him and wanted to kill him"

Bull. They would have been just as pissed of if it was Melesh or whoever that got hit. It was pure hate directed at the persons that killed a close friend. Nothing wrong with that. Its human friggin nature. I doubt they gave the Geneva convention a seconds thought when they saw Wade die.

[ran]

imagine :
you're in a small defence post protected by 2 sand bags , your position is surrounded by a platoon, two solutions :
1 fire at view without making any difference beetwen a medic , a machine gunner or a soldier with a chance to kill them all or at least repulse their attack
2 let them approaching without fighting and watch them trowing some grenades in your foxhole

wich one do you prefer ?
the geneva convention are broken every day all over the world , in a real combat situation , you don't bother about the conventions and treaties

[Albert Schweitzer]

I am very happy that this discussion started: i never wanted to start it myself cause that could have made the wrong impression.

I must say I was hurt by the film! I watched it in Switzerland in English, so there were many students from abroad sitting next to me. I wasnt hurt by the american flag, in contrary, lets not forget that those soldiers realy died for humanity.

But when a film becomes so terribly 100% realistic as "Private Ryan" that you actually feel you are on the battlefield and then you see the Wehrmacht-soldiers (or Nazis as you call them all) portrayed as inhumane rats, then this hurts. Cause you know, since everything is so realistic in this film, the people that watch it will believe everything they see and keep it as "authenticity" in their minds for eternity. It didnt hurt my patriotism, but my sense of recognition for all those that I have seen on old pictures from my Grandma and that have died in that war.

I wouldnt have minded to see the Germans as louzy fighters (even though after years of battle you are no longer a green-horn), but I do not like them to be shown as silent killer-machines, Frankenstein-bavarians, 2m tall, skinny head and the eyes full of hate. Do you realy believe that? Do you realy believe that the same German that was fighting in the Normandie would have also done his job in Ausschwitz? Do you realy think that a German soldier after years of war, after having received many letters about friends and brothers that have died he would still have the power to jump around with a super-theatralic performance and cry: dont kill me, dont kill me? He wouldnt have had more power than to simply whine it!
"i am not guilty, I am not guilty!" he continues. Do you realy believe someone in war would cry that! Shooting in war is allowed and noone ever apologised for it! how ridiculous! And then after having gotten a second chance from the US soldier he returns cause he is as evil as he is cowardly. Thanks god all Germans die like broken Light-bulbs!
When this nice stereotyped german got shot in the end people were cheering! Is that the purpose of an anti-war film? That people cheer in the end? Maybe I have ***a different perception there.
I just want to thank Mr. Spielberg for stereotyping all Germans once again so even upcoming generations know that in 1945 any German (even those soldiers that were 14 years old) were born with hate, the desire to kill jews, 2m tall and no sense of pride, basically equal to trash or animals.
War is terrible, not because there is blood everywhere and legs and heads flying around but simply because you see "humans" die and "generations being wiped out".


(if you are talking about the Geneva convention in relation to WWII than you havent understood the brutality of that war and its weapons. Anyway the Geneva convention was held August 1949, so years after)

A short dry but funny comment on realism of PRIVATE RYAN