Hacker Cinema
Platoon
1986 · Film · 120 min
Directed by Oliver Stone
As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
5 positive1 mixed11 neutralfrom 17 commenters
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19 comments on Hacker News
This comment is how I find out there was a Platoon game based on the movie. Legit hilarious, and for a movie tie in game it doesn't look half bad! Like a mixture of Contra + those dungeon explorer RPGs around the time too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiXkbQ17frY
Ye it is really strange. Why is there like no "Top 52" rotating the cinema. Taxi Driver one week. Platoon the next. And so on.
Copyright troubles?
>>> I can't believe that anyone who has seen "Full Metal Jacket" would be enthused about going to war.
I don't know. I'm definitely not blaming the film or its maker. But I can't deny that is does kind of awaken a fantasy in me. I have never been involved in any military, but a part of me has always wanted to be transformed like the men in that film.
The thing is, when I imagine being in the story, I don't see myself like Private Pyle or Cowboy. Their stories don't discourage me. So I do wonder if Kubrick missed the mark by making a film that horrified him but actually inspires others. Maybe there's just something wrong with me. Even Platoon has an allure to it. Even Barnes was a hero in some ways. I could be like Barnes without the evil parts.
Apocalypse Now on the other hand, now there's a movie to kill recruitment if ever there was one. There's literally no upside in that movie and very few characters have any redeeming qualities.
Only boring humans are just the product of the content they consume; interesting people have concerns about relationships with other humans, organisations, resources, threats and opportunities that come from being an entity living in a world full of things they don't control and things they'd quite like to control. It's also fairly easy to identify artists who have done nothing but look at other art.
Hayao Miyazaki once said "Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It's produced by humans who can't stand looking at other humans. And that's why the industry is full of otaku!" While I'm not actually a huge fan of his work, it's easy to see where he's coming from when you see the likes of "In Another World with My Smartphone" or the hundreds of other trash light novel adaptations. They're clearly fiction being produced by people whose lives are nothing but consuming other fiction, and all they can do is reference that. They have nothing to say.
For another example, there's a huge number of 20th century war films. They weren't made because their creators had read a lot of Wikipedia articles about how destructive wars were becoming. The likes of Platoon are a product of mortal fleshbags who actually saw combat and genuinely feared for their lives. Dr. Strangelove was created by people who had a genuine belief that they were at risk of being annihilated in a nuclear fireball.
I think The Deer Hunter hits a lot harder for folks that lived through the Vietnam war. My dad (a boomer who was in his 20s during the war) connected deeply with the film because it portrayed what was really happening to people in that time. The movie wouldn't have been nearly as powerful or impacting if it just cut straight to the Vietnam and capture scenes, you need the first act to establish the deep and real friendship of the folks going to war. You see their life before the war and how amazing and perfect it is--how it could be your life. And then you see the horror of the war and how it completely fractures and destroys this group of friends. A lot of people that lived through the war experienced the same kind of shock and the film is quite cathartic for them.
If you just want a Vietnam war movie that cuts right to the gory chase about the horror of conflict, watch Platoon. If you want to experience what life was like for a young adult in their 20s and 30s being drafted or going to fight in the war and its impact on their life, watch The Deer Hunter.
It was moderately successful at the box office ($100m worldwide) after a very troubled production but it only won sound and cinematography Oscars. Whereas Platoon for example won Picture, Director, Editing, and Sound. Coming Home won Best Actor and Actress.
Apocalypse Now wasn't a flop and had a reasonably good critical reception at the time (although Brando's performance was criticized) but overall it was seen as pretty middle of the road among Vietnam War and Vietnam War-adjacent (e.g. Born on the Fourth of July) films. Being seen as a great film by many mostly came after its initial release.
There were definitely other Vietnam War and related films like Platoon and Coming Home which were probably more highly regarded at the time but haven't had the staying power of Apocalypse Now.
When I joined the (Canadian) military in the mid 90s, many of the guys there cited anti-war films such as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Platoon' as inspirations for signing up.
Nobody cited 'Rambo' or 'Top Gun'
I watch good movies many times. I keep them on a loop while studying, or working. In college, I always had an Oliver Stone film on. At the time the duality between good, and evil, was always on my mind.
I must have watched Wall Street, and Platoon, a few hundred times.
I won't even estimate how many times I have watched Hictchcock films.
And the number of times I have watched Giant, or Citizen Cane, is embarrassing.
I have old movies playing all the time. I don't actually watch them, but I find them comforting in a weird way, esoecially black, and white films. I think the old, good movies take a part of my brain away from reality? I listen to them while working,
Yes--how can I find Platoon comforting? At that point in my life, Charlie Sheen's character, and his father's, reminded me there are moral people still left. Maybe only in fantasy though?
I get what you are saying though. I have The Andy Griffith show on all the time.
(fun murky fact, I think true, fact about the Andy Griffith show. They didn't bother to copyright the episodes. For years people could sell copies of the show without copyright concerns. I think it's copy written now though.)
A fridge (compressor) in a studio I lived in often made me hear Barber's "Adagio for Strings" (sad song in the game "Homeworld" or the movie "Platoon"). I think it hummed at the frequency of the long note then slowly shifted in pitch similar to the three-note patterns that follow, or something.
US military refused to cooperate filming Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and many other films
The story goes that the US Army refused to cooperate with Heartbreak Ridge once they read the script, but the USMC agreed without reading it. That’s why you’ve got the corrupt supply sergeant, the useless platoon commander, the cowardly company commander, the unit that is forced to repeat basic training and everything else that portrays everyone but Clint Eastwood’s character in a poor light.
US military refused to cooperate filming Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and many other films. For Apocalypse Now they pressured Australian and Philippine governments to deny assistance as well. US military has successfully removed lines from silly action movies like James Bond films and Marvel movies.
It's not comparable to what Chinese do of course, but the intention is there. Anyone who directly compares Chinese censorship to US censorship is an idiot.
> Yeah, the fact that any appearance of US military assets requires Pentagon to approve the script means that Hollwood is unable to record a movie depicting modern US millitary in any critical or non-heroic manner.
Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon ... There are probably more movies critical of war than promoting it. Actually, the general theme is to display the senseless of war than to glorify it. To say hollywood is in the pocket of the pentagon is to ignore most of its history.
China on the other hand, won't approve a movie if winnie the pooh appears in it.
In the movie Platoon they say: "The first casualty of war is innocence".
I can understand that. In despair, a lot of people in my Brazilian family think like you. But the problem is that this mentality opens a wide space for a whole different class of criminals. And that's what is going on in Rio : small business owners decided to bribe police officers in exchange of security. These corrupt policemen wiped away ordinary criminals but then they just replaced those, became organized crime by themselves, practicing drug traffic, extortion, monopolies in natural gas distribution and all sorts of illegal activities. In Rio they're called militias.
In the end, there's no alternative to the rule of the law. In the long run, a lynch mob mentality will only create bigger problems on the long run.
No director is perfect. Oliver Stone had a few duds, but he also made some excellent movies: JFK, Any Given Sunday, Platoon, Talk Radio, Wall Street...
If you have to criticize him, you could say that his recent movies have not been up to the bar he set in the '90s -- but it definitely was a very high bar.
I'm much more worried about Gordon-Levitt playing Snowden, from the trailer he looks pretty bland.
My favorite movies, but for no particuliar reason:
Platoon
Wall street
Three days of the condor
Chinatown
Sunset Boulevard
The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies)
Any Andy Griffith episode
Bicycle thieves 1948
Niagara
Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films)
The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.)
Giant
Rebal without a cause
Leaving Las Vegas
Blow out (all three)
Saturday night fever
Yes, even Urban Cowboy
One flew over the cocos nest
Deliverance
Hanna and her sisters
East of Eden
Dr. Strange love
Back to the future
Jaws
In cold blood(with Robert Blake)
In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name)
The asphalt jungle 1948?
All about eve
The hot rock
Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.)
A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.
There are also "bandwidth" issues not just generic intelligence amplification. May very well end up being a CLI, that certainly is higher bandwidth / lower latency than any sort of GUI.
Also market segmentation. Lets talk Vietnam. You reach the drooling masses with a graphical action movie like "Platoon". You reach the intellectuals with a book like "Fire in the Lake". There is no universal human "right" or "wrong" just different tools.
Given the above paragraph it is highly likely that noobs / non technical people will stick with touch and GUI and productive tech people will stick with somewhat more elaborate CLIs.
Full Metal Jacket.
• Three Kings.
• In The Valley of Elah.
Good Morning Vietnam.
A Few Good Men.
Platoon.
• Jarhead.
Casualties Of War.
• The Men Who Stare At Goats.
The Deer Hunter.
The Thin Red Line.
• Syriana.
• The Green Zone.
• Stop Loss.
Also, • HBO's "Generation Kill".
(•'d relatively recent movies)
I don't think "The Hurt Locker" was particularly critical of the military and didn't count it. Also not counting documentaries like "Restrepo".
I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it. Given what I presume to be America's default position of "supporting our troops", I'm struck by how many films Hollywood produce that challenge that default.
Remember also that Hollywood confronts at least two vectors of consumer preference in marketing films: first, Americans (in the large) have a (typical) diffuse nationalistic home-team support for our overseas adventures, and, more importantly, there's a less-political less-issue-oriented reverence expected for the sacrifices made by the young people we send into combat which is especially intense during times when large numbers of people are serving in combat zones. In other words, it's especially tricky to criticize the military during active conflicts.
Also, Three Kings is a fantastic movie.
I think the business world has realized many professions don't need the Ph.D. 'Give me a hungry kid who's willing to learn' --Gekko That's one of the lines that really resonated. Actually, that movie, along with Platoon really captured the duality of man--at least for me. Off subject, but I'm off today.