*FULL METAL JACKET* FIRST TIME WATCHING MOVIE REACTION
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- Enjoy my reaction to the movie Full Metal Jacket (1987)! 📼 Sync up your copy with mine + we can watch together at: / full-metal-1987-93535264
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🎞️ Reaction edited by the fantastic Dmytro!
00:00 Intro
00:10 Full Metal Jacket Reaction
32:56 Full Metal Jacket Movie Review - Zábava
THE SHINING: czcams.com/video/7ys67iW0Y_Q/video.html
DR STRANGELOVE: czcams.com/video/AEbrCyv02_I/video.html
WAR REACTIONS: czcams.com/play/PLQHhQlj8i5dqK5zvtIR97dgZDbVfVVR23.html
If you want to know more about this war, Ken Burns did a series about it. Be careful with that though. It’s good, but he is definitely coming from an angle where he has decided who the bad guys are. Truth is no one’s hands where clean in that war.
Please reacts Barry Lyndon
I think you'll like 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Tet Offensive was real and deadly.
Did you recognize Vincent D'Onofrio as Pyle? That same year he wss a ripped blond Thor in Adventures in Babysitting. He was the villain cockroach guy in Men in Black.
That is Jayne.
Yes, Jen. The 2nd half of the movie was based on actual events: the Tet Offensive of 1968 and the Battle of Hue City.
Hi Jen. I served two years in Vietnam. In my view, FMJ is the most honest of all Vietnam films. There were no John Waynes or Forrest Gumps in FMJ, just survivors on both sides. Love your channel. BTW, the white plastic bottles on their helmets contain mosquito repellent.
How come you losed?
@@redscorpion-se4hr Why you idiot?
My dad did his tour out there in 68-69. Thanks for your service TR!!!
Thank you for your service.
Go back to grammar school. @@redscorpion-se4hr
RIP R. Lee Ermey, he was a real life Marine drill instructor and Vietnam War veteran. He was originally just a technical advisor for this movie but he convinced the director to play the role of Sergeant Hartman and he improvised most of his lines as well.
Best 5 minutes beside saving private ryan
@@johnsmith8410*instructor
Women In America Are So Privilege They Can Choose Not To Go To War SMDH!!.
@@MotivationWeightLoss the night witch's. 588th bomber regiment. They were 17 to 25 years old.
@@SSIronHeart You Got To Go Back To The Stone Age Instead Of 2023 Just Saying!!!
I graduated from Parris Island in 1986 and drill instructors never run out of material. Those burpees you saw were called bends and thrusts in the Marines. This movie was actually filmed in England and Stanley Kubrick was definitely making an anti-war film.
Semper fi
I graduated mcrd august 28 1987 and saw this when I came home on leave.
This is the most accurate depiction I have seen of marine basic training.
Someone would have to be a dim bulb to think it was a PRO war film.
As the war dragged on, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara lowered the requirements for the level of intelligence of new recruits. Most of those soldiers were barely capable of functioning in the military. They were called by other soldiers “McNamara’s Morons”. There are several YT videos on this subject.
So gross, makes my skin crawl.
Yeah...I don't think Kubrick has ever explicitly stated it, but it seems clear that Pyle's character is meant to represent the test subjects of Project 100,000. I think Forrest Gump is also meant to be a callback to that project...but again, have never seen that explicitly stated by the filmmakers.
@@iKvetch558the book the movie is based on gets into more specific details on that. It's been a long time since I read it but I remember it mentioned it.
@@jessecortez9449 Ah...pk...good to know...I must admit I have never read the source material, only ever seen the movie. Thanks for letting me know about that.
Just because you can't cut it in war it doesn't mean you're a moron. On the contrary, they tend to be the smart ones.
My uncle got drafted into the Vietnam war and survived, but he couldn't hold a job for the rest of his life because of all the emotional and mental scars that he suffered during his time there. He had a decent life overall, but definitely was never the same... : (
Thats before people understood what PTSD was.
@@joemckim1183They called it 'Shell-Shock' in WW2
@@joejackson73 Shell-shock -> Combat fatigue -> PTSD
@@shoujahatsumetsu yep
When you see humans doing unspeakable things to other humans, it's hard to let that go. I had two uncles in that war. They're both gone now.
Lee Ermey, who played the drill instructor, was a real USMC drill instructor. Ex marines have said that it's pretty accurate. There's actually no such thing as a Code Red. What it's really called is a blanket party.
The Tet Offensive was a real event in the Vietnam War. It took place in 1968.
All of the filming was done in England, even the stuff that's supposed to be in Vietnam. The combat scenes were filmed in the derelict London docklands before they were torn down and redeveloped.
My dad was in the Marines at the time this film takes place. Fortunately, he did not get sent to Vietnam. He told me that this was the closest to boot camp that he's ever seen, and he had taught me many of the marching chants when I was 5, even the nasty ones.
My dad was Navy, went through boot camp around 1960. He said everything this movie was incredibly accurate, except for the cussing. His drill instructor never cussed.
I could never say the last sentence of your comment and keep a straight face. 👍😊@@richardpowell1220
My Dad was in the Marines ca. 1956. He also said the boot camp sequence was very accurate. Semper Fi. A great film.
You're right that Jayne from Firefly is in this. If you think Adam Baldwin was young in this movie, the first time I saw him as a kid was in My Bodyguard in 1980.
I saw that in the theater (My Bodyguard). The film jammed up in the projector and started melting. Fortunately, the projectionist was pretty quick about killing the projector and getting the rest of the reel going again.
I mostly know Adam Baldwin from the show Chuck. He was awesome in it!
Shit that's right!
@@matthewdunham1689 Omg, mind blown. Thanks for cluing me in.
The first time I saw Firefly I shit because of that. That was back when I constantly quoted the first 40 minutes of this movie.
R Lee Ermey was the most memorable part of this film, with his memorable insults and put downs. Apparently, he adlibbed most of his lines.
He was a drill instructor in the marines. He had no acting experience beforehand and just drew on his own experience. He was initially hired as a consultant on the film.
Apparently all unique too.
@@mcameron1981 I wouldn't say that Ermey had no acting experience previously. He played a helicopter pilot in Apocalypse Now. But yes for all intent purposes this was his first real acting role. Later on he would appear in movies like Seven as the police captain.
30:55 "What is the point of this? What are we even doing here?"
Exactly. You get the movie.
The jelly donut incident is what led up to the "blanket party". I never saw this happen in my platoon, but I certainly heard about it.
I had a Marine room mate (once a Marine, always a Marine) who told me his platoon came close to throwing a blanket party after someone snuck ketchup packets (of all things) into the barracks and everyone else was PT'ed through the night for it. My room mate was interesting, but he was a good shot with a rifle and taught me how to shoot like a Marine, which I appreciated.
Went through in the early 80s. Only heard of a "blanket party" from an old Gunny who joined up in 46 in the days of the "Rock & Shoals" punishment system. In my recruit Plt., there was a linen closet event against a drop recruit from a prior Series, we picked up who always mouthed off at every one. It was not a whole Plt. thing, but the guy did not mouth off throughout his remaining recruit training and graduated with us. For humor I am going to say the jelly donut was planted, because the donut was not crushed because to get a donut out of the mess hall unseen you have stuff it into a tight place, especially if you are wearing those old green "utility" sateen uniforms. I figure Gomer left his foot locker unlocked and someone planted the nicely intact jelly donut.
I actually watched _Full Metal Jacket_ for the first time with a large group of people the night before we all shipped to boot camp. The day before you ship out, the US government puts you up in a hotel nearby the military processing station. There was about 20 of us and we watched a DVD of this film in the hotel lobby or common room, whatever it was. We all had a good laugh at the first half, but at the same time, there was this pervasive thought of _"oh no, is this what boot camp is gonna be like tomorrow?''_ And yea, the film does a great job simulating the intensity of the experience. Boot camp in a weird way is kinda fun actually. The worst part about it is the 5-week flu you have during your stay. The same virus has been spreading from person to person at every branch's boot camp for literal decades now.
And yea, this movie is more of a critique of Vietnam, hence the over-the-top tone of the film. It's not like most war movies. There's no real plot or "mission" that needs to be accomplished. It's more of a psychological character study of the dehumanization effects that war can have on the human psyche-- as we see what happens to Gomer Pyle in basic training. And then later in the second half, we see how actual combat can turn men into sociopathic monsters, like Animal Mother. His character is basically the flip side of Gomer Pyle, the ''good'' and intended result of that training. Kubrick has made multiple films that have a rather critical look at war and at the military, including _Paths of Glory._ It's an older classic so it's more accessible and easier to watch, unlike FMJ which is rather cold and distant.
While I was Navy and not Marine, I can say boot camp was closer to summer camp. Just do what you're told and you're good. Hardest part is the gas chamber and for me, the running. I hate running. Always have, always will. I'll pick up anything you tell me and climb a hill. But not running. I think just liked the regularity. 3 meals a day, exercise, routine. I don't have that stuff when left to my own devices.
I always figured the gas chamber was conceived as a way to get that flu out of everybody. I know it certainly cleared me out for awhile, especially considering my friggin mask would never seal properly, so I was breathing that shit in the second I stepped in there🤣
We'll assume you did not find the character killing the DI and himself funny. #The1stHalf
@@treetopjones737 No, we did not laugh at Gomer Pyle's demise (at least from what I recall, it was 18 years ago). But the opening "shark attack" that Hartman gives to the recruits at the beginning, we all found those insults epically funny.
I don't think a sociopath would go against his entire squad and risk his life to save his two brothers in arms. Was he troubled? Yes. Vulgar? Sure. Violent? Absolutely. But I wouldn't call him a sociopath.
Hi Jen, it's awesome you've seen this iconic war movie. It's awesome! The drill instructor in the training scenes (R Lee Ermey) was a DI during the Vietnam war and was originally on set as a techical advisor, but after a relentless demo to a group of Britsh marines, Stanley Kubrick cast him as the DI. And most of his dialogue was improvised. The Vietnam battle scenes were recreated in east London!
Thanks for taking on the tough movies, Jen. We appreciate your sacrifices for our entertainment. Vulcan salute! 🖖
God bless you child. Kubrick made a war movie. Straight up. Ugly, cruel, indifferent, and capricious.
@@Sirala6Yeah, it is best known as Doctor Strangelove Paths of Glory
Odd how those movies don't seem to be about war as much as they are about the insanity of the Mutual Assured Destruction scheme and the politics of the military. Whereas this movie is about day-to-day combat.@@JayAr709
Clicked pretty fast for this one. Holds up really well for being almost 40 years old, and many who were there have said it's the most accurate depiction of the Vietnam War ever put to film. I love the emphasis Kubrick places on the psychological aspects, as he does in all his movies. Since you've already seen The Shining and FMJ, A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut should be next on your list. Great reaction as always 👍
Jen: "I would never make it in the Army"
*Marines watching do spit take*
Great reaction Jen. You made it through a tough one. Most Vietnam movies are pretty brutal. If you're willing to brave anymore I recommend "Platoon" "Apocalypse Now", "We Were Soldiers", "The Deer Hunter", and "Hamburger Hill"
My girlfriend is from southern Vietnam (born a few years after the war) and we visited her family there in early 2019, shortly before CoViD made visits impossible. I talked to older people a lot to learn about their past. As someone who grew up in a free western country, I feel so much pity but also admiration for the Vietnamese. They have never been a free people since the French invasion of 1862 and most don't even know how life could be better than what they have. However, since the end of the 1990s, living standards in the country have steadily improved. They basically started from zero and still have a long way to go, but I really admire them for picking themselves up from where they were to get to where they are now. And I really hope they can continue on this path.
“It’s not pro-war or anti-war. It’s just the way things are” ~Stanley Kubrick said of Full Metal Jacket, his 1987 adaptation of Gustav Hasford’s novel, The Short-Timers.
*
3:19 Very accurate.
For anyone who went through Basic, at least in the USMC or Army pre-2000's(lot of rules changed in the 90's), its immediate memory-inducing.
Were they allowed to hit recruits?
@garmisra7841 R Lee said, "What's a slap compared to the horrors of war? "
That ended in the late 60s
that ended in the late 60s@@garmisra7841
Jen, great reaction to this difficult and intense film. Yes, Vietnam was a "nightmare," as you called it. Well done.
Wars of attrition always are
Great reaction, Jen. I'm sorry to learn that you're having difficulties with YT and your reactions, I hope that it improves.
As for Kubrick films here's some of my favourites: "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Barry Lyndon", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Killing", "Eyes Wide Shut", "Paths of Glory", "Spartacus", there are many more from this fantastic Director but these are good ones.
I'm Spartacus!
Definitely that one.
@@CheepchipsableIt's a classic and doesn't seem to get the praise which it deserves these days.
Btw my friend was in the battle of Hua and he said that was very realistic. He brought home a pistol and belt from a North Vietnamese officer he shot face to face. He was a tough little guy. A platoon sergeant. Covid killed him about 18 months ago.
A though little war criminal.
The first bootcamp haircut is brutal. I saw men cry, I saw men bleed. Went through Parris Island in November, 1977 and graduated 13 February, 1978.
I went through basic training at Parris Island and this perfectly showed the shit we went through.
A great film. Loved your reaction.
This was`nt filmed at parris island, The training scenes were filmed at R.A.F bassingbourn Barracks royston Kent England...I did my own training there. The war scenes were filmed at a Rundown Gasworks in Beckton uk.
This is one of Stanley Kubrick's best movies to say the least! And he is one of Hollywood's greatest directors. Another of his movie's that I highly recommend you react to is; A Clockwork Orange (1971) it's iconic and was originally banned for a long time. It's set in a dystopian UK where crime is rife. (not to dissimilar from now really) Malcolm McDowell stars as a gang leader who is subjected to an experimental 'new cure' to end the violence...
Adapted from the novel.
Yup, the Tet Offensive was a real thing in 1968. It pretty much marked the beginning of the end, but that wouldn't come for almost another 7 years.
One of the writer's of the movie was a combat writer named Michael Herr. A few of the things are in the movie actual happened. He wrote it in his book dispatches. The door gunner and the wearing peace pin Herr wrote about in his book "Dispatches".
Great reactions Jen. My older brother was in the Marines and he said this movie was very realistic. He described boot camp to me. I went in the Navy. Boot camp was much easier.
Because of their different acting styles, this movie temporarily ended the friendship between Matthew Modine (Joker) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Gomer Pyle). In fact, they almost came to blows, even though it was Modine who recommended D'Onofrio for the part. The dust-up was simply movie set tensions because the two have remained good friends.
I reckon Kubrick's style would have set them on edge too. He would love it to be as realistic as possible.
There is a story that Harvey Keitel auditioned for Kubrick, and Kubrick asked him to walk through a door, like 30 times.
After about 20 times with no reaction from Kubrick, Keitels said "F* this!" and left...🤣
Well Jen, now you need to watch “Platoon”. A very realistic account of Vietnam according to people who were there. It’s a very good movie. “Heartbreak Ridge” is another pretty cool marine movie with Clint Eastwood. A bit more easy in rendition. If you really want to check out Kubrick in all his glory and surreal then you should check out “ A Clockwork Orange”. I’m really not sure if you’re ready for that one. It’s one of my favs by him. But it’s not for everyone.
Yes that is "Jayne" from Firefly - Adam Baldwin (no relation to the other 5 or so Baldwin Brother actors) - He's a great actor IMO - underrated. Got his start in acting as a kid in "My Bodyguard" - an excellent coming of age movie - has a young Matt Dillon and Joan Cusak in it as well.
hey Jen, heads up. The soldier in the helicopter shooting at civilians was supposed to be drill instructor Hartman, but R. Lee Ermey stole the role, by improvising the insults for practice recording session for the drill sergeant scene. ------- Lee Emey knew Kubrick would see improved dialogue lines, to the point that Kubrick incorporated the dialogue of R. Lee Ermey. ------- Marines always bring the intensity even when they are on the bench.
This and Apocalypse Now are my two favorite (and extremely different) films set during the Vietnam War.
As for Kubrick, it’s hard to go wrong. The Killing, Lolita, Clockwork Orange, Paths of Glory, and Eyes Wide Shut are all excellent.
2001 and "a Clockwork Orange" are of his best. CW is of course an adaption of the novel.
Lots of films deal with the horrors of war but very few deal with the absurdity of it, and even fewer that did it as well as this one. Great selection.
This movie is set at Parris Island South Carolina. The door gunner in the chopper is the guy that was originally cast to be Hartman.
I love FMJ but between this and Oliver Stone's Platoon is kinda like Godfather vs Goodfellas. Both are classics; one is more stylized, the other more brutal realism
I highly recommend Kelly's Heroes (1970) it's a bit more lighter of a war movie, an entertaining action comedy (that has Saving Private Ryan/Fury vibes) set in the aftermath of D-Day in 1944. Starring Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland & Telly Savalas, a platoon of American soldiers use a 3 day break from fighting to go after millions of dollars worth of Nazi gold hidden behind enemy lines. Please react to that asap :)
If only they hadn't made Oddball a hippy.
This movie was an eye-opener for me at ...11? 12? I forget when i first saw it, but it totally de-glorified war for me and showed the duality and hypocrisy of wartime in such a brilliant, honest way that's always stuck with me. The juxtaposition of war images with happy time music just underscores the sad truth of it all. I seem to recall reading that Kubrick had a walkman playing a playlist of pop music from that era and headphones on the whole time he was filming. It's a top-shelf film, and basically a horror movie.
R. Lee Ermey now sadly passed away, he was a real Drill Instructor. There are some quotable lines in this film. "Its a huge s**t sandwich & were all going to take a bite!" "You climb Obstacles like old people F***!"
Tough one. Lots of outstanding films about the Vietnam War, including Platoon, Casualties of War, Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill...also Born on the Fourth of July. All highly recommended.
The argumentative colonel at the mass grave 20:51 had a very familiar voice, but it took me a while to figure it out. Actor Bruce Boa also played the argumentative American tourist in the Fawlty Towers episode, "Waldorf Salad". John Cleese of Monty Python wrote and starred in the series, voted the best ever Britcom.
He's also in 'Apocalypse Now'.
@@Findo_Gask Are you sure? I don't see that on his IMDb credits.
Yes Jen, it was known as "The Tet Offensive". It was a large scale attack by the Viet Cong and Nth Vietnamese on a holiday celebrating the Lunar New Year. They chose that date as they figured large amounts of US personnel would be absent on leave and that the attacks would lead to a popular uprising by the people of Sth Vietnam. After initially being surprised by the attacks, the US forces managed to beat back the offensive, no uprising occurred, and it became a military defeat for the Nth Vietnamese.
Well said. I'll re-phrase it slightly: from a military standpoint, the U.S. Army and ARVN (South Vietnamese forces) won. However, some of the atrocities committed by the South Vietnamese, both military and civilian, were so out of bounds - and were broadcast back home on evening television - that many began to reconsider their support for the war. It basically forced the American public to ask themselves: *this* is what our soldiers are fighting for? So, from a public support standpoint, which in many ways is just as important, the North Vietnamese won. From there, morale depleted more and more in the American side until their withdrawal in January 1973. For both the soldiers in Vietnam and much of the American public, it was the first war that they had conclusively "lost."
Additionally, the fact that the American forces were so vulnerable that they got hit all up and down the country and the North Vietnamese came so close to their objectives in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) made the public far less willing to believe the "happy talk" that the Army was putting out about their alleged successes (such as the "body counts" of the NVA that they claimed to have killed; at one point the joke became that we had killed more soldiers than there were people in North Viet Nam) and General Westmoreland's claim that we could "see the light at the end of the tunnel" (joke: "We see the light at the end of the tunnel…and it's a train").
As they said in "Iron Man 2", "if you can make the God bleed…" Tet was when the North made the US bleed.
From then on, it was all downhill, even though the war was not yet even half over. This was January 1968, but more than half of the American deaths (over 29,000 out of 57,000+, IIRC) came after Nixon and his "secret plan to end the war" were elected in November.
Fine reaction, Jen.
More information, for Jen and anybody who is interested.
The NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong, its southern "cousin," were both involved in Tet. The North Vietnamese were hoping that a surprise attack would cause the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon (now re-named Ho Chi Minh City, but still referred to as Saigon), to fall and for the American government and military to withdraw. In fact, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon was one of the major targets, and significant damage was done to the building. Many of the South Vietnamese thought that Saigon was the one safe part of their country. Also, because of the attack, many could no longer be sure that the government's position that things were going well was actually true. The biggest lesson of Tet, perhaps, is that it shattered the illusion of a "weak" North Vietnamese military and government. Tet was perhaps the first time that the soldiers and the public had to deal with the idea that American military invincibility was not always true.
Jen, I'm old. I went to Parris Island in December 1977. (And Marines are NOT "Army") Vietnam was over but the boot camp was almost exactly the same. Only difference they weren't allowed to hit us by then and we had M16's instead of M14's. There are actually 4 Drill Instructors who alternate staying in the barracks. The bootcamp experience I'm sure has changed but in 77-78 this movie nailed it perfectly.
Fun fact Jen: This entire movie was filmed in England. The Palm Trees were brought in from Spain. Kubrick apparently does not like to leave the island.
Marines are hard core, and God bless 'em.
I dropped out of college and joined the Navy in 1981.
When I arrived at Lindberg Field [San Diego Airport] the Navy Liaison Desk rep told me new recruits for Navy & Marines were outside the end of the terminal; that the buses would be there a little after midnight to take each group to their respective boot camps (both were right next to each other).
I asked how I was supposed to tell which one was the Navy group, she told me I would be able to figure it out.
I got outside and there were two groups. One group was lounging around, passing a bottle of whiskey and a couple beer cans back and forth to share; their last drinks for the next 8 weeks.
About 10 feet away, the other group was formed in a single file line, standing at attention in absolute silence, "nut-to-butt" with the tallest in front and shortest in the rear.
Pacing up and down the line was the meanest looking man I had ever seen in my 18 years of life. He completely ignored the other group and devoted his full attention on that line of men.
He wasn't huge, but every step he took elicited POWER.
Every crease, seam and edge in his uniform were all perfectly aligned with each other.
His boots reflected like mirrors.
His eyes were DRILLING DAGGERS into each man in the line as he paced up and down, DARING any of them to glance to the left or right.
Needless to say, I was happy to join my fellow Navy recruits for a drink before the bus pulled up.
The Drill Instructor does sleep in his office, which is called the Duty Hut. This movie only focuses on Senior Drill Instructor GySgt. Hartman, but each training platoon has 2-3 additional DI's (you see them in the background of a few scenes).
Hey Jen, you may not have realized but the destroyed town where the urban warfare took place was not in Vietnam but on a constructed set just outside of London. -------- Kubrick goes all out in creating the destroyed environment, the immersive burning building scenes. --------- The man is second to none.
That's a problem with the film though. All Vietnam War films were shot in the Philippines, but Kubrick was afraid to fly, so he shot all the battle scenes on sound stages in the UK instead. Which makes the bombed-out city battle scenes look more like WWII European Theatre battles (like the end of Saving Private Ryan) instead of jungle fighting that defined Vietnam. It makes the film very inauthentic as a result. That's why Platoon is the better Vietnam film.
@@rustincohle5503 I hear that. Big films are great in their own right.
The soap beating dont cause external damage. ( it causes internal damage ) broken bones damaged organs and does not leave external bruises. So it's a pretty brutal beating.
Most ppl don't seem to know that the hooker was the sniper at the end
Fun Facts about the filming of Full Metal Jacket.
Kubrick filmed Full Metal Jacket in England in 1985 and 1986. Scenes were filmed in Cambridgeshire, the Norfolk Broads, in eastern London at Millennium Mills and Beckton Gas Works in Newham, and in the Isle of Dogs. Bassingbourn Barracks, a former Royal Air Force station and then British Army base, was used as the Parris Island Marine boot camp. A British Army rifle range near Barton, Cambridge, was used for the scene in which Hartman congratulates Private Pyle for his shooting skills. Kubrick worked from still photographs of Huế taken in 1968; he found an area owned by British Gas that closely resembled it and was scheduled to be demolished. The disused Beckton Gas Works, a few miles from central London, was filmed to depict Huế after attacks. Kubrick had buildings blown up, and the film's art director used a wrecking ball to knock specific holes in some buildings for two months. Kubrick had a plastic replica jungle flown in from California but once he saw it dismissed the idea, saying; "I don't like it. Get rid of it." The open country scenes were filmed at marshland in Cliffe-at-Hoo and along the River Thames; locations were supplemented with 200 imported Spanish palm trees and 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong.
Kubrick acquired four M41 tanks from a Belgian army colonel who was an admirer. Westland Wessex helicopters, which have a much longer and less-rounded nose than that of the Vietnam era H-34, were painted Marine green to represent Marine Corps Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopters. Kubrick obtained a selection of rifles, M79 grenade launchers, and M60 machine guns from a licensed weapons dealer.
Modine described the filming as difficult; Beckton Gas Works was a toxic environment for the film crew, being contaminated with asbestos and hundreds of other chemicals. During the boot camp sequence of the film, Modine and the other recruits underwent Marine Corps training, during which Ermey yelled at them for 10 hours a day while filming the Parris Island scenes. To ensure the actors' reactions to Ermey's lines were as authentic and fresh as possible, Ermey and the recruits did not rehearse together. For film continuity, each recruit had his head shaved once a week.
Ermy also has a minor role in Apocalypse Now as a helicopter pilot.
It’s also worth reading up on the Mai Lai Massacre; one of the most horrific incidents to take place during the Vietnam War; & something no American personnel were ever held accountable for….as they all got let off!!
Check out Ken Burns fantastic documentary on Vietnam.
As Henry John Patch (17 June 1898 - 25 July 2009), who was known as “The. Last Fighting Tommy" & also the last surviving trench combat soldier of the First World War from any country put it.
“I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder.”
Make an Amazon wishlist, Jen. There's other stuff I wanna send ya and Throne is too limiting in what you can give!🙂
Ty for the wonderful reactions this week Jen hope you're having a lovely day and Boston is doing much better today 🤞 enjoy your evening and have a fantastic restful weekend 🙏
The other journalist (Rafterman), who was partnered with Joker, also played one the main thugs in the classic crime thriller movie, "Death Wish II" (1982), about a vigilante who gets revenge on the criminals who raped and murdered his daughter. That is a really great movie. If you haven't seen yet, you should. Laurence Fishburne (of The Matrix franchise) also plays one of the main thugs in that movie. The lead actor of that movie is the late, legendary, "tough guy" actor, Charles Bronson.
I just watched all of your Firefly/Serenity reactions and then saw that you posted this, so I was stoked for you to recognize Adam. Great movie and reaction.
100% with you on the fake CPR
As a director and first responder it’s my pet peeve.
Some important context should be had for the recruit training portion, and this comes directly from R. Lee Ermey's personal experience as a DI. Because of the massive demand for infantry in Vietnam, the size of a "class" tripled, and the length of Basic Training was shortened from 12 weeks to 8, or 1/3 less. Further, because DIs come from the pool of senior enlisted ranks, and those men were particularly needed in Vietnam, the number of DIs per class was cut from 9 to 3.
This meant that the very few DIs remaining had the job of turning men who were generally not military-minded (i.e., wouldn't have joined up of their own accord normally) into trained Marines who would likely be in battle within 24 hours of landing in Vietnam, and they had to do this for triple the men with 1/9th as many DIs per recruit in only 2/3s the time. A failure to accomplish the mission meant that a lot more new Marines would be killed within a few weeks of their arrival.
This is why violence and some other non-typical forms of punishment were used (and were allowed to be used): there simply wasn't sufficient time or manpower to explain things or talk them over or whatever - resistance had to be shut down immediately in the quickest way possible so that the necessary lessons could be taught. As cruel as it may have seemed, Vietnam was going to be MUCH less forgiving, especially for brand new troops, so if the DIs had been more lenient, fewer men would have come home.
The guy who wrote the book this movie was based on was a Marine recruit who wasn't told any of this, and wrote his book based on the idea that the DIs were just sadists who enjoyed torturing recruits - and the movie was originally designed to share that perspective. It was Ermey who explained to Kubrick the reasons WHY Basic Training was as it was during that time - and was one of the reasons it was so important to Ermey to play this part, and to share the wider truth about it.
Joker, aka Matthew Modine is a great human being! I met him and his family going to church on a Sunday. He is remarkable. Watch stranger things as well.
R. Lee Ermey played the drill instructor so well because in real life, he was an actual drill instructor, brought in as a consultant. When Kubrick had him demonstrate some of the lines he and Ermey were writing, he hired Ermey for the role, replacing another actor who had already been cast, re-casting him as the crazy shooter in the helicopter.
Can’t wait for Jen to watch Band of Brothers…😊😊😊
Matthew Modine does a great job in this, playing Joker and narrating the movie. I highly recommend him in Memphis Belle (1990) he stars as the captain of the WWII B17 bomber plane of the title, who's crew famously completed their 25 mission tour of duty in Europe in 1943. Please check it out for the channel and other aerial warfare movies like Red Tails (2012) - the first African American pilots in the US Air Force during WWII. George Lucas the star wars guy did the CGI visual effects for it!
+ 1 for Memphis Belle.
Amazing movie
I also love the movie "Wind". It's about the America's Cup.
Full Metal Jacket is still one of the best war movies ever made. Definitely one of the top five of all time. Another great film about the Vietnam war is "Platoon" (1986), starring Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, Keith David, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, John McGinley, Tony Todd ('Candyman'), and even Johnny Depp.
Great reaction, Jen, as always!!! 👏👏👏👏 FYI, R. Lee Ermy, who plays Sergeant Hartman, was an actual Marine Corps drill instructor. He was originally hired as a consultant on the movie, but Stanley Kubrick ended up casting him as the drill instructor. Most of his dialogue he improvised, based on his years of experience with the Marines.
the door gunner was the original actor for the drill instructor until Lee sort of stole it out from under him so they gave him the door gunner scene
Kubrick allowed Ernst to completely make up his own dialogue because he was so good. That was unheard of in Kubrick films.
I met Gunnery Sargent Ermey when I was in my military Job school in 09’ he came to the Marine Battery on base and met all of us in class
I will always say actual bootcamp was worse because you have at least 3 drill instructors yelling constantly instead of just one.
Vincent "Pyle" D'Onofrio actually survived and became the Bug in Men In Black. (Yes that's really him!)
As a former active Marine yes this is 100% true Marine Corps training. My wife dad was a Marine drill instructor, my brother was a Marine in Vietnam,I was a Marine in Desert Storm my nephew was a Marine in Afghanistan so trust me 100%
as an old vet .myself the training has mellowed out since the vietnam era. i got lucky with the air force. but this is close to reality
Growing up this was the first war movie that I saw with absolutely no glory at the end and really made me just sit and think about life and war 🧐
When I was growing up in the 80s, there was a time no one really talked about Vietnam. There weren't a lot of documentaries on it, not many movies (I loved Apocalypse Now, but it seemed weird and I didn't feel like it told me much .. turns out it did), and people I knew who were there had zero interest in my questions. Platoon was the movie I remember kind of opening the flood gates. We got to see many different sides of the war through the movies that came out, including this one. It seems like that got people talking and healing, and we started learning. One of my favorite TV shows from the time was China Beach, actually. I haven't had a chance to visit yet, but every time I see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, I get emotional.
As for people I knew who served, they slowly started answering my questions ..
Private Pyle was overweight, and possibly learning challenged. (Similar to Forrest Gump) during the late 60s the US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara enacted an oh so brilliant plan- allow mentally challenged and those with criminal records to be drafted. "To make men out of them" They had no business whatsoever being drafted. Basically they were cannon fodder. One of my uncle's was like that. Drafted into the Army out of high-school with only a 7 year old mentality. He never graduated boot camp. Unable to follow directions he received a blanket party so severe he was permanently physically disabled. McNamara was never held accountable. As for Parris Island even in the 1990s it still looked much the same. I was stationed there as a Navy Corpsman. Served 10 years in total. Proud to have done so.
To the time it’s representing it’s very accurate. The drill instructor was an actual drill instructor haha. Now-a-days, there’s a lot less name calling and swearing and it’s quite a bit softer, which, most would and should agree, isn’t a positive shift, it’s the military, not daycare, not summer camp. If you can’t hang you, can’t hang. Someone else can.
And I’m writing this at 7:16 so, also yes, even back then, over time your instructors will stop being as loud. Mostly because you reach a point where you know what you should be doing and if you don’t, the screaming returns.
Group punishments for one’s mistake is a thing still, or at least I’d think so, I haven’t been on a recruit base in, now over a decade. Sheesh.
But it’s really not so bad if you’re determined, and want to do it.
That WAS Jane from Firefly! Great call!
Also, I recommend "Platoon" as another very well done movie about Vietnam.
Hey Jen, Full metal jacket is not your typical war movie. It's definitely an anti-war movie. --------- Which is what several scenes in the movie are meant to show. --------- Especially the scene with the General questions 'Joker's born to kill hat and peace sign button. -------- Love that you picked up on the aimlessness of the mission in this movie. --------- The unit keeps moving from place to place in a reaction to actions and intel they keep getting. -------- Which gives a more realistic view of many soldiers in the field.
My fil was a Marine and served 1969-1970. Hey, These Boots was my favorite song when I was a kid. Nancy Sinatra performed in Vietnam too.
My dad and his brother (2 of 9) were drafted into Vietnam. Both have lauded this movie’s accuracy and often quote the Gunny’s lines. Basically I grew up with this movie.
"I don't know specific stories..."
Then I recommend the book The Tunnels of Cu Chi, a collection of interviews from tunnel fighters in Vietnam from both sides of the war. A fascinating and terrifying look at the entire war from those operating below ground.
The combat scenes in the ruins were filmed in an old factory district in London. Stanley Kubric had some palm trees around to sell it as Southeast Asia.
As a Marine pretty accurate for the time. Great reaction. 👏👏 Semper Fi
Adam Baldwin was 25 here. He was 40 when he did Firefly.
Hi Jen, another incredible Vietnam War movie I recommend you react to is: Born On The Fourth Of July (1989) based on a true story, directed by Vietnam vet Oliver Stone & starring Tom Cruise as a patriotic young man who volunteers to fight in the war, gets seriously wounded, returns home & becomes an anti war activist.
I always liked it better than Platoon. Everyone has shown the cluster fuck the war was but what about the aftermath? Both sort and longterm
"What are we doing here"...Koeea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.... we never learned...
Jen - You asked "What were we even doing there?"... Well... I spent a semester in college in a "History of the Vietnam War" class, and about 1/3 of the class were Vietnam Veterans... That question is a good deal more complex than most people think. All I can suggest is the book "Vietnam: A History", by Stanley Karnow. It's a reasonably well balanced look at the history of Vietnam, and the history of the French and later American conflict there. Any quick quip that tries to explain it all is going to be wrong. Or at the very least, grossly incomplete.
The Tet offensive was one of the biggest battles of the war.
If you want more of Jayne from Firefly, he did a great performance in My Bodyguard from 1980, a coming-of-age story.
Fun movie. Got compared to Platoon and suffered bc of it. But it ages much better.
Thanks for your time and effort for this one Jen! For a little context for the Vietnam War in the context of the Cold War - The general policy the US had at the time in the 60's was one of "Containment", meaning to try and limit Communism to only those countries that already were Communist, and supporting non-Communist regimes. This was the case in Korea, where Communist North and non-Communist South Korea went to war, with China and the Soviet Union supporting the north and the United States and its allies supporting the south. This was also the case in Vietnam; the regimes of both South and North Vietnam were pretty brutal and authoritarian, but one (the North) was Communist and one wasn't, so that made who supported who clear. The US otherwise had no direct interest in Vietnam outside of stopping the spread of Communism.
In the United States the war was extremely unpopular, and draft dodging (including fleeing to Canada to avoid prosecution), protests, and anti-war movements had a lot of support. While militarily the US was clearly superior to North Vietnamese forces and their borrowed Soviet gear, overall the US was not prepared to fight a Guerilla resistance in such difficult terrain (Vietnam has a lot of hills and tropical forests, less than 20% of the country is clear, open terrain, which is ideal for vehicles like tanks and planes), and struggled a great deal as a result. On a larger scale of the country's entire grand strategy, the 60's was the height of the Cold War, and some figures in leadership went a little crazy in their zeal for winning, with one US general allegedly saying *"At the end of the War, if there's two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win."* Which is kinda obviously insane.
Hope this provided some (hopefully) *mostly* accurate context!
The Drill Instructor was talking about those two snipers/shooters, in reality, some of the best snipers come from the Canadian Army.
I have worked as humanitarian relief worker in a civil war country in Africa. Jen, life becomes surreal, chaos, pain and hatress to the extreme of imagination.. you will do anything just to not get killed.. combat in the jungle or desert but 50miles in the capital people having ice cream, listening to music, and strolling.. watching your reaction here just gave me fresh memories of those days. but there s a movie nobody talks about, it won the oscar and to me that is the closest description of what war is like..the movie is The Killing Fields (Rolland Joffe). anyone here that has in the war will agree with me I am sure..much love Jen..
1986 MCRD San Diego, platoon 2098. This is the most realistic portrayal of USMC bootcamp in my opinion. Every time I watch it it brings back a lot of deep seated memories.
Hi Jen. Forgive the mansplaining, but I can't resist since you seem to be genuinely curious about the Marine Corps training as represented in the movie. I graduated from Parris Island in 1977. So I was not in Vietnam and was never in combat. I don't have much to say about the second half of the movie.
But as far as the training scenes go, this is far and away the most realistic representation of Marine Corps training I have ever seen. It is every bit as physically challenging and mentally stressful as the movie depicts. R. Lee Ermey was spot on in his role (he had been a D.I. in reality, and had served in Vietnam) and I'm sure reminds every former Marine of their Senior Drill Instructor.
Nevertheless there are some differences, and perhaps inaccuracies, at least from my experience.
During my time, DI's were no longer allowed to use racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious slurs. They weren't even supposed to use profanity! Nor were they permitted to lay hands on recruits. This was probably in response to the abuses in training during the Vietnam era and perhaps previous eras. In my opinion, these limitations made them no less loud, aggressive, and demanding; and, if anything, only made them more inventive in their "motivational" language. I remember once when I got out of step for just a moment the Senior D.I. immediately broke through the ranks and threatened to "choke my chicken neck." Although I knew he wasn't supposed to actually do it, I believed he was quite capable of it, and I didn't get out of step after that.
Recruits are not permitted to use personal pronouns. No "I's, me's, we's, us's, or you's." The recruit always referred to himself in the third person as "The recruit" and to someone he was addressing by the appropriate title. Although for the most part the actors in FMJ get it right, they do slip up occasionally and use personal pronouns. For instance, when Lawrence is caught with the jelly doughnut, the Senior D.I. asks him why he has it, and Lawrence says "I don't know sir." This may seem nitpicky, but it jumps out immediately to any former Marine, and I'm surprised R. Lee in his role allowed him to get away with it. In real life any recruit who says "I," "me," or "you," will immediately have a D.I. screaming in his face. And of course every sentence out of your filthy suck would begin with "Sir" and end with "Sir."
Every recruit company has three drill instructors, the Senior Drill Instructor and two regular drill instructors. The other two in FMJ are seen only briefly in a few scenes but in reality you would have three screaming angry maniacs crawling all over you at every moment of the night and day.
Again, during my time, recruits as out of shape as Lawrence (Vincent D'onofrio) would be sent to what we called the "Pig Platoon," where they were put on a diet and exercised until they were in shape to recycle back into the main stream. I pitied those guys. I could not imagine spending weeks longer at Parris Island.
When the platoon beats Lawrence, that is called a "blanket party." There was one blanket party in my platoon, but it was not as severe as this, and only a few in the platoon participated.
One scene that has always bothered me about FMJ is the scene where the Senior D.I. extols the marksmanship of Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald. It's very hard for me to imagine that a Marine in a position of authority would praise the murderer of his Commander in Chief. IMHO this goes against everything the Marine Corps stands for. This feels like an invention of Stanley Kubrick, who wants to show very graphically how coldblooded Marines are supposed to be. I'd be very curious of other Marine's views on this.
There are a few other things but I've gone way long enough. Just one last thing: Marines are not soldiers. In a few other movies I've heard actors portraying marines address a fellow Marine as "soldier" (e.g. Will Smith in "Independence Day) this immediately tells every Marine that the writer has not done his homework. Marines are not soldiers. Of course civilians don't know the difference, hence your confusion at the beginning of the vid, but if one Marine called anther Marine a soldier, something, btw, unheard of in my experience, it would be a deadly insult and would lead to an immediate brawl.
Anyway, enjoyed your reaction and I hope you don't mind me sharing my own experiences, for whatever interest they may have.
s
18:18 This is a depiction of one aspect of the Tet Offensive, a major military operation by the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong (South Vietnamese Communist rebels, who worked with the NVA), that targeted every major city in South Vietnam and most American military bases there. You’ll want to google it and read up about it. It was a pivotal turning point in the war, and caused many people who were on the fence regarding the war to turn against it, since it indicated that it would not be winnable.
Jen: 3:15 "He is just with them every single moment of the day." Yes, that is true, Jen. During Marine Corps boot camp, there was always a Drill Instructor (DI) with us. For the entire 3 months of training, 24 hours a day, there was a DI watching everything we did, and pouncing on us whenever we screwed up.
Jen: 3:21 "How accurate is this to real training?" It is extremely accurate. It is exactly what my boot camp experience was like in 1973...except none of us killed any of our 4 DI's.
This movie is great. I took a Kubrick class in college 20 years ago. It still feels like two separate movies to me. The training half is so different in tone to the war half.
It's also worth noting that Joker asked the helicopter gunner how he can kill women and children...then Joker's own first kill turned out to be both...
My Dad LOVED this movie ... especially the first half since he trained at Paris Island in the early 1970s. The Ken Burns 10-part documentary on the Vietnam War is definitely recommended if you're interested in gaining a deeper understanding on the subject.
You asked how accurate this training is Jen, I can tell you it reminds me totally of my basic training but then again was 32 Battalion in the South African defense force in the 80's when we were fighting the war in Angola, 32 Battalion was the special forces, and this training that these guys go through is almost a mirror image of what we went through except that our instructors spoke Afrikaans, and yes we had someone in the group that was exactly like Pvt Pyle and got us in trouble so many times we also beat him the same way but with us our two instructors joined in since they also got trouble from the highers ranks because of the Pyle type character, but he did not kill the instructors he became better and served well eventually, and yes i did go fight during the war, notably in the battles of Cuito Cuanavale and Luanda which is the Captial city of Angola. That i really don;t want to talk about since as my two grandfather's who served in the German armed forces during World war II said, "The Hero's fell in battle I am only a survivor." My profile Pic is one of my Grandfather's a fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe. Keep up you reactions i love 'em
I give you credit for watching this. My wife likes to watch the first half every now and then because it makes her laugh so hard.
The thousand yard stare concept goes back to WWII at least, possibly WWI. It’s possible that it went back further but WWI is the first war where the effects of war on the psyche were first becoming recognized and understood and not simply written off to cowardice (though certainly it was still being written off to cowardice). There is a famous painting from the Pacific theater in WWII titled Two-Thousand Yard Stare.
This movie was based on the novel The Short Timers, and was co-written by the author of the book, Gustav Hasford. The war part of the story unfolds during the Tet offensive in 1968, specifically the battle for Hue city.
That is Jayne from Firefly, Adam Baldwin. I think the only movie he’d done before this was My Bodyguard, with Matt Dillon. That’s where I had recognized him from when I saw this movie in the theater.
Yes, the thousand yard stare, and certainly "shell shock" are prevalent in WW1. There is disturbing footage that survived of the latter.
Vietnam was a massive international war between the West and the Communist nations. Dozens of nations participated in some way in the conflict, and the fighting occurred in 4 nations (North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). The American goal was to help South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos to repel the Communist invasion of Southeast Asia.
The US and allies left in 1973 after peace was declared, but two years later, the Communists launched a massive offensive, and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were defeated and conquered (resulting in the Cambodian genocide, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, as the Communists turned on each other).
The North Vietnamese murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, the South murdered about a hundred thousand while the US likely killed tens of thousands. No one had clean hands in that war.