You saw the Marines firing rifles, AT4s, and the M2s mounted on the vehicles. What I wanted to see was an M1 Abrams fire its main gun at the tripods...and see the tripods get hit. That's what was lacking, and it's what Spielberg should have had if he was going to go to all the trouble to get DoD cooperation (and remember that "War of the Worlds" was the very first movie to feature real M1 Abrams tanks).

I hate the lack of good Vietnam War films. The only ones i liked were Hamburger Hill, We Were Soldiers and Full Metal Jacket which i think is the best Nam movie i've ever seen.

I also hate the lack of Vietnam War movies from the ARVN perspective. There could be so many battle scenes and story in the movie it would probably win an Oscar or something.

And yes, Generation Kill was great. Probably the best Iraq War television series i have ever seen. The atitude of the marines is exactly the same i read about in books.

Platoon was a good Vietnam movie.

I didn't like it. Adagio For Springs and the silly script and ridiculous accents made me hate it. I still watch almost every day because it's so silly and cheesy it is funny.

Stone wanted the different accents, since everyone in the platoon were from all over. I'm not sure what DVD you have, mine has two DVD commentaries. One by Oliver Stone, the other by Dale Dye who played Capt. Harris in the film. Dye was also the technical advisor for the film. If you listen to both of them you can see why that didn't do the commentary track together, they disagreed on things. The attempted rape (which Stone said he stopped in real life), smoking dope in the bush, etc. Not sure what you find silly about the film?

All the liberal propaganda thrown in?

I actually like the rape scene. The only problem i have with it is adagio for springs and Kevin Dillon's silly ass accent.

I like that Oliver Stone wanted to show that the platoon was from all over the United States. The problem is, the actors in the movie can't use realistic accents to save their lives. They are all very silly and ridiculous. A good example is the village scene. Every time Ace or Berenger or anyone else with an Silly accent opens their mouths i laugh like an idiot. It ruins the scene for me. You either have good realistic accents or no accents at all.

There is also all the silly lines. The "Barnes been shot seven times! He ain't dead! That mean anything to you, uh?" and the "Barnes ain't mean't to die. The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes!" that line is so cheesy and silly i can't believe Stone liked it.

There is also all the uniform fuck ups. But that's for another thread.

I don't think "Platoon" was perfect, but it does have a lot of good qualities. Stone may be a Castro-worshiping moron, but "Platoon" is good filmmaking no matter who's done it.

Do you mean the NVA/VC perspective? I'm not sure what good an ARVN-perspective movie would be; it would mostly be about the ARVN draftees trying to figure out how to desert, I imagine.

As for the lack of good Vietnam films, I'm not sure there are very many that can be made. It's not a conflict that lends itself to the kinds of stories that Hollywood tells best.

Well, a ARVN Officer perspective would be really interisting. Specially one that takes place in the 1970s.

How so? Maybe I haven't read enough about the ARVN, but their reputation is one of incompetence and high desertion rates. I'm really just not sure what would be interesting about it, but perhaps you know more about this than me.

BTW, when I was in college, I got to watch a movie made in Vietnam in the late-70s about the war. I wish I could remember the title. It took place from the perspective of a Vietnamese peasant who was fighting the Americans. The "Americans" were all "Amero-Asians" (Vietnamese men whose moms had fucked Frenchmen or Americans), and the film was done with military cooperation, so the production actually had access to captured American Hueys which the Vietnamese military was still flying. Now THAT was an interesting perspective.

Oh, yeah, and it's a good movie for SKS fans. According to the movie, a single shot from an SKS can bring down a Huey if shot in the right place. :D