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........................... Oct. 19 - Nov. 01, 2001
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The New Apocalypse Is Upon Us... 57 Minutes Of Additional Footage |
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After 22 years since the original, Apocalypse Now Redux was released on August 24. Director Francis Ford Copolla cut in 57 minutes which were left out of the 1979 release for time concerns. The film is now three and a half hours long.
Apocalypse Now was the first Vietnam War movie, and its creators thought it would be the only one. Made in between the Godfather movies, the film stars many big names such as Martin Sheen (Captain Willard), Marlon Brando (Colonel Kurtz), Robert Duvall (Colonel Kilgore), and Dennis Hopper (a journalist).
The first noticeable change is at the point where Willard and the boat crew have been escorted by Kilgore's helicopters to the mouth of the river. In the original release, they are assumed to have just left, but in Redux, Willard steals one of Kilgore's surfboards as he leaves. Kilgore then sends helicopters up and down the river, asking Lance, the famous surfer he suspects of stealing it, to return the board.
After the USO show, there is a substantial scene added. When the riot starts at the show, the helicopter takes off with the Playmates and lands at a nearby base. Out of fuel and with no radio, they stay there until the boat crew arrives. When they get there, Willard looks for the commanding officer and meets the Playmates' manager. Willard makes a deal with him: a couple of barrels of diesel fuel in exchange for two hours with the Bunnies for everyone on the boat.
This is where Lance starts to go crazy. While the girl is talking to him, he puts camouflage paint on her face, then on his. A second girl is with another GI, and all they do is talk. They end up constantly getting interrupted by other members of the crew impatiently waiting for their turn. The third girl turns up mysteriously dead, hidden in a case.
After passing the Do Lung Bridge, the boat comes across a broken-down building on the river. Willard gets out of the boat to investigate, and he finds a bunch of French soldiers. The French people had been there since the 1800s, when France first went to Vietnam and refused to leave. They help the boat crew bury Chef, who died in a firefight while listening to a tape from his mother.
The French make a political statement about the war. Everyone angrily storms off, leaving Willard, and a widow about his age, sitting across from each other at the table. She tries to convince him to return to her after his tour of duty, since he has no desire to return to suburban America.
When Willard arrives at the Kurtz compound, there is a little more emphasis placed on the American soldiers working for him. Willard even confronts Captain Colby, who had been sent on a mission identical to his own but decided to join Kurtz instead of kill him.
Willard is shown being held longer in the Kurtz compound, and Kurtz gives him an old issue of Time magazine to read at his leisure. Kurtz then tells him not to try to escape or he'll be shot.
The ending remains the same as the original. Willard kills Kurtz, then flips through the pages Kurtz had written to find a message for himself: "Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all." Willard goes outside and drops his weapon. Everyone follows his lead, putting their weapons down as he walks past them. Willard then grabs Lance by the hand and takes him back to the boat. The director seems to offer an illustration that someday there would be no more war.
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by Jonathan Heppner Ebbtide Reporter |
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