I went into the Army 🪖 in '97. I heard all of these phrases, but I hadn't seen this movie yet. It took me a while to find out where all their phrases came from.
My father said the same thing. He was laughing and rolling around on the couch in fits screaming, "He's a Marine, that was my Drill Instructor!" Not Ermy, just Ermy's performance.
I went through marine bootcamp back in '06 and this was what it was like for us. They weren't supposed to be this cruel but they were big on keeping traditions alive.
The actor playing the Drill Instructor actually was a DI in the Marines. So no, this is not an over the top depiction of boot camp. He just did his normal drill instructor routine. He was supposed to be an advisor, not an actor, but he got the job because he was so good. The actor who originally was meant to play the DI got the job of door gunner on the helicopter instead. The guy who says "anyone who runs is a Viet Cong so I can shoot them. Anyone who stands still is a well disciplined Viet Cong!"
@@eatsmylifeYT Saying "the actor" or "R. Lee Ermey, the actor" doesn't make much difference in how well someone will understand his comment. The basic info is the same. I agree it's better to honour the man by giving his name, but it isn't "pointless" not to. Weird comment, man.
@@PresidentoftheManosquare speaking as both a Former Marine myself, served 1983-87 and also a product of Divorce. Leonard was more Sensitive Emotionally. less Mental/Physical Toughness. he was adult child of Divorce, No Father figure. it takes a Man longer to develop Mental Strength. the Physical? a D.I. Can pull that out of a recruit in weeks. why do you think most of your Mass Murderers are Sons of Single/Divorced Women? why do you think that most incarcerated Men/Women are products of Fatherless Homes? they don't mention the Importance of Fathers in Children's Emotional/Mental stability in MSM. America is in Murphy Brown/Oprah Mode.
picture your in gym at dodgeball and the other team has AK-47's and are trying to kill you. boot weed's those who wont make it from those who may or not.
Kubrick's version "Full Metal Jacket" closest to real US Marine Corps boot camp. Semper Fi USMC '75 - '81 Vote Trump 2024 !!!! Get rid of Woke cancel culture BS STAT. Not in my Marine Corps! It is about discipline and killing - not wussies.
The Drill Sgt was a Marine. He actually was a drill instructor during Vietnam. This was 1 of his first films. He wrote over 100 pages of this script and the director let him use his own script for most scenes. This has been called one of the most truthful stories of boot camp
"Is this an exaggeration? or a parody?" This is probably one of the most accurate depictions of Marine boot camp ever put to film. R. Lee ermey is just an exceptionally articulate and creative Drill Instructor compared to a lot of the DI's i encountered on the island. Marine Corps 2012-2017.
The fact that this is so realistic, to me, makes it a parody because of how funny it really is when you actually see it from the outside perspective and see how stupid war and all this really is.
No it's not. Ermey has stated in multiple interviews that Kubrick wanted him to go overboard with the physical and verbal abuse. Stop spreading this lie.
I was gonna say, I've seen USMC DIs and a lot of times you can't even understand them because they're simply screaming too loud or they've lost their voice from screaming and now it's just rasp lol.
@@Cablev94 Now, you're feeding into it what you wish. Watch his interviews: he is not anti-war and has defended the film, as a man of war himself. Kubrick said once: 'it's not an anti-war film, it's not a pro-war film. It's just war'. We can assume Kubrick was no fan of mindless war or dictatorships, but he was evidently not anti-war throughout his entire life, and clearly had a great respect for men of war. Some of your comments are interesting to consider, and work in any framework, to be clear: fashion looks 'stupid' from the outside, but naked humans are either nothing but a small tribe or complete dogs. Cafés also look stupid from such an anti-human viewpoint, but to eat food with other humans is vital to human life itself and pre-dates large-scale warfare itself. Obviously, the statement 'war is stupid' has no meaning or function. Was defeating Nazism 'stupid' or are you merely not going to define this as 'war'? England openly attacked Germany with almost a singular hand, followed by the U.S. and others, and France in defence and the Soviet Union in the great battle for European control. (Germany attacked Russia first, but we know that Russia already planned to invade Germany. Hitler merely moved first, for a few reasons -- and, as many forget, Hitler was literally about three months away from taking Russia and Europe. It was not so clear-cut at the time.) If 'war' is without scale, then this must mean 'fighting' is stupid, and possibly even the notion of 'self-defence'. Taken further, 'teasing' is stupid, along with 'play-fighting'. At this level, however, what you really mean to express is that 'human existence is stupid'. In fact, it's worse than this: bears have play-fighting and without it, they die. Chimps have war (raids); thus, even war is not truly a human invention. If you also watch the interviews, you note that this isn't extremely realistic: but it's realistic in many ways. Finally: you failed to consider other views and frameworks. One view is that he was weak, that's why he snapped. It was not his innocence or the objective ruthlessness of the training, but his own weakness. Notice how the other men didn't snap, that they were evidently not weak, or as weak? Maybe some were not so innocent -- but we must assume they were all relatively innocent in this context before they entered training. What we are doing here is shifting 'weakness' and 'harmlessness' and 'cowardice' and 'kindness' for 'innocence'. This is beyond foolish. We can conclude from this that there was something about him, not the training itself. This is somewhat of a Nietzschean understanding -- there are always multiple ways to interpret suffering and life, even the exact same experience. That's why this film is so powerful, and has two primary sides/fans. Another Nietzschean notion is that of 'slave morality'. Out of weakness and envy, he wanted to take what he didn't have, he wanted to destroy the 'master morality' (of the Marines), and twist it, such that his weakness and failure and corruption and lack of nobility became the morality. The ultimate expression of this hatred and resentment was his murdering the master morality/nobility (in the form of the drill instructor) and his own suicide, just to cap it off, and let the world know that he really meant it, and that there was nothing sacred -- that Being itself was unbearable and worthless. In this regard, he identified with Cain, the murderer of all murderers, with a psychology very similar to that of many school shooters (if you read the FBI reports and their journals, etc.). That is, at least, one primary way of viewing the film's characters and the themes thereof.
FMJ is a unique war movie. There are no heroes. The main character (Joker) isn't remarkable in any way, rather he plays the part of "a reasonable man"...and the movie is the story of a reasonable man's war experience which ends with that reasonable man shooting a teenage girl in the face. Thus revealing the true horror of war as being the impact it has on otherwise decent men.
A recurring joke about bootcamp: It is the funniest place on earth where you're not allowed to laugh. Drill Instructors are like sadistic stand-up comedians, lmao. Ahhh, good times indeed, bootcamp was a blast. This film is beloved by a lot of Marines. Rest easy, Gunny Ermey, and Semper Fi.
The most memorable one liner for me was marching back from haircuts like 2 months in and I see a DS lock into someone a couple ranks up and a scream of "GET IN STEP, YOU CHUBBY FUCK!". Cruel without context but fucking hilarious in my minds eye
Not enough people give Vincent D'Onofrio credit for his OUTSTANDING work as Leonard. Honestly, every single part of this movie is perfectly played. You can pick a performance and really find how well it was done.
My favorite part of the film is that Animal Mother says the "must hang" comment, but when Eightball is bleeding out Animal Mother is the most vocal about saving him. Refusing to leave his friend, disobeying orders, and leading the charge.
I loved watching your reaction to one of my favorite movies. I first watched it in the theater in 1987 when it was released, a week before I entered Marine Corps recruit training. Years later, I met my hero, R Lee Ermey in Las Vegas and told him how much I loved the movie. I explained to him how I watched Full Metal Jacket just before joining the Marines. His response still rings in my ears to this day; "Now THAT'S MOTIVATING!" RIP Gunny.
People are too weak today for a movie like this. I was a kid when I saw this with a bunch of friends and we all loved it. Absolutely transfixed by Ermy in the Boot Camp scenes. We loved him. If the Marines had a recruiting table outside the theater we'd have signed up right there. Lol It wasn't at all heavy for us. Just a great film.
Shit, I still haven’t been able fully rewatch it. After like 20 years. It’s THAT insane. Only other movie I think falls in that category for me… Requiem For A Dream. But I thought I was watching a comedy that time (wrong DVD in the rental case). At least with Full Metal Jacket, I had an IDEA of what to expect going into it.
Vincent D'Onofrio said that the production of this film took so long that his co-star Matthew Modine was single when filming began, but over the course of filming, he got married, got his wife pregnant, had a son and that his son had his first birthday all before the film was released
According to Wikipedia, casting was in 85 and film released in late June 87. Obviously development for a couple of years. Very interesting list of alternate actors considered.
That cant be true because I remember D'Onofrio also said Modine was on a walk with his wife in NYC (where Vincent happened to be working as a doorman) and mentioned in passing he got a part in a new Kubrick film and recommended Vince audition too. Are you sure what you heard is correct?
That line about "weeding out non-hackers" is part of the purpose of Basic Training in any service. It behooves the Military to find out who folds under stress before there is an enemy trying to kill them.
They werent "toughening us up", they were destroying us. I laughed at Full Metal Jacket when I saw it and hoped I wouldn't laugh when I enlisted. But when I got there it was just such an overwhelming force, I was so scared, and then I couldnt feel anything. Because thats the point, break you down. But as we went it came back as respect and understanding as we were built up. I appreciate who they made me. It instilled a sense of dilligence and assertiveness that got me through other events in life. Semper Fi.
I have never laughed so hard at a movie review in my life. You went in so innocent and hopeful and then to watch your soul get crushed was absolutely hilarious.
She just lucky that Stanley changed the ending from the original plan and joker died original but the actor playing joker say that it worst deal with trauma then dying
Private Pyle is an example of a program nicknamed "Macnamara's Morons". It was a program to increase the number of soldiers by heavily lowering the standards like IQ. They are also called, "Macnamara's 100,000." The results ended up that those soldiers had a way higher mortality rate than the standard soldiers. Joker was being sarcastic about being the first with a confirmed kill. It is how he deals with uncomfortable situations. One last interesting thing. If you watch the scene where Pyle is shooting and gets complimented when he reloads look at the magazine. IT still has rounds in it. That was how he got the live rounds back to the barracks.
A vet once told me that he knew a "Macnamara Moron" in Vietnam. He was pulling guard duty one night. A fellow soldier was coming up and was shot and killed. The "moron" guard shot first then yelled, "Who goes there??" If that wasn't bad enough, the guy (that should never have been in the military), "disappeared." He was murdered by someone in the unit.
@@WilliamPickett75 No, that's specifically when you got rid of someone in your own unit whom you disliked (such as a gung-ho officer liable to get you killed with their antics) by rolling a grenade up to them unexpectedly, maybe as they were resting/sleeping - hence the word fragging, derived from "fragmentation grenade". Just killing someone on the quiet side wouldn't be a fragging.
McNamara's Morons didn't just have a higher mortality rate among themselves, they actively lowered the combat effectiveness of whatever unit they were in and increased the mortality rate overall. It was a huge disaster.
@@WilliamPickett75 Fragging is meant to be an injury that looks incidental rather than deliberate, easier to do with a 'nade. Not meant to be lethal, just injure the person enough to get them shipped out. Murdering someone straight up would be different.
The Hue scenes were filmed at the now demolished Beckton Gasworks in London. The boot camp scenes were filmed in Cambridgeshire. When they are marching, you can see the road markings are on the wrong side of the road for the USA. The urban location makes this pretty much unique among 'nam films, as all others give the impression that the whole country was nothing but straw hut villages, when it was heavily urban, even then. Hue is a really nice city, by the way, even if much of the citadel was never repaired.
Hollywood Marine checking in. 95-99 Platoon 2058. They made us "stand at attention" when we got into our racks each night. One night the DI forgot to say at ease...and we stayed at attention in our sleep. He told us how proud of us he was. I will always remember that. Drill Instructor Sergeant Sean Kinard. I was in boot camp from November 5th to January 26th [can't believe I can remember those dates still]. On Christmas Day, they gave us 2 hours of free time [which was AMAZING] to quietly relax and write letters home. In the middle of it, DI Sgt Kinard walks in and says, "Merry Christmas 2058!". He then pulls the pin on a grenade and tosses it in the middle of the squad bay. We all saw it, looked at each other...all in the fraction of a second. Most of us realized it was a practice grenade but none of us took any chances. We all instantly dove away from the center of the room before it went off.
The drill instructor was played by R. Lee Ermey who was an actual drill instructor from the Marines. He was originally hired as an "advisor" however after watching him perform, Kubrick made the decision to hire him to play "Sgt. Hartman". The entire first half of the movie was completely "unscripted". Ermey was allowed to completely improvise. This is why it was so authentic. He was literally playing himself as a drill instructor.
That's simply not correct. FMJ definitely had a script that Kubrick and others wrote as an adaptation from a novel. In regard to Ermy, he made contributions to the script with his experience as a D.I., but Kubrick decided which lines went into the script, and there was no improvisation once the camera started rolling. Kubrick was famous for being meticulous and not allowing improvisation. ruclips.net/video/bzQj0jb4S_E/видео.html
I served in the Marine Corps from '82-'86 and went to boot camp at Parris Island 3rd Battalion "H" Company. The depiction of boot camp in this movie was extremely accurate. It was the best decision I ever made. Semper Fidelis!
@shinrips it's Latin, it translates to Always Faithful in English. I was very proud to serve, and as an almost 60 year old man, the best time of my life will always be my four years of service in the Marine Corps.
@@shinrips Always Faithful. Sempre is a Portuguese/Italian for always; siempre is Spanish. Rooted in Semper. The English word "Fidelity" is rooted in Fidelis. Many will shorten it to Semper Fi.
This movie is very accurate to that time. It´s based on a book written by a guy who wrote about his own experiences in the corp. Back during the Vietnam war a lot of people who would under normal circumstances never be considered for the marines/army were enlisted. A lot of people broke and harmed either themselves or others. That is what Private Pyle was based on.
My best friend was in during the war in 72. He said they were tougher then due to the psychological nature of the Vietnam War. He also said that guys like Pyle were sent to motivational camp. He said his drill Sargent was just like Hartman.
That first scene with sergeant Hartman is one of the greatest improvisation scene in cinematic history ! You can't write something that crazy !! Kubrick is a mad genius...
After watching FMJ numerous times and finding out it's history, I'd say R. Lee Ermey probably made that introduction dozens of times as a real drill instructor.
I think I read something about gunny saying that the only way that he would do that opening drill sergeant monologue was if he was allowed to ad-lib as he saw fit. I was in the military just after Vietnam ended, and even though by the time I got in there in boot camp they weren't supposed to be allowed to hit you - but they could pretty much talk about you and your mother anyway they wanted - we would still get hit by some drill sergeants. Blanket parties were a real thing, used by the entire platoon to... _encourage_ the slow Learner(s) to catch up. We were all talked down to and shaved heads and made all even so that we were nothing so that we could then be raised back up to a single unit of soldiers all at the same time. I was 17 and it sucked LOL. But I will always say there are two people a man will never forget, one is his father and the other is his drill sergeant. I'm in my 60's and I still can picture Drill Sergeant Burleson and remember his voice clearly to this day.
I knew a marine vet from that era, and he told me the boot camp depiction was the most accurate thing he has ever seen in a movie. It really seemed to effect him.
We were still getting shoved and choked out (😮) in OSUT : Benning 2003 I didn’t clear my weapon and police all of my brass properly and my drill sergeant tackled me and put me to sleep until everything was safe 😂 I knew he did it mostly for show or force for the rest of the platoon and I was cool with him the whole time but it kinda hurt my feelings for a few days We weren’t beaten but we always had very ‘interesting ‘ corrective discipline line dismantling our bunks and our wall Lockers and assembling our entire barracks outside for two days and nights because they found a can of dip in the trash and nobody would fess up
I feel bad cause it's only reason I watched this is to see the reaction as it steadily gets darker and darker cause it's a gut wrenching you reality check for most people
Hey Hold, I am an actual Marine that went through Basic Training at Paris Island where this was shot. I met Gunny Emery(the guy that play Hartman) at the Marine Corp Ball before he passed away. There is some truth to how Drill Instructors treat recruits at the Depot but the physical assaults on recruits in the movie was just for the movie. Gunny Emery ratched up Hartman to show how an ineffective and inept D.I. would be. In reality, D.I.'s are forbidden to touch a recruit, if they do, they are removed from the program. A Texas recruit would not be at MCRD Paris Island, he would be sent to MCRD San Diego. The flag is the Platoon Marker, there is always 4 numbers on them. The first two is the Batalion code: 10 is 1st Batalion, 20 is 2nd Batalion, 30 is 3rd Batalion, 40 is 4th Batalion then last two numbers is the series(class of recruits) number. When I went through in 2001, my platoon was 3028(3rd Bn 28th class). No you do not sleep with your rifle until you are out in the fleet in a warzone. The way it actually goes is you recite the Riflemans Creed, hang your rifle at the end of the rack nearest the D.I.'s Aisle then mount your rack. Pyle would actually not be in training at that point because even start training you have to pass an IST(Initial Strength Test) where you have to do a certain amount of pull ups, push ups, sit ups and 2 mile run. Anyone who fails IST goes to a physical conditioning platoon where they are worked out every day until they can pass. Bars of soap wrapped in towels, don't leave marks. Thats the truth about shooting, every Marine is a basically trained rifleman that can hit a moving target at 500 yards with iron sights. A section 8 is a mentally unstable person that is suffering from sever psychosis, these individuals are put into Entry Leverl Separation platoon to be processed out, their rifle and any weapons issued are taken from them. My dad was a Vietnam vet, he said he couldnt walk through Saigon without a "street walker" trying to hit on him, he said they all talked like that girl. They are depicting the Tet Offensive the VC a.k.a.Viet Cong, the gorilla arm of the NVA(North Vietnamese Army) and the NVA itself kicked off in January of 1968. The helo door gunner wasn't shooting at nothing, he was shooting at female VC that were posing as Rice farmers but were really watching helicopters coming in and out of the base and reporting U.S. troop movements to male VC or the NVA. The VC and NVA covered the bodies in Lime to expedite the decomposition. If they hadn't been found by U.S. forces, they wouldve been bone in about a month. In reality, the phones in the backs of the tanks are not coms to the FOB(Forward Operating Base), they are actually to the guys inside the tank. Thats why many more accurate depictions of the Vietnam war you'll see someone carrying a square back pack with an antenna, thats their radio operator, they have a direct com link to the FOB to call in Artillery(Arties) or CAS(Close Air Support). Actually what Animal Mother was saying, was incorrect about rolling the tanks in. First wave to clearing a city or village are planes like the A10 Warthog and B32 bombers to name a couple, then the infantry and tanks roll in to mop up whats left of the enemy. That was your classic IED(Improvised Explosive Device), no matter the war, you WILL run into those. There was a sniper in Vietnam who deployed those type of tactics, she would shoot to wound then would lie in wait for his buddies, thats who this sniper was modeled after for the movie. The real sniper was taken out by Carlos Hathcock, USMC Scout sniper. Cowboy dieing like that is common in urban war zones and Animals desire for payback is spot on accurate. When someone takes out one of ours, we don't pull back, we advance until we wipe out the entire enemy contengent in that area. Thats how war is Hold. its very ugly and why a lot of guys come back with PTSD. Any way, I hope my diatribe helped you.
In 1978 at MCRD SD, thumping a recruit was not uncommon at all. Neither was midnight PIT sessions, water discipline, rifle IT, standing at attention for an hour (or more) during a "red flag" day. "Alligators" (recruits who made allegations against a DI) were dropped to a Platoon a week or two behind...as a "remedy" Plt 2068 2nd Bn 2nd RTR MCRD SD 1978 0311
This movie was shot entirely in England, the Parris Island was the Bassingbourn Barracks, Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire and the in country, Vietnam part of the movie was shot mainly in and around London the Hue city at an old abandoned gas works.
Part One was something special. The second half wasn't much different from other war movies. Nothing really stood out. A little boring at parts. May as well fast-forward to the sniper scene.
Everybody says that at first. Part two has many subtle virtues that are appreciated the more one views them. Beginning with the hooker in urban Da Nang. Even the very last scene which in Joker's soliloquy, "I am still alive, and I am not afraid".
42:14 Joker was not outta ammo at the end, his gun jammed. The automatic rifle he was using is the M16 which were prone to jamming, especially when they were first introduced during the Vietnam era. Every now and then in the film when the Marines are reloading, you see them tap a magazine (of fresh bullets) on their helmet before loading it into the weapon. What that does is, it forces the ammunition within the mag to slide to the fully aft (back) position. If the rounds are too forward in the magazine, they will jam up in the rifle while firing.
The AR-15 is an extremely reliable weapon that was designed to use Remington ammunition. The Army Bureau of Ordinance had fought tirelessly in the late 1940s to prevent NATO from switching to a smaller caliber, and now 12 years later their own government was forcing them to do it, so in adopting the M-16 they sabotaged it by using gunpowder from a different supplier, a powder unsuitable for the M-16 as it burned slower so that when the bullet passed the gas port that applied pressure to release the bolt, combustion was still occurring, so the gas tube would get fouled and fail to fully retract the bolt. And the Bureau just shrugged their shoulders and claimed they always said it was an unsuitable weapon.
The M16 was only prone to jamming becuase it was not cleaned properly. The M16 got a bad reputation during Veitnam when in truth it was a much better rifle them the M14 it replaced The reason if got the bad reputation was because of the jamming because it was not cleaned properly and the US troops didn't know how to clean the properly The rifles were shipped to the troops to quickly amd they didn't include the proper cleaning gear or the rifle manual to show how the M16 should be broken down and cleaned. After getting the initial reports on how the rifle functioned and the issues, the War Dept. made it a priority to get the correct cleaning gear and manuals to the US Troops. Once the troops learned how to properly break them down and clean them, they had great praises for the rifle amd how it functioned in combat. Plus even the best made rifles are going to jam on occasion.
@@Patrick-xv6qv you cannot clean a fouled gas tube. And cleaning an AR-15 using Remington powder was much easier than the ball ammunition the Army issued to soldiers in Vietnam.
@@jeffreysmith236 Let's not forget the decision not to chrome the chambers to save a few $ resulting in corrosion and failure to extract. Lots of bad decisions added up to a major problem.
I am a combat vet ( Vietnam ) I was there in 65/66 this movie was representing the 1968 tet offensive . The boot camp was accurate for that time but nothing like that now. Thank you for this and God bless you.
In San Diego they didn't put their hands on us, but the rest of that was there. I was in Navy boot camp in San Diego. There wasn't as much running, But the obstacle course, the pugil sticks, we got CS gassed, we were put into a room with a fire hose to train on how to fight a fire, we were put into a tank that filled up with chilled water and had to stop it in a simulated to train for sinking. If our Commander was pissed at us, he would form us up in our compartment by our racks, and tell the Yeoman to close all the windows, and we would PT until he could go to the bulkhead and see moisture. It was called "sweating the Bulkhead." That was my summer of 1984 in San Diego.
Kubrick's version "Full Metal Jacket" closest to real US Marine Corps boot camp. Semper Fi USMC '75 - '81 Vote Trump 2024 !!!! Get rid of Woke cancel culture BS STAT. Not in my Marine Corps! It is about discipline and killing - not wussies.
Vincent D'Onofrio absolutely crushed his role as Pyle. He has said he was watching old horror movies and leaned into those characters. Especially noticeable with the bathroom scene and his crazy breathing. He crushed it.
My mother is a annoyingly huge fan of any sort of murder drama... I still catch myself marveling at Gomer Pyle doing some sort of high drama interrogation as a New York cop.
@@nunyabidness674 I had the reverse problem within having seen Anthony Hopkins as a butler in Remains of the Day before seeing him as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Was just like, "Yeah, this is a great acting job, but I still see him reading a book in his room" lol.
My uncle was a career Marine he is now a retired master gunny. He joined during Vietnam. According to him this is a very accurate description of what he went through. They made fighting men out of boys. They had to be hard because they were leaving immediately from basic into war. I thank God daily for men like my uncle and all those who stood and stand with him.
I mean...that's nice, but you might be the first person to say "I thank god for all the soldiers shipped off to Vietnam to die for nothing based on imperial ambitions and ridiculous superstitions about communism." I think that history has pretty thoroughly repudiated the whole 'Once countries go communist, they will never go back, therefore we must do anything we can to prevent that' ideology that the war was based on, and they achieved nothing but killing a metric fuck-ton of people.
In the novel - at the end Joker is back home in a laundromat suffering from the effects of PTSD staring at his laundry. (1000 Yard Stare) When Animal Mother, now also a civilian, comes up to Joker and says Semper Fi.
At the height of the Vietnam war, the US was running out of qualified recruits so the Pentagon lower the standards for draftees, namely lowering the IQ of the draftees. Over 100,000 were drafted with IQs lower than 80. Private Pyle representatives one of those recruits.
Marine here. Its exactly like that without the physical abuse. You have to understand that these men are going to war. They have to be used to total chaos with no mercy. He is doing them a mercy.
As a combat veteran. I find it more humorous to see the younger generations in total shock seeing basic training for the first time. The reactors often say things like " Oh, that's so mean, etc." Well, think about this, in combat the enemy will not give a damn.. about your feelings. If you can't handle the stress of basic training, what chance do you think you will have in combat.
I agree, war is not the best way. After my experience as a soldier, I made an oath to myself to live in peace...but in the context of the time, this is how things were. Many of these recruits were drafted. Once drafted, you had to make life altering choices, go in the military, go to prison or leave the U.S. and never return. I understand what you are saying, however the collective consciousness of society is just not there yet.
It's probably been mentioned already, but if you watch Leonard at the shooting range, the magazine he ejected still had ammo in it. It's a subtle sign of what he was planning.
I've seen lots of shock over that last boot camp scene (and it's transition into Vietnam) but no one acknowledges the upbeat music in contrast to what the hell just happened on the screen. Time jumps be like that.
I guess I’ve just been de-sensitized, I’ve been watching this movie since a year after it was released so I think I first saw it in maybe 1987, I was maybe 14, so I know I’m dating myself a bit here. But I find the whole movie quite humorous. But, I used to watch it with my dad who actually was in Vietnam, in the Marines in 65-67, so it was something we used to bond over I guess. 😊
@@holddowna That guy who went off the deep end ending the life of his D.I. and then himself on the toilet was an example of what they called McNamara's morons. McNamara, not exactly an Einstein himself, had this warped idea that those on the low end of the IQ scale would follow orders better. It turned out to be just the opposite, that those were the types to frag their officers while actually in Viet Nam. McNamara was one of the executives at Ford Motor Company and spent a bunch of money for a study to determine whether or not seatbelts helped. It doesn't take a study to determine that it is better to stay put in the seat rather than flying through the windshield or hitting the dash or steering wheel. McNamara should never have been in a decision making job. EVER!
The man that played Heartman was actually not an actor. He was a military advisor brought in to advise on how a drill sergeant should act and talk. He was an actual instructor for the Marines. He was so good and so difficult to emulate/replicate, they ended up hiring him to do the actual role. Which is what makes the first part of this movie so goddamn perfect.
The gunnery sergeant's name was HARTMAN. Ronald Lee Ermey might not have been an actor at the time Full Metal Jacket was made, but he ended up being a very good one. He appeared in over seventy films, his last one in 2012. Another memorable roll he will be remembered for was as Mayor Tillman in Mississippi Burning.
He most certainly WAS an actor. He was in both Apocalypse Now and The Boys in Company C . (78/79) He just wasn't the original choice for his part here. In The boys in Company C he had a role as a drill instructor, and was the lead helicopter pilot in the "Flight of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Now
When I was in Air Force Basic Training, back in the late 70's, we had a recruit who couldn't take any more either. He wanted out so bad, that he kept f_ing up, hoping that they would discharge him. Instead, he kept putting him back to Day 1 of training, and made him start all over again. As such, he did not graduate with our Flight. I heard from another recruit that he finally threw himself down a flight of stairs and broke a leg. They finally discharged hm.
Yep that's a good case scenario but I've heard about other guys who couldn't take it and ended themselves . That's the brutal nature of the military but a man's life in general , a man's life is generally 1000 times more difficult , real , brutal than a modern woman's life is. Modern women live life on easy mode but most don't understand that and definitely don't care about a man's struggles whatsoever . Like it , believe it or not !
Similar thing in my army basic training unit in 79. Wanted out and kept screwing up to get out. His screwing around got us punished almost daily. He was forced to keep training and they drug their feet on the paperwork, released him the day before we graduated, by that time he wanted to stay. They gave him his final pay and a bus ticket to his town, 1,800 miles away.
@@mainmac The military life well not so much as portrayed here but a man's life yes. A man's life is generally much more brutal and difficult than a modern woman's life. Not complaining about it but that's just how it is. And modern women don't care about all that they just want a man's money resources they don't care about his morals, decency , honesty , loyalty nothing about that. Those are the cold hard facts about women today.
@@gregorygant4242a normal man’s live isn’t being trained in bootcamp preparing you for war and seeing your buddy’s die infront of you, what type of incel shit are you on?
dude thats my favorite vietnam movie.. and its the only one based on a true story... criminally underrated... if you search hard you can find some news footage from the real hill that looks almost exactly like some scenes in the movie...
@@fonkyman My older brother was in the Marines. He served "in country" for four years. The movie he said reminded him of Vietnam the most was "The Boys in Company C". Have you seen it?
@@guscarlson7021 i heard that before think its because of the way its acted. But for me it had too low production quality to fully enjoy Hamburger hill is already made for litle money compared to platoon or apocalypse now. But im also not a vet so what do i know
You are by far one of the best female reaction channels. Your ability to continue watching even if it is truly hard to watch. You are clearly a brave, and strong woman. New Sub. Great Content.
Lee was a family friend. He was as honest in life as he was in film. He was a beautiful man. I was a drill sergeant in the army from 2013 to 2020. I can confirm that much of the basic training portrayed in this film is fairly accurate. The biggest deviation is the physical contact with the recruits. We don’t hit the recruits, and we don’t actively make efforts to single out recruits with humiliating or degrading personal attacks. But the yelling, the insults, the physical fitness, the regimentation, the constant and oppressive presence of the drill sergeants, it’s all pretty accurate. There is a very scientific and planned method that is used to train civilians to be soldiers. It’s a process. It isn’t always pretty. But it works.
To add to that, this film portrayed Marine Boot Camp in the Mid-60’s preparing recruits to go fight in Vietnam. My Father was in the Corps at that time. He loved this movie and told me that back then, the DI’s in fact DID hit recruits, and physical contact was normal as well as singling out humiliating and degrading those who did not perform. One story he told me that he NEVER forgot, was about when he’s was performing below standard on the rifle range with his M14. The DI came up to him with a pair of pliers, squeezed his “trigger” finger with them & told him “You WILL shoot more accurately or I will keep squeezing you with these” he said he immediately shot much better after that! 😂😂
@@DanMar5858 I had a very close friend who also served in Vietnam, and he told me pretty much the same thing (without the personal anecdote about the finger grabbed with pliers) about Boot Camp. No matter how many times I asked, he kept much of what happened to him "over there" out of my ears. I was born in the late 1960s, and saw the news broadcasts as a child until the war ended. I know that watching such things on television messed up a lot of children of that era (from stories my peers have told me, as well as my own personal experiences), so it's not really a stretch to imagine the amounts of PTSD that soldiers (of any/all branches) experienced from their time over there in real life, under real combat situations.
I went through Marine Basic Training in the 1980's. I can confirm that the Drill Instructors DO single out recruits for punishment. That's the difference between the two branches. You guys even dropped Shark Attack week to be more "touchy-feely".
Appreciate your relationship and appreciation for Ermey, but don’t you think this level of physical contact could have been accurate for ‘Nam Era Marine boot camp?
@@SayYes2Scorpions I *very* quickly got control of my face muscles. Lol. I found that if I quickly flexed my lips I was able to keep myself from smirking. It...may have taken a couple of attempts. **cough**
Civilians can never understand or comprehend what being a Marine is, the process to get there and what it means to us. I miss the organized chaos, and warrior culture every day of my life. I am a husband; a father and the best time of my life was my service in the Marines. Every day since my EAS 12 years ago have not measured up to my worst day in Marines.
drill instructors are there to prepare the men for the rigors of war. this requires extreme focus and an ability to control ones emotions in the heat of combat. if they can't handle getting yelled at, they are not coming back alive. if they are unable to concentrate and/or freeze in a highly dangerous situation, they will make mistakes that can and will cost them and others their lives. THAT is what a drill instructors job is.
To put it as bluntly as I can: When you enlist in the Marines, particularly in wartime (provided you make it through bootcamp), there's fairly decent chance you'll see at least one of your fellow men get blown to pieces on the battlefield. When you're preparing for that, some rough words at bootcamp are the least of your worries. And DIs know that better than anyone. They know that you making it back alive is more important than keeping your feelings intact.
Disturbing, yes. But realistic, also yes. Every bit of it, from boot camp to the end. Incredibly realistic, which is what both veterans and non-veteran movie-goers alike appreciate.
One of the best reactors on RUclips. You bring heart and mind to your reactions, and your empathy is so genuine. Seeing these movies through your eyes adds dimensions.
The scene with, "This is my rifle, this is my gun" is a valuable lesson. In one battle a soldier had called for gun support instead of rifle support. By calling for gun support the communication was taken as artillery support. The solder was told to request more soldiers to help fight. After the communication was sent, large shells were dropped on their position and several friendlys were hit. Knowing the distinction between having more soldiers sent and having large exploding things lobbed at you is important.
Yes, very good Hollywood, great entertainment but nothing is accurate about the door gunner scene. If you believe that is reel then you would have to believe in flying monkies because you saw them in The Wizard of Oz
Can you imagine Painter Bob Ross as a Drill Sergeant? He ACTUALLY WAS. He said after he left the military he would NEVER YELL at anyone again....Let's paint s fluffy little cloud...and a nice friendly Deer! Talk about a TOTAL 180!
Bob Ross was in the Air Force not the Marines. He was not a boot camp drill sargent he was a Master Sargent which is just a rank not a job title. HUGE difference.
@@GTgrad He did teach at Basic Training during his career and his quote about being the guy that screamed at you and made you scrub the Latrine sure sounds like a Drill Instructor/Sergeant - and he has discussed Drilling as well. He rose to Master Sergeant but he didn't start there.I also don't think I said he was a Marine. His quote is part of this story regarding his Military Career. - It's hard to believe that some former airmen out there first met Ross, of all people, while he was shouting at them in a Smokey Bear campaign hat. While it's true he taught basic training, that was not the career path he wanted for himself. "I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross later said. "The job requires you to be a mean, tough person, and I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way anymore."
When this movie came out, the war had only been over for 14 years. It was pretty fresh and a lot of the guys who in Vietnam were still young men when this movie was released. Even in high school in the 80’s, you never really thought how close you were to that war time wise. It was hardly ever spoke about. None of our dads spoke about it. When I went in, I was serving with guys who fought in Vietnam.
I hit Paris Island June '70. The only difference between this depiction and experience is that we had three drill instructors. And they were harder on us than what you're seeing now.
@@ThePresentation010 You mean a Blanket Party? Not in my platoon. (4028-98) But then again, 4th Battalion Parris Island rarely has screwups as there are seldom female recruits pressured by family or patriarchal social ideas to join when they shouldn't. The male recruits are more likely to be less squared away
Some of the hardest things recruits have to do in boot camp is struggle not to laugh at the drill instructor tearing down the others recruits with their insults.
Our dad was a DI in the Marines in the late 50's. He told us kids that's exactly how the training went. You'd see a smile ear to ear on our dad's face every time the first part of this movie was played in our house. Once a Marine, always a Marine...
@@dialecticalmonist3405 I'm sure it has varied a bit over the years but generally there's a senior DI and like 4-6 junior DIs. The senior is generally the one who is spending the most time with them during the day. But you know, he needs to sleep and have days off and such. He's also teaching the junior DIs how to be senior DIs too and it's pretty important that they get hands on experience doing the job.
Miss, you are the reason that most of us joined the Marines. We do it so most civilians don't have to know what dangers are out there. We do it so you can feel safe, happy, and sleep peacefully at night. We don't want or need to be thanked. Your innocent reaction to the smallest hardships we faced in bootcamp is enough to know that we've done our job. Take care Semper Fi brothers and sisters, and to all of the other branches. We are one team. One family.
But the US should never have been in Vietnam in the first place committing your human rights abuses and atrocities. Vietnam was never a threat to America. The US was in the wrong and that's why you lost the Vietnam war.
@michaelb2388 I'm 55 years old. I was born in 68. I wasn't in Vietnam. I never said I fought in a war. I served during peace time. We still joined for a purpose. It was because we wanted to keep people safe. If you look back on most wars, they probably shouldn't have happened. Somebody did something or wanted something, and they sent our kids to handle it. I've seen several things when I was in that civilians never heard about. That in itself says that we were standing between our friends/families and the unseen monsters. Maybe at times, it's us that were the monsters, but that doesn't change anything. We stood between horrible possibilities and happy little families that will never know what could have been. My friend died of heatstroke in boot camp. I watched him fall. A few months later, a friend from my platoon went to Disney in California and took his life in a hotel. Does any of it matter? I think that your right to criticize our government's actions on a public forum without being put in to prison or "accidently " falling out of a window says all that needs to be said. I respect your right to say that we shouldn't have been there, and If need be, I'd gladly lay down my life to protect your right to say it. (There is a quote similar to that that is often credited to the wrong person) Whatever you think of me or our military, you're free to say it. It's kind of ironic that you didn't realize your right to say those things, and say them in English, is one of the reasons that we served. Take care, my friend.
That's about how it was. I served 20 years in the Marine Corps and two combat tours in Vietnam. The first tour as a machine gunner (0331) in 1965-66 and the second as a Platoon commander (0369) in 1970-71. I retired after 20 years and had a 30 year career as a California police officer ( Marin County). What I learned in the Marine Corps has helped me all my life. I highly recommend it to anyone needing direction and wishing to learn self discipline . Tom Boyte GySgt. USMC, retired Bronze Star, Purple Heart
I had the exact same reaction to the movie. My dad was in Viet Nam, and he won't talk about it. I tried to ask him once, and he got a look in his eyes that I can't describe. I just knew to never ask again. My dad is such a sweet and gentle guy, I can't even imagine what it was like for him.
I had a friend who went and fought in desert storm. In combat a gernade hit a guy near him and blew him to bits. My friend doesn’t talk about his time in the army. All I know is my friend went to war and someone else came back that looked like him with ptsd
Bless your father and thank him for his service. Yeah, many combat veterans don't like to go into details about what happened to them, especially if they saw serious combat. My grandfather had a friend who was a POW in World War II and he had some stories but nothing really bad. The Germans actually treated the prisoners like human beings, though they wouldn't hesitate to shoot and kill anyone trying to escape and he saw it happen a few times.
Vincent D'Onofrio going from normal dude to insane is amazing acting ! It's like his model for all his future unhinged character in the future like Kingpin in Daredevil or the killer in the Cell !
The first half of the movie is exactly what bootcamp is like. The only difference in 1996 when I went was the color of the uniform, we had woodland camo.
Also technically the DI's weren't allowed to hit you. Also we were using the M16-A2s(they didn't have a full auto on the selector like the A1s did). Instead of the old M1's
@@markcarpenter6020they remove the auto fire capability from the M16s for recruits in basic training and the 3 round burst capability from the M16A2s when they started to replace the A1s. It's called an auto sear that makes them fully automatic. Remove that and it loses it full auto capability.
@@Patrick-xv6qv ours had burst but they said studies had shown the full auto was bad. Too many people spraying and praying back in Vietnam and doing it so much the heat damaged the barrel. So between replacing barrels and amo usage it was decided burst was more "cost effective" than full auto. I don't really know anything about the carbine they use now. What is it the M14?
Thank you, you brought up something I hadn't noticed in any of the 100 times I've seen this movie, namely that Cowboy, from Texas, was shot by the sniper from a Texas shaped hole. Knowing Kubrick, that's for sure no coincidence.
I was a Marine, I went through Boot Camp at Parris Island. This is the most accurate portrayal of my experience there that I've ever seen in a movie. Right up to just before the very final scene of the boot camp portion. Live amminition for the recruits there is incredibly tightly controlled. That scene is over the top far-fetched, but it does make FMJ what it is.
Another commenter here mentioned the detail that Pyl still had rounds in a magazine when reloading another, which is how he got them back to the barracks. I wonder if someone was determined enough they could have gotten away with that, or in reality there would still be strict checks on everything coming in?
@@katskillz Recruits don't even have possession of magazines outside the rifle range. At any time. Rounds are counted out in wooden "range blocks". It's a great movie, the most accurate movie representation of Parris Island I've ever seen. But that scene is a massive fantasy scene. Live rounds were parceled out very precisely, the KD Course (known distance) requires only a very specific number of rounds to fire the cycle, and that's what is provided. Range coaches are everywhere, watching everything. That said, FMJ is still a truly excellent movie.
@@hiramburgess9925 thanks for the explanation, that makes sense. The more I think about it, this is a trademark of Kubrick where he creates a hyper detailed, realistic environment in the film that's so convincing; but with the story mechanics he finds somewhere to tweak reality to make room for a "glitch" to the whole thing. I remember a quote of his about his approach to filming: "Real is good, interesting is better". So in FMJ he had to fudge that realistic detail you explained, so he could make room for the drama of something going wrong in a tightly controlled situation. This is just like with Clockwork Orange with their social engineering project, Dr Strangelove with the supposed fail-safe mutually assured destruction nuclear initiative, and 2001 with the "perfect" AI computer -- there's that consistent theme of humans having the amazing ability to invent and come up with fool proof technologies or policies without considering the moral implications. Then Kubrick focuses on the erratic glitch in the perfect system, which backfires in a big way.
@@katskillz there’s also a discrepancy with R. Lee Ermey’s uniform that can only be deliberate. It’s small but any Marine who has ever pinned out a set of service greens sees it.
Two things stand out to me from this movie - the conversation between Joker and the Colonel on the duality of man, and Joker's final narration while the Marines sing the Mickey Mouse Club theme. There must come a time when war will no longer be necessary, but in the meantime, we must do our best to wage it as best and as honorably as we could. War isn't beautiful and makes for hard choices. For those who have served, much respect to you.
This movie came out when I was in the middle of my army infantry basic training, just four days after I turned 17. We were actually given a half-day off to watch this. They even allowed us to have civilian food. We all ate a lot, but it ended up being a bad idea because afterwards they made us run 9 miles back to Ft. Benning. Most of us ended up vomiting along the way. It's strange how, now at 55, I look back and realize that my time in infantry school was the most enjoyable period of my life. Right after basic training, I went straight to airborne school. They have a tradition there where the youngest guy in the unit does everything first. He gets the first meal, receives mail first, and on every jump, he is the first one out of the plane. They refer to him as the "Keeper of the Wings" because he's the only soldier allowed to wear jump wings. He has to keep them polished to a shiny, glass-like appearance and present them for inspection every morning. I went through numerous pair of wings as the silver wore off from all the polishing. Ah, the days of my youth. Here's a video of me a few days before I completed my 31 years of service. I apologize for the sound being out of sync, but it's the only footage I have from my time in the army. In the video, I'm teaching my roommate some Fung Fu. ruclips.net/video/NWv6Oml_eYA/видео.html P.S. In case you were wondering, the item I'm wearing is a medicine bag. It was a part of my Lakota Indian heritage, as my mother was full-blooded Lakota. On my dog tags, it stated my blood type as O-positive and included my name and SSN. As for the religion, mine said "BARBARIAN" at the bottom.
Lee Ermey, who played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, actually served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He served twelve years in the Corps, retiring as a Staff Sergeant. He wasn’t originally cast in the role of Sgt. Hartman. Tim Colceri, who played the door gunner who was shooting at civilians from the helicopter, was originally cast in the role of Sgt. Hartman while Lee Ermey was hired as technical advisor. However Director Stanley Kubrick soon realized that he had to recast the part. While Tim Colceri tried to PLAY Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Lee Ermey WAS Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. So Kubrick cast Ermey as Hartman and Colceri as the door gunner. As far as parts of the movie coming across as satire, that was Stanley Kubrick’s directorial style. Kubrick also gave us “The Shining.” Enough said. The door gunner scene alludes to two things: the inhumanity of war and the effect it has on some people, and the fact that in Vietnam one often didn’t know who one’s friends were so there was a tendency by some to shoot first and ask questions later. I grew up during the Vietnam War and have had several friends who were Vietnam vets. To a man they told me that the three worst things about that war were the frequent inability to tell friend from foe, the lack of clear objectives for fighting the war and finally the unpopularity of the war at home. All of those things made life really hard on those who survived that war. Finally, Amy alludes to the strange places her mind goes while watching movies. Personally I love the places her mind goes. I’ve watched this movie several times yet Amy has pointed out things that I’ve never noticed before about it, such as how one scene foreshadows another. Keep up the great work!
Movies like this will change you forever! They will open you mind to questioning reality, critical thinking, and breaking down boundaries that shouldn't be.
A: Yes, the Audience is allowed to Laugh. Remember, Kubrick has a real talent for dark humor and he also understood that Tragedy is best served with a healthy dollop of Comedy on the side or the Pain of the Art would be too great to bear, just like Life. See also Catharsis.
@@macmcgee5116 it kind of is, military bearing. The recommendation I give to recruits is pinch something as hard as you can to prevent grinning. I'm the type that develops a smile during stress so I had a full blown bruise on my right thigh from standing at rest.
Drill instructors are some of the funniest human beings on the planet. Looking back at boot camp I laugh my ass off now. I wasn't laughing at the time that's for sure.
I am a marine corps combat vet. This is 100% what boot camp is. Although I trained at San Diego. It is the funniest place on earth where you’re not allowed to laugh 😂
@@Fooney1 Have you been through boot camp recently? Not trying to be an asshole, but when I went in the USMC in 1994, my recruiter told me that DIs weren't allowed to swear or touch the recruits, to my dismay. Fortunately, my DIs didn't get that memo. After the senior DI's speech and introduction of the other DIs, the senior went into the duty hut, we were all put online. Two of the DIs singled out the biggest, toughest looking recruit, folded him up, threw him between the top and bottom bunks at the end of the rack, splitting his head open. One DI went and reported this to the senior and the other started laying it in to the recruit for spilling 'grape juice' on the deck. It was three months of mental torture with a lot of physical toughening up. Just as it should have been (I'm not bitching about the harshness, it's war the recruits are being prepared for). But whenever I got to the fleet, all the salty guys were talking about how us new Marines had stress cards and all that bull shit. I wonder if the rumors about boot camp going soft now are just as wrong as they were when I went through it.
Veteran here. Boot camp seems absurd and abusive, but they effectually weed out the bad apples. There's definitely a method to the madness. If a person can't take orders how to fold underwear then they shouldn't be around weapons or equipment worth millions of dollars. I enjoy watching your channel and I like your synopsis style.
Exactly and there is a chance they will get themselves (and others killed) it makes you to carry out orders without hesitate, which you cannot do during combat.
Former service man (conscript, army, (Infantryregiment 19) ) in Sweden. If you can't do simple stuff like march in a straight line or maintain basic radio discipline they sure as hell won't let you touch a loaded firearm.
@@Vollification Yea, there's a lot of debate whether anything about boot camp is actually valid. Like some of the ideas being _"the drill instructors shout at you in boot camp cuz if you can't operate under stress in a controlled environment, you can't operate under stress in an uncontrolled one"_ or _"if you can't march straight, you can't handle a weapon"_ etc. And that's honestly nonsense. Some people are just awkward and have lousy coordination. I knew someone who was a navy nuclear engineer but he couldn't make a bed neatly to save his life. And I had a roommate who was a pharmacist and combat medic but was totally inept at simple tasks like mopping floors. Being able to do one thing has nothing to do with another.
I served in the Army and while our Basic is not quite as intense said training is absolutely necessary. Freedom is fantastic but in tense or even life-threatening situations, you cannot have soldiers who will break and run or decide for themselves what course of action would be best. The entire point behind recruit training is to completely BREAK you down to the real person under all the accumulated life detritus layered over. Once they're reached that point in you and can begin remaking you into a soldier worthy of wearing our colors they do ease up slightly...at least ours did...slightly
My dad got his PhD in American Literature with a specialization in literature about the Vietnam War. He once told me when I was a kid that there are no happy stories about the Vietnam War, and thirty years later I still haven’t found one.
There was a guy who suffered stab wounds, a few gun shots, and a broken jaw and managed to save many during Nam if I ain't wrong. I may be very wrong, but I believe his name was Ray Benavidez
My late father served in the late 1950's in the USMC.Too young for the Korean War , at that time it was mandatory service you either volunteered or got drafted. Judges used to order problem teens to he military also. The Marines was only two years if you volunteered. My Father had to participate in a "Blanket Party" (The soap in towels) on two fellow Marines (they were stealing watches). Dad said that it straightened them out. And you Don't mess with the Brotherhood! After two years my father did not stay on but was on call. he got married and had us kids. He found out later the group that he was assigned to that went to Vietnam was wipe out in an ambush.
That was Marine Recruit training in the 1960’s during Vietnam. Because of the need for marines in Vietnam , recruit training was shortened from 12 weeks to 8 weeks. There was no prohibition on striking recruits , within reason and not to cause injury, on Drill Instructors. Many of them , now given a month less time to teach the basics , got frustrated and resorted to that. I went through years later in 1987. DI’s had been prohibited from striking recruits in the 70’s but the language was still harsh , they didn’t change that completely until the 90’s. It was also back to 12 weeks and you graduate in the 13th week. The soap part is called a “blanket party”. It was talked about when I went through , but I never saw one. Crazy as it was , as much as it sucked when I did it … I think about it and miss it.
Pvt. Joker - Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner from "Stranger Things") Pvt. Pyle - Vincent D'Onofrio (Bobby Green from " Law & Order") Sgt. Hartman - R. Lee Ermey ( lead toy soldier from "Toy Story") Lt. Lockhart, Joker's editor - John Terry (Christian Shepherd from " Lost") Animal Mother - Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb from "Firefly")
^^ IMO, the surprisingly good performance in this film is Adam Baldwin, not to take anything from any others you've listed above, because they're all excellent. The thing is entirely in the Range though. I doubt I would have been as sympathetic towards the character of Jayne in Firefly if not for this film, first.
The end song "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones was also the theme song for the series called "Tour of Duty" and that series was set in the Vietnam War.
Apparently the head-shaving scene was the last to be filmed. They shaved their heads before all the basic training scenes were shot, they grew it out again to shoot the scenes in ‘Vietnam’ (actually filmed in England) just to have it shaved again. 😭
The apparent rediculousness of a lot of the humor between the troops is a real thing. Its called battlefield humor, its very dark and inappropriate and often comes out at strange times, like the middle of a firefight. Its basically a way that some soldiers cope with everything going on around them. They feel like if they dont laugh, they will cry... So they laugh.
This past Monday was my 30 years graduating from Marine Corps bootcamp. I can attest that there's not much changed. I'd do it all over again. It's tough but you gotta remember we have the legacy of being the world's most feared fighting force. It's a mindset. You're not just building your physical body but your mental acuities as well. This is why we are the best. Semper Fi Edit to those who think they don't hit recruits, I still have a scar above my right eye from getting smacked with my rifle for messing up drill
Then you haven't heard about the changes at Boot Camp??? DIs are not allowed to yell at a Recruit anymore. Recruits have 'Safe Spaces' for when they feel triggered. No yelling "GET OFF MY BUS!!!" when arriving, either. It'sa softer, more genteel Marine Corps in this day and age. Now it's all about DEI and Drag Queen Recruiters. Bravo Zulu, MARINE!!!
You must have been a series behind me...when you just got there and had no idea what you were doing yet, we probably marched past you with our trousers bloused, our uniforms squared away...that is, if you were at Parris Island...I was 2077, in '94...haven't looked at my yearbook in years, but I think I graduated in May...
@@snafubar5491 I think some of what you refer to has come out as false. I heard the same thing about a yellow card that they gave the recruits that they could hold up after a DI yelled at them too long and the DI would have to get out of their face. I'm sure it's not as intense as when I was there in '94, but I hope that there's still enough sense in leadership that they don't neuter the Marines, like they did the other branches boot camps...God help us all, if they have. The Officer Corps has lost their way...just like every politician in Washington, all they care about is personal achievement and promotion...the Generals know that Washington loves DEI, and progressivism, and so long as they get the next star, or get their shot at Commandant, they will sacrifice the security of the country, and the lives of Marines, to do so...
As an old Marine I can vouch for the authenticity of the boot camp scenes. The war scenes were kind of stupid, but the emotions and personalities were accurate.
My uncle was a Marine during the Vietnam era. He said the boot camp portion of this movie is the most accurate film he’s seen about Vietnam.
We needed boots on the ground, so break them down, build them up and ship them out. Just how it was.
Buy the way Ames , I was in the NAVY and even though my boot camp wasn't like this, I watched the Marines trane and this is all true. It was brutal!
I went into the Army 🪖 in '97. I heard all of these phrases, but I hadn't seen this movie yet. It took me a while to find out where all their phrases came from.
My father said the same thing. He was laughing and rolling around on the couch in fits screaming, "He's a Marine, that was my Drill Instructor!" Not Ermy, just Ermy's performance.
I went through marine bootcamp back in '06 and this was what it was like for us. They weren't supposed to be this cruel but they were big on keeping traditions alive.
The actor playing the Drill Instructor actually was a DI in the Marines. So no, this is not an over the top depiction of boot camp. He just did his normal drill instructor routine. He was supposed to be an advisor, not an actor, but he got the job because he was so good. The actor who originally was meant to play the DI got the job of door gunner on the helicopter instead. The guy who says "anyone who runs is a Viet Cong so I can shoot them. Anyone who stands still is a well disciplined Viet Cong!"
If you're gonna comment about "the actor", why don't you mention the name of "the actor"? It's effing pointless just saying "the actor".
@@eatsmylifeYT- The actor’s name is Tim Colceri.
@@eatsmylifeYT Saying "the actor" or "R. Lee Ermey, the actor" doesn't make much difference in how well someone will understand his comment. The basic info is the same. I agree it's better to honour the man by giving his name, but it isn't "pointless" not to. Weird comment, man.
@@SweetZombiJesus It's a basic guideline in writing. It's taught in school in English class.
@@Parallax-3D You're talking about two actors here. Which one?
I met Gunny years before he died, he was very humble and kind to my wife and I at a military function. He was a treasure. RIP Gunny.
I've only ever heard good things about him.
Fort Irwin.
I live in Lancaster CA, where he lived, we had an Ave named after him, I have been to his house with my job since he died and its full of memorabilia.
Outside of work most DIs are actually some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Just don’t get on their bad side at work
There will never be another good soldier like him.
You: Rooting for the character of Leonard.
Me: Oh sweet innocent lady. 😏
Thought the same thing...
She made me start to wonder if he was actually slow or mentally disabled and that's why he was so inept.
@@PresidentoftheManosquare speaking as both a Former Marine myself, served 1983-87 and also a product of Divorce. Leonard was more Sensitive Emotionally. less Mental/Physical Toughness. he was adult child of Divorce, No Father figure. it takes a Man longer to develop Mental Strength. the Physical? a D.I. Can pull that out of a recruit in weeks. why do you think most of your Mass Murderers are Sons of Single/Divorced Women? why do you think that most incarcerated Men/Women are products of Fatherless Homes? they don't mention the Importance of Fathers in Children's Emotional/Mental stability in MSM. America is in Murphy Brown/Oprah Mode.
@jaguarwarrior866 idk you tell me.... if you know why then go solve the issue...
picture your in gym at dodgeball and the other team has AK-47's and are trying to kill you. boot weed's those who wont make it from those who may or not.
"Am I supposed to laugh right now? I don't think so."
Exactly. They nailed Marine Corps bootcamp.
I love how she felt like she was actually in there in front of Sargent Hartman. I’ve seen this movie many times and I still try not to laugh at it😂
Kubrick's version "Full Metal Jacket" closest to real US Marine Corps boot camp. Semper Fi USMC '75 - '81 Vote Trump 2024 !!!! Get rid of Woke cancel culture BS STAT. Not in my Marine Corps! It is about discipline and killing - not wussies.
Yeah it is one of the funniest times in your entire life combined with the fact that if you ever were dumb enough to laugh it meant your ass.
RIP Lee Ermey, the actor who portrayed Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Such a great role...and he wasn't really acting.
He was the advisor for the drill sergeant part but instead of advising they just used him instead of the actor that was originally supposed to do it.
@@argetlam05 Tim Colceri (psycho door gunner scene) was the original drill sergeant but Ermey got picked instead.
Semper fi
He played the same role in Space Above and Beyond if you want to see a few more clips on youtube, he's still great there too.
Roger that
"I don't know whether to laugh, or just be absolutely horrified". That's Kubrick for ya.
No…that’s the reality of the Marines in wartime. Generation Kill is also like this.
Just wait till she sees "A Clockwork Orange".
@@davidd.3555 Kubrick was a movie genius. Only he could capture the true essence and play on every emotion without having a ton of action or dialogue.
@@darthroden That is his only movie I could not get through.
@@darthrodenone of my favorites… I’m siiiinging in the rain….
The Drill Sgt was a Marine. He actually was a drill instructor during Vietnam. This was 1 of his first films. He wrote over 100 pages of this script and the director let him use his own script for most scenes. This has been called one of the most truthful stories of boot camp
If I recall correctly in the basic scene everyone except Joker, Cowboy, and Lawrence were Marines as well.
He also was in Apocalypse Now for a moment and they hired him to comfirm the beach scene to its reality. And that's how he got into acting.
"Is this an exaggeration? or a parody?" This is probably one of the most accurate depictions of Marine boot camp ever put to film. R. Lee ermey is just an exceptionally articulate and creative Drill Instructor compared to a lot of the DI's i encountered on the island. Marine Corps 2012-2017.
The fact that this is so realistic, to me, makes it a parody because of how funny it really is when you actually see it from the outside perspective and see how stupid war and all this really is.
No it's not. Ermey has stated in multiple interviews that Kubrick wanted him to go overboard with the physical and verbal abuse. Stop spreading this lie.
@@Lbdataz1469 really? Because I know nom era Marines that said this is what it was actually like.
So there is that.
I was gonna say, I've seen USMC DIs and a lot of times you can't even understand them because they're simply screaming too loud or they've lost their voice from screaming and now it's just rasp lol.
@@Cablev94 Now, you're feeding into it what you wish.
Watch his interviews: he is not anti-war and has defended the film, as a man of war himself. Kubrick said once: 'it's not an anti-war film, it's not a pro-war film. It's just war'.
We can assume Kubrick was no fan of mindless war or dictatorships, but he was evidently not anti-war throughout his entire life, and clearly had a great respect for men of war.
Some of your comments are interesting to consider, and work in any framework, to be clear: fashion looks 'stupid' from the outside, but naked humans are either nothing but a small tribe or complete dogs. Cafés also look stupid from such an anti-human viewpoint, but to eat food with other humans is vital to human life itself and pre-dates large-scale warfare itself.
Obviously, the statement 'war is stupid' has no meaning or function. Was defeating Nazism 'stupid' or are you merely not going to define this as 'war'? England openly attacked Germany with almost a singular hand, followed by the U.S. and others, and France in defence and the Soviet Union in the great battle for European control. (Germany attacked Russia first, but we know that Russia already planned to invade Germany. Hitler merely moved first, for a few reasons -- and, as many forget, Hitler was literally about three months away from taking Russia and Europe. It was not so clear-cut at the time.)
If 'war' is without scale, then this must mean 'fighting' is stupid, and possibly even the notion of 'self-defence'. Taken further, 'teasing' is stupid, along with 'play-fighting'. At this level, however, what you really mean to express is that 'human existence is stupid'. In fact, it's worse than this: bears have play-fighting and without it, they die. Chimps have war (raids); thus, even war is not truly a human invention.
If you also watch the interviews, you note that this isn't extremely realistic: but it's realistic in many ways.
Finally: you failed to consider other views and frameworks. One view is that he was weak, that's why he snapped. It was not his innocence or the objective ruthlessness of the training, but his own weakness. Notice how the other men didn't snap, that they were evidently not weak, or as weak? Maybe some were not so innocent -- but we must assume they were all relatively innocent in this context before they entered training. What we are doing here is shifting 'weakness' and 'harmlessness' and 'cowardice' and 'kindness' for 'innocence'. This is beyond foolish.
We can conclude from this that there was something about him, not the training itself. This is somewhat of a Nietzschean understanding -- there are always multiple ways to interpret suffering and life, even the exact same experience. That's why this film is so powerful, and has two primary sides/fans.
Another Nietzschean notion is that of 'slave morality'. Out of weakness and envy, he wanted to take what he didn't have, he wanted to destroy the 'master morality' (of the Marines), and twist it, such that his weakness and failure and corruption and lack of nobility became the morality. The ultimate expression of this hatred and resentment was his murdering the master morality/nobility (in the form of the drill instructor) and his own suicide, just to cap it off, and let the world know that he really meant it, and that there was nothing sacred -- that Being itself was unbearable and worthless.
In this regard, he identified with Cain, the murderer of all murderers, with a psychology very similar to that of many school shooters (if you read the FBI reports and their journals, etc.). That is, at least, one primary way of viewing the film's characters and the themes thereof.
FMJ is a unique war movie. There are no heroes. The main character (Joker) isn't remarkable in any way, rather he plays the part of "a reasonable man"...and the movie is the story of a reasonable man's war experience which ends with that reasonable man shooting a teenage girl in the face. Thus revealing the true horror of war as being the impact it has on otherwise decent men.
War is the norm in history.
Only after shooting up the entire platoon. These ambushes happened all the time.
It's not a war movie.
@@DaveMcIroy "Tragically the Winds of War are gaining gale force." Steve Forbes
Jul 4, 2024
@@DaveMcIroy its a musical . Your and idiot.
A recurring joke about bootcamp: It is the funniest place on earth where you're not allowed to laugh. Drill Instructors are like sadistic stand-up comedians, lmao. Ahhh, good times indeed, bootcamp was a blast.
This film is beloved by a lot of Marines. Rest easy, Gunny Ermey, and Semper Fi.
Nothing is harder in this world than keeping a straight face with a DI that stutters.
@@nexes lmfao 🤣
And as someone who was in the Army, this is the reason I joined, it motivated me to be hi-speed.
@@nexes my drill instructor had a lisp, so saying my last name for him was always a test of my bearing.
The most memorable one liner for me was marching back from haircuts like 2 months in and I see a DS lock into someone a couple ranks up and a scream of "GET IN STEP, YOU CHUBBY FUCK!". Cruel without context but fucking hilarious in my minds eye
Not enough people give Vincent D'Onofrio credit for his OUTSTANDING work as Leonard. Honestly, every single part of this movie is perfectly played. You can pick a performance and really find how well it was done.
It's surprising that Vincent D'Onofrio played in Adventures in Babysitting and FMJ in the same year, gaining 70+lbs to play Leonard.
even today there is one who SHOULD NOT have volunteered.
People always talk about the drill instructor, but Pyle did such an awesome job in this movie. Really started out a career for him.
he gained over 80 lbs for this role!
Absolutely. You saw how he just (mentally) left after the blanket party scene. That was fucking _scary._ Just amazing acting.
Pyle was played by Vincent D'onofrio
@@rebel4466 Good point.
@@patrickgalle1277 aka Egdar/The Bug (Men In Black)
My favorite part of the film is that Animal Mother says the "must hang" comment, but when Eightball is bleeding out Animal Mother is the most vocal about saving him. Refusing to leave his friend, disobeying orders, and leading the charge.
"@#$^ you." is another way of saying "I love you."
Believe it or not.
"He's gonna get strong I know it. In a couple months, he's gonna breeze right through it!" Well...
theres a breeze in his face
@@kool4209 Through his face you mean XD
yeah...
He got strong alright, just not strong enough
I loved watching your reaction to one of my favorite movies. I first watched it in the theater in 1987 when it was released, a week before I entered Marine Corps recruit training. Years later, I met my hero, R Lee Ermey in Las Vegas and told him how much I loved the movie. I explained to him how I watched Full Metal Jacket just before joining the Marines. His response still rings in my ears to this day; "Now THAT'S MOTIVATING!"
RIP Gunny.
NO ONE is ever prepared to watch this movie the first time.
Especially not the millennials or zoomers. “OMG he’s calling them maggots” 😂
I wasn't...I was 9 though.
This was my first date with my wife back in 1987. Hell of a way to start a long marriage.
Still married.
People are too weak today for a movie like this. I was a kid when I saw this with a bunch of friends and we all loved it. Absolutely transfixed by Ermy in the Boot Camp scenes. We loved him. If the Marines had a recruiting table outside the theater we'd have signed up right there. Lol It wasn't at all heavy for us. Just a great film.
Shit, I still haven’t been able fully rewatch it. After like 20 years. It’s THAT insane. Only other movie I think falls in that category for me… Requiem For A Dream. But I thought I was watching a comedy that time (wrong DVD in the rental case). At least with Full Metal Jacket, I had an IDEA of what to expect going into it.
Vincent D'Onofrio said that the production of this film took so long that his co-star Matthew Modine was single when filming began, but over the course of filming, he got married, got his wife pregnant, had a son and that his son had his first birthday all before the film was released
Him and his wife got married in 1980 and got his son in 1985🤣
@@canislupus6182 Then I guess D'Onofrio likes to tell some tall tales😆
@@clash5j Or, more likely, D'Onofrio said nothing of the sort, and you're just going through the Mandela Effect.
According to Wikipedia, casting was in 85 and film released in late June 87.
Obviously development for a couple of years.
Very interesting list of alternate actors considered.
That cant be true because I remember D'Onofrio also said Modine was on a walk with his wife in NYC (where Vincent happened to be working as a doorman) and mentioned in passing he got a part in a new Kubrick film and recommended Vince audition too. Are you sure what you heard is correct?
That line about "weeding out non-hackers" is part of the purpose of Basic Training in any service. It behooves the Military to find out who folds under stress before there is an enemy trying to kill them.
Upvoted for proper use of 'behooves'.
Last time I heard behooves, I was in boot. Ah, the memories. Push-ups‼️, forever‼️, begin‼️
@@realdave3240 You'd have been impressed with my use of "peckish" the other day!
Not only uses “behooves,” but uses it perfectly, too? You wouldn’t happen to be senior enlisted, would you?
@@josiahricafrente585 Nope, just like reading. I was a helicopter mechanic (Hueys).
They werent "toughening us up", they were destroying us. I laughed at Full Metal Jacket when I saw it and hoped I wouldn't laugh when I enlisted. But when I got there it was just such an overwhelming force, I was so scared, and then I couldnt feel anything. Because thats the point, break you down. But as we went it came back as respect and understanding as we were built up. I appreciate who they made me. It instilled a sense of dilligence and assertiveness that got me through other events in life.
Semper Fi.
I have never laughed so hard at a movie review in my life. You went in so innocent and hopeful and then to watch your soul get crushed was absolutely hilarious.
😂😂🙈🙈😅
She just lucky that Stanley changed the ending from the original plan and joker died original but the actor playing joker say that it worst deal with trauma then dying
The original ending after joker kill the sniper animal mother chopped her head brag about it was cut
You should thank God for men like these. We only fight in the streets if we want to.
Amen
Private Pyle is an example of a program nicknamed "Macnamara's Morons". It was a program to increase the number of soldiers by heavily lowering the standards like IQ. They are also called, "Macnamara's 100,000." The results ended up that those soldiers had a way higher mortality rate than the standard soldiers. Joker was being sarcastic about being the first with a confirmed kill. It is how he deals with uncomfortable situations. One last interesting thing. If you watch the scene where Pyle is shooting and gets complimented when he reloads look at the magazine. IT still has rounds in it. That was how he got the live rounds back to the barracks.
A vet once told me that he knew a "Macnamara Moron" in Vietnam. He was pulling guard duty one night. A fellow soldier was coming up and was shot and killed. The "moron" guard shot first then yelled, "Who goes there??" If that wasn't bad enough, the guy (that should never have been in the military), "disappeared." He was murdered by someone in the unit.
@@lewistasso8866 Murdered, don't you mean fragged. Probably a frag party by everyone
@@WilliamPickett75 No, that's specifically when you got rid of someone in your own unit whom you disliked (such as a gung-ho officer liable to get you killed with their antics) by rolling a grenade up to them unexpectedly, maybe as they were resting/sleeping - hence the word fragging, derived from "fragmentation grenade".
Just killing someone on the quiet side wouldn't be a fragging.
McNamara's Morons didn't just have a higher mortality rate among themselves, they actively lowered the combat effectiveness of whatever unit they were in and increased the mortality rate overall. It was a huge disaster.
@@WilliamPickett75 Fragging is meant to be an injury that looks incidental rather than deliberate, easier to do with a 'nade. Not meant to be lethal, just injure the person enough to get them shipped out.
Murdering someone straight up would be different.
I had a Vietnamese girlfriend. She said Apocalypse Now was good, but Full Metal Jacket was much closer to what Vietnam looked like. She was from Hue.
What did she think about Platoon, out of curiosity?
@@jbest4765 We never talked about that one. Not sure if she ever saw it.
5th Marines were in Hue City, some of the toughest fighting during the war occurred in the citadel.
And _Full Metal Jacket_ was filmed in East London.
The Hue scenes were filmed at the now demolished Beckton Gasworks in London. The boot camp scenes were filmed in Cambridgeshire. When they are marching, you can see the road markings are on the wrong side of the road for the USA. The urban location makes this pretty much unique among 'nam films, as all others give the impression that the whole country was nothing but straw hut villages, when it was heavily urban, even then. Hue is a really nice city, by the way, even if much of the citadel was never repaired.
Hollywood Marine checking in. 95-99 Platoon 2058. They made us "stand at attention" when we got into our racks each night. One night the DI forgot to say at ease...and we stayed at attention in our sleep. He told us how proud of us he was. I will always remember that. Drill Instructor Sergeant Sean Kinard. I was in boot camp from November 5th to January 26th [can't believe I can remember those dates still]. On Christmas Day, they gave us 2 hours of free time [which was AMAZING] to quietly relax and write letters home. In the middle of it, DI Sgt Kinard walks in and says, "Merry Christmas 2058!". He then pulls the pin on a grenade and tosses it in the middle of the squad bay. We all saw it, looked at each other...all in the fraction of a second. Most of us realized it was a practice grenade but none of us took any chances. We all instantly dove away from the center of the room before it went off.
The drill instructor was played by R. Lee Ermey who was an actual drill instructor from the Marines. He was originally hired as an "advisor" however after watching him perform, Kubrick made the decision to hire him to play "Sgt. Hartman".
The entire first half of the movie was completely "unscripted". Ermey was allowed to completely improvise. This is why it was so authentic. He was literally playing himself as a drill instructor.
*Ermey not Emery
@@robh_tex Thank you. Fixed
@@TampaCEO not fixed at all lol
That's simply not correct. FMJ definitely had a script that Kubrick and others wrote as an adaptation from a novel. In regard to Ermy, he made contributions to the script with his experience as a D.I., but Kubrick decided which lines went into the script, and there was no improvisation once the camera started rolling. Kubrick was famous for being meticulous and not allowing improvisation. ruclips.net/video/bzQj0jb4S_E/видео.html
@@scottbarber9374Nah bullshit, R Lee was one of the greatest things this movie ever did
I served in the Marine Corps from '82-'86 and went to boot camp at Parris Island 3rd Battalion "H" Company.
The depiction of boot camp in this movie was extremely accurate. It was the best decision I ever made.
Semper Fidelis!
What does Semper Fidelis mean?
Thak you for your service. God bless the Marine Corp.
@shinrips it's Latin, it translates to Always Faithful in English.
I was very proud to serve, and as an almost 60 year old man, the best time of my life will always be my four years of service in the Marine Corps.
@@shinrips
Always Faithful.
Sempre is a Portuguese/Italian for always; siempre is Spanish.
Rooted in Semper.
The English word "Fidelity" is rooted in Fidelis.
Many will shorten it to Semper Fi.
How old were you when you went to Parris Island?
@richardbryanesq not quite 17-1/2 years old. I signed up 2 days after my 17th birthday in a delayed-entry program.
Retired Marine here!!!! This is absolutely accurate !!!! R LEE ERMY was a national treasure!!!!
Is there only one DI though? I always thought that was kind of odd.
He was a national shit as is the entire cult.
He and Stan Lee died around the same time and that is one hell of a combo. Stan tells you what you're fighting for, Ermey tells you how to.
This movie is very accurate to that time. It´s based on a book written by a guy who wrote about his own experiences in the corp. Back during the Vietnam war a lot of people who would under normal circumstances never be considered for the marines/army were enlisted. A lot of people broke and harmed either themselves or others. That is what Private Pyle was based on.
My best friend was in during the war in 72. He said they were tougher then due to the psychological nature of the Vietnam War. He also said that guys like Pyle were sent to motivational camp. He said his drill Sargent was just like Hartman.
That first scene with sergeant Hartman is one of the greatest improvisation scene in cinematic history ! You can't write something that crazy !! Kubrick is a mad genius...
After watching FMJ numerous times and finding out it's history, I'd say R. Lee Ermey probably made that introduction dozens of times as a real drill instructor.
I think I read something about gunny saying that the only way that he would do that opening drill sergeant monologue was if he was allowed to ad-lib as he saw fit. I was in the military just after Vietnam ended, and even though by the time I got in there in boot camp they weren't supposed to be allowed to hit you - but they could pretty much talk about you and your mother anyway they wanted - we would still get hit by some drill sergeants. Blanket parties were a real thing, used by the entire platoon to... _encourage_ the slow Learner(s) to catch up. We were all talked down to and shaved heads and made all even so that we were nothing so that we could then be raised back up to a single unit of soldiers all at the same time. I was 17 and it sucked LOL. But I will always say there are two people a man will never forget, one is his father and the other is his drill sergeant. I'm in my 60's and I still can picture Drill Sergeant Burleson and remember his voice clearly to this day.
Interestingly, if you read the Novella, there are a few pieces from there that actually are written. I was surprised
I knew a marine vet from that era, and he told me the boot camp depiction was the most accurate thing he has ever seen in a movie. It really seemed to effect him.
A lot of World War two vets said the opening scene to saving private ryan was pretty accurate as well
We were still getting shoved and choked out (😮) in OSUT : Benning 2003
I didn’t clear my weapon and police all of my brass properly and my drill sergeant tackled me and put me to sleep until everything was safe 😂 I knew he did it mostly for show or force for the rest of the platoon and I was cool with him the whole time but it kinda hurt my feelings for a few days
We weren’t beaten but we always had very ‘interesting ‘ corrective discipline line dismantling our bunks and our wall Lockers and assembling our entire barracks outside for two days and nights because they found a can of dip in the trash and nobody would fess up
not surprising it's played by a real drill instructor, he was just hired as a consultant but then got the part in the film
"he's gonna get strong, I just know it", you are in for a treat
Yeah, I felt really bad for her when she said that
I feel bad cause it's only reason I watched this is to see the reaction as it steadily gets darker and darker cause it's a gut wrenching you reality check for most people
Oh my God uh!😂
When she said that I completely lost myself 🤣🤣🤣. All I could think was, "you're in for a shock"
i just thought: It ain't that kind of movie
Hey Hold, I am an actual Marine that went through Basic Training at Paris Island where this was shot. I met Gunny Emery(the guy that play Hartman) at the Marine Corp Ball before he passed away. There is some truth to how Drill Instructors treat recruits at the Depot but the physical assaults on recruits in the movie was just for the movie. Gunny Emery ratched up Hartman to show how an ineffective and inept D.I. would be. In reality, D.I.'s are forbidden to touch a recruit, if they do, they are removed from the program. A Texas recruit would not be at MCRD Paris Island, he would be sent to MCRD San Diego. The flag is the Platoon Marker, there is always 4 numbers on them. The first two is the Batalion code: 10 is 1st Batalion, 20 is 2nd Batalion, 30 is 3rd Batalion, 40 is 4th Batalion then last two numbers is the series(class of recruits) number. When I went through in 2001, my platoon was 3028(3rd Bn 28th class). No you do not sleep with your rifle until you are out in the fleet in a warzone. The way it actually goes is you recite the Riflemans Creed, hang your rifle at the end of the rack nearest the D.I.'s Aisle then mount your rack. Pyle would actually not be in training at that point because even start training you have to pass an IST(Initial Strength Test) where you have to do a certain amount of pull ups, push ups, sit ups and 2 mile run. Anyone who fails IST goes to a physical conditioning platoon where they are worked out every day until they can pass. Bars of soap wrapped in towels, don't leave marks. Thats the truth about shooting, every Marine is a basically trained rifleman that can hit a moving target at 500 yards with iron sights. A section 8 is a mentally unstable person that is suffering from sever psychosis, these individuals are put into Entry Leverl Separation platoon to be processed out, their rifle and any weapons issued are taken from them. My dad was a Vietnam vet, he said he couldnt walk through Saigon without a "street walker" trying to hit on him, he said they all talked like that girl. They are depicting the Tet Offensive the VC a.k.a.Viet Cong, the gorilla arm of the NVA(North Vietnamese Army) and the NVA itself kicked off in January of 1968. The helo door gunner wasn't shooting at nothing, he was shooting at female VC that were posing as Rice farmers but were really watching helicopters coming in and out of the base and reporting U.S. troop movements to male VC or the NVA. The VC and NVA covered the bodies in Lime to expedite the decomposition. If they hadn't been found by U.S. forces, they wouldve been bone in about a month. In reality, the phones in the backs of the tanks are not coms to the FOB(Forward Operating Base), they are actually to the guys inside the tank. Thats why many more accurate depictions of the Vietnam war you'll see someone carrying a square back pack with an antenna, thats their radio operator, they have a direct com link to the FOB to call in Artillery(Arties) or CAS(Close Air Support). Actually what Animal Mother was saying, was incorrect about rolling the tanks in. First wave to clearing a city or village are planes like the A10 Warthog and B32 bombers to name a couple, then the infantry and tanks roll in to mop up whats left of the enemy. That was your classic IED(Improvised Explosive Device), no matter the war, you WILL run into those. There was a sniper in Vietnam who deployed those type of tactics, she would shoot to wound then would lie in wait for his buddies, thats who this sniper was modeled after for the movie. The real sniper was taken out by Carlos Hathcock, USMC Scout sniper. Cowboy dieing like that is common in urban war zones and Animals desire for payback is spot on accurate. When someone takes out one of ours, we don't pull back, we advance until we wipe out the entire enemy contengent in that area. Thats how war is Hold. its very ugly and why a lot of guys come back with PTSD. Any way, I hope my diatribe helped you.
Thank you.
In 1978 at MCRD SD, thumping a recruit was not uncommon at all. Neither was midnight PIT sessions, water discipline, rifle IT, standing at attention for an hour (or more) during a "red flag" day. "Alligators" (recruits who made allegations against a DI) were dropped to a Platoon a week or two behind...as a "remedy"
Plt 2068 2nd Bn 2nd RTR
MCRD SD 1978
0311
This movie was shot entirely in England, the Parris Island was the Bassingbourn Barracks, Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire and the in country, Vietnam part of the movie was shot mainly in and around London the Hue city at an old abandoned gas works.
Full metal jacket is actually two movies, part one is boot camp and part two is war. I’ve seen part one dozens of times. I’ve seen part two twice.
Part One was something special.
The second half wasn't much different from other war movies. Nothing really stood out. A little boring at parts. May as well fast-forward to the sniper scene.
@@briankarcher8338 What a god awful take....
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everybody says that at first. Part two has many subtle virtues that are appreciated the more one views them. Beginning with the hooker in urban Da Nang. Even the very last scene which in Joker's soliloquy, "I am still alive, and I am not afraid".
42:14 Joker was not outta ammo at the end, his gun jammed. The automatic rifle he was using is the M16 which were prone to jamming, especially when they were first introduced during the Vietnam era. Every now and then in the film when the Marines are reloading, you see them tap a magazine (of fresh bullets) on their helmet before loading it into the weapon. What that does is, it forces the ammunition within the mag to slide to the fully aft (back) position. If the rounds are too forward in the magazine, they will jam up in the rifle while firing.
The AR-15 is an extremely reliable weapon that was designed to use Remington ammunition. The Army Bureau of Ordinance had fought tirelessly in the late 1940s to prevent NATO from switching to a smaller caliber, and now 12 years later their own government was forcing them to do it, so in adopting the M-16 they sabotaged it by using gunpowder from a different supplier, a powder unsuitable for the M-16 as it burned slower so that when the bullet passed the gas port that applied pressure to release the bolt, combustion was still occurring, so the gas tube would get fouled and fail to fully retract the bolt. And the Bureau just shrugged their shoulders and claimed they always said it was an unsuitable weapon.
The M16 was only prone to jamming becuase it was not cleaned properly.
The M16 got a bad reputation during Veitnam when in truth it was a much better rifle them the M14 it replaced
The reason if got the bad reputation was because of the jamming because it was not cleaned properly and the US troops didn't know how to clean the properly
The rifles were shipped to the troops to quickly amd they didn't include the proper cleaning gear or the rifle manual to show how the M16 should be broken down and cleaned.
After getting the initial reports on how the rifle functioned and the issues, the War Dept. made it a priority to get the correct cleaning gear and manuals to the US Troops.
Once the troops learned how to properly break them down and clean them, they had great praises for the rifle amd how it functioned in combat.
Plus even the best made rifles are going to jam on occasion.
@@Patrick-xv6qv you cannot clean a fouled gas tube. And cleaning an AR-15 using Remington powder was much easier than the ball ammunition the Army issued to soldiers in Vietnam.
@@jeffreysmith236 Let's not forget the decision not to chrome the chambers to save a few $ resulting in corrosion and failure to extract. Lots of bad decisions added up to a major problem.
OK, nerd.
I am a combat vet ( Vietnam ) I was there in 65/66 this movie was representing the 1968 tet offensive . The boot camp was accurate for that time but nothing like that now. Thank you for this and God bless you.
Ty for ur service ❤
In San Diego they didn't put their hands on us, but the rest of that was there. I was in Navy boot camp in San Diego. There wasn't as much running, But the obstacle course, the pugil sticks, we got CS gassed, we were put into a room with a fire hose to train on how to fight a fire, we were put into a tank that filled up with chilled water and had to stop it in a simulated to train for sinking. If our Commander was pissed at us, he would form us up in our compartment by our racks, and tell the Yeoman to close all the windows, and we would PT until he could go to the bulkhead and see moisture. It was called "sweating the Bulkhead." That was my summer of 1984 in San Diego.
Kubrick's version "Full Metal Jacket" closest to real US Marine Corps boot camp. Semper Fi USMC '75 - '81 Vote Trump 2024 !!!! Get rid of Woke cancel culture BS STAT. Not in my Marine Corps! It is about discipline and killing - not wussies.
Crazy thing is that Bob Ross was a DI. He hated how he had to treat people as a DI, and he found his escape in painting.
Vincent D'Onofrio absolutely crushed his role as Pyle. He has said he was watching old horror movies and leaned into those characters. Especially noticeable with the bathroom scene and his crazy breathing. He crushed it.
Agreed I love his quirky acting style. "The Cell" was brilliant also.
My mother is a annoyingly huge fan of any sort of murder drama... I still catch myself marveling at Gomer Pyle doing some sort of high drama interrogation as a New York cop.
@@nunyabidness674 I had the reverse problem within having seen Anthony Hopkins as a butler in Remains of the Day before seeing him as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Was just like, "Yeah, this is a great acting job, but I still see him reading a book in his room" lol.
The bathroom face he makes reminds me of Anthony Perkins in Psycho
@@11DNA11 or Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"
My uncle was a career Marine he is now a retired master gunny. He joined during Vietnam. According to him this is a very accurate description of what he went through. They made fighting men out of boys. They had to be hard because they were leaving immediately from basic into war. I thank God daily for men like my uncle and all those who stood and stand with him.
I mean...that's nice, but you might be the first person to say "I thank god for all the soldiers shipped off to Vietnam to die for nothing based on imperial ambitions and ridiculous superstitions about communism." I think that history has pretty thoroughly repudiated the whole 'Once countries go communist, they will never go back, therefore we must do anything we can to prevent that' ideology that the war was based on, and they achieved nothing but killing a metric fuck-ton of people.
You use the soap in a pillow sheet cause it don't leave marks on body!
You thank god for killers? That's horrible. Did your uncle also kill women and children by "leading them less"?
In the novel - at the end Joker is back home in a laundromat suffering from the effects of PTSD staring at his laundry. (1000 Yard Stare) When Animal Mother, now also a civilian, comes up to Joker and says Semper Fi.
Is the the book call like the movie i want read it
@ The novel is titled “The Short Timers” by Gustav Hasford.
Can confirm that Marine Corps boot camp is the funniest place where you're not allowed to laugh.
At the height of the Vietnam war, the US was running out of qualified recruits so the Pentagon lower the standards for draftees, namely lowering the IQ of the draftees. Over 100,000 were drafted with IQs lower than 80. Private Pyle representatives one of those recruits.
They were called McNamara’s morons
McNamara's Morons.
Forest Gump and Bubba Gump were also examples of that program.
@@TheSpacemannspiff Benjamin "Bubba" Buford Blue
They were often called "McNamera's morons."
Marine here. Its exactly like that without the physical abuse. You have to understand that these men are going to war. They have to be used to total chaos with no mercy. He is doing them a mercy.
The only thing harder than Marine Boot is Seal Training.
@metadeth578 marine boot is special forces without being special forces
@@sbevil_kinevil2898 not true
@@metadeth578 ok
@@metadeth578 because from what I've seen and been told by family that is exactly the case
As a combat veteran. I find it more humorous to see the younger generations in total shock seeing basic training for the first time.
The reactors often say things like " Oh, that's so mean, etc." Well, think about this, in combat the enemy will not give a damn.. about your feelings. If you can't handle the stress of basic training, what chance do you think you will have in combat.
Oorah.
Well these guys lost this war, the war before, and a 20 year war later on. Maybe this isn't the best way.
I agree, war is not the best way. After my experience as a soldier, I made an oath to myself to live in peace...but in the context of the time, this is how things were. Many of these recruits were drafted. Once drafted, you had to make life altering choices, go in the military, go to prison or leave the U.S. and never return. I understand what you are saying, however the collective consciousness of society is just not there yet.
@@nathan8418 you aren't very good at history.
@@NP-ux9xg Don't need to be. Got a huge pecker.
It's probably been mentioned already, but if you watch Leonard at the shooting range, the magazine he ejected still had ammo in it. It's a subtle sign of what he was planning.
20:11 "UNGHHHH, into 'these boots were made for walking', HOW!?" was fucking great. lol
😰
I've seen lots of shock over that last boot camp scene (and it's transition into Vietnam) but no one acknowledges the upbeat music in contrast to what the hell just happened on the screen. Time jumps be like that.
I guess I’ve just been de-sensitized, I’ve been watching this movie since a year after it was released so I think I first saw it in maybe 1987, I was maybe 14, so I know I’m dating myself a bit here. But I find the whole movie quite humorous. But, I used to watch it with my dad who actually was in Vietnam, in the Marines in 65-67, so it was something we used to bond over I guess. 😊
@@holddownahey
@@holddowna That guy who went off the deep end ending the life of his D.I. and then himself on the toilet was an example of what they called McNamara's morons. McNamara, not exactly an Einstein himself, had this warped idea that those on the low end of the IQ scale would follow orders better. It turned out to be just the opposite, that those were the types to frag their officers while actually in Viet Nam. McNamara was one of the executives at Ford Motor Company and spent a bunch of money for a study to determine whether or not seatbelts helped. It doesn't take a study to determine that it is better to stay put in the seat rather than flying through the windshield or hitting the dash or steering wheel. McNamara should never have been in a decision making job. EVER!
The man that played Heartman was actually not an actor.
He was a military advisor brought in to advise on how a drill sergeant should act and talk. He was an actual instructor for the Marines.
He was so good and so difficult to emulate/replicate, they ended up hiring him to do the actual role.
Which is what makes the first part of this movie so goddamn perfect.
The gunnery sergeant's name was HARTMAN. Ronald Lee Ermey might not have been an actor at the time Full Metal Jacket was made, but he ended up being a very good one. He appeared in over seventy films, his last one in 2012. Another memorable roll he will be remembered for was as Mayor Tillman in Mississippi Burning.
Also, the guy who was supposed to be the DI ended up in the chopper "not leading them so much."
28:24 Adam Baldwin. Was in Independence Day and Firefly/Serenity among others...
He most certainly WAS an actor. He was in both Apocalypse Now and The Boys in Company C . (78/79) He just wasn't the original choice for his part here. In The boys in Company C he had a role as a drill instructor, and was the lead helicopter pilot in the "Flight of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Now
the only man ever to ab-lib his lines in a Stanley Kubrick film
When I was in Air Force Basic Training, back in the late 70's, we had a recruit who couldn't take any more either. He wanted out so bad, that he kept f_ing up, hoping that they would discharge him. Instead, he kept putting him back to Day 1 of training, and made him start all over again. As such, he did not graduate with our Flight. I heard from another recruit that he finally threw himself down a flight of stairs and broke a leg. They finally discharged hm.
Yep that's a good case scenario but I've heard about other guys who couldn't take it and ended themselves .
That's the brutal nature of the military but a man's life in general , a man's life is generally 1000 times more difficult , real , brutal than a modern woman's life is.
Modern women live life on easy mode but most don't understand that and definitely don't care about a man's struggles whatsoever .
Like it , believe it or not !
Similar thing in my army basic training unit in 79. Wanted out and kept screwing up to get out. His screwing around got us punished almost daily. He was forced to keep training and they drug their feet on the paperwork, released him the day before we graduated, by that time he wanted to stay. They gave him his final pay and a bus ticket to his town, 1,800 miles away.
@@gregorygant4242 If you believe that's a normal man's life, you've been abused your whole life, son.
@@mainmac The military life well not so much as portrayed here but a man's life yes.
A man's life is generally much more brutal and difficult than a modern woman's life.
Not complaining about it but that's just how it is.
And modern women don't care about all that they just want a man's money resources they don't care about his morals, decency , honesty , loyalty nothing about that.
Those are the cold hard facts about women today.
@@gregorygant4242a normal man’s live isn’t being trained in bootcamp preparing you for war and seeing your buddy’s die infront of you, what type of incel shit are you on?
My dad is a Marine and states that this movie was spot on in 1969 as my Dad was shipped to Vietnam. My DAD IS A BAD ASS MARINE.
Good Marines drive MOPAR.
"Hamburger Hill" True Vietnam War story. You should probably avoid it unless you have a trauma counselor on stand by.
changed the way wars are fought.... read eyewitness stories, it was utter madness....
dude thats my favorite vietnam movie.. and its the only one based on a true story...
criminally underrated...
if you search hard you can find some news footage from the real hill that looks almost exactly like some scenes in the movie...
@@fonkyman My older brother was in the Marines. He served "in country" for four years. The movie he said reminded him of Vietnam the most was "The Boys in Company C". Have you seen it?
@@guscarlson7021 i heard that before think its because of the way its acted.
But for me it had too low production quality to fully enjoy
Hamburger hill is already made for litle money compared to platoon or apocalypse now.
But im also not a vet so what do i know
It dont mean nothin
“One for the Corps… I guess the Corps don’t get one today” 😂
This was one of my dad’s fave’s! He was in the military in the 60’s and said his drill instructor was EXACTLY like this
You are by far one of the best female reaction channels. Your ability to continue watching even if it is truly hard to watch. You are clearly a brave, and strong woman.
New Sub. Great Content.
Lee was a family friend. He was as honest in life as he was in film. He was a beautiful man.
I was a drill sergeant in the army from 2013 to 2020. I can confirm that much of the basic training portrayed in this film is fairly accurate. The biggest deviation is the physical contact with the recruits. We don’t hit the recruits, and we don’t actively make efforts to single out recruits with humiliating or degrading personal attacks. But the yelling, the insults, the physical fitness, the regimentation, the constant and oppressive presence of the drill sergeants, it’s all pretty accurate.
There is a very scientific and planned method that is used to train civilians to be soldiers. It’s a process. It isn’t always pretty. But it works.
To add to that, this film portrayed Marine Boot Camp in the Mid-60’s preparing recruits to go fight in Vietnam. My Father was in the Corps at that time. He loved this movie and told me that back then, the DI’s in fact DID hit recruits, and physical contact was normal as well as singling out humiliating and degrading those who did not perform. One story he told me that he NEVER forgot, was about when he’s was performing below standard on the rifle range with his M14. The DI came up to him with a pair of pliers, squeezed his “trigger” finger with them & told him “You WILL shoot more accurately or I will keep squeezing you with these” he said he immediately shot much better after that! 😂😂
@@DanMar5858 I had a very close friend who also served in Vietnam, and he told me pretty much the same thing (without the personal anecdote about the finger grabbed with pliers) about Boot Camp. No matter how many times I asked, he kept much of what happened to him "over there" out of my ears.
I was born in the late 1960s, and saw the news broadcasts as a child until the war ended. I know that watching such things on television messed up a lot of children of that era (from stories my peers have told me, as well as my own personal experiences), so it's not really a stretch to imagine the amounts of PTSD that soldiers (of any/all branches) experienced from their time over there in real life, under real combat situations.
@@DanMar5858 Ya no doubt that broad is full of it
I went through Marine Basic Training in the 1980's. I can confirm that the Drill Instructors DO single out recruits for punishment. That's the difference between the two branches. You guys even dropped Shark Attack week to be more "touchy-feely".
Appreciate your relationship and appreciation for Ermey, but don’t you think this level of physical contact could have been accurate for ‘Nam Era Marine boot camp?
Real talk, when Drill Instructors/Sergeants get into roasting mode, it's **brutal** trying not to laugh.
Yelling freaks me out, maybe because of mental issues, but if it's anything like this.... I laugh
It's always funny until you hear "Half right FACE! Front leaning rest position MOVE!"
I laughed, got smoked.
I finished basic in great shape!!
@@SayYes2Scorpions I *very* quickly got control of my face muscles. Lol. I found that if I quickly flexed my lips I was able to keep myself from smirking. It...may have taken a couple of attempts. **cough**
15:42 _"What's a Section 8? Somebody's getting kicked out or that he's going crazy?"_
Both.😄
It means to get discharged on psychiatric grounds.
Its the thing that Klinger kept trying to get wearing a dress on MASH.
@@darthroden Now he'd get a promotion, or an immediate commission...
Civilians can never understand or comprehend what being a Marine is, the process to get there and what it means to us. I miss the organized chaos, and warrior culture every day of my life. I am a husband; a father and the best time of my life was my service in the Marines. Every day since my EAS 12 years ago have not measured up to my worst day in Marines.
Semper Fi
'78-'98 / 0311.
The reason the drill instructor is so tough on them is he is preparing them for battle, not a job at Wal-Mart.
Ok relax
Tbh wal mart is not that far off
@@OscarAntonio-t4zrelax about what? He just spoke true
drill instructors are there to prepare the men for the rigors of war. this requires extreme focus and an ability to control ones emotions in the heat of combat. if they can't handle getting yelled at, they are not coming back alive. if they are unable to concentrate and/or freeze in a highly dangerous situation, they will make mistakes that can and will cost them and others their lives. THAT is what a drill instructors job is.
To put it as bluntly as I can: When you enlist in the Marines, particularly in wartime (provided you make it through bootcamp), there's fairly decent chance you'll see at least one of your fellow men get blown to pieces on the battlefield. When you're preparing for that, some rough words at bootcamp are the least of your worries. And DIs know that better than anyone. They know that you making it back alive is more important than keeping your feelings intact.
Disturbing, yes. But realistic, also yes. Every bit of it, from boot camp to the end. Incredibly realistic, which is what both veterans and non-veteran movie-goers alike appreciate.
One of the best reactors on RUclips. You bring heart and mind to your reactions, and your empathy is so genuine. Seeing these movies through your eyes adds dimensions.
The scene with, "This is my rifle, this is my gun" is a valuable lesson. In one battle a soldier had called for gun support instead of rifle support. By calling for gun support the communication was taken as artillery support. The solder was told to request more soldiers to help fight. After the communication was sent, large shells were dropped on their position and several friendlys were hit.
Knowing the distinction between having more soldiers sent and having large exploding things lobbed at you is important.
"You just don't lead them so much!" Haha, priceless.
Yes, very good Hollywood, great entertainment but nothing is accurate about the door gunner scene. If you believe that is reel then you would have to believe in flying monkies because you saw them in The Wizard of Oz
@@bboomermike2126 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
Can you imagine Painter Bob Ross as a Drill Sergeant? He ACTUALLY WAS. He said after he left the military he would NEVER YELL at anyone again....Let's paint s fluffy little cloud...and a nice friendly Deer!
Talk about a TOTAL 180!
Never knew that. But I did once meet an ex-RAF fighter pilot who was invalided out due to PTSD after killing people in battle. He was very quiet.
Bob Ross was in the Air Force not the Marines. He was not a boot camp drill sargent he was a Master Sargent which is just a rank not a job title. HUGE difference.
@@GTgrad He did teach at Basic Training during his career and his quote about being the guy that screamed at you and made you scrub the Latrine sure sounds like a Drill Instructor/Sergeant - and he has discussed Drilling as well. He rose to Master Sergeant but he didn't start there.I also don't think I said he was a Marine. His quote is part of this story regarding his Military Career. -
It's hard to believe that some former airmen out there first met Ross, of all people, while he was shouting at them in a Smokey Bear campaign hat. While it's true he taught basic training, that was not the career path he wanted for himself.
"I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross later said. "The job requires you to be a mean, tough person, and I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way anymore."
Well, Air Farce... which is kinda like the military, if you squint hard enough.
When this movie came out, the war had only been over for 14 years. It was pretty fresh and a lot of the guys who in Vietnam were still young men when this movie was released. Even in high school in the 80’s, you never really thought how close you were to that war time wise. It was hardly ever spoke about. None of our dads spoke about it. When I went in, I was serving with guys who fought in Vietnam.
Thank you for showing us so personally how Kubick's intent in making FMJ was to fully disturb us about aspects of war and training for it.
I hit Paris Island June '70.
The only difference between this depiction and experience is that we had three drill instructors.
And they were harder on us than what you're seeing now.
Yeah, basic was much more intense.
And then you have all three of them surround you for a coordinated strike. I miss that shit. She's about to faint, but this is so normal for Marines.
Any of the recruits get beat up good to 'fix' them?
@@ThePresentation010
You mean a Blanket Party?
Not in my platoon. (4028-98)
But then again, 4th Battalion Parris Island rarely has screwups as there are seldom female recruits pressured by family or patriarchal social ideas to join when they shouldn't.
The male recruits are more likely to be less squared away
@@ChibiHoshiDragon No. Why would I refer to something in a movie.
I'm talking in general
Some of the hardest things recruits have to do in boot camp is struggle not to laugh at the drill instructor tearing down the others recruits with their insults.
And it doesn't help if you have a Joker in your platoon/squad either.
I was in the Army, 1986. Believe me, none of us were laughing at the time.
Our dad was a DI in the Marines in the late 50's. He told us kids that's exactly how the training went. You'd see a smile ear to ear on our dad's face every time the first part of this movie was played in our house. Once a Marine, always a Marine...
There was only one DI? Because it seems like there are a couple of them when they show the clips of modern boot camp.
Your dad seems to have been a sick freak. Indeed: once a marine, always a jerk.
@@dialecticalmonist3405 I'm sure it has varied a bit over the years but generally there's a senior DI and like 4-6 junior DIs. The senior is generally the one who is spending the most time with them during the day. But you know, he needs to sleep and have days off and such. He's also teaching the junior DIs how to be senior DIs too and it's pretty important that they get hands on experience doing the job.
OORAH !
@@jackkoch9974 Ugah!
Miss, you are the reason that most of us joined the Marines. We do it so most civilians don't have to know what dangers are out there. We do it so you can feel safe, happy, and sleep peacefully at night.
We don't want or need to be thanked. Your innocent reaction to the smallest hardships we faced in bootcamp is enough to know that we've done our job.
Take care
Semper Fi brothers and sisters, and to all of the other branches. We are one team. One family.
One of the best comments. Thank you for your sacrifice and courage.
But the US should never have been in Vietnam in the first place committing your human rights abuses and atrocities. Vietnam was never a threat to America. The US was in the wrong and that's why you lost the Vietnam war.
@michaelb2388 I'm 55 years old. I was born in 68. I wasn't in Vietnam. I never said I fought in a war. I served during peace time.
We still joined for a purpose. It was because we wanted to keep people safe. If you look back on most wars, they probably shouldn't have happened. Somebody did something or wanted something, and they sent our kids to handle it.
I've seen several things when I was in that civilians never heard about. That in itself says that we were standing between our friends/families and the unseen monsters.
Maybe at times, it's us that were the monsters, but that doesn't change anything. We stood between horrible possibilities and happy little families that will never know what could have been.
My friend died of heatstroke in boot camp. I watched him fall. A few months later, a friend from my platoon went to Disney in California and took his life in a hotel.
Does any of it matter? I think that your right to criticize our government's actions on a public forum without being put in to prison or "accidently " falling out of a window says all that needs to be said.
I respect your right to say that we shouldn't have been there, and If need be, I'd gladly lay down my life to protect your right to say it. (There is a quote similar to that that is often credited to the wrong person)
Whatever you think of me or our military, you're free to say it. It's kind of ironic that you didn't realize your right to say those things, and say them in English, is one of the reasons that we served.
Take care, my friend.
@@h_r7708
He's an internet troll, brother. The hell with him... he's not even worth a response.
Semper Fi!
@@saberx08 Semper Fi
That's about how it was. I served 20 years in the Marine Corps and two combat tours in Vietnam. The first tour as a machine gunner (0331) in 1965-66 and the second as a Platoon commander (0369) in 1970-71. I retired after 20 years and had a 30 year career as a California police officer ( Marin County). What I learned in the Marine Corps has helped me all my life. I highly recommend it to anyone needing direction and wishing to learn self discipline .
Tom Boyte
GySgt. USMC, retired
Bronze Star, Purple Heart
Sir, Semper Fi!! Thank You for your service Sir!
Semper Fi, Gunny.
🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡
Thank you for your service
Thank you for serving our country, Sir!!! You have my undying respect and admiration!!! ✌️👍
I had the exact same reaction to the movie. My dad was in Viet Nam, and he won't talk about it. I tried to ask him once, and he got a look in his eyes that I can't describe. I just knew to never ask again. My dad is such a sweet and gentle guy, I can't even imagine what it was like for him.
I had a friend who went and fought in desert storm. In combat a gernade hit a guy near him and blew him to bits.
My friend doesn’t talk about his time in the army. All I know is my friend went to war and someone else came back that looked like him with ptsd
Bless your father and thank him for his service.
Yeah, many combat veterans don't like to go into details about what happened to them, especially if they saw serious combat. My grandfather had a friend who was a POW in World War II and he had some stories but nothing really bad. The Germans actually treated the prisoners like human beings, though they wouldn't hesitate to shoot and kill anyone trying to escape and he saw it happen a few times.
You're lucky if he is or was loving to you.
Her face when the drill instructor started talking 😅
3:31 the guy who played Gunny Hartman (R E Ermey) was a real drill instructor
Vincent D'Onofrio going from normal dude to insane is amazing acting ! It's like his model for all his future unhinged character in the future like Kingpin in Daredevil or the killer in the Cell !
"I feel so FUCKED UP!..." Exactly as Stanley Kubrick intended.
He did it
@@holddowna First time watching you. You hooked me in the first minute. Now I'm gonna look for some other "surprising" movies you've watched.
The first half of the movie is exactly what bootcamp is like. The only difference in 1996 when I went was the color of the uniform, we had woodland camo.
Also technically the DI's weren't allowed to hit you. Also we were using the M16-A2s(they didn't have a full auto on the selector like the A1s did). Instead of the old M1's
sounds like brainwashing to me
I went thru boot camp in San Diego in '96, I put my feet on those yellow prints on April 29,1996. I was in India company.
@@markcarpenter6020they remove the auto fire capability from the M16s for recruits in basic training and the 3 round burst capability from the M16A2s when they started to replace the A1s. It's called an auto sear that makes them fully automatic. Remove that and it loses it full auto capability.
@@Patrick-xv6qv ours had burst but they said studies had shown the full auto was bad. Too many people spraying and praying back in Vietnam and doing it so much the heat damaged the barrel. So between replacing barrels and amo usage it was decided burst was more "cost effective" than full auto. I don't really know anything about the carbine they use now. What is it the M14?
Best technical editing of a movie reaction I've seen ever. First rate congrats!!
FMJ falls in the category of: I was never exactly the same after watching this movie.
Thank you, you brought up something I hadn't noticed in any of the 100 times I've seen this movie, namely that Cowboy, from Texas, was shot by the sniper from a Texas shaped hole. Knowing Kubrick, that's for sure no coincidence.
I was a Marine, I went through Boot Camp at Parris Island. This is the most accurate portrayal of my experience there that I've ever seen in a movie. Right up to just before the very final scene of the boot camp portion. Live amminition for the recruits there is incredibly tightly controlled. That scene is over the top far-fetched, but it does make FMJ what it is.
Another commenter here mentioned the detail that Pyl still had rounds in a magazine when reloading another, which is how he got them back to the barracks. I wonder if someone was determined enough they could have gotten away with that, or in reality there would still be strict checks on everything coming in?
@@katskillz Recruits don't even have possession of magazines outside the rifle range. At any time. Rounds are counted out in wooden "range blocks". It's a great movie, the most accurate movie representation of Parris Island I've ever seen. But that scene is a massive fantasy scene. Live rounds were parceled out very precisely, the KD Course (known distance) requires only a very specific number of rounds to fire the cycle, and that's what is provided. Range coaches are everywhere, watching everything. That said, FMJ is still a truly excellent movie.
@@hiramburgess9925 thanks for the explanation, that makes sense. The more I think about it, this is a trademark of Kubrick where he creates a hyper detailed, realistic environment in the film that's so convincing; but with the story mechanics he finds somewhere to tweak reality to make room for a "glitch" to the whole thing.
I remember a quote of his about his approach to filming: "Real is good, interesting is better". So in FMJ he had to fudge that realistic detail you explained, so he could make room for the drama of something going wrong in a tightly controlled situation. This is just like with Clockwork Orange with their social engineering project, Dr Strangelove with the supposed fail-safe mutually assured destruction nuclear initiative, and 2001 with the "perfect" AI computer -- there's that consistent theme of humans having the amazing ability to invent and come up with fool proof technologies or policies without considering the moral implications. Then Kubrick focuses on the erratic glitch in the perfect system, which backfires in a big way.
@@katskillz there’s also a discrepancy with R. Lee Ermey’s uniform that can only be deliberate. It’s small but any Marine who has ever pinned out a set of service greens sees it.
@@hiramburgess9925What is it? Can you give me a hint?
Two things stand out to me from this movie - the conversation between Joker and the Colonel on the duality of man, and Joker's final narration while the Marines sing the Mickey Mouse Club theme. There must come a time when war will no longer be necessary, but in the meantime, we must do our best to wage it as best and as honorably as we could. War isn't beautiful and makes for hard choices. For those who have served, much respect to you.
This movie came out when I was in the middle of my army infantry basic training, just four days after I turned 17. We were actually given a half-day off to watch this. They even allowed us to have civilian food. We all ate a lot, but it ended up being a bad idea because afterwards they made us run 9 miles back to Ft. Benning. Most of us ended up vomiting along the way. It's strange how, now at 55, I look back and realize that my time in infantry school was the most enjoyable period of my life.
Right after basic training, I went straight to airborne school. They have a tradition there where the youngest guy in the unit does everything first. He gets the first meal, receives mail first, and on every jump, he is the first one out of the plane. They refer to him as the "Keeper of the Wings" because he's the only soldier allowed to wear jump wings. He has to keep them polished to a shiny, glass-like appearance and present them for inspection every morning. I went through numerous pair of wings as the silver wore off from all the polishing. Ah, the days of my youth.
Here's a video of me a few days before I completed my 31 years of service. I apologize for the sound being out of sync, but it's the only footage I have from my time in the army. In the video, I'm teaching my roommate some Fung Fu. ruclips.net/video/NWv6Oml_eYA/видео.html
P.S. In case you were wondering, the item I'm wearing is a medicine bag. It was a part of my Lakota Indian heritage, as my mother was full-blooded Lakota. On my dog tags, it stated my blood type as O-positive and included my name and SSN. As for the religion, mine said "BARBARIAN" at the bottom.
“It’s all dark humor”…. My dear you just described the entire military sense of humor.
OIF/OEF/ROK/New dawn/Odyssey dawn
Lee Ermey, who played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, actually served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He served twelve years in the Corps, retiring as a Staff Sergeant. He wasn’t originally cast in the role of Sgt. Hartman. Tim Colceri, who played the door gunner who was shooting at civilians from the helicopter, was originally cast in the role of Sgt. Hartman while Lee Ermey was hired as technical advisor. However Director Stanley Kubrick soon realized that he had to recast the part. While Tim Colceri tried to PLAY Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Lee Ermey WAS Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. So Kubrick cast Ermey as Hartman and Colceri as the door gunner.
As far as parts of the movie coming across as satire, that was Stanley Kubrick’s directorial style. Kubrick also gave us “The Shining.” Enough said.
The door gunner scene alludes to two things: the inhumanity of war and the effect it has on some people, and the fact that in Vietnam one often didn’t know who one’s friends were so there was a tendency by some to shoot first and ask questions later. I grew up during the Vietnam War and have had several friends who were Vietnam vets. To a man they told me that the three worst things about that war were the frequent inability to tell friend from foe, the lack of clear objectives for fighting the war and finally the unpopularity of the war at home. All of those things made life really hard on those who survived that war.
Finally, Amy alludes to the strange places her mind goes while watching movies. Personally I love the places her mind goes. I’ve watched this movie several times yet Amy has pointed out things that I’ve never noticed before about it, such as how one scene foreshadows another. Keep up the great work!
Movies like this will change you forever! They will open you mind to questioning reality, critical thinking, and breaking down boundaries that shouldn't be.
"Am I supposed to be laughing right? I don't think so." Proceeds to laugh. Lol 😂
Yeah if u dont laugh u might be a psychopath
In my opinion that is also part of the training. The troops better not laugh... Or they are next
A: Yes, the Audience is allowed to Laugh. Remember, Kubrick has a real talent for dark humor and he also understood that Tragedy is best served with a healthy dollop of Comedy on the side or the Pain of the Art would be too great to bear, just like Life. See also Catharsis.
@@macmcgee5116 it kind of is, military bearing. The recommendation I give to recruits is pinch something as hard as you can to prevent grinning. I'm the type that develops a smile during stress so I had a full blown bruise on my right thigh from standing at rest.
Drill instructors are some of the funniest human beings on the planet. Looking back at boot camp I laugh my ass off now. I wasn't laughing at the time that's for sure.
I am a marine corps combat vet. This is 100% what boot camp is. Although I trained at San Diego. It is the funniest place on earth where you’re not allowed to laugh 😂
Lol boot camp hasn't been anything like that in a long time and now its worse that ever. New marines are allowed to be soft to meet quotas.
Was there May 1970. Semper Fi!
Semper Fi from a Parris Island Marine...
@@Fooney1 Have you been through boot camp recently? Not trying to be an asshole, but when I went in the USMC in 1994, my recruiter told me that DIs weren't allowed to swear or touch the recruits, to my dismay. Fortunately, my DIs didn't get that memo. After the senior DI's speech and introduction of the other DIs, the senior went into the duty hut, we were all put online. Two of the DIs singled out the biggest, toughest looking recruit, folded him up, threw him between the top and bottom bunks at the end of the rack, splitting his head open. One DI went and reported this to the senior and the other started laying it in to the recruit for spilling 'grape juice' on the deck. It was three months of mental torture with a lot of physical toughening up. Just as it should have been (I'm not bitching about the harshness, it's war the recruits are being prepared for). But whenever I got to the fleet, all the salty guys were talking about how us new Marines had stress cards and all that bull shit. I wonder if the rumors about boot camp going soft now are just as wrong as they were when I went through it.
When did you go through boot camp? I was in from 05-09. Deployed twice but only once to combat.
Veteran here. Boot camp seems absurd and abusive, but they effectually weed out the bad apples. There's definitely a method to the madness. If a person can't take orders how to fold underwear then they shouldn't be around weapons or equipment worth millions of dollars. I enjoy watching your channel and I like your synopsis style.
Exactly and there is a chance they will get themselves (and others killed) it makes you to carry out orders without hesitate, which you cannot do during combat.
_"but they effectually weed out the bad apples"_
No, it doesn't. There's still so many bad apples that make it out of boot camp and ruin the fleet.
Yes, many could die if their underwear wasn't folded correctly.
Check out the Great G-String Massacre...tragic. 🥲
Former service man (conscript, army, (Infantryregiment 19) ) in Sweden.
If you can't do simple stuff like march in a straight line or maintain basic radio discipline they sure as hell won't let you touch a loaded firearm.
@@Vollification Yea, there's a lot of debate whether anything about boot camp is actually valid. Like some of the ideas being _"the drill instructors shout at you in boot camp cuz if you can't operate under stress in a controlled environment, you can't operate under stress in an uncontrolled one"_ or _"if you can't march straight, you can't handle a weapon"_ etc. And that's honestly nonsense. Some people are just awkward and have lousy coordination. I knew someone who was a navy nuclear engineer but he couldn't make a bed neatly to save his life. And I had a roommate who was a pharmacist and combat medic but was totally inept at simple tasks like mopping floors. Being able to do one thing has nothing to do with another.
18:25 "I am in a world of shit" - and look what he is surrounded by: ahem ... porcelain.... 😂😂😂
I served in the Army and while our Basic is not quite as intense said training is absolutely necessary. Freedom is fantastic but in tense or even life-threatening situations, you cannot have soldiers who will break and run or decide for themselves what course of action would be best. The entire point behind recruit training is to completely BREAK you down to the real person under all the accumulated life detritus layered over. Once they're reached that point in you and can begin remaking you into a soldier worthy of wearing our colors they do ease up slightly...at least ours did...slightly
My dad got his PhD in American Literature with a specialization in literature about the Vietnam War. He once told me when I was a kid that there are no happy stories about the Vietnam War, and thirty years later I still haven’t found one.
True, the best two I have read were "A Bright Shining Lie", and the book by Cincinnatus.
There was a guy who suffered stab wounds, a few gun shots, and a broken jaw and managed to save many during Nam if I ain't wrong. I may be very wrong, but I believe his name was Ray Benavidez
My late father served in the late 1950's in the USMC.Too young for the Korean War , at that time it was mandatory service you either volunteered or got drafted. Judges used to order problem teens to he military also. The Marines was only two years if you volunteered. My Father had to participate in a "Blanket Party" (The soap in towels) on two fellow Marines (they were stealing watches). Dad said that it straightened them out. And you Don't mess with the Brotherhood! After two years my father did not stay on but was on call. he got married and had us kids. He found out later the group that he was assigned to that went to Vietnam was wipe out in an ambush.
That was Marine Recruit training in the 1960’s during Vietnam. Because of the need for marines in Vietnam , recruit training was shortened from 12 weeks to 8 weeks. There was no prohibition on striking recruits , within reason and not to cause injury, on Drill Instructors. Many of them , now given a month less time to teach the basics , got frustrated and resorted to that.
I went through years later in 1987. DI’s had been prohibited from striking recruits in the 70’s but the language was still harsh , they didn’t change that completely until the 90’s. It was also back to 12 weeks and you graduate in the 13th week. The soap part is called a “blanket party”. It was talked about when I went through , but I never saw one.
Crazy as it was , as much as it sucked when I did it … I think about it and miss it.
Pvt. Joker - Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner from "Stranger Things")
Pvt. Pyle - Vincent D'Onofrio (Bobby Green from " Law & Order")
Sgt. Hartman - R. Lee Ermey ( lead toy soldier from "Toy Story")
Lt. Lockhart, Joker's editor - John Terry (Christian Shepherd from " Lost")
Animal Mother - Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb from "Firefly")
^^ IMO, the surprisingly good performance in this film is Adam Baldwin, not to take anything from any others you've listed above, because they're all excellent. The thing is entirely in the Range though. I doubt I would have been as sympathetic towards the character of Jayne in Firefly if not for this film, first.
@@jamespfp Of course, Adam will always be "My Bodyguard" for me though. He was amazing in that role.
R. Lee Ermey was also the Drill Instructor in the film, "The Boys of Company C". Another Vietnam movie.
@@jeffburnham6611He was also a chopper pilot in "Apocalypse Now" but never credited.
R Lee Ermey was also in "The Siege of Firebase Gloria," "Toy Soldiers," "On Deadly Ground," and "Mississippi Burning"
Nothing prepares you for that bathroom scene where Leonard is holding his rifle.
The end song "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones was also the theme song for the series called "Tour of Duty" and that series was set in the Vietnam War.
And she thinks THATS when the movie took a dark turn. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Apparently the head-shaving scene was the last to be filmed. They shaved their heads before all the basic training scenes were shot, they grew it out again to shoot the scenes in ‘Vietnam’ (actually filmed in England) just to have it shaved again. 😭
The apparent rediculousness of a lot of the humor between the troops is a real thing. Its called battlefield humor, its very dark and inappropriate and often comes out at strange times, like the middle of a firefight.
Its basically a way that some soldiers cope with everything going on around them. They feel like if they dont laugh, they will cry... So they laugh.
This past Monday was my 30 years graduating from Marine Corps bootcamp. I can attest that there's not much changed. I'd do it all over again. It's tough but you gotta remember we have the legacy of being the world's most feared fighting force. It's a mindset. You're not just building your physical body but your mental acuities as well. This is why we are the best. Semper Fi
Edit to those who think they don't hit recruits, I still have a scar above my right eye from getting smacked with my rifle for messing up drill
Then you haven't heard about the changes at Boot Camp??? DIs are not allowed to yell at a Recruit anymore. Recruits have 'Safe Spaces' for when they feel triggered. No yelling "GET OFF MY BUS!!!" when arriving, either.
It'sa softer, more genteel Marine Corps in this day and age. Now it's all about DEI and Drag Queen Recruiters.
Bravo Zulu, MARINE!!!
@@snafubar5491 Semper Fi!
You must have been a series behind me...when you just got there and had no idea what you were doing yet, we probably marched past you with our trousers bloused, our uniforms squared away...that is, if you were at Parris Island...I was 2077, in '94...haven't looked at my yearbook in years, but I think I graduated in May...
@@snafubar5491 I think some of what you refer to has come out as false. I heard the same thing about a yellow card that they gave the recruits that they could hold up after a DI yelled at them too long and the DI would have to get out of their face. I'm sure it's not as intense as when I was there in '94, but I hope that there's still enough sense in leadership that they don't neuter the Marines, like they did the other branches boot camps...God help us all, if they have. The Officer Corps has lost their way...just like every politician in Washington, all they care about is personal achievement and promotion...the Generals know that Washington loves DEI, and progressivism, and so long as they get the next star, or get their shot at Commandant, they will sacrifice the security of the country, and the lives of Marines, to do so...
@@allhopeabandon7831 Hollywood haha Semper Fi Marine!
As an old Marine I can vouch for the authenticity of the boot camp scenes. The war scenes were kind of stupid, but the emotions and personalities were accurate.