Movie for the day: Platoon

War History Online has an article about Platoon:

Platoon hardly needs an introduction, but is the 1986 movie directed by Oliver Stone. What not many people know is that it is the first film of a trilogy of Vietnam War films; Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth complete the trilogy.
Stone wrote the story based on his experiences as an infantryman in Vietnam to counter the vision of the war portrayed in John Wayne’s The Green Berets. It was the first Hollywood film to be written and directed by a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Starting in February of 1986, Platoon was filmed on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The production of the film was almost canceled because of political upheaval in the country related to then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but the shoot went on as scheduled, two days after Marcos fled the country.
The Department of Defense declined to co-operate in the making of the film, so the production made a deal with the Philippine military for the use of their military equipment.
The film had real Vietnamese refugees acting in different roles in the film, and filming was done chronologically. As soon as their characters were killed in the movie, the actors returned home. The emotion that Charlie Sheen shows in the closing helicopter scene was largely real, knowing that he was finally going home.
Upon arrival in the Philippines, the cast was sent on a two-week intensive training course, during which they had to dig foxholes and were subject to forced marches and nighttime “ambushes” which utilized special-effects explosions. This was one of the first uses of a boot camp for actors to get them in the right state of mind so they could portray soldiers more realistically.
Stone makes a cameo appearance as the battalion commander of 3/22 Infantry in the final battle, based on the real-life New Year’s Day Battle of 1968 that Stone took part in while in Vietnam.
Dale Dye, of Band of Brothers fame, a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, played Bravo Company’s commander, Captain Harris. He was also the door-gunner on one of the Hueys after the church ambush. He also acted as the film’s technical advisor and was in charge of the boot camp.
The movie poster, depicting Elias with his hands in the air (photo), is a recreation of a 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon. This photograph was recognized as the thirteenth greatest military photograph in a September of 2000 issue of the Army/Navy/Air Force Times.
During the last night battle scene, an NVA “kamikaze” runs into the US command bunker full of GIs, and blows himself up. One of those GIs was none other than Oliver Stone.
In many US military leadership classes, the character of Lieutenant Wolfe (played by Mark Moses) is used as an example of how not to behave as a junior officer.
Toward the end of the film, when the reinforcements arrive after the battle, Rhah (played by Francesco Quinn, Anthony's son) reaches into a dead VC’s breast pocket, pulls something out, and keeps it, while looking around nervously. The item he is removing is heroin, which VC soldiers used as a painkiller. Many heroin-addicted US troops did the same thing. The scene implies that Rhah’s mystical quality is a symptom of a larger problem.
Prior to the scene where Elias’ half of the platoon is smoking dope, the actors actually did smoke marijuana. Unfortunately for them, according to Willem Dafoe, by the time the stage was set and they actually filmed, everyone had come off their high and felt awful.
Johnny Depp recalled that, during one particularly stressful scene, he was so intimidated by Oliver Stone’s aggressive behavior that he came close to vomiting, but Stone still insisted on a second take.
Special packs of Marlboro cigarettes were made for the movie on the insistence of Oliver Stone, who wanted the cherry-red color on the pack to more closely match those made during the late 1960s.
The final battle in the movie was a recreation of an actual event witnessed by technical advisor Dale Dye, who was a combat correspondent with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines. Dye’s wife, Katherine, was the Vietnamese woman thrown into a mass grave by two American soldiers after the final battle.
Platoon won four Oscars, won nineteen other awards and was nominated fourteen times.
The Oscars won were Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing.
Shooting lasted 54 days and cost over six million dollars.
It was released in the US in 1986 and in the UK in March 1987 with an above-fifteen rating for strong language, scenes of violence, and soft drug use.

Rico says every movie has screwups; well worth seeing anyway...