Apocalypse Now/Trivia


 * Kurtz's character was called Leighley in the original script. Worth noting that the reason for the change from Kurtz to Leighley was due to a conversation between Marlon Brando and Francis Ford Coppola when the latter was trying to describe the role to the actor. Brando, never having read Conrad's novella, said that an American Colonel would never have a name like "Kurtz" and would instead have something more English. After reading the novella, and understanding the reference, Brando demanded that his character's name be changed BACK to Kurtz after the film's completion, and Ford's lines were dubbed.
 * Notice, too, the books read by Kurtz: 'From Ritual to Romance' and 'The Golden Bough'. Both are identified by T. S. Eliot's notes to 'The Waste Land' as key to the work, which was (prior to Ezra Pound's edit) to contain the epigraph 'The Horror! The Horror!'.
 * Actor Allusion: Dennis Hopper playing a unstable, hippy photographer is quite fitting.
 * Backed by the Pentagon: Or rather the Filipino military, who provided the F-5s for the napalm sequence and the helicopters for the famous helicopter attack preceding it. The helicopters occasionally had to be taken back for use in combat against Communist rebels.
 * Beam Me Up, Scotty: The iconic "smell of napalm" line is much longer than people usually remember.
 * Also, some people think it's Kurtz who says it. It's not.
 * Creator Breakdown: Very much so.
 * Dawson Casting: Inverted. Laurence Fishburne lied about his age to get the role, as he was only 14 years old at the time. In an odd way, it makes the film better, showcasing such a young man in such a horrible place. It makes  that much more of a Tear Jerker.
 * By the end of production, he was 17, the same age as his character.
 * So, Really Seventeen Years Old?
 * Doing It for the Art: You see all those military helicopters and boats flying around over there? They are not CG, and this is not stock footage. The creators bought and used real ones.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Martin Sheen also punched a mirror for real in his introductory scene where he has a psychotic break in his hotel room. So all that blood on the sheets? His. His idea, too. To shoot this scene, Coppola basically just gave Sheen as much whiskey as he could drink, put him in a room, and filmed the results. Apparently, Sheen's behavior was so disturbing to the camera crew that they wanted to stop the shoot, but Sheen insisted they press on. You can see the results for yourself. In Hearts of Darkness, the scene is shown making-of style. Coppola directs Sheen to shadowbox at the mirror, and Sheen (as noted, very drunk) misjudges his aim.
 * Also, this was the case (albeit unintentionally) with Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando. According to Hopper, after Brando yelled at him over a simple misunderstanding he then decided to deliberately antagonize Brando whenever he could. This resulted in Brando refusing to share the set with him and the one scene they share together being shot on separate nights. So when Kurtz throws the book at Hopper's photojournalist character and calls him a "mutt" one can only assume that's Brando's genuine feelings about him.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!:
 * The guy with the 'fro? The guy that looks barely over fourteen? That's Morpheus.
 * Actually, Lawrence Fishburne was just a teenager when he shot this movie, as he lied about his age.
 * That nerdy officer with the glasses who helps brief Willard? Han Solo / Indiana Jones.
 * Upon returning to the States, Willard became President Jed Bartlet.
 * Charlie don't surf, but Tom Hagen sure as hell does.
 * Vito Corleone has flipped his lid.
 * Holy crap. Gunny Sergeant Hartman pilots choppers to Ride of the Valkryies in his spare time.
 * Troubled Production: "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."
 * Coppola also once said something to the effect of "this wasn't a movie about the Vietnam war. This was the Vietnam war."
 * What Could Have Been: The original director assigned this script? George Lucas. God knows what kind of film this almost became. Cracked.com also makes one interesting assumption. Considering how long this movie dragged on, it's possible that if Lucas made this, he never would have gotten around to making Star Wars.
 * According to Coppola's audio commentary, a documentary-style 16mm film shot in northern California with a couple of helicopters.
 * John Milius' early drafts had a less nihilistic ending, with Kurtz going out fighting against an overwhelming NVA attack, and Willard returning to America to take the news to Kurtz's wife and son. Willard's predecessors also played a larger role.
 * Harvey Keitel was cast as Willard first but was fired after two weeks. Al Pacino was considered but had the foresight to know how horrible the shoot would be.
 * Coppola first offered the role of Kurtz to Orson Welles (who had previously tried to adapt Heart of Darkness to the screen himself), but for some reason or another he declined.
 * The documentary on the film actually includes the audio of a radio version that Welles did during his prime.
 * In the special features on the "Complete Dossier" edition, its said that Coppola wanted the film to be a special event by having it play in ONE theater somewhere in Kansas in the geographical center of the country built especially for the film with a specially made sound system where the film would run continuously for ten years and then hopefully anybody who wanted to show the film in their theaters would have to approach Coppola and exhibit it on his terms.
 * Kurtz's character was called Leighley in the original script. Worth noting that the reason for the change from Kurtz to Leighley was due to a conversation between Marlon Brando and Francis Ford Coppola when the latter was trying to describe the role to the actor. Brando, never having read Conrad's novella, said that an American Colonel would never have a name like "Kurtz" and would instead have something more English. After reading the novella, and understanding the reference, Brando demanded that his character's name be changed BACK to Kurtz after the film's completion, and Ford's lines were dubbed.
 * In the director's commentary Coppola spoke of how the ending for the movie was not figured out for a long time. Originally he had intended for Kurtz and Willard to fight off a massive NVA invasion of Kurtz' base and have Kurtz go out in apocalyptic intensity. The phrase, "The horror..." would still be uttered by Kurtz nonetheless. Eventually Coppola decided upon letting Willard assassinate Kurtz as the plot had been implying was going to happen.