History Film / ApocalypseNow

* DownerEnding: Similar to the vast majority of American soldiers who survived the Vietnam war, Willard leaves having seen three of his allies either die, and the only remaining one having lost his sanity, even more deeply disturbed than when we first saw him.

* PetTheDog: When he's not killing people or distracted by the surfing, Kilgore [[AFatherToHisMen cares for his men]] and for civilians; he is concerned about them receiving medical treatment as soon as possible.

* PunchClockVillain: Discussed by Kurtz. Kurtz recommends that you find men of strong moral fiber and who are loving and kind to their friends and family, but when push comes to shove are capable of putting that aside and killing for the greater good. A soldier has to realize his job is to win, once he has won then he can go back to being a good person. Kurtz praises the Vietcong for getting it right for they were willing to commit horrific atrocities to demoralize their enemies, yet were still normal men who loved their friends and family after all was said and done.

* WarIsGlorious: Colonel Kilgore's take on the subject, which manages to permeate the initial segment of the movie through [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing sheer coolness]].

* DownerEnding: Similar to the vast majority of American soldiers who survived the Vietnam war, Willard leaves deeply disturbed, having seen three of his allies either die, and the only remaining one having lost his sanity.

* CurbStompBattle: The Air Cavalry attack on the VC Village. Armed with only their AK-47s and a few 12.7mm machine gun nests, the swarm of attack choppers (armed with much deadlier armament) tear them to shreds.

* ReCut: There are at least three versions.

* TheParagonAlwaysRebels: Remarked with awe by Willard, who keeps pouring through Kurtz's file in search of some sign of madness. Willard says that before he went off the reservation, Kurtz's record was flawless -- a little ''[[PrinciplesZealot too]]'' flawless, for his money.

In 2001, Coppola drastically ReCut the film, extending the running time by nearly an hour, adding some additional scenes and re-shuffling some existing ones around. The new version was released (to mixed reviews) as ''Apocalypse Now Redux'': some reviewers felt it was a beautiful expansion on the themes of the original, others thought it diluted the impact and bloated the movie.[[note]]For what it's worth, the original cut has a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Redux has 93%.[[/note]]

* MoralEventHorizon: While Willard refuses to disclose his mission with the PBR crew, he is relatively affable with them despite outranking all of them considerably. The crew realizes his true nature after he mercy kills the Vietnamese girl without hesitation.

* SurrealHorror: The iconic depiction of war, not as battle, or even [[WarIsHell as purgatory]], but as nightmarish, illogical fever dream a la ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod'', where the biggest threat to American soldiers is each other, commanding officers ignore the war they're fighting to [[SkewedPriorities film documentaries and go surfing]], and [[RiverOfInsanity the father down the river they go]], [[SanitySlippage the crazier everyone gets]]. "The horror" indeed.

* MeaningfulName: The entire crew of the PBR have ones, especially when you consider [[DwindlingParty the order they die in]]. [[spoiler: Clean is the most innocent of the crew, and the first to die (right after killing the people on the sampan, no less). Next is Chief, the one who kept order, and finally Chef, the one who made their food.]] It might be seen as a metaphor for aspects of civilization slowly chipping away during their journey up the RiverOfInsanity. [[spoiler: And the only one who survives, to be led back into the world after the climatic meeting with Kurtz, is called Lance.]]

Captain Benjamin Willard (Creator/MartinSheen) is sent to kill Walter E. Kurtz (Creator/MarlonBrando), a Green Beret Colonel who has gone mad and formed a personality {{cult}} in Cambodia. After Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) clears off his initial path, Willard and his crew -- including George "Chief" Phillips (Albert Hall), Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), and Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (a 14-year-old Creator/LaurenceFishburne) -- go up a river and into the depths of humanity.

Captain Benjamin Willard (Creator/MartinSheen) is sent to kill Walter E. Kurtz (Creator/MarlonBrando), a Green Beret Colonel who has gone mad and formed a personality {{cult}} in Cambodia. After Colonel Bill Kilgore (Creator/RobertDuvall) clears off his initial path, Willard and his crew -- including George "Chief" Phillips (Albert Hall), Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), and Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (a 14-year-old Creator/LaurenceFishburne) -- go up a river and into the depths of humanity.

* MightyWhitey: Thoroughly and surgically [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]]. Kurtz was sent to Vietnam to defend it from communism. His experiences have led him to believe that the way to do this is to built a cult of personality around himself and behave like a tyrant king. His superiors have lost all control of him to the point that they order another officer to assassinate him. The American military is depicted as largely ineffectual, with senior officers designating targets not for their strategic value but because they have great surfing potential, while private soldiers spend their time getting baked and shooting uselessly into the darkness. (Roach is a rare exception in that he's an incredibly good shot, but he's not exactly a model soldier: he has to be roused from sleep to kill an unseen VC soldier, simply because the guy's continual screams of abuse are annoying everyone.) To a man, the Americans hate and fear the very people that they are ostensibly there to defend, and the one time an American serviceman shows the slighest concern for the well-being of a Vietnamese person, it passes almost instantly.[[note]]Kilgore admires the bravery of the wounded VC soldier, gets all gung-ho with the ARVN soldier who thinks the man should be given dirty water to drink, shouting about how any man brave enough etc. can drink from his own water bottle, but before he even lets the man have the water he gets distracted by the presence of famous surfer dude Lance, forgets all about the VC and walks away, leaving the guy flailing in agony on the ground. The whole incident is the movie in microcosm.[[/note]] In the end, the only solution the Americans have to the whole mess they've got themselves into is to bomb the shit out of everything. Which is what they do.

*** Willard's monologue after he did this scene justified the hypocrisy of the crew that did this in the first place
---->'''Willard:''' We cut them half with a machine gun and give them a band aid.

* FanService: The ''Redux'' version has a sequence where the Playmates, whose helicopter is grounded due to weather, are whored out to Willard's men in exchange for aviation fuel. Cynthia Wood and Colleen Camp appear topless.

Captain Willard (Creator/MartinSheen) is sent to kill Walter E. Kurtz (Creator/MarlonBrando), a Green Beret Colonel who has gone mad and formed a personality {{cult}} in Cambodia. After Colonel Kilgore (Creator/RobertDuvall) clears off his initial path, the captain and his crew - including a 14 years old Creator/LaurenceFishburne - go up a river and into the depths of humanity.

** [[{{Hypocrite}} Much like his novel counterpart, Kurtz' philosophy is also bankrupt even by his own standards since nothing he does actually accomplishes anything and he's just just a lunatic warlord with delusions of grandeur.]]

* MathematiciansAnswer: Roach gives a simultaneously funny and creepy one when Willard asks him who's in command of the bridge outpost.
--> "Yeah".

%%* SurrealHorror

* TitleDrop: Textually. The words "OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW" can be seen painted on a wall behind the Montagnards in the scene outside Kurtz' temple when Chef tries to convince Willard to leave. Supposedly this was to satisfy copyright requirements, since the movie lacked opening credits.