History Film / Stripes

* DeadpanSnarker: In a movie full of them, Warren Oates' Hulka can stand toe to toe with even BillMurray's Winger.

* RousingSpeech: Winger gathers up the platoon as they pull an all-nighter to prepare for the graduation marching presentation, and gives them an inverted TheReasonYouSuck speech.[[labelnote:The speech!]]Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're ''Americans'', with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. ''We're mutts!'' Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt. Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? I cried my eyes out. So we're all dogfaces, we're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something '''very, very wrong''' with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers. But we're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1! Now we don't have to worry about whether or not we practiced. We don't have to worry about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung. All we have to do is to be the great American fighting soldier that is inside each one of us. Now do what I do, and say what I say. And make me proud![[/labelnote]]

* RousingSpeech: Winger gathers up the platoon as they pull an all-nighter to prepare for the graduation marching presentation:
-->Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're ''Americans'', with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. ''We're mutts!'' Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt. Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? I cried my eyes out. So we're all dogfaces, we're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something '''very, very wrong''' with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers. But we're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1! Now we don't have to worry about whether or not we practiced. We don't have to worry about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung. All we have to do is to be the great American fighting soldier that is inside each one of us. Now do what I do, and say what I say. And make me proud!

-->'''Guard Two''': Such a truck would be good for picking up girls in Minsk...

* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant Hulka.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/StripesMoviePoster_8363.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:That's the fact, Jack!]]

- ''We're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army!''

A 1981 movie starring BillMurray and Harold Ramis. Stripes was a war comedy about a slacker named John Winger (Murray) who convinces his friend Russell Ziskey (Ramis) to join the army. The two of them have a miserable time in basic training, but eventually their drill sergeant gets injured in a training exercise and they have to finish the training on their own. The night before graduation day they stay up all night, show up late for the parade, and put on one hell of a show for the generals. In the end, they are assigned to guard the new EM-50 urban assault vehicle in Italy.

While John and Russell are guarding it, they decide to steal it and go for a joyride to Germany. The rest of their squad comes after them, thinking that they're communist spies, but they take a wrong turn and get captured by the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. Winger and Russell come back to save their squad. When they come back to the states, somehow they all end up getting medals.

The movie was well-liked by critics, with an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was also fairly successful financially, grossing $85 million in North America on a $10 million budget.
----
!!This movie provides examples of:
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The Czech soldiers "speak" in vaguely Russian-sounding grunts.
* AxeCrazy: Francis 'Psycho' Soyer, who threatens to kill his squadmates if they touch him, his stuff, or call him anything other than Psycho.
* BackedByThePentagon: Surprisingly true.
* ButtMonkey: The movie's loaded with them, but special mention has to go to the two Russian guards at the Czech checkpoint. They couldn't buy a break with all the vodka in Russia. Finally, completely fed up, they have this exchange:
-->'''Guard One''': I hate tourist season!
-->'''Guard Two''': Such a truck would be good for picking up girls in Minsk...
* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant Hulka.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: "Anyone calls me Francis, and I kill you."
-->'''[[DrillSergeantNasty Sergeant Hulka]]''' ''Lighten up, Francis.''
* EnforcedMethodActing: While shooting the boot camp scenes, director Ivan Reitman secretly told the actors as recruits to drag actor Warren Oates (Hulka) into the mud with them. Oates ended up chipping a tooth, and upon learning Reitman manipulated the whole thing, furiously [[WhatTheHellHero chewed him out]]. Since then, Reitman has never used enforced method acting in his films.
* FanserviceExtra: The women that Capt. Stillman spies on; all the girls at the topless mud wrestling bar.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: ''"WHERE'S MY '''TRUCK'''?"'' The third act involves John and Russell stealing an armored, militarized Winnebago.
* GeneralFailure: Captain Stillman
* GetOutOfJailFreeCard: Even though John and Russell '''stole''' the EM-50 on their own accord, they get heralded as heroes coming home since they demonstrated its effectiveness against the Soviets.
* GloryHound: Stillman

* {{Incoming}}: Sgt. Hulka when Capt. Stillman's carelessness on the range results in the platoon coming under fire.
* JerkAss: Winger. Most of the platoon (initially) hated him for his failed attempts at playing smart with Hulka.

* [[CaliforniaDoubling Kentucky Doubling]]: Pretty much the entire movie was filmed in and around Louisville, with Fort Knox portraying the Army base and a disused Jim Beam distillery playing the Czech Red Army outpost.
* MisfitMobilizationMoment: When Winger gives his rousing speech to his platoon.
* NaughtyBirdwatching: Cpt. Stillman does this.
* NeverMyFault: After the Soviets capture them, Stillman blames the platoon for the entire predicament they're in.
* NewMeat: Most of the platoon.
* NoKillLikeOverkill: Psycho during bayonet training. He knocks the dummy off the frame supporting it and stabs it over and over again while cursing furiously.
* OhCrap: Sgt Hulka, when Captain Stillman forces a soldier to [[TooDumbToLive fire an errantly aimed mortar]]: "Oh, ''shit''... INCOMING!"
* OneManArmy: The DrillSergeantNasty Sergeant Hulka turns out to be this.
* OnlySaneMan: Hulka. The fact he's the only character played seriously makes his character stand out.
* OpenSaysMe: Subverted then hilariously played straight - John and Russell try to rescue their captured unit from a cell by blowing up the locked door with a bomb, which fails. Then [[TheBigGuy John Candy's character]] Ox (who's inside the cell among the prisoners) decides to run screaming at the door, and smashes it open.
** Actually, Ox was charging at the whining Stillman, [[NeverMyFault who was blaming them for the predicament they were now in]], but who had the good sense to get out of the way of a charging 300-lb avalanche.
* PhysicalFitnessPunishment: Sgt. Hulka orders the men to go on a five mile run. Winger mouths off to him in protest, so he responds by having the men go on a ''ten'' mile run instead.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Our plucky heroes.
* [[ReassignedToAntarctica Reassigned To Nome, Alaska]]: [[spoiler:Captain Stillman at the end.]]
* RousingSpeech: Winger gathers up the platoon as they pull an all-nighter to prepare for the graduation marching presentation:
-->Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're ''Americans'', with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. ''We're mutts!'' Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt. Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? I cried my eyes out. So we're all dogfaces, we're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something '''very, very wrong''' with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers. But we're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1! Now we don't have to worry about whether or not we practiced. We don't have to worry about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung. All we have to do is to be the great American fighting soldier that is inside each one of us. Now do what I do, and say what I say. And make me proud!
* SocietyMarchesOn: John and Russell are asked by an army recruiter whether either of them are homosexuals. At the time, LGBT people were forbidden from serving in the armed forces, and those that were discovered to be so were dishonorably discharged. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which was established in 1994, was the first legislation to allow LGBT people to serve conditionally, before being abolished in 2010, thereby allowing LGBT people to serve freely.
* SoundOff: A hilarious version, where the platoon uses the song "Doo Wah Diddy" as a jody call.

* TanksButNoTanks: While in the Czech Red Army outpost, we see a "Russian" tank that is clearly a US built [=M48/M60=] series tank.
* UncleSamWantsYou: See poster above.
* WeaponizedCar: EM-50 "Urban Assault Vehicle" -- essentially a cruise-missile armed Winnebago!
-->'''Stillman:''' Where's my [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] truck?!
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Standard for an Ivan Reitman film. Represented by humorous magazine covers: [[spoiler: Hulka opens a burger chain, Stella is a Penthouse covergirl, Louise and Russell are interviewed by the fictional magazines [[CoolCar Road Life]] and [[RatedMForManly Guts]], Ox becomes a teen heartthrob, and John graces the cover of a news magazine that asks "The New Army: Can America Survive?"]]
** Oh yeah, [[spoiler:and a small news blurb about Stillman getting assigned to a snowbound doom.]]
* YanksWithTanks: Specifically, the aforementioned EM-50 armored recreational vehicle.

----

* StarMakingRole: Warren Oates, despite a long career in film prior. He died a year after the film's release, making two films that were released posthumously.

* SocietyMarchesOn: John and Russell are asked by an army recruiter whether either of them are homosexuals. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which first allowed LGBT people to serve in the military, was established in 1994 before finally being abolished in 2010, thereby allowing LGBT people to serve freely.

* ButtMonkey: The movie's loaded with them, but special mention has to go to the two Russian guards at the Czech checkpoint. They couldn't buy a break with all the vodka in the Russia.

* OhCrap: Sgt Hulka during training of Winger's unit: "Oh, shit... INCOMING!"

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sgt. Hulkaburger. Sure, he's your average loud and rough army sergeant, but he's willing to go to great lengths to protect his men.

* GoodLookingPrivates: John and Russell's MP girlfriends, Stella Hansen and Louise Cooper.

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Standard for an Ivan Reitman film. [[spoiler: Hulka opens a burger chain, Stella is a Penthouse covergirl, Louise and Russell are interviewed by the fictional magazines [[CoolCar Road Life]] and [[RatedMForManly Guts]], Ox becomes a teen heartthrob, and John graces the cover of a news magazine that asks "The New Army: Can America Survive?"]]
** Represented by humorous magazine covers [[spoiler:and a small news blurb about Stillman getting assigned to a snowbound doom.]]

* HeyItsThatGuy: Joe Flaherty is one of the Czech border guards.

-->'''Sgt. Hulka''': Lighten up, Francis.

* GoodLookingPrivates: John and Russell's MP girlfriends

-->'''Stillman:''' Where's my fucking truck?!
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Standard for an Ivan Reitman film.

** Actually, Ox was charging at the whining Stillman, who had the good sense to get out of the way of a charging 300-lb avalanche.

* OpenSaysMe: Subverted then hilariously played straight - John and Russell try to rescue their captured unit from a cell by blowing up the locked door with a bomb, which fails. Then [[TheBigGuy John Candy's character]] (who's inside the cell among the prisoners) decides to run screaming at the door, and smashes it open.

-->Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt. Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? I cried my eyes out. So we're all dogfaces, we're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something '''very, very wrong''' with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers. But we're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1! Now we don't have to worry about whether or not we practiced. We don't have to worry about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung. All we have to do is to be the great American fighting soldier that is inside each one of us. Now do what I do, and say what I say. And make me proud!