Apocalypse Now

While watching Apocalypse Now, I saw many similarities between the movie and O'Brien's book, The Things They Carried. I felt like I was comparing different scenes from the book while watching the movie. For instance, during the beginning of the film, Willard is drunk in his room, waiting to go back to Vietnam. He wants to go back to the fight and he feels alone and that the only thing that will listen to him is the alcohol. It reminded me of when Norman Bowker drove around the lake because he felt like no one understood him back home, and driving around was his only comfort. Another scene that I found similar to The Things They Carried was when Willard was on the PBR and the crew he was with stopped to get mangos, only to get attacked by a tiger. For a moment they forgot about the war and just wanted to live, but were then brought back to the harsh reality of war when a tiger scared them back onto the boat. This reminded me of when O'Brien and his squad are checking the foxhole and making jokes and being boys, and then all of a sudden Ted Lavender dropped dead. The similarities I thought of while watching the movie were not exact comparisons, but I believe they were all quiet similar. I also noticed how superstition played a role throughout the movie. While on the river, they crew stops a Vietnamese ship and the crew gets so freaked out about a red box in the boat that they kill almost everyone on it only to find a puppy. Willard shoots the last survivor in the chest, and the crew sees him differently after that. Throughout the movie, it was very clear to see how the hardships of war can slowly take over a soldier and put them over the edge.