Apocalypse Now/YMMV
- Adaptation Displacement: This movie is considerably more well-known than the book it's based on.
- Award Snub: People are still pissed that this lost Best Picture to Kramer Vs Kramer
- To be fair, that film is great in its own right. It's comparing apples and oranges... a great family drama to a great (anti-)war movie.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: "The End" by the Doors, and of course Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
- Unless, of course, your name happens to be Moe Vernon...
- Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The "Ride of the Valkyries" scene.
- Kick the Dog: Possibly Dennis Hopper in real life for getting Laurence Fishburne hooked on heroin at the age of 14.
- Misaimed Fandom: The helicopter attack scene. Use of the Wagner music was actually intended to invoke the Nazis. But what did Coppola expect, using such Awesome Music?
- Moral Event Horizon: What the helicopter raid on the village was intended to be. What the viewers saw it as, however...
- Well, not ALL viewers...
- The Viet Cong's mercifully offscreen hacking the limbs off children who received vaccines from western doctors.
- Older Than They Think: The premise of the movie, as well as the famous line, "The horror... the horror...", are taken directly from Heart of Darkness.
- This Is Vietnam On Drugs
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Colonel Kurtz can come off as this. In the opinion of some viewers Kurtz might be one of the only sane characters in the entire movie, he realizes how the war can be won but his commanders refuse to see things the same way he does.
- What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Averted. As noted, most of the people involved in this film were drunk or high during production.