by JLRoberson

Created on: July 10, 2007   Last Updated: July 11, 2007

Before we start: this is not a review of APOCALYPSE NOW, but merely that which has been added to it. That being understood-one has to wonder at the obsessive-compulsive tinkering upon which certain filmmakers seem to spend all their time these days. Sometimes there are terrible results, like everything George Lucas touches. Other times it's more interesting, in some ways. This is a case in point.

What we have here isn't actually Apocalypse Now(referred to henceforth here as AN). If you want to see one of the best epic poems on Vietnam, see the old version in widescreen format-the sound and visuals are the same as here, at least in terms of quality. Also if you haven't seen the normal AN, you won't have any idea what I'm talking about, so you might want to stop right here.

This is more an appendix, and those can be interesting in themselves. It does clarify some things, but muddies many others. Fast-forwarding to the first new stuff, we find that Kilgore is far more of a Dr. Strangelove-type satiric character. We see Lance not exactly looking forward to surfing the battle-heavy water, and Willard whoopingly stealing Kilgore's surfboard. At which point we cut to the site of the tiger scene, as Kilgore tries to track them down the river with a helicopter and recording asking for his board back.

All very funny. But what's really worth looking at here is a crucial difference between this version and the other. In AN, Willard and the men are never close. After the Sampan scene he says, "Those boys were never going to look at me the same way again." But we really don't know how they look at him to begin with, though the occasional line is dropped in that, in the original, seems apropos of nothing, an afterthought. Here, they bond, they get chummy. Willard is human here.

This isn't, however, a welcome change. Willard works better not being quite human. The fact that we know little about him in AN helps us project ourselves through Willard-particularizing him here not only seems inappropriately realistic and indeed cliche, it blocks us from him even more. It seems more of a "star" performance here. Easy to see why it was cut. The next notable addition is, of course, the sex. The Playboy Bunnies end up marooned up ahead, past the Do Long Bridge, and Willard trades most of their fuel for sex with the bunnies(for all the men).

This does explain why they're later so desperate for fuel, and the scene itself is actually a lot of fun. Coleen Camp, the bunny who likes birds, has

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