Platoon was a game-changer in terms of cinematic portrayals of war in general and the way people viewed The Vietnam War in particular. There’s still a lot to like here. The village raid tackles tough subject matter, and does most of it with a proper handle on the people and the situation. The problem is that the way Oliver Stone portrays the characters as exaggerated, with lines that come from a typewriter and not the character. (This could be said about all of the voice over which is unnecessary and distractingly preachy.) What Stone has to say about the horrors of war might be true, but he employs morality like a sledgehammer.
Today, the lasting legacy of the film comes from its technical advisor, Marine veteran Dale Dye. Dye pitched to Oliver Stone a mock boot camp to put the actors through before production. Stone agreed, instructing Dye, “when they come down out of your training, they damn well better be like you and me when we were 19 years old.” The training included limiting how much food and water the actors received, when they slept and occasionally firing blanks into the ground during the night. Dye says he breaks the actors down and then builds them back up. The last day of training was the first day of filming.
The training program became Warrior Inc., and has been used on more than 50 movies and TV shows, including Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Band of Brothers and Starship Troopers.
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