Apocalypse Now

President Bartlett gets all drunk in a hotel room, so goes on a nice boat trip to sober up. Meets a wacky man who likes sniffing napalm, does a massacre, and finally, goes to live with fat Marlon Brando in the jungle. If it’s the Final Cut version, then you get the extra scenes where he meets a CGI Jabba the Hutt.

Trivia

In order to create the perfect backdrop for his film about a descent into madness, Francis Ford Coppola started the Vietnam War.

The original line was ‘I love the smell of Sea salt and rosemary candles in the morning,’ but was changed because napalm seemed a bit more macho.

In the Director’s Cut, the Ride of the Valkyries music during the helicopter attack is replaced with REO Speedwagon’s ‘Keep on Loving You.’

A prequel, Apocalypse Then, was written, but has yet to be made

Bloopers

Willard and the crew kill time on the boat by playing Horace Goes Skiing on Hicks’ ZX Spectrum. This would have been impossible as there wouldn’t have been enough power for both the Spectrum and TV.

Although Kurtz’s compound is supposed to be in undiscovered jungle, a branch of Woolworths is clearly seen in several shots.