I'm not really the biggest fan of war movies. So, going in to this assignment, I wasn't exactly looking forward to spending hours watching movies about humans killing other humans. Not exactly the ideal day for me. Luckily though, the first of the two that I watched was "Full Metal Jacket". I'm pretty sure if I had watched Platoon first, I would have felt as if I had wasted an entire Sunday of my life, a Sunday I would definitely never get back. But thankfully, such was not the case. I watched FMJ first, and to my surprise, found it to be not just an entertaining movie, but an enlightening one as well. The main thing that made it so unique to me was how it focused first on the characters going through vicious training, and then showing them on the battlefield. I felt that by doing so, we were able to see the negative psychological effects of the war on its soldiers. I mean, sure, we see the violence of it. We see violence in wars practically everyday on television. We know wars kill. But how many times can you see the distorting and torturous psychological effects? Furthermore, I liked the main protagonist in FMJ, Joker. His perspective on the war, his somewhat different and out of the box method of looking at the war really put a different spin on things. Overall, I thought FMJ was great and really opened my eyes to various aspects of the war that no one ever actually sees.

But Platoon is a whole different story. Honestly, I never understood what was so special about it. It had excessive violence which, yes, is necessary for a war film, but frankly, I've seen violence in every war film anyway. So its not like Platoon had anything special to offer in that sense. Also, I never felt any sort of connection with any character, not even Taylor. We never got to go into anyone's head, or see the war from a unique perspective. It was all just fighting, fighting, and more fighting, something which I already knew happened a lot during the war. So, compared to Platoon, I definitely liked FMJ more. In fact, the whole experience of watching movies specifically related to the war really taught me a lot. We get to see first hand exaclty what happens on the battlefield, and also in the soldier's mind. It was a very eye-opening experience, and I feel as as if I learned more about the war through these movies.