Round 2: Platoon and Full Metal Jacket

When watching the two movies for the first time, Platoon was the obvious choice for the better movie. It was intriguing and emotional and really affected how I perceived the soldiers in the Vietnam War. Oliver Stone was a veteran of the war, which made me think, “this has to be how it really was for them.” However, after watching the movies for the second time and looking at them for rhetorical meaning, as well as discussing the movies with my classmates, my view changed drastically. Although Oliver Stone is a veteran and went through many of the things the movie showed, he is also a director and new that the more emotional and personal he was, the more we would connect and be touched by the movie.  Stanley Kubrick, on the other hand, is known as one of the best directors of all time. Although Full Metal Jacket was hard to relate to at first, if you really try and look for deeper meanings you will find that this is by far a better movie and more realistic than Platoon. I have never reflected this much on a movie but now that I have a better understanding of rhetoric and movies I will start to pay attention more to all movies that I watch. Discussing the movies in class gave me a good insight about others and I learned a lot!