Vietnam War & Hollywood Differences?

Question

Im after some points on the direct & large differences between the way hollywood depicted the Vietnam war, and the way it actually happened.
any response will be appreciated!

Answer 1

The Vietname War as depicted on the movies almost always favor the Americans and it is not the real scenario what really happened in Vietnam.

Answer 2

Like any movie they are usually made to entertain. Also no one can really grasp a war unless you’re in it. And the above post that said we lost the war and the Vietcong kicked our butt was never there and knows little or nothing. We departed from Vietnam (except for a small amount of advisers) giving the responsibility back to the South Vietnam forces in 1973 and it wasn’t till 1975 when the South lost or just gave up. Also we won almost every battle on a scale of 20 to 1 in most cases. We lost around 56,000 people they lost over 1 million. The Vietcong was basically wiped out after the Tet offensive of 1968, and we were then mostly fighting NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and Chinese.

Answer 3

Pretty much the same differences as there are between real cops and the stuff you see on TV shows. Or real courtrooms vs the ones on TV. Vietnam lasted for ten years. How do you portray all that in a 2 hour movie?

I could tell you all kinds of Vietnam stories, but they'd all be embellished to make an interesting story. The truth is that war is long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror. Not the stuff of movies, so they spice it up.

Answer 4

First, It depends on which Vietnam war movie you see, "Hamburger Hill" is completely different from "Don't cry, it's only Thunder"
Second, it's relative to the observer. A just drafted,18 year old mud-puppy, has a completely different view of his year long tour than a navy officer that flew jets. (I understand they don't even have mud on aircraft carriers, but us infantry guys just can't fathom that!)
Third, trench foot, bad food, and crotch-rot don't usually make an entertaining movie, (ask any soldier that sat through those training films) so most movies show helicopter gunships firing rockets, door gunners hosing whole battalions of VC with an M-60, and human wave attacks that only get repelled by massive airstrikes. They also tend to show the soldiers as either super heroic, or super evil. That's how stories are told.

Here is a list of some of the Vietnam war movies that got closer than most.

Gardens of Stone
We were Soliders
84C (charlie) Mo-Pic
Bat 21

You will notice that most of these are also good books from good writers.

Answer 5

First and foremost the way hollywood depicts all the enlistment men as a bunch of pot heads and dope heads being stoned all the time:
That was not the case. The NVA would have slaughtered them.
We were facing a tough detemined highley motived and well trained enemy on par with the German SS. Who were professionally led. No bunch of pot heads or dopeheads would have stood a chance against them.

U.S. MARINES in country with 9th MEB 65 and 66.

Answer 6

Hon, I was there so you can ask me direct questions. I don't really understand your question. E-mail me at [e-mail].

Oh, and to be perfectly correct here, Vietnam was never declared a war. It was always simply a Police Action!

Thank you Vietnam Veteran, you are right, if we could have fought the way we needed to we would have been victorious!

Answer 7

I flew 186 combat missions over Vietnam & Laos from 1968-70.Hollywood could never know or understand the ridiculous Rules of Engagement that we were bound to follow.Many targets were never struck or were struck after they were no longer of value because we had to get permission from obscure Vietnamese and Laotian government agencies.I saw many trucks,troops,and antiaircraft guns and missiles escape,due to the delay in receiving authorization to strke a target.This helped the enemy! The biggest blunder made in the war happened when President Johnson halted our bombing of North Vietnam.That one bad decision was the turning point in the war.It gave the enemy a chance to rebuild their defenses and caused the loss of many pilots and crew when bombing resumed a few years later.The famous B52 raids that were made at that time resulted in loss of aircraft and men.If the military would have been free to fight the war as they saw fit,we would have won that war.Politics caused us to lose over 50000 good men and women,some of which were good friends of mine.I only hope that the same mistakes aren't made again.If you are going to fight.....you fight to win.

Answer 8

They didn't play Wagner from loudspeakers on helicopters.

Answer 9

In reality the Americans 'lost' the Vietnam war - the Vietcong - kicked their '***' hard!!!

In films the Americans 'won' the vietnam war.

Answer 10

Hollywood = 99% fantasy + 1% reality.

War = 99.9% reality with every soldiers sex fantasy thrown in.