MovieChat Forums > Good Morning, Vietnam (1988) Discussion > Attention all posters! I need your help ...

Attention all posters! I need your help to resolve a disagreement.......

posted 20 years ago by mitchmitchell
77 replies | jump to latest

Okay, here it is.

I am of the opinion that this movie is not a Vietnam movie, but my colleague disagrees with me.

His point is that it is a Vietnam movie because A: It has Vietnam in the title and B: it's set in Vietnam.

My point is that it's not a Vietnam Movie because, well, it's just not. It's a Love Story, that is set in vietnam, but is not actually a Vietnam Movie.

If someone says that last night they saw a Vietnam Movie, you wouldn't ask them if they saw this movie, you'd probably ask if they watched 'Platoon' or 'Apocalypse now' or even 'full metal jacket'.

Anyone see what I'm saying here? A Vietnam movie is about a guy or a couple of guys who get thrown into the darkest, deepest, world of hell you could ever imagine. They shoot a couple of people, get into more trouble, smoke some ciggarettes, shoot some more people, wade through water with guns held high, get bitten by a snake, get drunk, get laid, get their legs blown off, shoot some more people and by the end of the movie - they have changed their perspective on life, war and Jimi Hendrix.

THAT'S a vietnam movie.

Not some DJ chasing after a girl, cracking jokes.

Ay, don't get me wrong, Robin Williams is a great actor an' all, but this is no Vietnam Movie!

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Okay, all I need is a few good posters, to agree or disagree, be as detailed as you like, but this argument needs resolving FAST.

Thanking you all in advance,

MM

[–] rikkirat 19 years ago

Most definitely a Vietnam movie... don't understand why there's even a question about it.

[–] ElectricEye 19 years ago

I'd agree with your friend: It is a Vietnam Movie.

Several very important plot things happen because of Vietnem war (the bombing of the bar, the bombing of the Jeep)... The sole reason why they are there in the first place is the Vietnam conflict!

Protective, Detective, Electric Eye

[–] peachy_starr 19 years ago

It's a vietnam movie for sure.

[–] sandhurstrs 19 years ago

It was a Vietnam movie. It brought out the intensity and emotions of the war. It reminded the audience that the war was not made of statistics but real lives.

[–] blackisbeauty 19 years ago

Whoever says GMV is not a war movie must have a truly strange viewpoint on life. Take the scene where the truckfulls of soldiers are entertained by Williams' DJ character just before they head off to battle - all of them in good mood because of the jokes, but also sharply aware of the fact that they're going out there to kill or be killed, to wound or be wounded, and many of them won't be coming back from that trip alive. In that one scene alone, you could almost cut the tension behind all the laughter with a knife. My favourite scene, without a doubt. Now if someone tells me that's not a bonafide, real-thing war scene - just because it doesn't show bullets flying, bombs exploding, blood spilling and people actually dying all over the place - well, I can only feel a kind of pity for whoever that someone may be.

[–] dickinsonb 18 years ago

Key themes: Government bureauracy,cold war politics, proxy warfare, military censorship. Love is an underlying theme- I would say he loves his english class more than the girl.

[–] Random2CM6 18 years ago

I agree. This couldn't be anything but a war movie in Vietnam. We have a man in the military who is opposed to the censorship and regulations preventing the soldiers from not only hearing news of a critical nature, but also listening to 'subversive' rock and roll. The fact that the Vietnam War was a turning point in the (usual) blind obedience by the average soldier (and citizen) to the 50's era government. Great social change was occurring, and the military resisted it as long as it could.

What makes this a Vietnam War movie is there's no other setting it works in prior to 1965. The love interest was needed to show the Vietnamese in a positive light; something few war movies do. It's usually common to dehumanize the enemy. I don't recall there being any positive examples of the vietnamese in Full Metal Jacket or Platoon. There are enemies and victims in both, but only in GMV did we see the people of Vietnam as people. They're not helpless victims a la Platoon or pimps and thieves in FMJ.

[–] gdunnwald 17 years ago

It's a Vietnam movie. As another poster said the truck scene is more devastating than any bloody scene with flying bullets and torn limbs. I get a lump in my throat every time I see it.

Before you can call this a love movie set in Vietnam, there are better reasons to call MASH a Vietnam movie set in Korea rather than a Korean War movie, and Apocalypse Now is actually "Heart of Darkness" set in Vietnam and not a movie about the Vietnam War.

[–] zeroid-1 17 years ago

it's a vietnam movie. he befriends a local civvy who turns out to be a vietcong sympathiser. it also highlights the hidden battle within the towns and cities seemingly with the people you thought you were helping. nowhere but vietnam or iraq. and it wasn't iraq......

[–] mitchmitchell 17 years ago

Well,

Thanks for all of the replies - I lost the argument at work and since then we have argued about practically every film ever made.

Three things we will never agree on:

1: Top Gun is an unintentionally homo erotic film.
2: Navy Seals was cool (I stress the 'was')
3: GMV is not a Vietnam Movie.

Three things we did agree on:

1: Jabba the hut is an asexual creature who looks masculine.
2: Jack Nicholson is a great actor.
3: Predator rocks.

Back on topic, I do plan to reflect over my opinion during the holidays and am planning to watch the film again, 'cause I expect it will be on teevee sometime.

If my opinion changes, I'll let you know.

Regards,

MM

[–] ohmyhead 17 years ago

Hey, congratulations on your post that was active for over 3 years!

[–] kitten_484 17 years ago

It's a Vietnam movie.

It's set in Vietnam, during the Vietnam war, with Vietnam War soldiers, and events that happened during the Vietnam war that the soldiers had to put up with (bombings, terrorism, higher-ups, censorship, getting used to new languages, eating new foods, socializing with the Vietnamese before the conflict got as bad as it did).

Just because it's a comedy (dramedy, really) doesn't mean that it can't be a Vietnam movie! It has everything! Laughter, music, a love story, conflict!

Finally, the scene where he's entertaining the troops who are in a road-block in the market... those soldiers, and their personal "stories" (their names, where they're from) makes it a war movie, in my opinion.

Good Morning, Vietnam shows the humanity behind the act of war, and just because it has more sunshine and rainbows than the other movies you've mentioned, doesn't make it any less of a Vietnam movie!

[–] 17 years ago

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