APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX

With over 49 minutes of unseen footage, Apocalypse Now Redux is delightful for the fans. But in this fan's opinion, the definitive version is still the one released in 1979.
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Several differences made me come to this conclusion, the first one being the duration of the film, wich became too long. The new footage breaks the film's pace, specially in the french plantation scene. It features long dialogs relevants about the war, but not about the plot. Besides that, it takes place in a critical moment, when the PBR is about to reach it's final destination - Kurtz's compound. The same goes for Clean's funeral. Totally unecessary. This version also presents a different Willard, more human, sociable, even funny - like in the scene where he steals Kilgore's surfboard and laughs out loud. That aspect doesn't fit the original Willard - a black ops. especialist and assassin, who never even smiles.
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Willard stealing Kilgore's surfboard.
Nonetheless, Apocalypse Now Redux is still, a lot of fun.
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FRANCIS COPPOLA TALKS ABOUT
APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX

"When I started working in Apocalypse Now, my intention was to create a grand epic about the mithology and philosofy of war.

In the spring of 79, our concern was that the film was too long, too weird and without a classic ending, like a great battle. We were close to a financial disaster. At that point, I had personally spent all I had to cover the 16 millions of the overbudget movie. The press was asking "Apocalypse When?", so we finished the film in a way we thought would work for the big audience, focusing more on the river journey and making it a "war movie"
as much as we could.

Twenty years later, after watching the movie on television, I realized that the original version - considered pretentious and strange when released - seemed now more conventional, like a mainstream movie. This and all the calls I recieved through the years from people who have seen the original 4 hours cut, encouraged me to go back and try a new version.

For six months - since march, 2000, we edited and remixed a new version of the film from the start. We did not re-cut the film. We started a new one.
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This time, we were working without the same pressure as before, and were able to better define the themes, specially the one about he morality of war. I feel that any filmmaker who makes a film about war, has the necessity to make a statement against it. Almost all war movies are like that. My film depicts the culture of lies and the reality of combat. People are brutalized, tortured, mutilated, murdered, and all this is presented without any morals. That horrifies me because it perpetuates the possibility of war. A phrase in the original John Milius script, illustrate this: "They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck!" on their airplanes, because it's obscene!"

Quoting Joseph Conrad: "I hate the smell of lies".

The new version enhances the themes. It's more sexy, funny, bizarre, romantic and political. The new footage includes the french plantation sequence, an extended sequence of the playboy bunnies, new scenes of the beginning of the boat's journey and a new scene with Marlon Brando - that maybe, could not had been showed twenty years ago because it makes references about the way the government lied to the public about the war.
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Willard and Roxanne in the french plantation: "There are two of you: One that kills and one that loves."
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Deleted from the original cut: Kurtz exposes government lies about the war.
Anyway, the objective behind Apocalypse Now Redux was to present a richer, more structured film that, like the original, would make the audience feel the Vietnam War."
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THE BOMBING OF KURTZ'S COMPOUND

"When we finished shooting the film, the Phillipine government demanded that we desmantled the Kurtz's compound sets. Instead of doing that, we decided to blow it up and shoot it, so we would have an option for the ending.
In the first cut, the sequence was used as a background for the end credits, but afterwards, I felt that it gave a "pro-war" sense to the film, since the bombing of the compound would mean the death of dozens of people, including women and children. It would be the victory of the belic horror over humanism in war times.
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I decided then, that the film would end with everybody laying down their weapons and Willard and Lance leaving peacefuly, like they were stepping into a new era, leaving war behind. This becomes more evident when Willard turns off the radio without answering its call."
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