So, I finally got the chance to see this movie. After all these years of people talking about this movie to me within inner circle conversations, I finally gave it a try as Netflix recently added this onto their library.
And I must say, in a short analytical perspective, the movie aimed for the whole war is terrible in a way that wasn’t even new. And that is me stating that even for the 80’s standards, as that is the time where this movie was released.
And why do I say this?
Let me explain.
The whole movie gives this narrative message through the perspective of the main character Chris Taylor played by Charlie Sheen, a rich kid with somewhat of a higher education as he dropped out of college on his own accord to join the Vietnam War.
And through his perspective, he learns that most of his brothers come from poor backgrounds of all shapes, colors, and sizes across the States. People of whom society wouldn’t mind losing at all.
And it is here where the movie tries to lay the main theme, its message as it it rung through start to finish. War is a horrible ordeal where the bottom people of society have to suffer for it while the people in higher power reap from the benefits of its terrible nature.
A message that has been said so many times at this point it seems rather pretentious when anyone states it, because let’s be fair. No shit, Sherlock.
Every man and woman with half of brain knows that is the case.
Matter of fact, countless mediums before this movie came out with the same message and have spoken on how war is a terrible ordeal and is always the common folk that always suffer from them.
Such as books written by people from the Lost Generation, the Generation that fought and became scarred from the horrors that was World War I.
Countless pieces of written works from poems to books, talking on such a ordeal. And if we want to go back a step further, war has always been horrible on the aspect of this regard.
You think Medieval Lords of the European side of the world always fought with just professional troops? No, they sometimes had to mass conscribe peasants who never held a proper weapon in their lives.
However, I get it. I get why a message that has been factual for years is better acknowledged on the screen rather than written or through personal historical experiences.
Because we as a society (unfortunately), are beings who are only able to believe certain things are bad or good when we actually see them with our own eyes.
Which is why society finally came to realize fully that wars were horrible after the Vietnam War (the war this movie is based in), because they finally got to see it with their own eyes themselves.
As this war was the first televised war that made citizens experience what it was like without facing the dangers of war safely behind their outdated living room TVs.
Visual arts are more powerful than written and personal story experiences. Which as I said, is very unfortunate.
So basically, the movie Platoon states the message that has been known and stated for millennia for those who have experienced war in a way that is finally not landing on deaf ears. As since it is a movie it is much easier for all people to consume as it is.
As visual messages are messages that any person no matter how high or low within societal education can consume and understand. As you don’t need to learn how to read or experience it first hand to see what it is like.
There was a reason why mural paintings were such a big thing in the Mexican Revolutions, as many of the common Mexican folk didn’t know how to read.
Which is why many artists during those times in that place took it to painting murals to illustrate what was going on to educate the people who were unfortunate of not knowing how to read.
Visuals are a powerful tool. And it is especially so as the number of people who read books for leisure are dropping like flies as time goes on.
A tool that it was finally used in a movie like Platoon to convey the factual message that has been rung over and over since the dawn of humanity.
War is a rich man’s game with the poor being its pawns.
In which in that regard, I guess is the only thing I liked about this movie. The conveying and illustration of a old yet relevant message from today and onwards through visuals to make it mainstream.
And when you make things mainstream, it lets almost everyone to know and understand the message without having people to experience it themselves.
Which is something most sane veterans of war want/wanted from people. To not experiencing such a thing that they unfortunately have experienced.
Thanks for reading and stay safe everyone.
LEETHALCORE 