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Quotes

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me, but the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair.

Mistakes

There's a scene where Sgt. Hartman goes to punch Pvt. Joker in the stomach. If you look carefully, he starts to punch with his left, then we instantly see Joker getting punched by his right. See more...

Trivia

Anthony Michael Hall was originally set to play Pvt. Joker, but was fired two weeks into filming for objecting to Stanley Kubrick's perfectionist style of directing. He was replaced by Matthew Modine. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

Full Metal Jacket (1987) - 6 questions

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Adam Baldwin, Arliss Howard, Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, Thriller, War

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Questions

Question: Why was Gunnery Sergeant Hartman so mean to Leonard Lawrence AKA Private Pyle? Why was he always mad at him?

Answer: A Drill Instructor is always mad at the recruits in order to forge discipline. Private Pyle was the biggest screwup in the unit, thus creating more work for him.

Edit Answered by Captain Defenestrator

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Question: When Joker says, "Is it you, John Wayne?" I don't really understand this joke. Unless he's just trying to be random, but then isn't he worried he might be in trouble?

Answer: Joker is a wiseass and given to making jokes, ergo his nickname (as given to him by the drill sargeant) is Joker. His crack "Is that you, John Wayne?" is a typical example of his personality as he makes fun of the drill sargeant and his barking out orders...like John Wayne did in many of his movies.

Edit Answered by CCARNI

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Question: In the scene where Joker is talking with Cowboy, what does he mean by "I think that Leonard is a section-A" and pretty much the rest of the conversation about Cowboy's sister?

Answer: What he says is "Section 8," the category for a psychological discharge from the US military.

Edit Answered by Captain Defenestrator

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Question: What's the reason why Joker doesn't chase after the guy who steals his camera, but instead just replies with his own set of "karate moves"?

Answer: Because he knows he cannot possibly catch him. The "karate moves" just shows his frustration.

Edit Answered by raywest

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Question: What does Semper Fi mean?

Answer: It's a shortened version of the Latin phrase 'Semper Fidelis', which means 'always faithful'.

Edit Answered by Tailkinker

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Question: Private Joker asks the gunner on the chopper about how he is able to shoot women and children, and the gunner replies by saying 'it's easy, you just don't lead them so much'. Does anyone know what that means?

Answer: To lead means to aim ahead of a moving target. His statement means that women and children don't run as fast as men, so you don't need to aim as far in front of them to hit them.

Edit Answered by jle

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