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Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Where in the hell are you from anyway, private?

Private: Sir, Texas, sir!

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Holy dog shit, Texas! Only steers and queers come from Texas, private Cowboy! And you don't much look like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down!

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Trivia

In some scenes, you can see that R. Lee Ermey does not move one of his arms. That's because he got in a car accident that broke several of his ribs. Being the strong person that he was, he forced himself to not pass out and wait for help to arrive. See more...

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Full Metal Jacket (1987) - 8 factual errors

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

Genres: Action, Drama, Thriller, War

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When 8-ball gets shot, in the shot which shows the platoon ducking near a wall with Cowboy, Joker and Animal Mother in the front, there are two weapon related errors. Cowboy's M-16 has a nickel (silver colored) firing assembly and Joker's M-16 has an A2 type pistol grip. The A2 types were introduced somewhere around the 80s, and nickel plated assemblies are rarely used (and were invented after Vietnam, too). The nickel assembly is visible at the beginning of the shot, and you can see the A2 grip when Joker is changing magazines (while Cowboy shouts cease fire).

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When the sniper fires her rifle at Joker after his rifle jams, she fires at him and strangely no shell casings are ejected. A few bursts later and her rifle does eject shell casings.

Edit Submitted by Jack Vaughan
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The first time I saw this movie was with my uncle who served in the Marines during the Vietnam War. He told me that the scene midday through basic training where you see the recruits running with their top buttons of their shirts open was incorrect. In the 60's, recruits were required to button their shirts all the way up until they graduated. After graduation, they would be allowed to "lighten up" and unbutton the top shirt button.

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Private Pyle would not have stayed with his original unit after failing so many tasks. If a recruit fails miserably at the basic tasks due to being lack of physical strength, they were separated and sent to a Physical Conditioning Platoon. It gives them another chance to physically improve or else be kicked out. No respectable DI would waste his time on someone like Pyle, especially during war time.

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The film is set in and around 1968. In one scene, a copy of Ursula LeGuin's novel "The Word for World is Forest" is seen at Joker's bedside. This novel was not published until 1976.

Edit Submitted by wizard_of_gore
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In 1968 the USMC were still using the Sikorsky UH34/S58 helicopter (powered by a piston engine) but the helicopter seen in the film is the British version of the same aircraft, the Westland Wessex - gas turbine powered, it has a quite different nose shape from the original American version.

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At one point Joker is shown doing chin ups, with Hartman motivating him. Joker does three chin-ups, but not a single one of them was done properly. You're suppose to lock your elbows all the way out on the way down, and your chin needs to clear the plane of the bar. Joker never locks his arms out, barely gets over the bar. In reality Hartman would have been all over him about this, drill instructors are notoriously strict about proper technique.

Edit Submitted by RJR99SS
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In the sniper scene where Animal Mother disobeys Cowboy to go help 8-Ball and Doc, and Animal Mother peeks around the corner of a building to try and see the sniper and the sniper shoots at him, narrowly missing his face, the impact of the sniper's bullet on the wall and the sound of the gunshot occur a split second before the muzzle-flash in the distant window from where the sniper is shooting from. This would imply that both bullet and sound have travelled faster than light.

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