Continuity mistake: After the gentleman in the tan jacket spills the egg into the plate, between shots Roxanne goes from having her right hand on the table to having her right hand near her mouth holding her cigar. (02:07:30)
Visible crew/equipment: As he looks out to the surfers Lt. Col. Kilgore says, "It's gonna blow this place out, it's gonna ruin itÂ… it's the napalm that's what's doing it" and a mortar shell soon explodes in the water. If you look closely behind the surfer on the left you can see the explosive device floating in the water before the explosion. (00:50:15)
Visible crew/equipment: In the helicopter after Colonel Kilgore talks to Lance he says, "My boys love it" and you can see the silhouette of the crouching cameraman in his sunglasses. (00:36:50)
Continuity mistake: At the funeral Chief Phillips picks up the flag from Clean's body holding it between his fingers about two inches in on each end. In the next shot he's holding it on the edges and the flag is reversed with the stars and stripes on the right. (02:01:15)
Continuity mistake: The Frenchmen playing the accordion walks away from Captain Willard into the other room and trips over something. Look closely at the table because two shots later everything will be different. The fruit in the fruit bowl is entirely different, the flowers and the lazy Susan have been moved and some of the wine and water in the glasses are at different levels. (02:10:15)
Continuity mistake: After Roxanne sits down to the eat she says something sweet in French that makes Hubert de Marais chuckle, and also makes the amount of wine in his glass decrease between shots. (02:04:25)
Continuity mistake: On the boat as they look for the B-52's, Lance says, "There they are," standing in the center of boat under the flag. In the next shot, Clean is standing in that spot. (00:24:25)
Continuity mistake: Captain Willard enters the temple after he kills a guard and there's a great shot of him holding the machete as it glistens in the light. He just slit someone's throat not two seconds before and there's not an ounce of blood on the blade and it's not even the same machete he was holding three shots ago when we see his silhouette in the festival lights. The first machete we see has a thinner blade with a hook on the end of it and a different handle. (03:07:05)
Continuity mistake: After the woman gives Captain Willard some water she tries to feed him rice from a spoon, which he doesn't eat. In the previous wide shot of the entire area there is no bowl of rice anywhere, there is only the pitcher of water at her feet and the rice bowl just appears. (02:53:55)
Continuity mistake: Dennis Hopper Says, " these are all his children, man, as far as you can see" and we see a large leaf covering Chef's head and held on with a rubber band. Then when Dennis Hopper says," the man's enlarged my mindÂ…. do you know that if is the middle word in life?" there's a different leaf on his head that has much more green in it. (02:30:30)
Continuity mistake: After the gentleman in the tan jacket says, "The white left, but the yellow stays". Look closely at the plate that he drops the egg into as the two pieces of bread change into pastry between shots. (02:07:25)
Continuity mistake: As Lance dances around with the purple smoke canister there's nothing in front of the helm of the boat under the radar dome. Later as the rocket attack that kills Clean starts a helmet appears there. (01:51:30)
Continuity mistake: As Harrison Ford hands the Captain a picture of Colonel Kurtz note the salt shaker and spoons to the right of his plate change. The salt shaker disappears and the spoons are suddenly side-by-side when the Captain places the photo on the table. (00:12:30)
Continuity mistake: No one has touched it, but when the General passes the roast beef to Jerry, the pepper shaker, which was just next to the salt shaker in front of him, has been moved to the other side of the table. (00:12:00)
Continuity mistake: The blood and scrapes on Captain Willard's nose disappear as he speaks to Dennis Hopper from the cage. (02:43:30 - 02:45:00)
Continuity mistake: Chief Phillips gives the helm of the boat over to Chef as Clean continues with his story. Lance takes the plastic covering off of the top water-ski then in the next shot it's covered again then uncovered in the shot after that. (01:12:50)
Continuity mistake: During the arrow attack Chief Phillips grabs a machine gun and starts shooting. At first he and Chef's guns are both pointing in the same direction, starboard. In the next shot one gun is facing one way and the other is facing the opposite way. (02:22:15)
Continuity mistake: The gentleman sitting next to Roxanne in the tan jacket gets up and says, "Look, Captain," and Roxanne reaches over with her right hand as she holds her cigar in her left. In the next shot she's sitting with both hands on the table and the cigar in her right hand. (02:07:20)
Continuity mistake: The gentleman in the tan jacket to the left of Roxanne is eating when Hubert says, "You don't understand our mentality". In the next shot he's reaching over and pouring a glass of wine for her. (02:05:20)
Continuity mistake: After they first meet Captain Willard looks at Dennis Hopper and says, "Take who away?". The red wind spinner to left of the Captain is in tatters, but a few seconds later when Dennis Hopper walks back to the front of the boat it's back together again. (02:30:20)
Chosen answer: Kurtz was protected by political connections and his military record from being relieved of command, and the Montagnard people whose village he was in were considered American allies, so they couldn't just send a force in to kill him or relieve him of command, but an individual assassin. (The US Government's "official" policy is that they do not engage in assassination, which is why "this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist").
Captain Defenestrator