X

Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

EHOWA

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Virtually Existing

Quotes

Chris Taylor: Somebody once wrote: "Hell is the impossibility of reason." That's what this place feels like. Hell.

See more...

Mistakes

After the brief fight between Barnes and Chris, when Barnes has Chris pinned, he cuts him below the left eye with a knife.In the next scene Chris has no cut on his face or any marks. See more...

Trivia

Director Oliver Stone claimed that the lead character of Chris was largely autobiographical and mirrored many of Stone's own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

15 biggest mistakes in Titanic

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

Platoon (1986) - 8 corrections

Directed by Oliver Stone, starring Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Depp, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, War

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Quotes
Corrections
Submit
The scene is when The new guy (Charlie Sheen) is first initiated to the troops after reporting to his outfit. The rest of the platoon are sitting around doing weed and drinking Budweiser from a can.... you will notice the absence of pull tabs in which to open the cans of beer. The beer cans shown are opened ones like they use today. Back then Beer or any other beverages from a can during the 1960s to the early 1970s always had pull tabs, not like the ones shown. [All beer cans I ever saw from Feb 68 to 69 were the ones you used an old fashion "Church Key" can opener.]
Edit
In the scene where Chris Taylor is shooting at the feet of the Vietnamese man and shouting at him to dance, this action would have, at very least, injured the Vietnamese man severely. This is because of the fact that the M-16 rifle used an extremely high velocity bullet which, because of its high velocity and small size (I believe it was .223 caliber), broke up into fragments upon impact. In this case, fragments from the impact of the bullets into the ground would have flown up and caused a certain degree of injury. [Not if the ground was loose soil, and absorbed the fragments. Besides which, he may have been getting hit by small fragments, but due to fear and adrenalin, he continued hopping around.]
Edit
At the end after Charlie sheen has shot Barnes an APC comes to them and administers help. When that APC starts to come out of the jungle you can see it is flying a flag. This flag is not the US flag however, it is the Nazi flag. [Character decision, not a movie mistake. As we can see in the movie, and many others, soldiers in a warzone where discipline is not enforced rigorously, can decorate their equipment and themselves with loads of weird stuff (like writing on helmets, headbands, cigarettes stuck into sleeves or helmets, pin-up photos, etc).]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
After the scene when Sandy and Sal get blown-up at the camp Taylor and Mannie are sent to go out on point. In the initial scene when they are told to go out, if you look in Mannie's helmet at his pack of cigarettes they are Marlboro, in the next scene when he is on watch the cigarettes are Kool. [We don't know the elapsed time between being sent on point and when he was actually on watch. It's entirely possible that he finished his Marlboros, and took another pack of whatever was available, possibly the Kools. If his favorite brand wasn't available, likely he'd take whatever was around.]
Edit
Just after the scene when the soldiers burn a village and they are walking in a field along with some civilians, they are all noticeably left-handed (they carry their rifles with the trigger on their left side, pointing them to the right). The image is a reversed (flipped) shot. [The soldiers carrying their rifles with the muzzles pointed to the right is technically a correct detail. You'll notice the soldiers are walking in a double column formation. All rifles are pointed outboard in this type of formation for safety's sake. Therefore, the soldiers in the right hand column would always carry their weapons left handed to prevent shooting the soldiers in the left hand column if they were suddenly ambushed. It is standard practise in U.S. ground forces to do so.]
Edit
Some of the U.S. soldiers appear to be carrying M16 carbines (often referred to as the "Car 15"). The short M16s of the period were known as XM177s and had a noticeably shorter barrel. The CAR 15 version was not used until after the Vietnam period. [The CAR-15 was first introduced into the Army's inventory in 1965. It was usually used by specialized units (such as long range recon patrols) but was often issued to squad leaders and above in line infantry units as well. It is completely appropriate for Elais (Squad Leader) and Barnes (Platoon Sergeant) to be carrying them.]
Edit
This movie is about US Army soldiers, but the actors wear the tan US Marine Corps web belts with frame buckles. Army web belts are black and the buckles are solid rather than frames. [Although it is true that army belts are black, it cannot be said that the army wore only solid buckles in Viet-Nam. I was an infantryman in the 1st Cavalry Division in 1969 and can assure you that the buckle I (and everyone I knew) in the field wore frame type belt buckles. There was good reason for this. Would anyone in their right mind wear a "shiny" brass belt buckle in the field?]
Edit
In the scene just following the tragic village-burning episode the black soldiers were digging foxholes discussing their bad feelings concerning the killings. During the discussion they used the word "Holmes" when addressing each other. The phrase "Holmes" was coined in reference to the Boxer Larry Holmes who didn't win the heavy weight championship title until 1978, a good decade after the events in the movie were to take place. ["Homes" or "home" has nothing to do with Larry Holmes. It's a term that was used by soldiers to address others from the same stateside city or town. For example, a soldier from Chicago would address another soldier from Chicago by calling him Home, Homes, or Homey. It's actually short for "Home Town." Although it was first used by black soldiers, it was adopted by everyone.]
Edit