Trivia: Approximately half way through the movie, there's a shot of the moon with an announcement made over the system, as this was filmed on the exact same night that the first humans made their walk on the moon. From the audio commentary.
Trivia: When he was president, John F. Kennedy wanted to see this film so much he went to it in a local cinema wearing a disguise.
Trivia: During the Stuka attack on the radar station, the two Stuka radio controlled models that collide was a complete accident. It looked good so was left in the final version.
Trivia: Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who played King Cetewayo in the film is actually a real-life distant descendant of the very same Zulu king he was playing. Small wonder the producers decided to choose him to play Cetewayo.
Trivia: Because of their roles in the film, both Brad Pitt and David Thewlis were banned from entering China.
Trivia: The character of umbrella wielding Major Harry Carlyle was inspired by real life Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter, who said that he 'carried the umbrella because he could never remember the password, and it would be quite obvious to anyone that the bloody fool carrying the umbrella could only be an Englishman'. Unlike Carlyle in the film, Major Tatham-Warter survived the battle and was captured by the Germans. He escaped, and in the weeks that followed, aided by Dutch Resistance, helped hundreds of other soldiers in similar situations to be evacuated to safety.
Trivia: When Jim returns home after losing his parents, his nanny slaps him. The actors had practiced a fake slap and fake reaction, but Spielberg and the actress playing the nanny conspired to make the slap real when the cameras were rolling, so Christian Bale's reaction would be genuine. Therefore, Bale is really being slapped, and his shocked reaction is no act.
Trivia: Even though the US military had a big part in the production of this film they asked the producer (John Wayne) not to credit them because they thought the movie was so pro-military that it bordered on propaganda.
Trivia: After Hal Moore calls for "Broken Arrow" the shots of the A6 Intruders taking off from the aircraft carrier are taken from Flight Of The Intruder.
Trivia: The Berlin railway station where Melanie Griffiths first meets John Gielgud is in fact St Pancras station in London.
Trivia: The unit that was portrayed in the tank battle was to be the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment because they were actually in a friendly fire incident. During the shoot, someone showed the director the 2nd ACR's patch and he thought that was better looking.
Trivia: The film-makers only had three vintage US aircraft for the production, namely two F4F Wildcat fighters and a PBY Catalina search plane. All of the other aircraft that appear are from either wartime footage or from previous war movies.
Trivia: In some instances in the film, such as when Gorobei kills the bandit who was checking the water level with an arrow, the actors were actually shot with real arrows. The actor would simply wear a block of wood under his costume (which you can see if you know what to look for) and an expert archer would actually shoot him.
Trivia: All the actors were fluent in English and dubbed themselves in the English version.
Trivia: Paul McGann plays both Girard (the man out to revenge his sister's honor) and the Cardinal's Guard who is killed by D'Artagnan out by the city ruins.
Trivia: Haing S. Ngor and Dith Pran actually met up in real life and even visited the old country - Vietnam - together before Haing's death.