Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Vincent D'Onofrio, Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard
Character mistake: When the Marines are navigating through the Paris Island obstacle course, Hartman is shouting "It should take you no less than 10 seconds to negotiate this obstacle!" In other words, the LONGER it takes someone to get across, the better? (00:13:27)
Character mistake: Hartman calls the "beds" bunks. Marines always refer to them as a rack.
Character mistake: When Sgt Hartman is giving the lesson about Charles Whitman, he says that he killed 12 people - in reality he killed 17.
Continuity mistake: In the opening scene, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman is making his speech and passes by Privates Cowboy and Joker on his way to the other side of the barracks. On his way he passes Private Pyle standing to the right of Private Joker. Later in the scene, when he rushes over to confront Private Joker and then moves on to Private Cowboy and then Private Pyle, Private Pyle is on the left of Private Joker. (00:02:00)
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: How tall are you private?
Private: Sir, five foot nine, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Five foot nine, I didn't know they stacked shit that high!
Trivia: R. Lee Ermey actually wrote all of Gunny Hartman's dialog himself. Ermey was involved in a serious car accident right before shooting, so Kubrick invited Ermey to come stay at his house in England to recover. While recovering Ermey read the script over and over, and he remarked that the Drill Instructor's dialog that was in the script was obviously the work of a screenwriter with a cliche imagination who obviously had no idea what boot camp was really like. So Kubrick allowed Ermey to re-write all of the dialog himself.
Question: Who's idea was it, or the reason, Kubrick decided to kill off Gunnery Sergeant Hartman? Was it to merely show the casualty of war?
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Answer: It was Gustav Hasford's idea. It happened in the original book that the story is based on, "The Short Timers."
Captain Defenestrator