Continuity mistake: As Lieutenant General Corman walks to the table, all of the hutch cabinet doors are closed. 17 seconds later, the left end and right end hutch cabinet doors are open. (00:11:40)
Continuity mistake: At General Corman's they sit down to have dinner and the ID card on his right chest pocket is attached to his shirt differently in various shots. At first it's not even on the pocket then later in the scene it's set right again. (00:11:40)
Continuity mistake: As everyone sits down to have dinner at the General's all the glasses are empty. The next time we see them they're full but no one went around the table filling them. (00:11:40)
Continuity mistake: As they start to eat with General Corman there's a hat hanging on a cabinet behind and to the right of the general and both doors are closed behind it. The next time we see it the right door of the cabinet has been opened but no one went near it. (00:11:45)
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: As Jerry takes a piece of roast beef from the tray we get a close-up of the captain's table setting. Just about everything has been moved from the previous shot but his bread dish and napkin are the most notable as they have both moved to the right of where they were before. (00:12:10)
Continuity mistake: At dinner with the general, Harrison Ford walks over to the captain with the picture of Colonel Kurtz and he has a pencil in his right hand. In the next shot as he drops the folder on the floor the pencil is not there. (00:12:25)
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: At the dinner table General Corman tells Harrison Ford to, "Play that tape for the captain please" and we see a close-up of his watch and it reads 4:37. It's late for lunch but when Harrison Ford brought the can of Budweiser to the general it was lunchtime as his watch read 12:35. (00:12:35)
Continuity mistake: Harrison Ford goes over to the tape recorder to play a tape of Colonel Kurtz' voice and the food on the captain's plate changes completely. At first there's a serving of roast beef with a roll next to it, than when we see it again there's less roast beef and pees and carrots where the roll was. (00:12:55)
Audio problem: At dinner as they all listen to Colonel Kurtz' voice there's a close-up of the tape recorder and you can see that his voice is overdubbed because the level meters are not moving as he speaks. (00:13:30)
Continuity mistake: When Colonel Kurtz says, "And they call me an assassin," the statue in front of the TV casts its shadow on the left of the picture tube. The lighting doesn't change throughout this scene but the next time we see it the shadow is one quarter of the way to the center of the picture tube. Later the shadow moves back to the side of the TV again. (00:13:55)
Continuity mistake: In the close-up of the General when he says, "He joined the special forces.", note his collar is closed up more and they way the front of his hair is combed changes between shots. (00:14:40)
Continuity mistake: As the general reminisces about Colonel Kurtz being a man of, "wit and humor" the roll on his plate moves and changes from being whole to having a bite out of it and back. (00:14:40)
Visible crew/equipment: At dinner as Harrison Ford says, "Now he's crossed into Cambodia " you can see the cameraman's reflection moving in the background to the left of his head. (00:15:20)
Continuity mistake: After the General says, "And very obviously he has reached his" there's a close-up of Captain Willard and his face is dry. The next time we see him a few seconds later his face especially around his chin is sweaty. (00:17:10)
Continuity mistake: Captain Willard thinks to himself about how many men he may have killed in the war and we see the PBR up close for the first time. The crew on this boat is not the same as the crew we'll be meeting shortly because at least four of them are white. (00:19:25)
Continuity mistake: When Captain Willard flies in by helicopter to meet up with the PBR at the Texaco fuel depot, we see only one PBR with a flag waving in the front and a radar dome on the back of the roof. This is not the same boat that we see in the next shot in which the flag and radar dome are reversed. (00:19:25)
Continuity mistake: There's no indication that Captain Willard didn't leave for his mission immediately after having dinner with the General, being that his R&R was over. That nasty cut on his thumb is all healed without any band-aid on it by the time we see him in the next scene on the PBR. There was also a dark scab on his middle finger that was there as he smoked a cigarette in the end of the scene with the general that has also disappeared. (00:20:30)
Other mistake: When we're introduced to Lance on the patrol boat he's sun bathing at sunset facing the wrong way with the sun reflector not reflecting on his face. (00:21:20)
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