I can’t be the first person to make this connection.
Watching the full Apocalypse Now Redux for the first time last night, I couldn’t help to think that Captain Willard’s journey up the Nung River in a U.S. Navy river patrol boat (PBR) “Street Gang” with Chief Petty Officer Phillips, crewmen Lance Johnson, “Chef” Hicks, and “Mr. Clean” Miller is very similar to the journey of Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Scarecrow and The Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
In both films there is a linear journey where various comrades are collected, amazing sights and setbacks occure but both have a mission to kill the wicked villian.
Both movies also attempt to pull the curtain back on the propaganda spread by those in power – in Apocalypse Now it is “The Corporation” along with the press like Time Magazine reguretating propaganda and in The Wizard of Oz it’s the man behind the curtain pulling levers.
Both movies full of fantasy colors, feature crazy characters and feature a world in which little makes sense.
