![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2015\/z112815platoon_trivia.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nEric D. Snider <\/b>and Mental_Floss<\/a><\/strong> <\/b>present 12 Intense Facts About Platoon<\/em><\/a><\/strong>. <\/strong>Here are three of my favorites<\/span>…<\/p>\n
6. IT TOOK MORE THAN A DECADE TO GET THE FILM PRODUCED.<\/span><\/strong>
\nStone wrote a screenplay based on his experiences in Vietnam as soon as he got back from the war, in 1969. (He sent a copy of it to Jim Morrison, hoping the Doors frontman would star in it.) By 1976, that draft morphed into what he was then calling The Platoon<\/em>. Stone couldn\u2019t find anyone willing to make the movie, though. The war was still too fresh in people\u2019s minds; it would be another few years before films like Apocalypse Now<\/em> and The Deer Hunter<\/em> addressed it. And after that, studios had another excuse not to make Platoon<\/em>: why bother, when Apocalypse Now<\/em> and The Deer Hunter<\/em> had already covered it?<\/p>\n8. IT CHANGED THE WAY HOLLYWOOD LOOKED AT WAR.<\/span><\/strong>
\nA much-decorated retired Marine named Dale Dye, who loved war movies but was disappointed by their failure to convey the mental and emotional realities of combat, offered Stone his services as an advisor. Dye had been turned down by other filmmakers, who felt the way Hollywood had been doing it\u2014you hire a consultant to make sure the medals, guns, and uniforms are accurate, and you don\u2019t worry about the less tangible details\u2014seemed to be working just fine. (Dye said: \u201cThey had been making zillions of dollars making war films for decades, and here was some clown coming in to tell them they had a better mousetrap? Go away.\u201d) But Dye\u2019s vision matched Stone\u2019s, and the psychological authenticity they created together was a major factor in Platoon<\/em>\u2019s success. For the first time, Vietnam veterans were seeing their experiences portrayed realistically. Dye has since become the foremost military consultant in Hollywood, advising (and occasionally acting in) everything from Saving Private Ryan<\/em> to the Medal of Honor<\/em> video games.<\/p>\n11. CHARLIE SHEEN ALMOST LOST THE LEAD ROLE TO HIS OWN BROTHER.<\/span><\/strong>
\nSheen auditioned during one of Stone\u2019s earlier, unsuccessful attempts to get the movie made, and didn\u2019t impress him. The guy Stone really liked was Sheen\u2019s older brother, Emilio Estevez. But financing fell through and the film was shelved. By the time Sheen auditioned again a few years later, he had grown into the role. \u201cThis time I knew in 10 minutes he was right,\u201d said Stone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 Intense Facts About Platoon. Here are three of my favorites… 6. IT TOOK MORE THAN A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,54,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-trivia","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13920,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919\/revisions\/13920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}