MJB SCRIPT REVIEW | PLATOON

With Remembrance Day on the horizon, it felt only apt to turn to a war movie for this weeks script review and what better script than Oliver Stones seminal masterpiece PLATOON…

Plot in a nutshell: Raw cadet Chris Taylor drops into the middle of the Vietnam war, eager to find himself and prove his mettle. What he discovers is Hell on earth…

This is one of those scripts that should (if it hasn’t already) be preserved in archives for future generations. Excessively violent, shocking and defiant in its rage, this is a no-holds barred smasher of a piece. Oliver Stone has bled his own memories of being a soldier in Vietnam onto every page and it hurts. Endless fear, death and sleeplessness pervade every page. Not an easy read this, for the more sensitive viewer.

At first I struggled with this script. Action directions both complicated and detailed at times, swift and unrelenting in others. Endless new character names, turning anyone outside of Taylor, Barnes or Elias (three amazingly crafted characters by the way) into a blur of stereotypes or forgettable cannon fodder in the waiting. Dialogue that makes no sense at the best of times and riddled with more racism across the pages than would get cleared by a modern producer. Not to mention a dizzying amount of gore and an enemy that is as faceless as it is nameless.

And then I realised that this script IS the Vietnam War for the uninitiated. Bewildering, frustrating and utterly unforgiving (just as it is with EVERY war). That is where the genius lies and I suspect, Oliver Stone had written this script simply to work as a shoot schedule for himself, rather than as a script for anyone else. Such is the effortless shorthand for the world encapsulated here.

So, what did I learn from PLATOON?

First and foremost, you cannot fake authenticity. This is the real deal and as such with any script, sometimes as a writer, it isn’t just better to write what you know…it’s essential. Some stories need to be told and to be told bravely and with no hiding. So if you have a story, no matter how tough, you are the best person to tell it. Do your best to help the rest of us see your story. But keep it authentic, even if it feels that the rest of us may get lost sometimes. That’s where the art is, I believe.

Secondly, and on a lighter note, ever wondered how to write an end credits sequence where the characters faces appear with their names, intercut with scenes from the film? The final page of this script shows you exactly how to write that in one paragraph. Short, sweet, memorable.

Regardless of the history of this film or the making of, the script is a perfectly formed time capsule of the events of one traumatised young man and the hell of war. May we never forget.

Link to the script:

https://thescriptsavant.com/movies/Platoon.pdf