Full Metal Jacket - shooting script versus film

[Jan Klimkowski]

And the finale, some of which survives.

Joker reaches for his grease gun.
The sniper turns towards Rafter Man and
raises her SKS carbine.
She is a young girl, no more than seventeen
years old, a slender Eurasian angel with dark,
beautiful eyes, which, at the same time are the
hard eyes of a grunt. She's not quite five feet
tall. Her hair is long and black and shiny, held
together by rawhide cord tied in a bow. Her shirt
and shorts are mustard-coloured khaki and look
new. Slung diagonally across her chest,
separating her small breasts, is a white cloth
tube fat with sticky reddish rice. Her B. F.
Goodrich sandals have been cut from discarded

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tires. Around her tiny waist hangs a web belt
from which dangle homemade hand grenades with
hollow wooden handles, made by stuffing black
powder into Coca-Cola cans, a knife for cleaning
fish, and six canvas pouches containing banana
clips for the AK-47 assault rifle slung on her
back.
BANG!
Rafter Man is firing his M-16.
BANG!
BANG!
The sniper lowers her weapon.
She looks at Rafter Man.
She looks at Joker. She tries to raise her
weapon.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Bullets shock flesh.
Rafter Man is firing.
Rafter Man's bullets are punching the life
out of the sniper.
The sniper falls off the roof and hits the
street with a terrible sound.
The tank fires into the ground floor beneath
us. The house shakes.
Animal Mother appears from behind a chimney.
Joker stands up.He feels like a dead man's
shit. He walks to the front of the house. He
waves to the blond tank commander.
He swings a fifty-caliber machine gun around
and aims it at Joker.
Joker steps into full view on the edge of the

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roof. He waves an "all clear."
The tank commander gives him a thumbs-up.
Joker pops a green smoke grenade and drops it
on the roof.
Joker limps over to the sky light and climbs
back down into the library.
Rafter Man has already jumped into the
library and is running down the shrapnel-scarred
stairs.

Rafter Man, the new kid, has shot the Vietnamese girl sniper, and suddenly thinks he's part of the squad.

Animal Mother and Joker walk around to the
rear of the house.
They find Rafter Man standing over the
sniper, drinking a can of Coca-Cola. Rafter Man
grins. He says, "Things go better with coke."
Animal Mother walks up and Rafter Man says,
"Look at her! Look at her!"
They all stand over the sniper. The sniper
is drawing her breath with great effort. She
grits her teeth and then makes a sound like a dog that
has been run over.

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110

Lance Corporal Stutten leads his fire team to
the sniper. "Look at that," says Lance Corporal
Stutten. "It's a girl. She's all busted up."
"Look at her!" Rafter Man it saying. He
struts around the moaning lump of torn meat.
"Look at her! Am I bad? Am I a menace? Am I a
life taker? Am I a heart breaker?"
Animal Mother kneels and searches for
papers. There are none. Then he unbuckles the
sniper's web belt and jerks it from under her
body. The sniper whimpers. She speaks to them in
French. Animal Mother tosses the bloody belt to
Rafter Man.
A corpsman comes up and kneels beside the
sniper. "No more boom-boom for this mama-san,"
he says.
The sniper begins to pray in Vietnamese.
Joker says, "Let's get her back to the aid
station."
"She'd never make it."
Rafter Man asks, "What's she saying?"
Joker shrugs. "What difference does it
make?"
Animal Mother spits.
There is a burst of gunfire which sounds like
it's coming from just down the street. It
sputters out and then flares up again.
Animal Mother says, "Let's get the fuck outta
here."
Joker says, "What about her?"
"Fuck her," says Animal Mother. "Let her
rot."
"We can't just leave her here," Joker says.
Animal Mother takes a giant step towards

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Joker, puts his face up close to his. "Hey,
asshole, Cowboy is wasted. You're fresh out of
friends. I say we leave the gook for the
mother-loving rats."
Rafter Man is buckling on his NVA belt. The
belt has a dull-silver buckle with a star engraved
in the center.
Joker says, "We can't leave her like this."
"I don't care," say Animal Mother. "Go on
and waste her."
Joker says, "No. Not me."
"Then we saddle up and move...now."
Joker looks at the sniper. She whimpers.

I try to decide what I would want if I were
down, half dead, hurting bad, surrounded by
my enemies. I look into her eyes, trying to
find the answer. She sees me. She
recognizes me - I am the one who will end
her life. We share a bloody intimacy.

As Joker lifts his grease gun the is praying
in French. He jerks the trigger. BANG!
The squad is silent.
Then Donlon grunts, flashes a big grin.
"Man, you are one hard dude."
Stutton and Liccardi are standing beside him.
Stutton says, "Joker, that's a well done.
You're hard."
Animal Mother spits. He takes a step,
kneels, zips out his machete. With one powerful
blow he chops off her head.
He picks the head up by its long black hair

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and holds it high. He laughs and says, "Rest in
pieces, bitch."
Animal Mother laughs again. He walks around
and sticks the bloody ball of gore into all their
faces. "Hard? Now who's hard? Now who's
hard, motherfuckers?"
Animal Mother pauses, spits, throws the head
into a ditch.
He picks up his M-60 machine gun, lays it
across his shoulders, struts over to Joker.
"Nobody shits on the Animal, motherfucker.
Nobody."
Joker stares at him.

The scenes that are not in the film as released.

The scenes that deliver a totally different ending to the film we know.

Sergeant Murphy points to some ruins a few
hundred yards away. "We're taking fire from over
there. We're getting ready to move out."
He looks at Joker and Rafter Man. "Are you
two still with us?"
Rafter Man nods, eagerly. Joker looks at the
ruins, "Sure."
The radio operator gives Sergeant Murphy the
handset. Sergeant Murphy sticks a finger in one
ear and has a short conversation. He gives the
handset back to the radio man.
He creeps forward, takes out his binoculars
and studies the ruins.
Several artillery rounds crash into the
ruins, raising a pillar of smoke.
"Lookit! Lookit that!" Rafter Man says.
"That's sex! That's pure sex!"
Sergeant Murphy gets to his feet. "Okay,
rich kids we're moving out. When we get past the
fence form a line abreast, ten years a part. Let's
go!"
The platoon rise up behind Sergeant Murphy
and begin to run forward.
They fan out in a line abreast.
The men begin to fire their rifles in the
direction of the attack.
Joker fires his rifle.
The air is being torn.
Green tracer bullets dissect the sky.

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Boots crunch in powdered stone. Equipment
slaps, clangs and rattles. People curse.

We're all running like big-assed birds. We
don't want to do this. We are all afraid.
But if you stayed behind you would be alone.
Your friends are going; you go too.

The shock of bullets punching through bricks.
Splinters of stone sting their faces.

You don't have to be who you are anymore.
You're not a person anymore. You're part of
an attack, one green object in a line of
green objects.

Bullets hit the street.
The impact of the bullets is the sound of a
covey of quail taking flight.
And sparks.

Something snaps and we're past the point of
no return. We're running fast and we aren't
going to stop. Nothing can stop us.

Sounds. Cardboard being torn. Head-on
collisions. Trains derailing. Walls falling into
the sea. Metal hornets swarm overhead.
Pictures. The dark eyes of guns; the cold
eyes of guns. Pictures blink and blur, a wall, a
tiny man, shattered blocks of stone.

JOKER, THE MARINE RUNNING.

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JOKER, 8 YEARS-OLD, ARMED WITH
PLASTIC RIFLE, RUNNING IN A
FIELD.

"Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving!!!"

People tell you what to do. Keep moving,
keep moving, keep moving. If you stop
moving, if you hesitate, your heart will stop
beating. Your legs are machines winding you
up like a mechanical toy.

JOKER, THE MARINE, RUNNING,
FIRING HIS RIFLE.

JOKER, THE 8 YEAR-OLD, FIRING
HIS TOY RIFLE.

You feel like you could run around the
world. Now the asphalt is a trampoline and
you are fast and graceful, a green jungle
cat.

JOKER, THE MARINE, RUNNING.

JOKER, THE 8 YEAR-OLD, RUNNING.

Your feet take you up...up...over the rubble
up...up... you're loving it... you're not
human, you're an animal, you feel like a
god...you scream: "DIE! DIE! DIE, YOU
MOTHERFUCKERS! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

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JOKER, THE MARINE, IS RIDDLED
WITH A BURST OF AUTOMATIC
FIRE.

JOKER, THE 8 YEAR OLD,
CLUTCHES HIS CHEST IN MOCK
AGONY AND STARTS TO CRUMPLE TO
THE GROUND. HIS IMAGE WILL
SLOW DOWN UNTIL WE HOLD ON A
FROZEN FRAME, IN A POSE
SOMETHING LIKE CAPA'S FAMOUS
SPANISH CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPH
OF A MAN WHO HAS JUST BEEN
FATALLY SHOT BUT WHO IS
FOREVER SUSPENDED IN MID-FALL
BY THE CAMERA.

BUT THIS PICTURE IS OF AN
8 YEAR-OLD BOY.



-68-

Cemetery. Joker's funeral. It is a bright
sunny day. Joker's mother and father, pale and
drawn, are grouped under a canopy facing the
flag-draped casket, flanked by relatives and
friends.
Joker's father speaks with difficulty; "My
son... wanted passionately... to be a writer...and
while he was in Vietnam he kept this notebook...
which was found.. on his body. I'm going to
read... a few lines from it... which show... the

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immense... talent... he possessed... which is
now... lost... forever."
With tears in his eyes, Joker's father
fumbles for a particular page of writing in the
dirty, worn notebook. He finds it and begins,
haltingly, to read it aloud.
"I often think about... how things were when
I was ten...
"I loved to lie in bed... before the sun was
up... and before I was really awake... and think
of the long, exciting day ahead.
"The sky... had begun to turn pink, and the
great stillness outside... gave way... to the
rustling of trees... and the sound of
birds...
"I went downstairs... without waking
anyone... and went out into the backyard.
"The air was fragrant... and cold... and I
watched the sun slowly come up from behind the
mountain... and the sparrows pecking away... on
the dewy grass...
"I could hardly contain... my happiness."
Joker's father is barely able to continue.
"How little I knew of the world... beyond
that garden and our town."
Joker's father is overcome by a rush of
tears. His wife holds on to him. He regains some
composure and continues.
"And now I want to read some poetry... by
A. E. Housman... which his Mother and I.. have
chosen.. as his... Epitaph..."

"Here we lie...
Because...
we did not choose...

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To shame the land...
from which we sprung...
Life ..
to be sure...
is nothing much to lose...
But young men think it is...
and we were young..."

Tears streaming down his face, his father
slowly closes the notebook.
We see Joker's peace button pinned to the
notebook cover.

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