Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Heart of Darkness", the film transplants the tale to the Vietnam War. A young American captain is given the assignment to hunt down and kill one of his own, a colonel, who has apparently gone insane. The deranged colonel murders hundreds of innocent people and constructs a strange kingdom for himself deep in the jungle, where he is deified by his followers. ---http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/movies.php?varRevID=409

Apocalyse Now is about the conflict between a potentially unsound self-assertion, and establishmentarian lies hypocrisy and ignorance. One man finds himself at odds with both, as he tries to decide whether the lie or the horrifying truths are more deadly (perhaps not the exact word I'm looking for). What fuels the established laws and the eminent powers? What are they founded on? Why should they automatically hold the reins? Anyway, those are a few issues the film aroused in my mind... Impossibly good movie.

Apcolypse now is a story that is running parallel to the book by joseph conrad, hearts of darkness is the story about an ivory trader gone mad by the mystisism and power that he feels by becoming a god among the natives that inhabit the inner ivory camps that stretch 200 miles up the congo river. the protagonist is chareles marlow(captain willard in the movieapocolypse now) who sent up the congo river to take into custody KURTZ the same plot runs true to Apocolypse where as the story is the same except for the setting is changed to vietnam and the name of the antagonist that is changed to capitin willard. the story and the movie differ very little excett for the setting and some of the names of the charaters as the director and the writer of the movie frances ford coppola chooses the settting from the vietnam wars point of view. where as the cia want colonal killed with extreme prejudice. the paralells run true for the book, kurtz is to be killed by the company for he has gone mad the inner camp unwhich he operates out of has heads of his enemys stuck on the end of polesin a real obscene way. horrific scenes of bothe the movie and the book are in many ways the same for the character kurtz is in all sense of the word gone to far,in acpcolypse now the temptation to be a god has overwhelmed the colonel better judejement and finds himself unable to command troops in a manner that would be ethical to the united states military code of conduct. as for the kurtz character in the book the company which the kurtz character is employed want his command ceasesd. therefore the company which is a major dutch ivory trader that imposes its colonial might upon all that stand in its way. the protagonist name remains the same and the story line stays relativley the same.