Platoon
script used with coutesey of Daily Script
PLATOON
FADE IN:
A QUOTATION AGAINST A BLACK SCREEN:
‘REJOICE, O YOUNG MAN, IN THY YOUTH …’
The sound now of a C-130 air cargo plane roaring over us and we cut sharply to:
EXT.AIRSTRIP – BASE CAMP – VIETNAM – DAY
As the C-130 coasts to a stop, the hatch rotating down on a hot, dusty lifeless airstrip somewhere in Vietnam. Nothing seems to live or move in the midday sun.
TITLES RUN
A DOZEN NEW RECRUITS step off the plane, unloading their duffel bags, looking around like only the new can look around, their hair regulation-clipped, crisp, new green fatigues fitting them like cardboard.
CHRIS TAYLOR is just another one of them – as he turns into a tight closeup, to look at a motorized cart pulling up alongside … He’s about 21. Newmeat. His face, unburned yet by the sun, is tense, bewildered, innocent, eyes searching for the truth.
They fall now on a heap of BODY BAGS in the back of the cart. Two soldiers begin loading them onto the plane. Flies – hundreds of flies – buzz around them, the only cue to their contents.