Full Metal Jacket

About three soldiers (including Cowboy and Eightball) are killed by the VC Sniper. Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and the others search a demolished building that they believe the sniper is in. Joker spots the sniper but his gun jams at the last minute. He avoids the sniper's bullets by hiding behind a post, before Private Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard) saves his life, by shooting the sniper. The sniper is actually a female and starts asking the men to kill her. The last scene shows the surviving troops walking next to a flaming Hue City at night and singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song.

Private Pyle

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Continuity mistake: When Gomer Pyle is in the toilet with his rifle and after shooting the drill instructor, Pyle sits down on the fourth toilet seat from the back of the room. In the next shot where Pyle kills himself, he is sitting on the third toilet seat. You can see this already from the front shot of Pyle when he kills himself because there is a rise in the wall next to the third seat, which is visible through the whole scene. It is more obvious in the following shot where you can see the row of toilet seats and Pyle sitting dead on the third one. (00:43:00 - 00:43:35)

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Trivia: Not really a mistake, given the need to maintain the story arc in the first half of the film, but in real life, Pyle would have been discharged from the Marine Corps within days of his starting basic training - for his own good. It happens all the time - dropout rate of boot camp recruits varies but is generally around 10%.

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Answer: It was Gustav Hasford's idea. It happened in the original book that the story is based on, "The Short Timers."

Captain Defenestrator

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