Anyone notice the Vietnam battle scenes were filmed in the hills of California? I've never been to Vietnam but have a pretty good idea what it looks like. Rather than the lush tropical jungles one would expect, we instead were shown semi desert foliage, pine trees and a lot of other scenery that had no connection to Southeast Asia. I guess they thought they could save a few bucks but it ruined the entire movie for me.
Fort Hunter Ligget, south of Monterey, California was "made up" to look like the Central Highlands of Vietnam...As I have heard it described, the Ia Drang Battlefield was largely tall sawgrass & bamboo thickets, so according to the Hal Moore & Joe Galloway say the location looks 'right';
anyways, here are pics that might help:
http://www.weweresoldiers.net
Agree with OP. It looked like a movie length episode of Tour of Duty. It's one thing that bothered me about this film. I mean how much would it have cost to move film production to the Phillipines or Thailand or even Vietnam? Authenticity was given a miss in this flick.
shareBut the Philippines or Thailand don't look like the Central Highlands. ALL of Vietnam isn't triple canopy jungle, rain forests & rice paddies.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?
Thank you for your post, MsGt_G_GoRdOn. I am a big fan of 'Tour of Duty', which has inspired me to see other TV shows and movies about the Vietnam War.
I thought about seeing this movie but I'm not sure if it is any good. The lack of authenticity is a real let down so I may give it a miss.
So far, my favourite movie has been 'Hamburger Hill' (1987), which, in my opinion, seemed to be close to authentic. It was filmed in the Philippines but what I found most commendable was that it was written by a Vietnam veteran (James Carabatsos), directed by a journalist that reported on the war within Vietnam, and with technical advice about Vietnam provided by a native Vietnamese woman (Kieu Chinh), which made the setting, characters and story fairly authentic to me.
It is a great movie and one of my all time favourites. It also felt like an extended version of Tour of Duty episode 1.21 'The Hill', with the swearing, blood and gore that they could not show in a primetime TV show.
A lot of idiots out there think they're experts on Vietnam just because they saw Platoon. A lot of those idiots have repeatedly tried to discredit this movie just because it didn't take place in a jungle, right here on this board.
As I've said on several other threads on this board, Lt General Hal Moore himself scouted dozens of potential filming locations for We Were Soldiers and selected the site on the Forth Hunter Liggett Military Reservation as being almost exactly like the Central Highlands and specifically LZ X-Ray.
Not all of Vietnam, nor all of the Philippines (where I was born) nor all of Thailand or any other large Southeast Asian country is jungle. There happens to be a mountainous region in the Philippines only 160 miles north of Manila, a mile above sea level, that is quite temperate with evergreen forests similar to the terrain in the movie and one of the most popular tourist areas in the country. Just about the same latitude as the Vietnam Central Highlands.
http://www.commandposts.com/2011/11/ia-drang-reading-and-viewing-list/
Scroll down to view photos taken during the battle.
Looks like Cali to me.