Full Metal Jacket - shooting script versus film

[Jan Klimkowski]

Joker and Rafter Man are now with Cowboy, and meeting Animal Mother for the first time.

Cowboy points to the big marine, "This is
Animal Mother. He's hard."
Animal Mother has a belt of machine-gun
bullets crisscrossing his chest. He picks his
nose and says to Joker, "You better believe it."

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71

"This is my bro, Joker and this is Rafter
Man. They're from Sea Tiger."
"You a photographer?" Animal Mother says to
Joker.
Joker shakes his head. "I'm a combat
correspondent."
Animal Mother smiles scornfully, "You seen
much combat?"
"Hey, don't fuck with me," Joker says. "I
got twice as many operations as my grunt in Eye
Corps."
Cowboy says, "Hey, come on bro, sit down,
sit and share."
Animal Mother sits down, cross-legged "Man,
I almost got me some eatin' pussy."
T.H.E. Rock says, "That's affirmative.
Mother was chasing a little gook girl with his
dick hanging out."
Lieutenant Touchdown lights a small block of
C-4 explosives to make hot chocolate. "How old was
she?"
"Maybe twelve or thirteen," says Animal
Mother.
"Mother, you know what I told you about
that!"
Animal Mother grins, spits: "If she's old
enough to bleed, she's old enough to butcher."
"Animal Mother, listen up," Lieutenant
Touchdown says. "You harass one more little girl
and I'm going to put my silver bar in my pocket
and you and I are going to throw some hands."
Animal Mother grunts, spits, picks up a
bottle of tiger piss. He hooks a tooth into the

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72

metal cap and forces the bottle up. The cap pops
off.
"Cowboy, you remember when we was set up in
that L-shaped ambush up by Khe Sanh and blew away
that NVA rifle squad? You remember that little
gook bitch that was guiding them? She was a lot
younger than the one I saw today." He takes a
swallow. "I didn't get to fuck that one either.
But that's okay. That's okay. I shot her
motherfucking face off." He looks at Joker and
grins. "That's affirmative, poge. I shot her
motherfucking face off." He burps in Joker's face.
Joker says, "Hey, Animal fucker. How come
you think you're so bad?"
Animal Mother looks surprised. "Hey,
motherfucker, you want me to tear you a new
asshole?"
"Only after you eat the peanuts out of my
shit."
"Whoa, now just whoa," Cowboy says. "If
there's one thing I can't stand it's bad
language. Now violence, that's something else.
I mean if you feel you got to blow Animal Mother
away, that's outstanding. But some other time,
Joker, 'cause we need him right now."
Alice, a big black marine says, "You might
not believe it but under fire Animal Mother is one
of the finest human being in the world. All he
needs is someone to throw hand grenades at him for
the rest of his life."
"Hey, jungle bunny," Animal Mother says.
"Thank god for the sickle cell, huh?"

The firing has all but stopped. The Lusthog
squad has taken up defensive positions in the
factory.
Some civilians start to appear, smiling
shrugging, trying to get back to their homes.
The Marines try to menace them away at rifle
point, shouting, "Di, di, di, you sorry-ass
motherfuckers, go on, get the hell away from
here!" and the refugees smile, half bowing, and
flit up the shattered streets.
"Don't those zipperheads know there's a war
on?"
A little boy of about ten comes up to the
squad. He is laughing and moving his head from
side to side in a funny way. The fierceness in
his eyes should tell everyone what it is, but it
doesn't occur to most of the grunts that a
Vietnamese child can be driven mad too, and by the
time they understand it the boy is going for their
eyes and tearing at their fatigues, spooking
everyone, putting everyone really uptight, until
Alice grabs him from behind and holds his arms.
"C'mon, poor li'l baby, 'fore one a these grunt
mothers shoots you," he says and carries the boy
back to where the corpsmen are.

Later, the CBS crew have gone. The men are
heating and eating C-rations.
Joker is writing in his notebook.
Donlon and Stutten are looking at a glossy,
car brochure.
"It's been proven, I'm tellin' you. You
put a Ford engine in a Chevvy, and a Chevvy engine
in a Ford, and they both go faster"

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83

Alice is hunched over his radio. 'Let's talk
about tracers,' the radio announces says. 'Sure,
they're fun to shoot. They light up the sky! But
did you know that tracers leave deposits on your
barrel? Deposits than often lead to malfunctions
and even jamming...'
"Hey, Alice, turn that fuckin' thing off."
"Right after Sports" Alice says, cleaning
his face with some Wash 'n Dri's.
Donlon looks up from the car brochure. "I
hope we stay here. This street fighting is decent
duty. We can see them here."
The DJ plays "The Girl with the Faraway Eyes"
by the Stones.
"Hey, we sure as hell knocked the living shit
out this place today, didn't we?" Stutten says
quietly.
"Yeah. Godzilla never drew that kind of
fire," Alice says.
"It's a damned shame, all them poor people
though, all them nice looking houses, they even
had a Shell station there," Rafter Man says.
"We said we were going to bomb then back to
the Stone Age and we do not lie."
Daddy DA is playing with a yo-yo. He's doing
'Square the Circle', 'Rollercoaster' and 'Kiss the
Cat' when Sergeant Murphy walks up to him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doin'?"
He grabs the yo-yo from Daddy DA's hand and throws
it outside. "This isn't a playground. You're a
fucking Marine. Act like one!"

Alice and Doc Jay have been hit by the sniper.

Cowboy tells the squad to wait for a tank.

Animal Mother disagrees.

Parts of this scene survive, parts are lost.

Animal says, "How long are we going to sit on
our asses?"
"We'll move up with the armour," Cowboy says.
"When the fuck is that?"
"Soon."
"Alice and Doc can't wait anymore!"
"We've got no choice. The sniper is just
sucking us in."
"We can do it if we all go at once. The
sniper'll have too many targets."
"That might be what they're waiting for. How
do you know there's only one sniper?"
"Alice and Doc Jay are out there gettin' shot
to shit!"
"I don't like the situation any more than you
do but we have to accept it."
Mother says, "We can go for Alice and Doc,
give the sniper too many targets. We can save
them!" He checks his M-60.
Cowboy grabs Mother's arm, "Listen man, cool
it. No one's going out there."
Animal says, "Stand down, motherfucker, or
I'll cut you in half."
Cowboy slowly lets go of his arm.
Animal Mother hoists his B-60 machine gun and
charges for the street crossing.

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98

He fires blind.
He lopes along with the fluid grace of a meat
eater.
His chin is dripping saliva.

Animal Mother is a predator attacking. He
wants warm blood to drink. Animal Mother
wants human flesh to tear apart and devour.
Animal Mother doesn't know what the hell he's
doing. He thinks he's John Wayne.

He makes it to Alice and Doc Jays spraying long
bursts from his M-60.
BANG!
The sniper fires, kicking up dust a few
inches from Mother's foot. His first miss. The
M-60 return fire has made it less fun.
Mother fumbles with Doc Jay and sees he's
dead.
He fires another burst up the side street and
drags Alice behind a burned-out Citroen car
overturned in the intersection.
BANG !
The sniper's bullet ricochets off the car.
"Close, but no cigar, motherfucker!"
Mother fires back.
The squad lends morale support, firing
wildly.
Cowboy says to Joker, "I guess I just can't
hack this shit, bro."
Joker doesn't know what to say.
"Mother was lucky," he finally says. "He had
a John Wayne wet dream."