Revealing mistake: In the major helicopter scene when Ride of the Valkyries is played, the actual tape isn't going over the playing heads. (00:37:29)
Trivia: The man shooting the movie during the attack on the beach who says "Don't look at the camera" is actually director Francis Ford Coppola. (00:25:38)
Visible crew/equipment: As the boat crew steps ashore to find Kilgore, the obvious shadows of two crew and their equipment are seen moving across the backs of the soldiers and then the raised netting slightly further away. This isn't the documentary crew they meet shortly afterwards, who are further onto the mainland. (00:27:20)
Suggested correction: In this scene, the boat crew immediately encounter a camera crew filming the soldiers. This is their shadows.
While they do encounter a documentary film crew, this does not happen until a few seconds after the mistake occurs. The shadows of the film crew are shown when they are walking onto shore, whilst the documentary film crew are shown more onto the main land. Plus, it seems a little weird Francis Ford Coppola would decide to randomly include shadows of a documentary film crew when the cameo doesn't happen until a few seconds later. Clearly this is the shadow of the camera and cameraman cast on them, and is a valid mistake.
Continuity mistake: As the chopper pilot circles the courtyard he says, "We've got wounded down there" and a yellow flair is in the center of the courtyard. In the next shot of the soldiers running around down below we see the center of the courtyard but the yellow flare is not there having been replaced by a Vietnamese hat. (00:43:10)
Continuity mistake: As the men walk on the shore looking for Colonel Kilgore there's a field behind them across the bay. There's only a tank there but in the previous shot as they landed there were four helicopters along with the tank. (00:25:30)
Continuity mistake: When Colonel Kilgore leans down to give the VC soldier a drink from the canteen watch closely as the roses on the rosebush to the left of the injured soldier disappear and then reappear between shots. (00:29:25)
Continuity mistake: After Clean is killed, the blood splatter on the PBR's metal plate changes. (01:52:34 - 01:52:58)
Continuity mistake: As Lieutenant General Corman walks to the table, all of the hutch cabinet doors are closed. 17 seconds later, the left end and right end hutch cabinet doors are open. (00:11:40)
