Audio problem: As Willard, Lance and Chef are approaching Kurtz's compound, Lance is playing come creepy sounds with 2 tin cans and a drumstick. The sounds do not match the number of times that he hits the cans nor coincide with when he hits them. (01:45:40)
Other mistake: Lance is standing right in front of Chef who is crouching in the sampan. As the melee starts he re-loads his machine gun and proceeds to fire wildly from left to right aiming downward right at Chef who is never hit. (01:36:55)
Audio problem: On there way to Vin Din Dop the music for "The Ride of the Valkyries" is an overdub as the VU meters do not move when the tape recorder is running. (00:37:25)
Audio problem: When Colonel Kilgore offers the wounded VC soldier a drink of water from the canteen he says, "any man that's brave enough to fight…" and his lips don't match what he's saying. (00:29:30)
Continuity mistake: The attack on Vin Din Dop starts out as a bright sunshiny morning and stays that way until Clean and Chief Phillips watch their boat drop into the river. There's no cut in the action but after this shot the cloud cover turns darker and it's late afternoon. (00:47:35)
Continuity mistake: The gentleman in the tan jacket sitting next to Roxanne says, "Look an egg" and the glass in front of him fills up between shots. (02:07:20)
Continuity mistake: Clean's burial is two minutes of uninterrupted action. When they first carry him over he's on a bamboo stretcher. One of the soldiers proceeds to take the flag off of him then another puts it back on. When we see his body again a few seconds later the flag is in exactly the same spot but the stretcher underneath is gone. (02:00:45)
Continuity mistake: As Hubert stands at the window he says, "The generals and the colonels believe it's impossible for the Viets to get the cannons up there in the mountains". It's clear to see that all the windows are closed but the next time we see them the second one from the bottom is open even though no one has gone near them. (02:08:55)
Continuity mistake: When Captain Willard flies in by helicopter to meet up with the PBR at the Texaco fuel depot, we see only one PBR with a flag waving in the front and a radar dome on the back of the roof. This is not the same boat that we see in the next shot in which the flag and radar dome are reversed. (00:19:25)
Audio problem: On the boat while reading Kurtz' file Captain Willard says to himself, "The charges are unjustified, they are in fact and in the circumstances of this conflict, quite completely insane". In this shot they show the Captain reading the letter to himself but looking at his lips the words he is mouthing do not go along with what he's narrating. (01:21:20)
Continuity mistake: Captain Willard and the men get off the PBR and walk to their right about 30 feet in the direction of the hut that is destroyed by the boat with the teeth painted on it. In the next shot when they run into Francis Ford Copola they're back to where they started as we see the boat directly behind them. (00:25:50)
Continuity mistake: When the Playboy helicopter lands the band members on the right stage are crouching behind their equipment, but in the next long shot of Bill Graham speaking to the audience they're standing there ready to play. (01:06:35)
Audio problem: When Captain Willard meets him for the first time Colonel Kurtz is laying on a bed as the camera pans in. We hear Kurtz coughing but it's an overdub because his hands are on his chest and they don't move at all when he coughs or speaks. (02:37:50)
Continuity mistake: Dennis Hopper and Chef are looking at the heads on the ground, Chef turns to face him as Hopper says, "You were gonna call him crazy?" In the next cut Chef is looking forward at the heads again. (02:33:40)
Continuity mistake: As Chef and Captain Willard continue walking through the jungle looking for mangos Chef says, "Hell, I joined the Navy" and he's holding his gun out in front of him with both hands. In the next shot he's carrying it over his right shoulder. (00:57:00)
Continuity mistake: There's a pole stored on the port side of the PBR. It's behind Chef after we see Clean's dead body. It's been removed in the next scene when they arrive at the French plantation. This pole has been used before in the movie and is stored in this spot and if it were somewhere else on the boat we would see it. (01:52:25 - 01:55:30)
Continuity mistake: Clean's dog tag and cross change between scenes. When he first hears the "Arc light" B-52 strike we see the cross hanging at the same level as the dog tag then when he meets Colonel Kilgore the chains have been rearranged so that the dog tag is two inches lower than the top of the cross. (00:24:10 - 00:30:05)
Continuity mistake: Before the napalm attack as Colonel Kilgore gives Lance a pair of shorts to wear while he's surfing, there is yellow smoke visible on the beach between them and the other side of the bay. As the jets fly by and this spot is again visible the yellow smoke canister is not there. (00:48:35)
Continuity mistake: They took the flag from the PBR (which is removed from the roof of the boat the next time we see it) to cover Clean's body at burial. It's not the same flag, the last red stripe on the bottom of the PBR's flag is torn off as we see at the French Plantation dock. The flag on Clean's body has the last red stripe and also has a shorter white stripe on it's bottom. There's no indication that there is more than one flag on the PBR (redux version). (02:00:05)
Continuity mistake: The red wind spinner in front of the helm of the PBR appears for the first time after the attack that killed Clean than disappears in the French Plantation scene (redux version). (01:54:00 - 01:57:40)
Chosen answer: Kurtz was protected by political connections and his military record from being relieved of command, and the Montagnard people whose village he was in were considered American allies, so they couldn't just send a force in to kill him or relieve him of command, but an individual assassin. (The US Government's "official" policy is that they do not engage in assassination, which is why "this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist").
Captain Defenestrator