Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola is the 1979 Vietnam War epic film based on the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. However the word "based " must be questioned as the two differ quite dramatically. The periods in which the two stories are told are completely different, 70 years apart from each other, as are the settings and circumstances. However, through the ideas of savagery and madness, the characters, the plot and the themes that both pieces seem to convey, the two stories are very similar and it is clear that Coppola was heavily influenced by Conrad's Heart of Darkness Conrad is an excellent tale that demonstrates the difference between what we believe to be an ideal within civilization and its actual reality which is shown through the acts of torture, exploitation and the humiliating and shameful treatment of Africans. Conrad tries to explore the idea of ​​what we believe to be civilized and what we believe to be primitive and savage and shows us that what happened in Africa was not civilized but actually primitive. Heart of Darkness is narrated by its main protagonist, Marlowe, who is an experienced and well-trained sailor. In Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" the story is focused and narrated by the main character, Captain Willard, a trained US Army agent who is assigned the task of going from Vietnam to Cambodia along the Nung River, with orders to kill Colonel Walter Kurtz who apparently went mad. Unlike Kurtz, the character of Marlowe is renamed in Apocalypse now and this is because the two characters, although they undertake a similar physical journey, are different from each other. Willard, it seems, does not share the same philosophical and meaningful insights that Marlowe has in his work... middle of paper... although obviously not strictly a remake, The African Congo and all the characters of the book can be seen in Apocalypse now. Putting aside the obvious differences, both stories describe a very similar journey into a wild jungle and an even harsher journey into the characters' selves. Although the two stories are set in very different parts of the world, in different time periods, both main characters had to face a multitude of different events that changed their perspective. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow apparently learned the value of his life and the overall effects one individual can have on another. However, at the end of Apocalypse Now, we are left with a slightly different view of Willard, who seems to show a disdain for humans and it's safe to say that his journey would have put him in a much "darker" place than he was . to begin with.