Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now fails to impress an expert with its historical accuracy. Released in 1979, the film follows an Army captain (Martin Sheen) who is secretly sent to sail upriver to find and kill Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone rogue during the Vietnam War, with its ensemble cast also including Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford. Apocalypse Now is one of the best war movies of all time, though its historical accuracy, on the other hand, is up for debate.In a video from Insider, military history professor Bill Allison assessed Vietnam War movies, including Apocalypse Now, for their historical accuracy.The Vietnam War historian broke down the use of helicopters in Apocalypse Now, which is "pretty accurate," and napalm, though he seemed to take issue with the scene's iconic use of "Ride of the Valkyries." Allison admits that Apocalypse Now, "as a piece of film," is a perfect 10, but in terms of its realism, is only a 5/10. Read a portion of his commentary below:All that's pretty accurate. The helicopters themselves are the UH-1 Hueys, as well as the helicopter in the scene, the smaller helicopter, that's a Loach. That's actually Filipino pilots. They borrowed those helicopters from the Filipino Army to use for this scene.

Now, you might wonder why they're attacking this village. It's supposedly a VC stronghold. VC, the Viet Cong. Why do they have to get it over this village into the river? Why can't they just go up the coast? If you've not seen the film, there's a river patrol boat they need to get on the Nung River. Problem there is, the tidal flow is not deep enough for the boat to actually get across the sandbars, and that actually is real. That's a problem. Playing "Valkyries" just kind of blew your mind, right? Is that real? Probably less so.

Napalm does smell. Obviously, with everything that's in it, it's going to have a very gasoline-y, petroleum-like smell. So it has a very distinct odor to it, for sure. Now, there's Robert Duvall as Col. Kilgore, probably one of the most iconic characters in any Vietnam film. He is based on a guy, in part by a guy, named John Stockton, who was the commander of the unit that's depicted here, the 9th Cav of the 1st Cavalry Division.

As far as it being a piece of film, I'd give it a 10. Right? In reality, eh, you know, it's a little ludicrous on a lot of levels. So I'm guessing probably about a five.