General in Dr. Strangelove was obsessed with fluoride, fits with the toothpaste theme....

The fact that this was filmed in England is mindblowing. Kubrick the absolute genius.

Fun fact: Hynos was an American company founded in 1965, a Vietnamese bought the company then spend a fortune putting those ads everywhere which then become famous around south Vietnam at that time, the Boy toothpaste seem to be Perlon a rival toothpaste company and Leyna is also a toothpaste company... @16:37 the sign is a Melasma cream ads, it say “Melasma away - apply everyday” @18:18 It’s Quý( Dear) not Quỷ(Devil) meaning “Keep serving Dear Lord(God)” @21:21 Mỹ mean Beautiful and Toàn mean Perfection, America literally mean Beautiful Nation, but I find some people read My Toan as My Town which imply the place the girl is defending @23:32 Tâm mean Heart/Soul and Phương mean Direction @24:48 the Poster say “Đoàn kết- Tiêu diệt Cộng Sản xâm lăng” meaning Unite - Destroy Communist Invaders

Thank you for giving credit to the 2nd half of the movie, which continues to be criminally underrated.

Sadly this is a tad lost in translation. Vietnamese is so difficult to translate unless the whole context of the sentence is understood and the reversed grammar is understood. A simple word like 'Moi' can have endless meanings depending on how the accents are used to give the word a totally different meaning. Maybe you need to re edit this deep dive after sitting down with a Vietnamese person for an hour to get the literal translations, even then you may find that different people have a different understanding of a sign, believe me I have experienced this for real. To see so much French influence there at the timeframe of the war would have been normal. If it wasn't there then Kubrick would have made a mistake. The oil reference is important because if you ever fly into Ho Chi Minh city you will notice out in the sea just off the coast oil rigs. Vietnam is sitting on a huge untapped oil reserve. This oil reserve is something China wants desperately to control and that's current news. After the Vietnam War ( Vietnamese call it The American War ) there was a conflict with China who wanted repayment for all the help it gave Vietnam to push America out. So even though both these countries are communist run they don't get along together. If Vietnam gets caught up in a conflict with China today i'm certain America will assist. The South China Sea area is going to explode very soon.

“The French had their own little military conflict in the region before the US” doesn’t really cover it.

*Austin Powers Voice* You know what’s remarkable is how England looks in no way like Vietnam.

There’s another John Wayne Impression when Joker first meets the Lusthog squad and has the standoff with Animal Mother, he says “Well Pilgrim, only after you eat the peanuts outta my sheeeit”

I just watched some interviews from Vietnam vets. One chap speaks of his first kill in a way that recalled the Jungian Shadow theme in FMJ. All of a sudden, he was on his own and a shape came at him from the jungle. It was kill or be killed and the guy telling the story took his shot and killed his would be killer. He freely admitted this Viet cong soldier was not a 'man' or a person to him, he was just a shape that ran at him and when he was down, he was just dead skin and bone. The vet didn't know the guy at all and felt no remorse. He was glad he lived, end of story. It reminded me of the line 'the dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive'.

Interesting. "請用黑人牙膏" in the big-toothed smiley guy advert says: "Please use black people's toothpaste!" And it's not even in Vietnamese script, it's in Chinese.

Hey Rob, I live in Vietnam and I asked a friend about two of these signs. He said that ‘Tiep tuc phung su quy ngai’ means: ‘Continue to serve/follow the one you respect/admire’ (the one you admire would usually be a man). And ‘Tam phuon’ is just a common business name, or a common name for a company.

"Central" and "pheonix" maybe referring to the CIA and the Phoenix program?

Interesting. My dad, who did 2 tours in Vietnam, took me to see this film twice, and I wish we could have talked about this movie and what it meant to him but he never did. I figured it was just Vietnamese advertising for products, but the Shell phrase especially is intriguing - I would never have thought it had messaging in it. Clever.

The Shell logo can also be seen as the rising sun.

I think "To endlessly serve the devil" was Royal Dutch Shell's actual slogan.

At approx. 7.35, you discuss the toothpaste add of the young man vs. the old man with the smile in all the other adds. When I study the picture, I see a young man with head cocked slightly as if shouldering a rifle--looking down a sight, and the toothpaste tube is not horizontal as in many of the other adds, it is vertically propped, and resembles a round of ammo. Maybe it's the ex-military part of my brain, but that's what I see.

3:24 smiling man looks more like a black men from a colonial french region. White tooth... hint

For many years now, the time has been beyond ripe for a good and deep Full Metal Jacket analysis. This was a treat and a half to watch.

The three flags on the fist is from the Vietnam War, in my guess, as the US, SOUTH Korea, and Australia had military contingents deployed. South Korea was a new US ally (or client state) eager to secure US support at home, so they helped the US in Vietnam and not without controversy.

It's interesting to see your own language being analyzed so precisely

"Phuong" could also mean "Heartbreaker".

I have fallen down the Collective Learning rabbit hole and love it. I gotta give this dude props, he credits all his sources and doesn't present what others have discussed as his own ideas

South Korea fought in the Vietnam war with Australia and the USA

I hardly think John Wayne "avoided the draft"...He was 36 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed...How many 36 year old men were drafted?

5:25 did anyone else catch the rather large and prominent painting of jesus looking towards joker? it feels out of place in a scene with overt consumerism, even the girl is a product to be bought...

Photocopy could also refer to the process of training the soldiers into mindless minions to do the bidding of a more powerful entity.

I agree the with the "devil" metaphor, but I see it as the "devil" orchestrating a war where everyone dies/he is the only victor. They were playing both sides. Those Hueys/tanks/fighter jets/napalm run on fuel.

"Boots" is a derogatory term for new Marines by other Marines.

Rob you've been running circles around EVERY online film analysis on the internet for a while but lately it's felt like your just hitting non-stop homeruns with the stuff youve been doing lately. As a filmmaker- me and some of my collaborators have really benefited from YOUR work .

Vietnamese in a scouse accent must be what Martian sounds like.

Thanks, I always wondered what those texts were saying. The Shell ad at 19:44 with the text "endlessly serving the Devil" could also be a reference to the American troops walking prominently just beneath the text, while the Shell logo is hidden. "America, the big Devil" has often been a term used by the civilian victims of war.

The street signs are there to give it a lived in appearance, and often used to describe how to view the war scenes in the film, Hynos toothpaste was discontinued due to it's being toxic to humans with numerous illnesses, (including cancer) and because of Hynos' toxicity being comparable to the horrors of war.

Great stuff here Rob, a few things popped into my head with your points. - The Leyna sign relating to "Little Angel" "Light" and the name Helen. In Eyes Wide Shut the daughter is named Helena and wears angel wings in her first scene - With "Little Angel" in mind and the references in the other signs to Hell or the Devil (along with the fires everywhere) the fact that the cardboard Indian cutout is perched on Joker's shoulder reminds me of the classic cartoon trope of having and angel and devil on opposite shoulders trying to sway you towards their pain of view. Note John Wayne fighting an Indian is over his other shoulder - The toothpaste signs along with what you mentioned, keeping teeth white brings to mind the idea of White Washing and US imperialism brining the great white hope - Finally the fist poster at the end. I think you're right on with a power controlling the soldiers i.e. governments/ corporations. This reminds me of a prominent shot in the first half of the film where Hartman forces Pyle to strangle himself with Hartman's hand. The shot is a close up of the hand gripping Pyle's neck. This shot also reminds me of a shot from EWS where Ziegler's hand is very large in the foreground of the shot where Bill is reviving Mandy. Ziegler is established as the powerful figure in Bill's world. Combine that with Dr. Strangelove's single glove and there's a repetition of large powerful hands controlling people.

“33” is decent beer, but I prefer Huda beer, brewed right there in Hue 🍺👍✨

Rob - great to see you posting new stuff. And I'm really glad your tackling FMJ.

Great stuff my man. I'm broke at the moment but I hope things start to turn around this year. When things do for me, you'll know. Keep it up. Thanks for all you do and happy new year.

Great job of Collective learning. I love your flicks.💞

The Urban Dictionary thing is not legit. Search for any name on there and they're gonna have a feel-good fortune type of description for the name. A search for my name returns this: "A loving and caring guy who puts others first. Will be or is an amazing boyfriend and always makes sure that their couple is happy. Loved by many, especially by their signicicant other. Once they have found that special girl they will stick with then forever. Incredibly sweetie and sensitive. :) ".

Fantastic. Really enjoyed this one. Always love how much in-depth research you perform and analyze to present these amazing studies of film and cryptic imagery, especially regarding Kubrick’s releases. Great work Rob!

3:51 Those Chinese characters “黑人牙膏” on the hynos billboard actually mean black person toothpaste

Great analysis, Mr. Ager, it's strange to find someone with such dedication on movies nowadays.

I remember buying his analysis for The Warriors a few years back and it was really good

I always saw the toothpaste smiling man to be Louis Armstrong, "Satchmo". There is a famous photo of him that is almost identical to this. What a wonderful world is a satchmo song that becomes a theme of that movie "Good Morning Vietnam" which was released only weeks after FMJ. Maybe Kubrick knew about the Satchmo sound track and was getting in first with the symbolism.? just a guess.

I can see you put a great deal of thought into this. Great viewpoints! Thank you for the effort and video

Hi Rob Yours is one of the best channels on youtube. The reason it would say 'Le Ngoc' in the movie theater scene is because in many Asian cultures, the family name is written before the given name. Incredible video!

Thanks for pointing all this out - have to say I missed every single detail you point out - only ever watched it on VHS for the first forty times & even the DVD isn't all that!

It's interesting the girl who played the sniper's name was prominently featured while Joker was talking about getting his first confirmed kill.

Love your channel man!

@24:20 that is not the flag of North Korea. It's the flag of South Korea which along with Australia was the only country to send significant military forces to fight alongside the US in the Vietnam War. It's not a Korean War era poster.

Tooth paste kid is aiming a metaphorical rifle at em

Funny thing about Full Metal Jacket is anytime I think of the movie itself, I always remember the vietnam scenes first. The first half of the movie, I remember the dialogue but the second half the visuals are iconic

Very thorough, complete analysis once again, from the great Rob Ager. Thank you Sir for posting, much appreciated--your work is stellar.

In the 80s and 90s, everything was “Pan & Scan” because every movie had to fill this bloody 4/3 screen. Now, our 4/3 movies are cropped to fill this bloody widescreen. Is it so difficult to respect the original format?

Given the general theme of the film overall, I'd guess the demon being served is war. The Shell logo being used to reinforce the symbolism overtly because of the probabilities of oil being a motivation, but also more indirectly as just showing the roll of money in war as a general concept

Thanks so much for your videos, they really are amazing and mind blowing!!

My mind is blown from the sign being shot down minus the 2 letters around 9 minutes in the video. Kubrick's a genius. And great catch Rob. Love watching you dissect these videos.

Wow in my ignorance i assumed the 2nd half of the film was shot on location in a southeast asian country. I'm now blown away by the fact it was shot in England.

There's an American beer called "Rolling Rock" that has "33" on the cans and bottles, too. The "33" symbolized 1933, the year the 18th Amendment was repealed, ending Prohibition. The motto on the cans and bottles is "Same as it Ever Was". Probably a coincidence.

1/2 hour dose of Rob Ager yesss. Also Rob I’ve never asked, what are you trying to communicate with the audio of breathing when you stop speaking?

Your analysis is amazing.

The kid in the toothpaste add is in a position, almost like a sniper pose. ??

This is unrelated to the topic but has anyone else noticed that in the scene with the hooker the same cars are going around in circles? It’s very distracting once you notice it lol

I think this is such an interesting g video. One of the best I’ve seen for days.

Oil did play a role in tension in South East Asia as Indonesia was used by the oil companies to ethnically cleanse 500 smaller ethnic groups in the area so that they would negotiate a deal with one nation than a whole bunch of them.

I had a history teacher in high school who was with the 1/1 Marines and fought in the Battle of Hue.

The shell in the shell signs is from the stars. Many corporate logos are based on occult symbols. My guess for the shell sign in the constellation Lyra. But it could be another. It is also often shown as a shield like on the dollar.

Very cool and interesting take I hadn't thought about. I can't wait to hear just about anything from you in regards to The Lighthouse! I thought it was so very good to the point where it may be my all-time favourite, but there seemed to be layers to it I didn't understand and I'm sure it's flawed, I haven't had the chance to rewatch it yet but I'm looking forward to the discussions around it, praise or criticism.

25:03 The poster is from the Vietnam War. South Korea (and yes, that is the South Korean flag on the cartoon sleeve) was one of the US-allied nations that sent soldiers to South Vietnam, along with Australia and New Zealand. Thailand provided space within it's own kingdom for US Air Force bomber, fighter-bomber, and fighter bases that flew over South and North Vietnam. Japan had aircraft repair facilities for US Air Force and Marine jet fighters, staffed by Americans. It was an international effort to crush insurgencies in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that did not succeed.

Made me think of Death Wish III which was filmed in London...and they both have a scene with a camera being stolen on a street!

10:08 There are diacritic markings on the sign. The coloring of the sign just makes them hard to see is all.

I've always wondered about these signs since I knew the film was not shot in Vietnam. Thank you.. great, video perspective and info as always Sir 👌 Also, when the editor says the line you referenced about drunks and combat and such, I always thought the toothbrush reference and the hearts and minds reference were the first two things he was planning on speaking about, then following up and adding the third mine about combat action. "Drunks who give half their pay to buy hooks toothbrushes and deodorants; wining of hearts and minds okay? And combat action that results in a kill..." I never bothered to consider that the winning of hearts and minds statement was part of the previous toothbrush statement. I always received that as 3 "reasons" as him stating the 2 in question and then adding the combat resulting statement as a 3tf previously unconsidered reason. Looks like you are most likely correct though. Which is why I keep coming back to this channel lol

The fist poster @ 24:15 is actually showing the US flag, “South Korean” flag [may have accidentally said NK flag], and Australian flag. These 3 countries, other than South Vietnam committed the most troops to Vietnam. US-2.7 million soldiers. Australia-60,000 soldiers. South Korea-320,000 soldiers. So rather than the Korean War of the 1950’s, I think it is saying something about the Vietnam War and these countries that fought there, much similar to the rest of the symbology the video covers.

"Keep serving your demons". Christ Almighty...Kubrick keeps fascinating me. I love how he played with psychology too. Thanks for your video..amazing stuff.

cheers rob for looking into kubriks mind

I just wanted to point out that the three countries indicated on the Fist poster (US, Australia and S. Korea) were also allies of S Vietnam. All 3 countries fought together in the Vietnam war as well as the Korean war.

Wow I didn‘t know the movie was released in the academy ratio. Thanks Rob, you are a master!

The hole where sniper is shooting looks like US map doesnt it?

Lol John Wayne was 60 when the Vietnam draft happened! I love this video!

Ty man, your work is very interesting

Love it, thank you, happy new year. There has to be a record of some of this stuff, right? There has to be a place where it is written "OK, today we're going to have these people make X sign on the set." It feels like you're reverse engineering Google's search algorithm with some of this stuff. Either way, keep up these vids!

The VC sniper is armed with a Czech made Vz 58 and not a Soviet or Chinese AK-47 or Type 56. Does this carry any significance?

I thought it interesting that the picture of the smiling man in the toothpaste ad looked a lot like the American propaganda cartoons of the Japanese, circa WWII, with the exaggerated teeth.

Quality content, as always. It might be a stretch, but it would be cool if someone that's speaking vietnamese and is interested in the film would give these signs a go and see what they make of the translations. Btw: have you thought about the analysis of Blow-Up (1966)? I'm still looking forward to seeing that some day.

The “Doan Ket” poster that you mentioned in the last analysis is interesting. These flags-US, South Korea (rather than North Korea), Australia-are allies that had participated in the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s. Couldn’t find it online, but reasonably it would be a fist of unity (among the US allies) against the Việt Cong or North Vietnamese forces (which was torn off from the poster). Now it’s hard to find posters from Southern Vietnam nowadays, not even in Vietnam where you can easily have many Northern posters.

Latin script, not English lettering, just being pedantic. After all it is a result of French colonialism.

Collative, 90% of your speculation in the movie is incorrect its painful. If you happen to see this comment, please take time to read it. Mỹ Toàn means Beauty (that is) Preserved

Another theme used by Kubrick was Mickey Mouse. Hartman says, “what is this Mickey Mouse shit” when Pyle is in the bathroom screaming. MM dolls on the windowsill in the journalist office. Finally , the soldiers sing the MM theme song at the movie’s ending.

brilliant.thx Rob

I agree. The 2nd half, to me, is more entertaining.

What's not to like here? I'd be curious to read someone defend their thumbs down.

You forgot to mention Joker's impersonation of John Wayne when he met Animal Mother - the most prominent John Wayne reference scene in the movie. To this day, a lot of people have a pretty low opinion of John Wayne who was a very vocal supporter of the Vietnam war after having evaded the draft himself in WWII. It's possible that Kubrick shared that low opinion of Wayne. As to the propaganda poster showing American, Australian, and South Korean flags, those three countries were allies in BOTH the Korean and Vietnam wars. America had trouble finding ANY international support for the Vietnam war but South Korea and Australia did send small numbers of troops to Vietnam. The rest of America's traditional allies like Great Britain refused to take part in that war.

12:15 Actually, the reason many of these kinds of small deer are near extinct are that their skin was used in luxurious gloves, as in one individual had to be killed to make one glove.

Hey Rob. Boots... as in "Knock Boots"? i.e. - get laid. The phoenix... In Michael Herr's book Dispatches, he floats the idea of "regeneration through violence". Great book BTW. Was Kubrick suggesting male regeneration via violence perpetrated against women? That's a hefty load to be taken by one sign, but this was the climax of the film...

Ager Kubrick Need I say more? Thanks for the content, Rob!

I watched this movie and got reminicent of my travels in vietnam during the street scenes.. it blew my mind to learn it was shot in england. Kubrick did a very good job with this.

Rob - so much stuff here - you've caught some things that make me think - I want to flag to you: - As you've pointed out - Joker does his John Wayne impression in all three Acts of the film - You've done an amazing thing identifying the film in the movie theatre as being the John Wayne film - Red River. - The phrase, "IS that you John Wayne? Is it me?" Makes no sense - but it's also in the book. John Wayne has a meaning in this film. Perhaps as the symbol of American agression. - Notice the Eagle in the Battery in the sign - this is the same eagle that appears on the Colonel's insignia. - The painting of Jesus when Rasterman chases the guy who steals his camera. The Colonel in the burial scene, and Hartman both reference Jesus or the Virgin Mary - The representation of women in this film - all three main women characters - the first hooker in red shows her face. The second hooker who screws the guys in the movie theatre hides her eyes with big sun glasses. And the third girl - the sniper - you don't see at all - she's hidden - until she's killed. All three girls are about the same age - the same size and look roughly the same. - Once last thought - I alway thought the 3 acts don't flow - and as you say - the Editor says he only wants stories about toothpaste or winning battles. Maybe the 3rd act is Joker's imagination - or something he authors. He is imagining the toothpaste and winning battles. Much like the Shining - which I believe to actually be occurring in Jack's novel - that 3rd act is actually a story Jokerman writes for Stars and Stripes???

John Wayne "avoided" the draft by being born in 1907 . . .

The poster at 24:00 shows the flag of South Korea. The South Korean government sent thousands of soldiers to fight in the war on the behalf of the US.

hey does anybody else notice how rob edits in sound of his own breathing over the silent parts?

Really enjoying your diatribes, second one on FMJ I've watched over the last few days and first was the Feminine hero in Aliens. 'Remember watching this movie in Sydney on release and then going back to the cinema the next day as there was so much to it.