Honestly, if they had made this into a movie it would be up there with Platoon and Apocalypse Now as one of the great Vietnam war films. Included in the DOD’s Film Office file on Fields of Fire is a complete copy of the draft script, so I read it, and I have to say it’s great. The Marines were all in favour of supporting the project but were overruled by Phil Strub’s office at the DOD. In late 1993 he approached the Marine Corps and the DOD for help making the film and sent them his draft script to review. Over the following years Webb adapted his novel into a screenplay, set up a production company and found some investors. I’m not sure why the Marine Corps chose Disney, out of all the major studios, to pitch Fields of Fire to, given that Disney has no reputation whatsoever for producing grisly war films.
But I guess when you’re trying to sell an idea as new you have to ignore everything that came before it.ĭisney showed no interest, preferring to focus on The Great Mouse Detective and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. This is a curious phrase, because a number of films had been produced that treated Vietnam seriously, some supported by the DOD and some not. In 1984 the Corps actually pitched it to Hollywood for adaptation into a movie, writing to Disney and suggesting they were in the right position to produce ‘the first serious treatment of the Vietnam War’. Written by Marine Corps veteran James Webb, who later served as Secretary of the Navy, it was widely praised for its realism. The 1978 novel Fields of Fire is a gripping portrait of the Vietnam War, bluntly depicting the violence and horror of that war while never losing sight of the humanity of the people involved.
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