10 Great Movies That Were Almost Ruined By Bad Editing

Despite being the quintessential Vietnam war movie, Apocalypse Now had more flaws than the US Army's evacuation plan. Over 500 errors have been spotted in the movie, with the vast majority of them being in the continuity department, from subtle things like the rank of an officer according to his badge changing between shots to not-so-subtle things like a week's worth of stubble appearing in an instant.

The production was notoriously chaotic, with Harvey Kietel fired early on after director Francis Ford Coppola decided he didn't have the gravitas to pull off a lead role. He was eventually replaced by Martin Sheen, though proceedings were halted again when a combination of a grueling schedule and an excess of drink/drugs lead to the new star suffering a heart attack, though even that didn't stop the party on set.

A shoot that was supposed to take six weeks ended up lasting 16 months, and even with all the scenes (a great deal of them improvised by director and actors alike) finished, the greatest challenge was yet to come. Editing duties fell to Walter Murch, and he had a hell of a job on his hands contending not only with actors performing under the influence but also the ever-changing weather - Coppola ignored advice and decided to shoot during monsoon season.

The result was a massively flawed masterpiece. The disjointed nature of the shoot left Murch scrambling to produce something coherent, but even with the many inconsistencies the raw message of the movie shone through, and it did it despite the final cut looking like a film school project funded by a rich parent.