8 Movie Heroes You Didn't Realise Probably Died Horrible Deaths

4. Captain Willard - Apocalypse Now (1979)

The "Heroic Ending"...

Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's timeless novella Heart of Darkness, chronicles the epic journey of Captain Willard, who, during the on-going Vietnam war, is tasked with assassinating a former Great Beret who has gone insane and set himself up as a God amongst a local tribe in Cambodia. That man is Marlon Brando (though he's called Kurtz in the movie, 'cause that'd be weird).

At the movie's climax, Willard is captured by Kurtz and his army, but is eventually set free - he returns to his boat and orders one of his men, Chef, to call in an airstrike. Then he proceeds to Kurtz's chamber, where he murders him with a machete, and escapes from the compound. The iconic line "the horror... the horror..." echoes in the background as Willard, his mission finally complete, heads off into the darkness aboard the boat...

But wait...

That airstrike. You know: the one that Chef called in, not a few moments before his head was removed from his shoulders? And given the time lapse that has taken place between Chef calling in the colossal firebombing strike and Willard getting back to the boat, there's an explosion of absolutely catastrophic proportions imminent on the horizon any second... and given how big these napalm explosions are - and how much the U.S. military want Kurtz dead - you can be sure that the area is going to be transformed into a fiery hell, and Willard is going to be right smack bang in the midst of it.

Is it likely that Willard, in his dumbfounded state, got out of that area in time? Probably not, which means that - though the mission was a success, at least - there aren't going to be any survivors. Exactly, perhaps, what the U.S. military might have wanted, anyway, given that this was an extremely top secret mission.