"Full Metal Jacket" star: It could have been about Iraq, Afghanistan

(CBS News) It was 25 years ago this summer that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick released his penultimate film, "Full Metal Jacket," starring Matthew Modine as an 18-year-old Marine recruit named Private Joker.

While on the set, Modine kept a journal and took photographs, which he later turned into a book. That diary is now coming to life in the form of a new iPad app, partially funded by Kickstarter, a crowd-funding online platform for creative projects.

"The fact that the film is still relevant is the genius of Stanley Kubrick," Modine told CBSNews.com of the movie's director, who died in 1999. "He didn't make a film that was about Vietnam. He made a film that would transcend time and could be a film about Afghanistan or Iraq. It could have easily been a story about the second world war. The film in its biggest sense is about conflict."

The movie's plot comes through in the app, which features 400 photos, a four-hour audio book narrated by Modine and five chapters chronicling the filmmaking process. Kubrick had encouraged Modine to keep a diary while on the set back in 1985.

The app, out this week, coincides with the release of a new "Full Metal Jacket" Blu-ray edition with set photos, a documentary on Kubrick, commentary by the film's stars and other extras.