Rambo Quartet.

[TheRoadWarrior]

in progress, editing this post.


I watched "Rambo" over the weekend. The fourth and final film in the John Rambo quartet.

FIRST BLOOD is a film I've watched more times than I've eaten lunch.

I spoke to David Morrell shortly after reading the novel. The book ends grimly and is a lot darker, Rambo dies. There's also a heck of a build-up to when/why he initially blows! He's been kicked out of dozens of towns by local Sheriff's and although I really enjoyed the film, Rambo's explosion into aggression and violence probably makes more sense in the novel.

The novel also builds upon the relationship dynamics between Will Teasle and 'the kid', Teasle is a Korean war vet, and there's a contrast and background to each man's life and war experiences that's much deeper, there's even a father-figure angle.

The films, briefly, are-

FIRST BLOOD - an excellent manhunt film, even allowiing for that car which manages to leap thrity feet into the air and land without causing spinal injuries, we assume. Great performances by Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna and Sylvester Stallone.

RAMBO, FIRST BLOOD PART II - John Rambo evolves into a cartoon figure. The film is a solid action feast but the 80s aspects, one poll had it as the film that most accurately took the temperature of the decade. It took me ages to work that one through. Reaganomics et al, Russians as Enemy No #1 and the Cold War is continuing to hot up. As well as fighting the Vietnam War all over again and winning this time. It may be harder to grasp all this today, without the climate of politics and a sort of celebratory jingoism.

RAMBO 3 - I've only seen this film once, truly awful if I recall, Rambo is in Afghanistan assisting the rebels, the irony! I'll try and add to this summary, as, well, it's as empty as my recollection of this 'final' film. That was a temporary-final we now know!

I think one of the lessons of the two films following First Blood might be [apart from "don't make sequels" ] that when the politics is so overtly displayed, the film and story suffers, and it dates very quickly. It fails as 'art', because the politics is pushing through, in your face.

but then after a long break, in the recent remake and recycle wave we get:-

RAMBO
The final film is ultra-violent: you get the feeling they said, "the old violence wont do" - it has to be a 1000 times more intense, these guys have seen it all now, and the war-porn of current news station has inured us all to some extent, yes? Worse, with the camera lingering on the mutilations like those shots we're all used to seeing in an Argento horror flick it feels B or even C-flicky at times. I thought, move the shot on.

But I still enjoyed what this film was trying to do, it seemed to be saying, 'if you think you know how bad war is, think again. And by giving Rambo a bunch of disaffected mercenaries to fight with, he kind of gets his old team back, we never saw him with the soldiers who were his friends in Vietnam, but it was one of the more heartfelt aspects to First Blood, this guy who has come home and everybody else, his friends, are dead.

This is why I think you can at least identify with the character in First Blood, even though it has been described as morally ambiguous, but after that, it's all explosions and effects, good story potential, but a loss of empathy on the part of the audience.

There was a chance to get it right in the final film, but the hammy dialogue and much else means, for me at least, it fell apart. It probably doesn't matter, hey, so long as it took a bunch of cash at the BO, it's served its purpose. But you'd think with the money involved in films, the script and editing and characterisation could have been a lot better.

Anybody here a fan of these movies, in particular FIRST BLOOD which has a big cult following I understand . I hear they even turned up last year to see the bridge from the movie demolished, it had become delapidated and unsafe.

Now that's a geek too far for me.

[Kel E]

You can view the alternate suicide ending from First Blood on youtube.

I have seen it a lot-although now I squint through the rat cave sequence after learning that offscreen they abused them for entertainment.

I liked Rambo 4 the couple of times I watched it-whether it will hold up on repeat viewings cant say. I think it needed a little more oomph in the finale--got the feeling there was a bit of a budget crunch (same with Expendables). As well I suspect they made the mercenaries non-American probably for politically correct reasons. I did like it as a straight B movie kind of story with an interesting theme--Rambo was cynical, the missionaries were not, in the end they both learn something. Definitely less of the cartoon violence in the previous two films.

But Rambo 2 did have that evil Russian stereotype. If i had some Russian friends I would insist we watch Rambo 2.
"Dragonfly, wolf den. Colourful names!"
Supposedly James Cameron was pretty mad with Stallone because he could never remember his name. I think Stallone is a far superior writer so I am curious what kind of story disagreements they had.

I liked Rambo 3 for laughs
Trautman: How's the wound?
Rambo: You taught us to ignore pain remember?
Trautman: Is it working?
Rambo: Not really.

And Rambo being on the same side as Osama Bin Laden? Ha I bet Stallone regrets that!

[TheRoadWarrior]

Kel - interesting points all.

Great observation on the PC aspect to the choice of mercenaries, that choice immediately jarred but I couldn't say why, that's solved it. Maybe because you hail from BC Canada you can pick up on things that are not so clear to a Brit.

We Brits probably see use of the SAS, for example, as a bit of a cliche, it always has to be an ex-SAS soldier, Sean Connery in THE ROCK or Russell Crowe in PROOF OF LIFE, for example.

I recall reading something about the budgets being restricted, and it being a stuggle to get it made. It's mainaly the editing and flow that I noticed, the story as I said above is very strong imho. I'll watch Rambo 4 again, as I got distracted and didn't see it all this time so I don't know how it ends.

I think Stallone is a great writer, always notice it with Rocky, it's like a masterclass in economy.

Being a fly-on-the-wall with Cameron/Stallone, it's strange, but after I came back to Rambo 2 and had seen a lot of Cameron's films for years, I thought, how on earth did JC get involved in a film like Rambo? And it just went from gritty realism of a sort, or a faux realsim perhaps, to popcorn-crazy in style.

I have a problem with Rambo wearing those skydiver goggles just before he gets 'hung up'. He looks like a toy soldier, dressed up in an Action Man outfit.

Rambo 3: yes, I remember the 'pain' dialogue now, they sort of send up the last two films, you can kind of feel they're in an 'exit-strategy' mode, 'hey Richard [Crenna], we're not coming back, what shall we do? We don't have to get in character so much now, maybe the meatheads will hate us for it because it's only acting and Rambo isn't for real, we'll admit he doesn't "eat things that would make a billygoat puke", but what that heck. . . at that time they weren't coming back were they? At least he wasn't fighting the Chinese, we may not have been laughing so much.

Actually, Son of Rambow, the UK film, has slightly damaged my Rambo psyche, that fragile willing suspension of disbelief which I enter when I watch it. A friend of mine once said he thinks it's one of the funniest films he's ever seen! That changed my view of the films, because he was right, First Blood is hilarious. "We've found Rambo's body, in fact it stole an army truck and blew up a gas station'. Brilliant.

Not sure what the pull is with these films, when the UK chat show host Jonathan Ross interviewed Stallone he tried to encapsulate the appeal of the Rambo character and came up with 'the outsider', and maybe that's it, we're suckers for outsiders.

Anyway, we're civilians, we're under no pressure to figure any of this out!

[Kel E]

Rambo 4 came out right when the Iraq invasion was in full swing-it just seemed logical that it should be american mercenaries--on the other hand it didnt have that same kind of rah rah patriotic tough guy attitude from Rambo 2. It may actually be more timeless that he didnt link it to current events. I think Stallone was going for an Unforgiven kind of finale for Rambo(at least until he makes another which I think is a mistake). The last shot was rather haunting-he finally did go home! I read an interview he did where he said the major studios werent interested in either Rocky 6 or Rambo 4 and didnt take chances like they used to. I felt his writing was rather refreshing after so many recent movies with very poorly thought out stories and characters. Even though i think Expendables was flat, it had some merits. Now I hear he isnt writing or directing the sequel-I hope it wont succumb to inferior storytelling without him taking the lead.
I havent seen Son of Rambow--interesting how the character resonated over seas. We dont have much of a military culture or history here so we are mainly just an observer of how the US sees itself militarily speaking. The last Rambo parody that comes to mind for me was Gizmo in Gremlins 2 the New Batch...oh and of course Hot Shots! Part Deux!

[TheRoadWarrior]

I don't think that First Blood was very well known over here, initially. It probably gained a following on video where I first found it. In the mom 'n' pop video stores. VHS had those lurid trailers from the 80s, I was a late convert to DVD, at least a decade or so into the new tech. as late as 2005, just liked the 'charm' of tape and in late 90s had so many VHS tapes that I wanted to hand onto them and the prices were dropping like crazy, when dvd was still a small fortuen, some people have kept VHS haven't they, esp die-hard movie fans, a little like the turntable thing in music, I let 'em go in the end.

But the films became known in the UK as a result of popularity of the Rocky franchise, which was global as we know, and then when Rambo 2 got going, our popular papers, the so-called red-tops, began a Stallone vs Arnie thing, Commando, with Arnie saying things like my muscles are bigger, it was all set up of course, and got rivalry to work as publicity. They eventually bought Planet HW together didn't they, along with Bruce Willis.

The 80s musclemen were a strange phenom', I have a screenplay of CHINATOWN where the writer Bob Towne says he found that whole thing depressing, to him it said we as people ar4e somehow not enough, it takes charaters like this to protect us all. He made an exception for Predator, which he called perfect parable, the hunters, become the hunted.
I can see what he means with the first remark, but Rambo had been breaking up rocks, so I suppose that was his excuse for 'conditioning', whereas Arnie was clearly an ex-Mr Universe in a commando suit.

Couldn't abide Commando, it just seemed like a cynical copy of what Stallone was up to at the time, but maybe that's taking it too seriously by half.

[Kel E]

Commando ha yeah I got some laughs from it but it wasnt in the same league as Rambo.
I have been interested in the Peplum movies-seems to me Europe caught onto the muscle man genre first and it got imported to the US but with guns replacing swords (at least after Conan the Barbarian). Predator's production history is interesting given that it was usually credited to a Stallone comment about Rocky vs Alien (though anyone who had seen Star Trek or Outer Limits or Without Warning would have recognized the plot).

[Kel E]

Since Chinatown was mentioned in the same conversation as Commando I got this weird false movie scene in my head of Arnie beating up some guy and shouting: "arrgh! She's my sista AND my daughta!"

[TheRoadWarrior]

It felt strange typing CHINATOWN and COMMANDO in the same post, I can tell you, as though some mystical force/rule in the universe, relating to incompatible matter, had been broken.

Perhaps a rare quantum event will occur, and when I come back next, the thread will be gone!

[jockfun28]

Am a big fan of all of these, the 1st is a classic & the 2nd I don't know, is highly enjoyable, the 3rd had it's problems & it's politic's might seem unpleasant by most taliban etc, but i really enjoyed the 4th very well shot & rather upsetting the game of Chicken etc & just how oppressed the people of that country are & the final shot was so good, it did bring a tear to my eye with Jerry Goldsmith's classic theme tune, a good series although am really unsure about a 5th

[TheRoadWarrior]

You know, I fancy a boxset of these films, but they've been repeated on TV recently, and I missed them. May get the chance to catch them soon, as a lot of films seem to be being shown as some kind of package, repeated often, are these sort of deals cropping up in TV, a sort of three for the price of one on the viewing rights. A few films are on 3-5 times per year?