# First Blood (The First Rambo Movie), And Then A Segue. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589 "2015-02-13T17:10:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/21 "2015-02-14T16:41:26Z")
The Deer Hunter is an actual movie, story and drama. Stallone films are to movies like comic books are to fine literature. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/22 "2015-02-14T17:43:08Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > The Deer Hunter is an actual movie, story and drama. > > Stallone films are to movies like comic books are to fine literature. Have you seen “First Blood”? If not, you may be missing the point of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/23 "2015-02-15T01:48:17Z")
> [@Chicago\_Faucet](#): > > Yeah, I didn’t like “Easy Rider” at all. Maybe I was expecting much more because of the cast and the neat beginning where they establish that the ride is more or less a drug run to deliver cocaine. I was rubbing my hands saying, “Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson doing a drug delivery on motorcycles? This is gonna be good!” But I found it to be mingling, rambling, and unfocused. I would much more prefer to listen to Charlie Daniels’ “Uneasy Rider”. 🙂 Nitpick: In the airport scene at the beginning they’re _selling_ the drugs. For most of the trip all they have in the secret gas tank tube is money. But, yeah, the movie hasn’t aged very well. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/24 "2015-02-15T03:04:24Z")
I’ve never seen First Blood or Rocky, or any of the entries in either series. I had always heard how good the first Rocky was but I never heard anyone say anything good about First Blood. I guess I’ll have to give them a chance. I didn’t realize that they were different from the rest of the series in such profound ways. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/25 "2015-02-15T15:06:51Z")
> [@Chicago Faucet](#): > > Yeah, I didn’t like “Easy Rider” at all. Maybe I was expecting much more because of the cast and the neat beginning where they establish that the ride is more or less a drug run to deliver cocaine. I was rubbing my hands saying, “Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson doing a drug delivery on motorcycles? This is gonna be good!” But I found it to be mingling, rambling, and unfocused. I would much more prefer to listen to Charlie Daniels’ “Uneasy Rider”. > [@GreasyJack](#): > > Nitpick: In the airport scene at the beginning they’re selling the drugs. For most of the trip all they have in the secret gas tank tube is money. > > **But, yeah, the movie hasn’t aged very well**. Understatement of the year. Oye. Back when it came out, I was just a kid that wanted a dirt bike. I made my dad take me to the movie so he would see how great motorcycles where. [sub]oops.[/sub] Dad did end up caving, and I got my Yamaha LT2. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/26 "2015-02-15T15:37:19Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Only _one_ person is killed in _First Blood_, and that’s basically an accident and in self defense. So you must not have watched it very well. Still, can’t really argue that the movie isn’t about a Viet-Nam vet flipping his lid. And while nobody gets killed during his M-60 rampage… he still \*goes \*on an M-60 rampage :o (and eventually tops himself. Or would have if Hollywood scripts weren’t written by focus groups.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/27 "2015-02-15T17:18:42Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Still, can’t really argue that the movie isn’t about a Viet-Nam vet flipping his lid. true enough. But Ranger Jeff’s post seemed to imply that the trope was the whole package of “a psychotic Nam vet flipping out and killing people” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/28 "2015-02-15T17:28:26Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Just to clarify, _The Deer Hunter_ is in a whole different class of films than any of the others mentioned. I can see some people reacting negatively to it, but not because it’s a bad movie, rather because it’s a very long, sad, depressing movie. In terms of movies that won Best Picture, _The Deer Hunter_ is more _The Hurt Locker_ than it is _Forrest Gump_… 😃 I have no problem with movies that are sad and depressing. I don’t even have problems with movies that are long - as long as the length is justified. But _The Deer Hunter_ is a great 100 minute movie spread out over 183 minutes. Cimino is a classic case of a director who falls in love with the footage he’s shot and can’t bear to leave any of it out of the final cut. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/29 "2015-02-15T18:06:15Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Ah, I came away from First Blood thinking it was another Hollywood feature about a psychotic Nam vet flipping out and killing people. It wasn’t until Magnum, P.I. did they have Vietnam Vets who weren’t psychotic, homeless, suicidal, or drug addicts. _Magnum PI_ was partway through its third season before _First Blood_ hit theaters. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/30 "2015-02-15T18:26:02Z")
I just wanted to make us all feel old and point out that First Blood came out 33 years ago. And yeah, the John Rambo character so quickly became such a caricature of himself, people forget how grounded\*\*\*\*\* the first movie was. It’s an action movie, sure, but the action flows logically\*\*\*\*\* from the situations the characters are in, and the situations themselves are pretty naturally constructed by the characters’ actions. It’s more of a character study than you’d expect, with Stallone’s traumatized, aimless vet who wants to be let alone, Dennehy’s small-town sheriff whose king-of-the-hill mentality both creates the situation and keeps him from understanding why he can’t get control of it, and Richard Crenna’s army colonel, Rambo’s former CO, who arrives on the scene and tries in vain to illustrate to the sheriff the differences between a law-enforcement mentality and a warfare-by-attrition mentality. Nobody’s really good, nobody’s really bad, and everyone’s motivations are understandable. Only one person dies, by accident\*\*\*\*\*, and Rambo consistently measures his responses throughout. The movie ends with an emotional breakdown, fer crissakes. \*\*\*\*\* - mostly ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/31 "2015-02-15T18:42:41Z")
> [@Randolph](#): > > I just wanted to make us all feel old and point out that First Blood came out 33 years ago. Making it the longest film of all time, because **IT’S NOT OVER!!! NOTHING IS OVER!!!** ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/32 "2015-02-16T01:10:17Z")
I never really liked the Rambo series, because I’d read the book first and Rambo died in it, and knowing that I could never accept the franchise. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/33 "2015-02-16T01:54:41Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I never really liked the Rambo series, because I’d read the book first and Rambo died in it, and knowing that I could never accept the franchise. It’s a big deal, isn’t it? Even as good as the first film was, it was a complete betrayal of the spirit of the book. And the series that resulted - which helped define the 80s-90s action genre - was nothing more than an expansion and amplification of that betrayal. And it got more and more stupid until the recent fourth film. I sometimes feel as though the entire 85-95 action film genre, which generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, more or less grew out of adapting _First Blood, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_, and _We Can Remember It For You Wholesale_, and abandoning the questions and lessons of those books in favor of action porn. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/34 "2015-02-17T21:59:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I have no problem with movies that are sad and depressing. I don’t even have problems with movies that are long - as long as the length is justified. But _The Deer Hunter_ is a great 100 minute movie spread out over 183 minutes. Cimino is a classic case of a director who falls in love with the footage he’s shot and can’t bear to leave any of it out of the final cut. Yeah, this is precisely what Cimino did with his next film, the infamous\* Heaven’s Gate\*. It got savaged by the critics primarily for its interminably long running time. When it was re-cut & re-released Roger Ebert said it was actually a pretty good film then, but it was too late. Killed Cimino’s career. > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I never really liked the Rambo series, because I’d read the book first and Rambo died in it, and knowing that I could never accept the franchise. _Rambo was based **on a book?!?** _ Holy flurking shnit! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/35 "2015-02-18T00:21:55Z")
I read an article by the author, David Morrell. He had never sold movie rights before, so he ran the contract past his lawyer, who suggested that he retain ownership to ancillary products like action figures. They added a couple of sentences for that, and he said those two sentences alone made him millions of dollars because Rambo dolls took off. He said he never in his wildest imagination thought that anyone would ever want a Rambo doll, let alone millions of kids. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/36 "2015-02-18T01:13:51Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > He said he never in his wildest imagination thought that anyone would ever want a Rambo doll, let alone millions of kids. Color me dumb, but did that become a thing? I know they made more Rambo movies, but were the action figures big? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/37 "2015-02-18T01:28:55Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Color me dumb, but did that become a thing? I know they made more Rambo movies, but were the action figures big? I’m pretty sure that I saw both Rambo II and III when I was a kid (8-9 years old). Perhaps my parents were weird, but I don’t think so. I could see a lot of kids ending up with Rambo action figures. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/38 "2015-02-18T02:02:10Z")
I saw First Blood in the theater. When Rambo was undressing in the jail cell and he turned around everybody gasped at how small Stallone got his waist for that scene. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/39 "2015-02-18T02:03:56Z")
> [@MeanJoe](#): > > It is interesting how his movies trended from acclaimed originals (Rocky, Rambo) to absurd and cliched parodies that established themselves within a genre. > > And definitely watch The Deer Hunter, that is an amazing movie. Just stop before you get to _Deer Hunter IV: Deer in Space_. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589/40 "2015-02-18T02:55:07Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Color me dumb, but did that become a thing? I know they made more Rambo movies, but were the action figures big? There was a Rambo cartoon series that had its own line of toys. The video games were moderately successful But form what I remember, it was the toy knives and guns with the Rambo label that were really big. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-blood-the-first-rambo-movie-and-then-a-segue/712589.md?page=1)