Retrospective: First Blood I and II

The origin story behind every movie hero is important to an audience member. The first is supposedly the best, whether it is horror or action, and the more iconography and lore attributed to the main character the better. To understand the psyche of Jason Voorhees you have to watch the first Friday the 13th to set up the deranged mother, the setting of the camp, and the importance of Crystal Lake. Like Jason, Rambo is an enigmatic and interesting character whose origins are as much a part of his mythology as the bloodbath that he instigates in most of the Rambo films. Of course, what happens when the original actually has nothing to do with the rest of the films? Like Rocky, and the rest of his films, or Jason not even being included in the first of the Friday the 13th films, “First Blood” evolved quickly from its original format. That is why I’m writing this compare and contrast between the first and second “First Blood” films which are completely different than one another.

First Blood (1982)

The original concept and story came from the David Morrell novel of the same name. The story centers on Vietnam vet John Rambo, who is hitchhiking around the country trying to find a place to land, when he comes to a small town in Washington State. The sheriff of the town basically runs him out and tells him never to return because he looks like a dirty hippie, which apparently meant you could forcefully eject drifters from towns in the early eighties. When the sheriff, played by Brian Dennehy, can’t get Rambo to leave town peacefully, he takes him to jail and basically tortures him along with the other deputies. Rambo gets pretty mad and breaks out of the prison, then is tracked through the Washington wilderness, and is forced to enact violence.

In this first installment of the action saga Rambo doesn’t actually kill anyone. The main death, which drives the entire police force, SWAT, and army after him, was accidental and more the fault of a deputy than Rambo. Rambo himself only bombs, vandalizes, and injures those around him, as he is well trained but does not want to jeopardize civilian lives. This lends to the political message that Stallone threads throughout the film. If that hint was too subtle, yes Stallone did indeed write the screenplay, as he did with Rocky. The first film actually does a great job of showing the hideous prejudice of Middle America after the ripple effect of the Vietnam War. Even ten years after the end of the war there are plenty of unrepentant, thoughtless people who called veterans baby killers and spat on them in public. It’s truly the ending speech that drives home the point that veterans aren’t treated well, relating the extremes of PTSD and disregard from the American government and people.

That said it’s also aesthetically pleasing for any action film buff. There’s plenty of explosions, feats of extreme courage and skill, and tons of stealth attacks. Rambo is supposedly a manmade machine, only able to kill and maim, though what he really wants is to be left alone. The first of the Rambo films actually has a character with depth, shown between the action sequences, and having a politicized character wasn’t a popular idea in the early eighties. Though this film isn’t the best example of showing PTSD in Vietnam vets, it at least shows the extremes of dealing badly with men with extreme skills and little control, which I suppose is what Stallone wanted in the first place.

First Blood: Part II (1985)

Basically this is where we meet the version of John Rambo that would be featured in the rest of the Rambo films. He is an almost carnivorous killing machine, still angry that the government hasn’t served him well after the war, but instead of fighting them at the ground level like the first film, he works for them. Apparently the entire characterization of Rambo as a misunderstood loner was a lark, and this action hero god was the real Rambo the entire time. In the first film we have a character named General Trautman who is the only ally that Rambo has, and he reappears again in this film as Rambo’s savior. We start the film by having Trautman find Rambo in a prison work camp, oiled and muscled in all his Stallone glory, ready to be freed. Rambo is then recruited for a mission to go back into Vietnam and find out if American POWs have been left in camps since the war’s end.

In reality the US government has never endorsed the theory that said prisoners exist in Vietnam, and this theory is mostly seen in popular culture. It’s been a huge theme in this film as well as many Chuck Norris vehicles, a couple seasons of JAG, and in a song by Merle Haggard. Stallone again turns to the political side aspects of war with this theory, and it’s clear he believes in the US government’s complicity in the MIA/POW issue. The film was originally from a script by future blockbuster director James Cameron, who wrote most of the action. Stallone was the one who added the ending speech and the love interest of the covert agent, Co-Bao. Though Rambo is still a tragic figure, he is easily transformed into an unfeeling mega hero who kills anyone in his path.

Though this was an obvious cheesy addition to the “First Blood” franchise it’s very much beloved by the American public. This is the only Rambo film to garner an Academy Award nomination, for Best Sound Editing, which it lost to “Back to the Future”. The film is listed in John Wilson’s book “The Official Razzie Movie Guide”, as one of the “100 Most Enjoyable Bad Movies Ever Made.” When it was released it was number one at the box office and made seventy nine million in VHS rentals alone. It even got a video game tie-in and a novelization by the original author of “First Blood” David Morrell. This was the film that took the political story of a PTSD ridden soldier and made him into the war hero that we have seen throughout film history as the norm.

Of the two films I would say that I probably like the first one better. It may have a really awkward premise, but there’s something authentic and real about it that makes me truly feel for John Rambo. While the second film is cheesy in all the best ways, it’s so ridiculously different than the first film that it’s strange that they even add the “First Blood” moniker to the title. By the third installment it was simply “Rambo III,” which is the way it should be. While I don’t plan on watching that, or the senior “Rambo” from 2008, I’m glad I watched the origins of this super soldier, who undoubtedly changed the way everyone thought about the Vietnam War, even if it’s in an inauthentic way.