Its A Long Road...The Reel and Real Rambo

For those who haven't read First Blood by David Morrell but only saw Rambo as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone, you do not know the real Rambo. Morrell's Rambo is a young man barely out of his teenage years, brash, immature, pyschologically scarred but a highly skilled individual. Stallone's Rambo has both the latter traits but is older and perhaps more understanding than Morrell's version. Like Morrell wrote in the foreword of the 1994 reprint of First Blood, both Rambos are like similarly made trains, just headed in two different directions, leading to shocking conclusions.

Personally, I found Morrell's Rambo too brutal and unforgiving for a highly skilled warrior who only wanted to give the local sherriff layabouts a lesson or two about respecting people regardless of how they look. He was vicious and lethal, cutting through the sherriff's posse like a hot knife through butter without remorse except maybe a litte regret towards the end of the novel. However, one noteworthy thing is that the book does not villify the local authorities especially sheffif Teasel. The reel Teasel was a real pain in the behind, full of prejudice and pride that the audience would most likely want to see Rambo gut him open like what Morrell's Rambo did to some of the sherriff's deputies in the book.

Regardless of the differences between the book and the film, it was fortunate that the film makers decided to mellow down Rambo's character, for it made the audience sympathise with him more so than if it 100% done like the book. Morrell's purpose was to write an entertaining thriller that also served as a critical analysis of the physical and psychological trauma faced by returning war veterans who become increasing billigerent to many situations back in their daily lives. This is embedded in the personalities of both Teasel and Rambo, both veterans of different wars, namely Korea and Vietnam respectively. Both had a general distrust of each other which escalated into full fledge guerilla warfare. One can't help but feel that if both men communicated and negotiated with each other rather than take an outright confrontational approach, their misunderstanding could be resolved.

The film removes this aspect of the book in favour of an even faster paced action packed story (not that the book is not action oriented), reducing Teasel to an overconfident commander who is itching to get his hands dirty. Fortunately, due to such changes, Rambo's superior officer, Trautman, played by Richard Crenna had an even bigger role to play as Rambo's mentor, counsellor and even bailing him out from the trouble he was in. Like the book, Trautman's character description was nearly the same, except due to the differences of both Rambos' actions the book's Trautman had to save Rambo in a very different way.

In the end, the film made Rambo a successful multi-million dollar cash cow, even having its own dictionary reference for the word Rambo which has since become a descriptive word for incredible skill and hot blooded temprement.