S2E26: Rambo: First Blood

While the right wingers in the US are all about “the troops” now, in the years immediately after Vietnam there was a lot of feeling that these were the first Americans to lose a war, and therefore weren’t due the same respect as WWII or Korea vets.

I do love November, but her very shallow empathy shows through here again. Being unable to immerse herself into a film almost always works well for a show like this, except when it doesn't

"Such a great shot, I don't know how they did it" - the way they did it is, they just... did that and jumped Sly into a tree, hitting every branch on the way down. Stallone broke ribs doing it, too, the scream of pain at the end is real.

Coming to this very late but, watching the film for the first time last night, what struck me was that First Blood wants us to see the experience of Vietnam vets as paralleling that of Black Americans under segregation and in the Civil Rights era. The way the cops behave towards Rambo early in the film, the whole “we don’t want your kind round here, don’t let the sun go down on you in this town” vibe. It seemed to be echoing In the Heat of the Night in particular. Which is, of course, really shitty politics, and very much in the vein of contemporary conservative grievance-mongering of the “straight white men are the most oppressed group in America!” variety

If we're doing Stallone films I think you need to see Cop Land, just from the first 15 minutes it feels like a film you've talked about, and holy hellfire I can see why. I had to double check y'all hadn't done it already.

I think it's interesting how you've pegged this as a fundamentally fascist film while having various anti-war readings. There's something to be said about how a lot of films that are even more explicitly supposed to anti-war end up being unironically loved by right wingers and fascists. The problem is that in their world view when they see the hero at the end who has gone though unimaginable suffering and trauma and done horrible things for no real reason, they see all that as having actually just made him harder, or more of a real man or whatever. He gets a pass to have like a breakdown and like a little manly cry at the end because he deserves it and it highlights what a badass he's become. Because obviously he wouldn't do that normally, you know. So yeah it's something that can still be sort of fundamentally fascist, in a way.

The great irony of the National Guard in this movie being portrayed as bumbling oafs is that, ostensibly, a component of any "they didn't let us win" point that Rambo makes is that the Government never called up the Guard to go to Vietnam, because it would have been massively unpopular politically (this is why George W. Bush, for example, spends his war drinking in Texas and not drinking in like, Phu Bai or something). What the Government did instead was just make the Draft larger by massively lowering the standards, to where they now accepted people who scored below average on their intelligence and psychiatric evaluations. And this is how you end up with a doofus like William Calley leading a bunch of psychopaths and maniacs into My Lai.

honestly i want more just raw almost-incoherent emotional moments in film. Stallone rocked in this

so glad you were aware of "the spitting image"

I hope for part 2 you bring up the inexplicable children's cartoon and tie-in toy line.

Deer Hunter would be a good companion piece to this film

the most important thing about Rambo is that it directly led to the creation of Broforce, a game so American that it had to be made by.... *checks notes* ...white South Africans? oh no

I really hope you fit in at least one episode of the 1980s Rambo cartoon into this series. I would recommend the 2 parter where the evil General Warhawk raises the Yamato and holds South America for ransom.

Speaking of series that took a gard nosedive looking forward to kingsmen

If you’re doing the Rambo’s, can you PLEASE do Demolition Man?

The depiction of Hope, WA (shot in Hope, BC - there is no Hope, WA) is just bizarre. Places like that still have absolute psychopaths as sheriffs, even today, and hostility to homeless people is an essential trait no matter where you are in Washington state. But towns like Hope is supposed to be were fucking star-spangled, red, white, and blue cults of the honored veteran at that point in history. Even now, that's still mostly the case, although you may get a bit less reactionary sentiment, as long as homeless people aren't involved...

pls do "Confessions" (告白, 2010), a deeply weird Japanese film that had a formative effect on me as a teenager

Get out while you still can. If you do subject yourself to the most recent Rambo, enter this with the knowledge that Stallone really wanted to do a Death Wish remake before he made it. Instead they tapped Bruce Willis because Stallone wanted to make Kersey a cop

Listen here Mr Rambo you're in gay sex country out here.

Kinda wish you had started with Second Blood and worked your way through the rest of the movies before going back to First Blood, just for the whiplash of it.

Super interesting to hear your takes. Where I'm from I only ever heard it described as an anti-war movie and I didn't see it as more than that. So it's good to hear some different perspectives.

Just realised- this movie is kind of like one of those right-wing social media posts where they clearly identify real issues and concerns, but misidentify the causes. I agree that it's got some serious flaws, but the core truth that America uses soldiers, then leaves them traumatised, unsupported, and unable to re-enter society, then lets them fall prey to homelessness and the police brutality that goes along with that is perfect.

Enjoyed the episode so much I’m about to watch the movie! I’d recommend two other Vietnam movies based on his rant at the end involving “someone wouldn’t let me win it”. The first is a silly movie, Kong: Skull Island. Samuel L Jackson’s character is a soldier who is unhappy the war is over, and dives headfirst into the Skull Island mission. It’s a silly, glorious movie and I love it. Second suggestion is Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, about 4 black veterans returning to Vietnam to retrieve their dead squad leader’s body, and buried treasure. Intense movie with a LOT to say about masculinity, really good. Would probably consider getting a guest of African-American heritage to guest as it’s very much from their perspective, but it’d be a good one to cover.

So I just finished the episode, and like 1000% Alice's view of this movie is *so* colored by having seen one of the sequels, and like, fair, but Rambo 1 is pretty good, and I can't wait to hear how Abi reacts to the sequels.

i'l be honesty i really wanted to hear the alice note... could you maybe post the notes somewhere?

The most generous thing I can say about Stallone's acting in this movie is that it surprised me. I expected a lot worse. He is somewhat convincing as a wounded creature searching for a sanctuary and finding hostility. But his monologue at the end is nearly unintelligible. There is an opportunity for acting to occur and he flubs it. Alice is completely right.

Pls do hot shots

I hope yall continue the Nam era and do Predator.

Many astute points, I feel like a dipshit had no idea Rambo took place in the PNW seems like a huge elision in the cultural osmosis I received so I’m sure the other 4/5ths of the series must be… something.

I think that you missed some subtext and history that greatly add to Rambo's grief. Previous wars, WW1, WW2, Korea, were "honorable" from the US Military point of view. They were supported, in fact.. the people were DEMANDING that the US enter the war at the time. Vietnam was more political. It was also a DIRTY war, no clear lines, no ground to be gained. No progress.. it was a war of attrition. And the troops that came back definitely had trouble adjusting, but those that were Gung ho and eager and liked it, they weren't viewed as the "heroes" that their fathers and grandfather's were looked up to as. Despite the responsibility of "handling millions of dollars of equipment" as Rambo puts it, he can't adjust back to civilian life. He is traumatized, and it was his JOB to fight and to kill. It was what was demanded and expected of him, and he isn't getting the support he needs from his county, his community, the people. And that somehow makes it more emotional, because of he had been welcomed and aided in his return, he might have been able to adjust easier and live a normal life. But his tragedy in all of the movies is trying to come to terms with the fact that violence and killing is all he knows, and he's GOOD at it. And although he tries somewhat to fight it, he can't let it go. He pushes back and looks for an excuse (in some instances and films) because it's easier to do what he instinctively knows how to do than to walk away. He's a soldier. He was trained to fight, he wasn't trained how to walk away or deal with trauma and the feelings inherent in his ptsd. He went from knowing his objectives and mission, and being given the tools and support to accomplish it, but now he is lost, has no support, good friends are dead, he has no command structure, no goals, no mission. Just survival. But he doesn't know how to do that in society

So one thing that also colors this film is that it came out in 1982, a year after Reagan pushed thru mental health "reform" which caused a lot of psychiatric institutes to just release patients that needed care onto the streets without any support networks (sidenote - yeah, psych wards were an especially poorly monitored nightmare and needed to be improved BUT this is widely seen as catastrophic to a lot of people who suddenly lost access to support and meds etc) and that's absolutely something that influenced this movie and one of the reasons why it's in Washington, because the Pacific Northwest has a route that unhoused and, as those just unceremoniously dumped out of care into the streets came to be known, "Reagan's Kids" moved up and down I-5 from the Canadian border down to Los Angeles. Its why there's a lot of support but also a lot of animosity from people in those areas about the unhoused and the mentally ill, especially in the pacific northwest where there were a lot of institutes. It's messed up, and this is also one of the first movies to kinda touch on that animosity that just exploded in the wake of this, even if, like many of the things it was saying, it was confused about exactly what it was saying. Like the movie is absolutely fascist, absolutely helped reinforce the myth of vets being mistreated, but there's also so many little things it also gets right? Like Rambo's breakdown, as Abi said, is devastatingly well portrayed. He's just been pushed into fight or flight mode for a period and is now being pulled out of it and the result of that is to just break and its not pretty, it doesn't sound coherent or make 100% sense. Anyway, the rest of these are only gonna be good at maxing out that Cultural Insensitivity score.

I really liked hearing the disagreement, good points all around. Extremely good episode, on a hot streak. Happy summer!

In the world of Law and Order SVU, Brian Dennehy rape-murdered someone in my house, buried the evidence in a footlocker in the basement, and his disaffected daughter owned my Bauhaus chess set. Which means that…never mind , I lost my train of thought.

I'm really hoping mad max is the next series to focus on.

If you guys ever do a John Wick series then the film Kate would be a great episode to follow with, it's one of my favourite films with some great fucking action scenes in, and it has Mary Elizabeth Winstead covered in blood for about 50% of the movie. It rocks

I'm so glad you all watched this movie, and I am so sorry you have to watch movies 2-5. Also sorry Alice, I'm siding fully with Abi on this one. Stallone's monologue at the end was really well done and quite powerful, even if the politics of this movie are icky.

Ah yes, the ultimate "we will blow up your country and then ten years later we'll make movies about how blowing up your country made us sad" movie. Note that the right-wing love of draping themselves in the flag has evolved over time, and during the 60s and 70s wearing it as clothing was considered disrespecting and desecrating the flag. Why the fuck was Rambo wearing it then? No clue. But that's what it was. I think Rambo's big monologue at the end was also completely Stallone's own addition, and not in the book. A change that completely recontextualizes everything and completely rewrites the point of the book. And I just want to stress the depths of depravity of the Dolchstosslegende. The soldiers were draftees. The anti-war protesters understood very well that it was the political and military-industrial leaders who wanted the war, not the soldiers. So the idea that the protesters just Hate Our Brave Troops was incredibly sinister and Orwellian.

I think the cop in the beginning of the movie doesn’t hate the flag. He thinks that Rambo is disrespecting the flag on his jacket by being so disheveled and unkempt wearing “uniform”

Yeah, I deal with crying people occasionally for my job. They sound like Rambo more often than not-barely coherent and irrational. That shit just hits as real. I don't know with Alice sometimes. I feel like she struggles to empathise with realistic diction in emotional settings, especially if it frankly sounds a bit uneducated.

kill Rambo! Now!

Alice is 100% right about the baby killers being a lie, and she might be right about intentions of the creators but Abi is right the performance is great and the movie does say some things. I do find this movie to be more anti-war, and I think a lot of it is that rambo's ramp roaring rampage of revenge at the end is a Bad thing and he only does this because war has turned him into a monster, and it is also still a good bit fascist, especially with how it just does not care about the people's army or any of the Vietnamese people but yeah good ep overall!

I think that Alice is far too harsh on this movie and I don't really agree with much of what she said beyond the correcting the record bit about veterans and protestors.

Can I suggest you expand this mini series out to the big 3 muscle men of the era, so Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme?

The argument at the end about how good the movie is was top 5 moments of KJB because both sides had some banger points. I do think Stallone is a great actor, but an extremely subtle one with not a lot of range. He's typecasted as the tough guy, and when the script calls for stuff like inner conflict, fear, vulnerability from the traditional guy, he is the greatest at doing it, but because that type of role is a cultural staple, I can see how some people can miss the subtleties when it's blink and you miss it. The rant at the end only hits hard if you've been paying attention to the bits and pieces of acting where it seems like the stoic mask is slipping, when he's portraying fear, or pain, or paranoia. Makes it seem much more like "oh there's a full person in this brick shithouse killing machine. I wonder if he has any feelings about what he's doing now, or just standard action movie killing everyone" In a way, Stallone feels like inverse Bautista. Both typecasted tough guys, Stallone great at playing the traditional role with immense depth, Bautista better at subversive versions of the role

Fight, fight, fight... kiss, kiss.

ngl I'm 100% with Abi on the ending part but Alice is right about how much of a lie the "we got called baby killers" shit was. Boomers are obsessed with lying about how bad the anti-troop shit was. Still a good scene regardless

Whoa boy, can't wait 'til part 3. Trautman full on is the Damsel in Distress.

The book is insane and much darker, too

No cops at pride except what the hell the antifa cat ears progress flag police in this movie have going on!

I wonder if the “rat bites are the only thing that scares him” thing is a 1984 reference?

Oh god yes. YES

After listening to this, and hearing how Alice can't take Stallone seriously as an actor, I really want them to cover Cop Land at some point, because 1. It has Stallone giving the best performance of his career and 2., I think it has interesting things to say, intentionally or not, about how Americans view the police and police corruption.

John Rambo never went to Vietnam

As someone who is eligible to be drafted into the U.S. army I am behooved to point out that the selective service act was not brought up once over the course of this cast

I'm so sorry that y'all are going to have to watch Rambo 5. It's a really bad time.

Fellas I hate to tell you this but there are five of these and you just watched the good one. Incredibly excited for the next couple months of KJB

You lovely things! I am having such a stressful week I was sitting in the car earlier today thinking "I just wish the new KJB was out" and HERE IT IS! Thank you!

this movie hates both cops and hippies, as such we have to conclude that its politics are perfect