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It's Based On A Rather Good Book
"When I wrote First Blood more than thirty years ago, it really never crossed my mind that I was creating a phenomenon," shrugs David Morrell, who with his first published novel launched John Rambo into the world in 1972. But a phenomenon was exactly what First Blood became, despite the snootier critics dismissing it as, in Time magazine's phrase, 'carnography'. Morrell's creation had his roots in the very real experiences of the returning Vietnam vets that he, then a graduate student at Penn State and aspiring pop novelist on the side, saw in his classroom every day. "I had students who had been in Vietnam and who told me about the psychological baggage and trauma it had created in them," He remembers. "Then I saw two back-to-back stories on the TV news - a firefight in Vietnam followed by American soldiers patrolling the streets of an American inner-city destroyed by riots. It seemed to me that these were both the same story, and I decided to write a novel in which an embittered American soldier brought the war home."
Though the movie was obviously a big hit, Morrell was not a particular fan of the adaptation, which softened his tortured and inherently violent character. "Stephen King once told me that in the movie First Blood I had been treated about as well as Hollywood could treat a novelist inasmuch as the plot was recognizable," smiles Morrell. "But in my novel, Rambo is furious about what he's been through in Vietnam. He's confused and tormented and in many ways causes the small war that he fights. In the movie, he's a victim, a reluctant warrior. The film has less characterization, particularly with regard to the policeman - for one thing, he's old enough to be Rambo's father and is a war hero from Korea, elements that add strong contrast in the story."
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