Rambo: Last Blood (what were you thinking Stallone?)

[Rev. Rye]

If you didn't like any of the films in the franchise, that's fine. I found the ending to First Blood to be quite emotional personally, but that's just me.

I can certainly appreciate that, especially when you read that many PTSD-having Vietnam Vets saw this, and finally had an emotional breakthrough to help them heal again.





But then, you read about how they changed it from the original novel, where Rambo ends up getting killed by the cops, and you realise that this wasn't a thriller or an action movie, but a tragedy all along. But, alas, Stallone rewrote the script to make Rambo more sympathetic, and because Sly doesn't really do moral complexity (which I consider the biggest drawback in his oeuvre), this meant the cops had to become assholes, and so, when they had to shoot him at the end, the audience fucking hated it and they had to reshoot it. I honestly think First Blood is one of those films that really should be remade (in a truer to the text version) so the audience can truly get to appreciate the tragedy. And the success of Breaking Bad shows there's still a sizable market for tragedy.

Interestingly, this actually has been made. The big catch, however, is that the remake, entitled Flowing With Love for the Kid, is really low budget. How low a budget? $96 low. Not $96 million, not $96,000, the budget for the film was $96.00 (so if 16 people rented it for 48 hours on Vimeo, the film's entire budget is recouped.) All the roles were played by Zack Oberzan, and the entire film was shot in his 220-square foot Manhattan apartment (even using his bathtub, complete with a visible shampoo bottle, as a river), and the only exceptions were some crappy looking digital effects. And yet it works.