Morrell v. Rambo

I have never seen a Rambo movie. I have seen a Rocky movie: Rocky Balboa - I'd give it 6/10 in its present form, 7/10 if they'd edited it better. I did, however, grow up when Rambo and Rocky both were in the cultural air, namely the early 1980s.

Sylvester Stallone was a megastar then. Much more so than Arnold Schwarzenegger, to whom Stallone is oft-compared; Ah Nuld was a B-movie action actor until the end of that decade. Don't get me wrong here: Total Recall, Conan, Predator, and (tho' mainly offstage) Terminator are all fine movies which still hold up. But they took awhile to quit being B-movies (like, oh, Running Man still is) and to earn their cultural respect. By my memory of BBC One radio memes, Ah Nold became so memeworthy in 1990ish. But I'm digressing.

Anyway First Blood's author David Morrell has turned on the series. The First Blood movie - we're told - followed Morrell's vision to his satisfaction. The sequels diverge from Morrell's path, especially this new one Last Blood (out now) which is - again, so we're told - 1970s grindhouse.

I think what Morrell has found out is that Stallone isn't John Rambo - more exactly that Morrell's Protagonist, whom he didn't name (I'm going to call him M.P.), isn't the character Stallone wants to play. Both M.P. and J.R. are assuredly post-Democrats, but they are not the same post-Democrats. M.P. is an apolitical nihilist, basically D-FENS from Falling Down (a post-Republican). J.R. joined the Reagan coalition which is, today, Trump's Rust Belt base. Morrell is also likely miffed that his book's name is still in Stallone's whore mouth.

Because that's what Stallone would do. Nobody was saying no to Stallone in the 1980s; and nowadays, Stallone plain owns Rambo (less so Rocky / Creed now).

I am tempted to watch Last Blood but I am unsure I want it to be My First, so to speak. There's political nonsense from the mainstream critics but screw them; they lied to me about Ad Astra which I hated. I'm okay with watching a 6/10 movie but, why pay full price. And I have heard better, in retrospect, from the 2008 Rambo movie. Mind, at the time the critics didn't like the 2008 movie either.