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Tarantino Thinks Stallone’s First Blood Misunderstood Rambo (& He’s Right)

Quentin Tarantino thinks the original Sylvester Stallone First Blood misunderstood the novel – and he’s not wrong. Tarantino unintentionally whipped up a lot of excitement in 2021 when he pitched a hypothetical remake of First Blood. He aimed to go back to the bleak tone of David Morrell’s book, where John Rambo becomes a killing machine when pushed too far by the sheriff of a small town. Tarantino stated he wanted to make a straight adaptation that didn’t sand off the edges of First Blood, with Adam Driver being his choice for Rambo while Kurt Russell could play the sheriff.
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Considering Tarantino’s upcoming tenth movie will also be his last – and he’s sworn it will be an “original” concept – his take on First Blood will never come to pass. The original First Blood movie arrived in 1982, and while broadly faithful to the book, it toned back the violence, with Rambo only killing one character in self-defense. This was Stallone’s idea, as he felt (via Mccleans) that Rambo killing and being killed in the finale “… was not the proper message. There had been close to 200,000 suicides by returning Vietnam vets.” Thus, the Rambo movie franchise was born.

Related: Why Rambo Only Kills ONE Character In First Blood

Why Quentin Tarantino Dislikes The First Blood Movie

A collage of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo and Quentin Tarantino

In his 2022 non-fiction book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino rails against the safeness of Hollywood during the ’80s. He feels that compared to the more flawed leading characters of cinema during the ’70s, there was a move to suck the complexity out of protagonists to make them more likable. In QT’s words, “Complex characters aren’t necessarily sympathetic. Interesting people aren’t always likable.” He also feels novel adaptations from that decade like Less Than Zero or First Blood “drained” the books of life and turned them into “morality plays.” In the book, Rambo reverting to his old ways when confronted by the police is exactly the point.

According to Tarantino, the film version having Rambo – who fronted five movies in total – wounding his pursuers instead of killing them undermines that message. Says the filmmaker “Does that make the point of the book – that once the government turns a man into a killing machine for purposes of warfare, keeping that machine turned off back home during peacetime isn’t so easy – irrelevant?” Many of the issues Tarantino had with mainstream movies during the ’80s and their “juvenilization of cinema” can be applied to First Blood. It definitely takes the harsher edges off Rambo and the story, and while the ending isn’t exactly “happy,” it’s more hopeful than the book.

Tarantino Is Right About First Blood

Quentin-Tarantino-Rambo-First-Blood

Stallone’s First Blood is a great ’80s action movie, featuring one of the actor’s best performances and it made Rambo an icon. That said, Tarantino’s objections about the adaptation stand too. It completely missed the point of Morrell’s story. Stallone even recalled QT telling him (via Maccleans) that “You’re a coward, you should have killed him!” Of course, that made the concept of a straight Tarantino First Blood adaptation so appealing, as it could bring the book’s message and darker heart to life. Maybe that remake will happen someday – but QT won’t be the one behind the lens.

Next: Rambo True Story: Every Real War & Conflict He Fought In

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‘I am officially off the market’: When Margot Robbie revealed she made the ‘conscious’ decision of not dating actors


Margot Robbie revealed her decision to not date actors because of the media scrutiny that came with a public relationship of two high-profile actors
Back in 2015, A-lister Margot Robbie made a declaration that she would not be dating any actors. The actress may have alluded to her fiance Tom Ackerley, who she married the following year in 2016. In an exclusive interview with Marie Claire, she revealed that being in a relationship as an actor herself came with its own set of challenges. She believed that dating someone who was popular would add on to the media scrutiny.

Margot Robbie opened up on why she made a conscious decision to not date actorsTalking to Marie Claire, she claimed, “I am officially off the market.” She then shared the reasoning behind her decision and added, “I made a conscious decision not to date actors.” She continued to explain, “But not because I hate actors. That’s a nasty generalization to make, and that’s not the case. People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile, it puts a lot of stress on a relationship.”
The Barbie actress continued, “So two people with profiles, I figure it’s just double the amount of scrutiny, and I’d like to avoid that at all costs.” This came after reports of her locking lips with Tarzan co-star Alexander Skarsgard started making rounds. It was reported that she was caught kissing the actor during the Sundance Film Festival.

Margot Robbie revealed she opted for a minimal lifestyle even after becoming an actorIn the interview, Robbie also opened up about how she was adapting to fame. She shared, “I have a normal 24-year-old life. If I were a waitress, I’d probably have the exact same lifestyle. I’d go to the same clubs I go to already, live in the same house with the same housemates, hang out with the same people.”
However, Margot Robbie tied the knot with Tom Ackerley who is an English producer and actor. The duo met on the sets of 2013 movie Suite Francaise where Tom was working as an assistant director. Post marriage, both of them launched their production company LuckyChap Entertainment.

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Monica Bellucci and Tin Burton at lunch in the restaurant in Selci Lama


For All Saints’ Day, the Hollywood star from Tiferno returned to his native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and then visit his parentsOn the occasion of the All Saints’ Day celebrations, the Hollywood star of Tiferno origin, Monica Bellucci, returned to her native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and to visit her father Pasquale and her mother Brunella.Flanked by her current partner Tim Burton, she went to lunch, together with about twenty old friends, at the Osteria del Musicista, which has always been her favorite restaurant, in Selci Lama.Menu dedicated to typical dishes of the area, which includes an appetizer with breadsticks lined with coppa, duck in porchetta and grilled pork livers, polenta with wild boar sauce accompanied by the very typical cappelletti in broth.To conclude, a dessert based on fried “ciaccia” with Nutella and roasted chestnuts.
Having paid the bill and greeted the restaurant owner and lifelong friend, Roberto Polchi, Monica brought home cappelletti and broth for a family dinner.

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‘Rocky’ Was Quite Different In His Original Screenplay, Sylvester Stallone Claims


Sylvester Stallone took his friend’s advice on a rewrite of the original screenplay to Rocky. A few tweaks later, he was on his way to major success.
In the new Netflix documentary Sly, Stallone discussed how he initially conceived of the project, which had a much harder edge. In the early version, Rocky was depicted as a “thuggish” character, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s crime drama, Mean Streets.

But Stallone’s perspective changed when a friend read the script and thought the boxer was too cruel for audiences to actually care about him.
Stallone recalled her crying.

“She goes, ‘I hate Rocky. I hate him. He’s cruel. He hits people. He beats them up.’”
Stallone took it to heart, and asked what he could do to soften the character.

“I said, ‘what if you stop short of it?’ Like, maybe he almost did. He could have, that’s his job, but he doesn’t?’ ‘That’d be nice,’” he added. “I said, ‘What if he had a girlfriend or something?’ ‘Yeah, that’s nice.’ So I go back, start writing that: ‘Girlfriend. Nice.’”
$117 million in box office later, a franchise was born.

Stallone also revealed that actor Dolph Lundgren sent him to the hospital during one fight scene in Rocky IV.
“Dolph Lundgren… he pulverized me,” Stallone says in the documentary. “Later that night, my heart started to swell—which happens when the heart hits the chest—and then my blood pressure went up to 260, and they thought I was going to be talking to angels. Next thing I know, I’m in intensive care, where I’m surrounded by nuns, and I thought, ‘OK, that’s curtains.’”
Stallone was in the hospital for nine days following the incident, praying for “one more round.”
“For the first minute of the fight, it is going to be a free-for-all,” Stallone told Lundgren. The Swedish actor joked in a separate interview that all he did was “obey orders,” explaining, “[Stallone] was the boss. I did what he told me.”
Doctors allegedly told Stallone that he received a blow to the ribs that made his heart rattle around in his ribcage, a condition typically seen in head-on collisions. “I did hit a bus, of sorts,” Stallone joked.

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