Rambo Movie Clip

Out of the few movie clips we have had to watch, I think Rambo connected the closest to The Things They Carried. Rambo showed the emotional effect on the soldiers more than Apocalypse Now did.

In the first portion shown to us, the police are in the forest looking for Rambo. They learn that he is a Vietnam veteran and was a Green Beret. The reactions of the police force stereotype Green Beret's to be "hard asses" and that this was a reliable excuse as to why Rambo was psycho. Instead of respecting that he is a veteran, they mock him and say, "I knew something was wrong with him." I don't get why the police made fun of Rambo because of this, shouldn't they be proud of him and how he fought for their country?

In the second part, the colonel that trained and fought with Rambo talks to the head policeman. He describes how Rambo was trained--like a machine basically. He has adapted to war so that he feels no pain, weather doesn't affect him, and he eats things normal people would puke at. I thought that this connected to the book very well. In the book, Tim O'Brien is recalling the war with his daughter and says that all he wanted to do was stay alive. That's all he was focused on and all he could think about. Weather didn't affect him. When he is shot the first time, he said he didn't feel any pain. One thing that contrasts is when O'Brien gets shot the second time. This time he feels the pain right away and it seems like he is going to die. I wondered why this changed the second time...is it because he doesn't have the normal medic and since that comfort is taken away he is worried he might actually die? This example demonstrates the brotherhood that the soldiers had and how they were a family.

This brings me to the third part of the movie clip. Rambo is talking about how his friend was blown up in a bar and how he was trying to save him. They were like brothers, and Rambo was doing everything he could to literally hold his friend together. This bond is very strong, and like above, shows the family type relationship the soldiers had together.

This movie definitely had a better connection to the book than previous works.