James Cameron's first draft of the action blockbuster became renowned as a script greatly changed by it's star, with Cameron distancing himself from the politics especially of the final film. Still, I was struck by how closely the final movie resembled it - in particular, the structure seems identical: Trautman retrieves Rambo from imprisonment, offers a deal to find POWs, Rambo clashes with the CIA spook, is dropped in the jungle, meets a beautiful Vietnamese agent, finds the camp and rescues a POW, is betrayed by the spook, is recaptured and tortured by Russians but escapes due to the girl, who is then killed after they decide to get together; Rambo goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of Russians and Vietnamese, steals a chopper, rescues the POWS and flies back to Thailand, snarls at the spook and walks off into the sunset. It's all here in Cameron's work.
Of course there are some differences - the opening scene is here in a psychiatric hospital, with Rambo in a makeshift cell (a nice touch); Rambo is given a wise cracking CIA op sidekick for the mission, who you can easily imagine being played by Bill Paxton - and who actually could easily be cut out of the film story wise (and he was.... people might think it was ego or something but the sidekick doesn't really contribute anything except maybe a little humour); there is little political posturing, with Rambo not whingeing about his country not loving him, or wanting to win this tim; Trautman is tougher here, more of a bad ass. But is surprisingly close to the end result. Certainly why would Sly tamper with the structure? It's very effective. One thing I would add though - it is not that character driven. Indeed, Sly's version, with it's paranoid hero convinced that the suits cost America the war, has more of a distinct character for Rambo.
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