Chapter 299 The Birth of a Hero
After the novel "First Blood" was written, although its sales exploded, it received rave reviews.
Because it has a lot of violent descriptions and a cruel and bloody ending.
Time magazine at that time even created a new word "carnography" for this novel.
Combining carnage and pornography.
This is not to say that this novel is pornographic, but it is a satire that this novel is like a cheap X-movie, just to stimulate readers' animalistic reactions.
However, Stephen King, the king of horror novels, praised this work highly. He even used this novel as a textbook when teaching writing courses in college.
The content of this novel is very different from the movie that was later made.
It tells the story of a man named Rambo who appears in a small town in Kentucky.
He had long hippie-like hair, his body was dirty, his eyes were dull, and he looked very tired.
The town police chief Tisser put Rambo in the car and drove him to the gate of the town, asking him not to come back again.
But Rambo came back again and again. After the police deported him several times in vain, Sheriff Tisser, who did not hide his domineering attitude, accused Rambo of being a homeless man and arrested him. , putting him in jail for 35 days.
In the cold, damp and cramped cell, Rambo recalled his days in a Vietnamese concentration camp.
When the police tried to cut off his long hair and shave his beard, the sharp razor reminded him of his past abuse during the Vietnam War.
Rambo suddenly rebelled, killed the policeman around him with a blade, and then escaped from the police station.
He stole a motorcycle on the side of the road and fled to a nearby mountain.
This triggered a vigorous manhunt by the police, and the desperate Rambo brutally killed a large number of police officers, residents and soldiers.
Eventually, Tissell and Special Forces Colonel Sam Trauman tracked down Rambo.
Eager to avenge his colleagues, Tisser shot Rambo in a sneak attack, but Rambo's counterattack also left him seriously injured.
The dying Rambo did not want to be a prisoner, so he decided to commit suicide gloriously with homemade explosives. However, he was seriously injured and his strength was exhausted.
Rambo and Tissell, one a veteran of the Vietnam War and the other a veteran of the Korean War, both died in the cold Kentucky mountains.
……
In the original story, there is no hero.
The police chief is like the local emperor of the town, lawless.
Rambo is also extremely cruel and kills people like crazy.
Therefore, although the copyright of this novel was purchased by Columbia, it changed hands many times within ten years and has been transferred back and forth among the eight major companies.
The script went through more than twenty versions, and almost all the top Hollywood celebrities were approached, but no one was willing to play Rambo.
Because this character is too negative.
Others don't like it, but Yang Ye likes it, because he is the only one in the world who knows that this movie will become a masterpiece that will be famous for future generations.
So after taking over United Artists, he immediately asked Shea to buy back the adaptation rights.
Then he found Stallone and directly paid him a salary of three million US dollars to let him star.
Stallone is not stupid. Al Pacino and John Travolta are not willing to act. Why should I act?
However... considering the salary of three million US dollars, this matter still needs to be discussed.
The condition given by United Artists is that Stallone can participate in adapting the script until he is satisfied.
Stallone's life is legendary. When he was born due to dystocia, the doctor misused midwifery forceps, causing partial muscle paralysis in his left cheek, drooping of his left eyelid and left lip, and slurred speech.
Stallone grew up in a ghetto and worked odd jobs as an adult, cleaning lion cages at the zoo, delivering pizza, helping others fish, tending stalls at a bookstore and working as an usher at a movie theater.
But Stallone never stopped pursuing his dreams. He wrote, created scripts, and looked for all opportunities to be an actor.
His first acting experience was in a pornographic film, and he was paid two hundred dollars. After he became famous, the film company renamed the film "The Italian Stallion" and sold it wildly, making a lot of money.
This film can still be found through magnetic search. Stallone only appeared in it for a few minutes.
Stallone created the script for "Rocky" and began selling his script everywhere.
Many people saw the value of this script, but... Stallone insisted on starring himself, otherwise he would not sell it.
How is this possible? He is not tall, not handsome, has facial paralysis, and stutters... so he was rejected 1,489 times.
This was rejected 1489 times by Stallone himself. I don’t know if he is bragging.
Everyone knows the subsequent story. "Rocky" sold $225 million at the box office, became the box office champion in 1975, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Stallone became a superstar and "Rocky" became the greatest boxing movie of all time, spawning five sequels and three "Creed" movies.
Talking back to "Rambo", after Shay bought back the copyright, he hoped that Yang Ye would direct it in person. Yang Ye refused on the spot because he did not understand American history.
Because a person's behavior must be in line with his or her growing environment. It can be exaggerated, but not outrageous.
How can Yang Ye understand American affairs if he is not an American?
It's like copying novels. Yang Ye can directly copy Chinese novels from later generations without changing a word.
But he can't just copy European and American novels word for word, that would be too outrageous.
The novel "Harry Potter" incorporates countless British historical and cultural anecdotes. How do outsiders know about it?
Not to mention having it handy and using it with ease.
Do you believe that an American can write authentic Chinese novels?
Well... there is really someone who can do it, and that is Pearl Buck.
However, Pearl Buck came to China just four months after she was born, and did not go to the United States until she was 40 years old. Chinese was her first language, and Zhenjiang was her hometown.
This is a special situation, and Yang Ye has no such experience.
Yang Ye gave the rights to adapt the script directly to Stallone.
And Stallone accomplished the task brilliantly. Generally speaking, action movies adapted from novels will only make the male protagonist mow the grass crazily in order to satisfy the audience who pursue visual stimulation.
But Stallone went against the grain. Rambo, who killed many people in the novel, did not kill anyone with his own hands in the movie.
Rambo abides by the law of "treating others in their own way". I will not offend others unless they offend me.
But if someone forces him to think of those years in the concentration camp, he will immediately transform into a silent beast!
This involves a special piece of history in the United States.
The American people were opposed to the Vietnam War, so they made sarcastic remarks to the American soldiers who participated in the Vietnam War. They had no kind words and were very disgusted.
This made those American soldiers who participated in the war become doormats and suffered a lot.
They fought for the country, suffered physical injuries on the battlefield, and were mentally tortured after returning home, thus giving rise to a widespread mental illness.
This neuropathy is called post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The English name is Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short.
After the great success of "Wolf Warrior 2" in later generations, a group of people suddenly appeared on the Internet. They ridiculed Wu Jing all day long. Whenever they see the word Wu Jing, they will get nervous.
These people are nicknamed PTSD patients by netizens, which comes from this.
Post-traumatic stress disorder has appeared in large numbers among veterans of the Vietnam War, causing serious family and social problems.
American psychiatry began to pay a lot of attention to these cases in the 1970s. By 1980, post-traumatic stress disorder was officially recognized as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association.
The script adapted by Stallone grasps the pulse of the times. Rambo is a PTSD patient.
After reading the script, Yang Ye was very satisfied. After deleting some branches and leaves, he took over the director's job.
In fact, when "First Blood" was first filmed, Rambo was dead.
However, the audience was very dissatisfied and protested, so United Artists changed the ending.
So after Yang Ye took over, he directly resurrected Rambo.
The reason is very simple, there are no nonsense.
The direct question is whether you want to make a sequel and whether you want to continue making money?
For the sake of money, Stallone agreed to this modification.
...
After Yang Ye agreed to take over the director's job, he returned to Hong Kong. Xie Yi and Adjani were responsible for the preliminary preparations.
However, Yang Ye did not do nothing. He drew all the storyboards for the movie.
After the movie started, Yang Ye handed a knife to Stallone.
"This is the weapon I made specifically for Rambo. Be careful, it's very sharp."
Stallone took the knife, played with it a few times, and couldn't put it down immediately, praising: "It's so cool!"
This is a large hunting knife with a long blade, about 35 centimeters long, and a sturdy appearance.
The blade is sharp and suitable for cutting, chopping, and stabbing.
The back of the knife has thick and powerful double-layered teeth.
The two ends of the hand guard are specially made into cross and slotted screwdrivers, which can be used to tighten screws.
The handle is a seamless stainless steel tube, hollow, tied with a string, and has a firm and non-slip grip.
The nut-type handguard fixation method ensures the firmness and reliability of the handle and blade.
The handle is equipped with a variety of survival accessories: matches, fish hooks, fishing lines, compasses, etc.
The cone-shaped hammer with a pointed tail at the back of the handle can be used for vigorous knocking, and it also has a hole for threading a rope.
Its rich functions allow Rambo to travel around the world with a knife in hand.
This is the Rambo knife that became popular around the world in later generations, one of the most famous modern cold weapons in Hollywood action movies, and the dream knife of countless young people around the world.
It was originally designed by Kentucky knife maker Jimmy Lear, but now it is made by Yangye's Ziqi Company.
......
In the first scene Yang Ye filmed, he used a big move.
In this scene, after Rambo escaped from the police station, he grabbed a motorcycle and ran away. The police chief drove a police car to chase him. The two sides staged a car chase.
Stallone and Brian, who played the police chief, originally wanted to go into battle in person, but Yang Ye said: "Let's let the Dragon and Tiger Warriors test shoot a section first to show you."
Then he said to Luo Lixian and Ke Shouliang: " Ah Xian drives the police car and Xiao Hei drives the motorcycle."
Luo Lixian and Ke Shouliang high-fived each other and said, "Brother Hei, let's show our skills to these ghosts!"
Ke Shouliang smiled. He said: "Does that need to be said?"
Then the two of them got into the car and drove wildly on the mountain road in Canada.
The two of them knew that Yang Ye chose the first scene to film drag racing in order to establish his prestige.
Because this is a Western film, there are many Americans in the filming team. These people have high eyesight and will naturally not be convinced by a group of Chinese commanding them.
Luo Lixian and Ke Shouliang showed off their full-fledged skills to make the Chinese look good, racing like crazy on rugged mountain roads as if they were walking on flat ground.
Especially the section of flying over the railway track, it was clean and neat, and it was done in one go, which shocked the American team on site.
Ke Shouliang was the first Chinese flying man to fly over the Hukou Falls of the Yellow River in later generations. This railway track is nothing.
Stallone was convinced and said in Chinese he learned from Shay: "Awesome!"
(End of this chapter)