First Blood (1982)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1982
Running Time	89:19
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (48:16)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ted Kotcheff
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Sylvester Stallone Richard Crenna Brian Dennehy Bill McKinney Jack Starrett Michael Talbott Chris Mulkey John McLiam Alf Humphreys David Caruso David L. Crowley Don MacKay Charles A. Tamburro
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Jerry Goldsmith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.30:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Dutch	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    First Blood (seemingly now renamed Rambo: First Blood) is a great action movie that introduced the character of John Rambo to the big screen, and launched Stallone's other movie franchise.

    Based on David Morrell's novel, the original tagline for First Blood was "This time he's fighting for his life". The reference, of course, was to Stallone's popular Rocky movies. Having just written, directed, and starred in the successful Rocky III, Stallone co-adapted, and starred in First Blood, an action film with a lot more depth than one might expect.

    In its surprisingly low-key opening, a Vietnam Vet, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), drifts into a small town. He is made very unwelcome by the local Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy), and Rambo is arrested for vagrancy. Rambo is a man of few words, haunted by his past, and whilst in gaol, what appears to be an attack of post-traumatic stress syndrome leads to a violent confrontation between Rambo and the local police. A private war has begun, and as Rambo escapes and slips into the surrounding hills armed with a large knife, news crews, soldiers and more police flood into the town for the man-hunt.

    One visitor is Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo's CO. It appears that Rambo is a former Green Beret and war hero, with many decorations, including a congressional medal of honour. When the egotistical and driven Sheriff Teasle refuses to listen to reason, Trautman's only suggestion is to have "plenty of body bags" on hand.

    After its relatively quiet start, First Blood expertly keeps building the tension and action into a great showdown between Rambo and Sheriff Teasle. The pacing of the film is perfect, and the acting by Stallone and Dennehy is spot on. This is a good story, made into a great action film.

    Despite all the explosions and over-the-top stunts, First Blood had buried within it a powerful message in regards to the awful treatment of Vietnam Vets, and the plight of returned soldiers generally. These are highly trained men who often can find themselves discarded by the governments and countries that they risked their lives for. Rambo risked his life, and endured the intense hell of war, to protect a society that then happily pushes him to the bottom of it. While Rambo is a fictitious character, sadly, he is representative of many true stories.

Video

    The transfer is a little grainy, but quite good overall, considering the age of the source material.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The sharpness of the image is okay, but the shadow detail and contrast is poor - for example consider the forest scene at 36:58. Very occasionally there appeared to be some low level noise, but I never found it distracting.

    The colour is generally good, but whites often appear grey. Some scenes look a little desaturated and too dark.

    There are no problems with MPEG artefacts, but the grainy image sometimes does appear a little pixelated.

    Film-to-video artefacts are present in the form of some mild aliasing, such as the shimmer on the car grille at 40:52.

    Tiny film artefacts appear infrequently throughout, and some edge enhancement is also noticeable at times.

    Surprisingly, the only subtitles present on the DVD are Dutch.

    This is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed at 48:16. On my player there was a slight pause which was noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Originally released theatrically in Dolby Stereo, and remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 for this DVD, the audio retains much of its original stereo feel.

    There is only one audio option on this DVD: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine, although some of Stallone's lines are slurred with his speech. I also found that some of the movie's Foley effects sounded a little tinny, muffled, and fake.

    The musical score is credited to the very talented Jerry Goldsmith, and it is suitably dramatic.

    As expected, the surround presence and activity is very limited. The surround sound mix is quite front-heavy, and the 5.1 mix often sounds more like an old stereo surround-encoded mix. Occasionally the rear speakers are used, such as for the helicopter at 28:26 and for the score and the gunfire at 70:23.

    The subwoofer is called upon for explosions, for example at 78:32, but the LFE track lacks any real definition.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Surprisingly, there are no extras -- not even a trailer!

Menu

    An animated main menu, with audio.

    First Blood has been released on DVD in Region 1 twice, initially in 1999 as a single sided, single layered disc with a Stereo-Surround audio track. The extras included a making-of featurette, audio commentary, trailers, trivia, and a "Stallone Movie Retrospective". In 2002, the dual sided, dual/single layered Special Edition arrived.

    In R1 First Blood can be purchased by itself, as part of "The Rambo Collection Pack" (the three standard DVD editions) or as part of the "Rambo Trilogy" (the three SE DVDs with a fourth bonus disc including production notes, a new 30 min featurette, "Rambo Trilogy", and trivia games).

    Compared with the R1 Special Edition, the Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• DTS audio
• Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio
• Audio Commentary by novelist David Morrell
• 23 minute featurette - Drawing First Blood
• Production Notes
• Cast and Crew biographies
• Spanish Subtitles

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Dutch Subtitles

    I would have to favour the R1 Special Edition.

    First Blood is a good story that has been made into a great film.

    The video quality is slightly disappointing but still very watchable.

    The audio quality is adequate, albeit quite front-heavy.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall