What I don't understand about the begining of this film is that Rambo's doing hard labour. Surely when he went to trial after the events of the first film he would have been ordererd to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Any psychiatrist would've automatically seen Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and sectioned him or something.
shareJames Cameron's original script actually starts off this way, Trautman and his CIA companion fetch Rambo from a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, where he was sent to after the Hope incident. Stallone rewrote it to be a prison instead.
Most likely what happened was that the psychiatrist and ultimately the judge felt that Rambo still is strong enough to handle prison, and even Rambo himself shows signs of this during his discussion with Trautman at the prison gate, when he says things like "I've seen worse" and "At least here I know where I stand". Maybe the strictly regulated prison life reminds him of Fort Bragg or something. At least in prison, Rambo's guaranteed a place to sleep and 3 square meals a day, that's already an upgrade compared to sleeping in a wet cave and eating raw meat of wild animals whenever you happen to be lucky enough to catch one.
Also, consider: Maybe the judge felt that, with Rambo's combat training, the hospital staff might not have been able to contain him in the event that Rambo snaps again.
Hiya
Thanks for the reply. I would quite liked to have seen James Cameron's version filmed. That sounds pretty awesome.
You make some very sound reasons. It all makes sense, now. Prison probably would be best for him both psychologically and physically.
PTSD was not really well recognized or treated aggressively by the VA until the last 10-15 years or so. Its been written about a lot through history, not really understood or treated well. Civil War and 1st WW vets would be sent to sanitariums and whatnot, but otherwise not really treated.
shareThat's partly true. Also...in a prison like that, Rambo probably had a rep pretty quickly. Prisoners probably left him alone and he left them alone. Regimented, didn't have to deal with society, mindless labor...five years of that could have helped him get his head straight. The problem a lot of soldiers with PTSD have is they're stuck in battle mode, always looking for threats, always on edge. Having to suppress that in normal society is part of what makes them so crazy. (See the beginning of Apocalypse Now) A place like prison, where there are threats to be watched for, probably let him feel more normal. That frame of mind would be an asset.
In the novelization there's some stuff about Rambo using what he learned of Buddhism while in southeast Asia to meditate...take that for what it's worth. He didn't cure himself, but could have suppressed his PTSD enough to function better. He never actually reenters society until the end of the fourth movie.