He wants to make another movie then retire. He wants to make a ‘good’ movie and keep going. He doesn’t want to make another movie. He this, he that, and the other thing. It kind of feels that Quentin Tarantino isn’t really sure what he wants to do at this point since he keeps flipping from one idea to another and flirting with retirement in his own arrogant manner since he doesn’t want to stick around and see his work go downhill as he thinks happens to so many directors. In the meantime, people can’t stop gushing over his ‘genius’ and cover up his arrogance by saying that he owns it and that he’s allowed to be arrogant since he is a filmmaking marvel. Now he wants to go make another version of First Blood, the novel that inspired the first Rambo movie. It does sound as though he’s wanting to stick to the book, which was a lot more hardcore than the movie, and it ended in a very different way as well. But while it might be something that’s right up Tarantino’s alley it’s easy to think that he needs to make up his mind and pick a project since many people are ready to write him a blank check, so to speak, since his other movies have been deemed as absolutely wonderful.
Unlike many people, I’m not quite as enamored of Tarantino since while his stories are fun to watch, the fact is that while they’re well-told and they deliver a good number of thrills and chills, they tend to feel the same after a while. Quentin usually takes on a certain type of story, much as any director will, and creates a world that surrounds it using his own elements and those that he believes will work within his own universe. Saying he’s a genius is laying it on a bit thick, but saying that he’s a great storyteller is fair. Thinking about him taking on something like First Blood isn’t too hard really, and the claim that he wants Kurt Russell and Adam Driver to take in the roles of Sheriff Teasle and Rambo respectively. As I already mentioned the movie would be based and formed around the actual novel instead of being a straight remake of the movie starring Sylvester Stallone. There’s a great deal of difference between the two since Stallone’s movie kind of took a few hints and ideas from the book and ran with them.
I won’t go into what the book did differently, at least not in great detail, but the death toll started earlier and the ending was definitely different, as was the entire chase that took up most of the book. But that’s all I’ll say in order to not spoil anything if Tarantino does manage to do this. It’s a hope that if he does take this project on that it will remain as true to the book as possible since the original story is a lot more depressing, but it’s also a little easier to handle than the movie, which is a jumped-up version of the book that makes Rambo look superhuman in a way. Plus, there are a lot of plot holes in the movie that the book could have ironed out.
There’s nothing too bad about Tarantino taking on this project, but it wouldn’t be nearly as open to his style of storytelling, which is to get as bloody and as controversial as possible. Hopefully that wouldn’t be the angle that he might go for since the book doesn’t really support that style of storytelling, and if anyone’s going to argue that point then they need to read it again. Plus, if that’s really how Quentin did plan on doing things then his attempt to move away from being an auteur would be an utter failure. It’s very easy to think that he could make this work if he could bring himself to follow the actual story and not try to spice it up in any way that wouldn’t keep with the book. Many people are no doubt of the mind that Tarantino could do this with ease, and it’s not hard to think that it could happen, but if it will happen is the biggest question at this point since it doesn’t sound as though he’s made up his mind yet.
For someone that thinks that keeping his role as a director would only lead to a legacy that might be tarnished by sticking around too long, Tarantino is taking his sweet time trying to decide what he wants to do. It also feels as though there might be a personal lack of faith in his abilities, but it’s easy to think that many people would deny this vehemently, taking up for him out of pure adulation. It’s amusing really. But as far as First Blood goes, it’s always possible.
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