This is Books and Notchos, a podcast for those of us who find excitement in the pages of a good book.

Fiction and nonfiction, graphic novels, and more.

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I'm your worst nightmare.

That is probably the single most memorable moment in Rambo 3.

It was used in the trailer, parodied it endlessly.

That was the defining moment of the film that almost killed the entire Rambo franchise.

But if you're listening to Books and Nacho's sister podcast now playing, where we're reviewing all of the Rambo films, perhaps your memory of Rambo 3 is stronger than most.

If so, do you remember the scene in Rambo 3 where the Russian colonel pours acid on the chest of an Afghan child in an attempt to find out the location of the rebel base? Or how about where Rambo is almost killed by Mujahadine soldiers when he's suspected of being a Russian spy? Where the scene where the Russian defector helps Rambo navigate the landmines outside the prison holding Colonel Troutman? If you don't remember any of these scenes, it's because none of them were in Rambo 3. At least not in the filmed version,

but all of them are major scenes in Rambo 3's novelization written by David Morel. I'm Arnie,

host of Books and Notchos, and today we're continuing the look at the Rambo novels written by David Morel. If you've listened to our past two episodes, which you can find at Books and Notchos.com,

then you know that over a decade before Sylvester Stallone starred as Rambo on screen, David Morel wrote the novel First Blood, a critically acclaimed and highly graphic novel that told of a Vietnam vet suffering from post-traumatic stress, fighting the Vietnam War on American soil. While that first novel stands alone, in an highly unusual move, David Morel returned to Rambo to write the novelizations of the film's First Blood Part 2 and Rambo 3.

I can't think of another case where an author created an original character in a novel and then returned to novelize stories about that character written by other people.

And due to that strange occurrence, I decided to also read the novels for First Blood Part 2 and Rambo 3 and review them here at Books and Notches.

So today we look at Rambo 3. When I wrote my review of Rambo 2, I mentioned that there are a few categories

film novelizations can fall into. There are those that are mostly adaptations of the films,

with perhaps a few extra scenes or minor changes which show the difference between the original

script and the final shooting script. Then there are those novelizations where the story in the book barely

resembles that of the final film at all. Sure, some basics may be the same, but from

beginning to end the novel differs from the movie. I used as examples in the last one, A Nightmare

on Elm Street Part 3, which was based on Rest Craven's original script for the movie, but

was greatly rewritten later by Frank Darabot.

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