Rambo's Legacy

John Rambo is as iconic an action hero as Sarah Connor, John McClane, or nearly any of Schwarzenegger's roles at the height of his career. Yet for all the explosions, archery, horse-riding, and feathered hair that the cinematic guerrilla fighter is remembered for, most people today don't acknowledge the humbler, more tragic origins of the character in his onscreen debut "First Blood" (1982).

The film was an adaptation of David Morrell's novel of the same name, originally published in 1972, following a drifting veteran's one-man war against a quiet town's police force, still haunted by his experiences in the Vietnam war and unable to return to civilian life. The fight is all he knows, like a switch that was never turned off.

The movie was a massive success, grossing over $125 million against a budget of $15 million. A sequel was soon underway, spawning a franchise that would span decades. A tradition, it seems, for 80s hits, but one that moved Rambo away from the trauma of war and the spurned soldier towards more generic action sequels.

Over forty years later, with a Rambo prequel on the way, it makes one wonder; should "First Blood" have leaned more towards survivalist grit as opposed to stylised action and violence, if that was all that both producers and audiences took away from the first movie?

Given the lacklustre artistic merit of the latest Rambo feature - "Last Blood" - compared to its predecessor which audiences had deemed a better conclusion for the character, the upcoming prequel has a chance of providing proper closure while returning to the roots of what made this story work.

The Great Original & the False Copycats

Let's get one thing clear before continuing; the action in Rambo's first onscreen outing can work in conjunction with the film's message, as it was both grounded and exciting compared to the bombastic sequels that followed.

The motorcycle sequence and the cliffside escape are probably the most iconic moments, and one of the greatest chases in cinema history. Here, Rambo avoids killing the policemen pursuing him at the station and after, even when his former Colonel, Trautman, later implies that he is as lethal with a weapon as he is with his "bare hands", and the resulting casualty of the sniper is accidental, not intentional.

Compare this to "First Blood Part II" where Rambo's kill count skyrockets to over 70 foes in communist Vietnam. In hindsight, the film could be seen as a propaganda piece made during the height of Reagan's aggressive nuclear arms race, intended to set an iconic action hero against America's enemy in a blockbuster schlock, forgetting that Rambo once represented one of the many victims of the system he was now fighting for.

Almost as if his monologue in "First Blood's" final scene had meant nothing at all.

By the end of the first movie Rambo is willing to take revenge on the Sheriff who has been relentlessly hounding after him, ever since the policeman turned the veteran away from town when all he wanted was a place to eat. Rambo's former mentor and Colonel, Trautman, arrives, along with an army of cops, urging John to forgive and forget, to end the war that he started.

Now keep this in mind: I remembered very little of "First Blood" when I sat down to rewatch it recently, having seen it over a decade ago when I was very young. And yet, despite my age at the time, what stuck with me weren't the explosions, nor the cave sequence, not even Rambo hunting cops with camo, traps, and clever cinematography. I had forgotten everything, except his traumatic flashbacks at the beginning of the movie, and his emotional breakdown at the end of the movie.

"You just don't turn it off!" Rambo replies to Trautman. Enlisted and trained for a war that wasn't his, he is the lone survivor of an elite Green Beret group whose members were either killed in combat or slowly poisoned by Agent Orange. Rambo recalls the sudden death of one of his comrades in visceral detail, how helpless the both of them felt in the circumstances following a surprise detonation, how his friend could never return home to his "red '58 Chevy convertible", to "cruise 'till the tires fall off" together with Rambo. Now him and the others were gone, and Rambo remained with their painful ghosts.

This is the core of the story and what, truly, makes it unique, even if it's not as mainstream as studios may want it to be. And it is something the upcoming prequel should consider going forward.

The fourth and fifth instalments are infamous for their violence, widely criticised as gratuitous despite Stallone's truthful intents behind the horrific depictions of war. David Morrell disowned Rambo 5 - "Last Blood" - feeling that it focused on exploitative violence over soul, yet he had praised Rambo 4 for sticking close to the character's brutal portrayal in the original novel.

Sylvester Stallone himself had suggested that changes be made to the original script for "First Blood", which had leaned towards a more brooding, psychopathic Rambo, a war criminal that gets shot by his own colonel in the film's climax. This version was replaced with the more humane but troubled alternative, one that has a hope at recovery by the end as he is led away with Dan Hill singing the poignant "It's a Long Road" while the credits roll.

So what can be done?

The key, then, is not to glorify or overuse the violence and action that Rambo is involved in. There can be action, something to bring audiences in, but they must also walk away with something (besides disgust). What's needed, is a grounded conflict between the soldier who only knows war and his grasp on humanity. How does this weapon of a man, ultimately a victim, adapt to a country that turns its back on him?

Impressive set pieces like the cliff descent or the truck chase can still remain, but perhaps it's less about the action and more methodical. The camouflage scene where Rambo picks off the cops one by one, and problem-solving his way out of a collapsed mineshaft, are existing examples of this.

To make a spectacle out of war, either as a blockbuster schlock or through gratuitous violence, is to forget what "First Blood" argued against, after all.

Closing Thoughts & Looking to the Future

Perhaps giving Rambo a chance to "win this time" in subsequent releases was the redemption he needed after feeling like the conflict in Vietnam was ultimately suffered for nothing by American soldiers. But one would argue, instead, that throwing a beaten dog out onto the streets with the other dogs can only do more harm than good, even if that's the only life it knows.

The prequel already promises to explore Rambo's fall from optimism and loss of innocence. A young soldier gradually discovering the horrors of war isn't a new idea, but the deconstruction of heroism and the devolvement of a hopeful young soldier into a traumatised survivor with nerves of steel is promising.

There is plenty of ground for drama here, from Rambo losing his comrades, to the terrors of the Viet Cong tunnels that he would eventually build beneath his own home in the fifth film. As long as the action is grounded, as long as the stakes are realistic, and as long as the emotional impact is preserved, the film has a chance of depicting what the franchise has been incapable of since its first instalment.

Who knows? If the prequel achieves it well, it may yet provide a fitting conclusion for this character, one that loops back around to end where the series began. It would certainly be very poetic.