Summary
- First Blood focused on PTSD and societal treatment of soldiers, starting the franchise with a character-driven story.
- Sequels deviated from First Blood's message, becoming violent action films with increasing body counts.
- The Rambo prequel should learn from First Blood, focusing on character development over mindless violence.
A Rambo prequel movie is on the way, and it needs to avoid the same mistakes each sequel made. The franchise started with 1982's First Blood, an adaptation of David Morrell's 1972 novel of the same name. It starred Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran who finds himself the target of unwarranted scrutiny, which triggers a fight with small-town police. The film spawned a franchise with four sequels, the most recent being Rambo: Last Blood, released in 2019. While First Blood was a critically acclaimed film, each sequel pushed the character further away from where he started, which saw them maligned by most critics.
It was recently announced that a Rambo prequel movie is in development (via Deadline). The film is called John Rambo, and it will tell the story of his time during the Vietnam War before the events of First Blood. The script is being written by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, who co-wrote Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam. Rare Exports and Sisu director Jalmari Helander is set to direct, with it being his follow-up to this fall's Sisu 2. Further details surrounding John Rambo are currently scarce, but as the project develops, those behind the scenes must ensure the prequel doesn't commit the same sin each sequel is guilty of.
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First Blood Was A Critique Of The Vietnam War And The Treatment Of Returning Soldiers
First Blood succeeded thanks to its focus on commentary and character, with entertaining action sequences to make for a film that packed a deep, character-driven story. The plot sees John Rambo, a former U.S. Green Beret, traveling through a rural town in Washington state, where the sheriff judges Rambo on his scruffy appearance, seeing him as a nuisance. The sheriff tells Rambo to get lost, which he ignores, wandering into town anyway, as he has done nothing wrong and needs a good meal.
However, the sheriff arrests Rambo for vagrancy, which leads to an altercation with the deputies at the station. The deputies beat and harass John, triggering flashbacks to the horrendous things he suffered through during the Vietnam War, which sends him into survival mode. Rambo fends off the deputies and escapes into the town's remote wilderness, where local authorities pursue him before the National Guard is called in. Throughout all this, Rambo refrains from killing any of his pursuers, except for one officer who falls from a helicopter, which was ultimately an accident. The ordeal culminates in Rambo blowing up the local sheriff's office, with him about to kill the sheriff, before his former commanding officer steps in and talks him down.
First Blood works as an entertaining action film, but that action is built on a character suffering severe PTSD due to the horrors of war, which have traumatized him in ways even he hasn't yet realized, making for a more complex story. The movie elucidates the damaging effects that returning soldiers can still suffer from, long after the war is over. Furthermore, First Blood sees how some people showed no appreciation for soldiers returning from Vietnam, as the war was tied up with complicated politics, and despite some being drafted against their will, they were chastised for their participation. Rather than being seen as a war hero, Rambo is labeled a vagrant and shown disdain by even law enforcement.
The Rambo Sequels Forgot First Blood's Message, Embracing The Horrors Of War
First Blood wasn't about how many people Rambo could kill, as it took great strides in the character merely hurting the police who were after him. Even when one died, it boiled down to an accident, with everything that played out having been preventable had Rambo simply been left alone. First Blood was about exploring a character with PTSD and how unwarranted cruelty set off a chain reaction of violence that was avoidable had Rambo been given access to proper mental health services that soldiers often lack, or if those encountering veterans were better educated in the traumas they may be suffering.
The Rambo sequels immediately forgot the message of First Blood, turning the franchise into violent action films that got bloodier with each installment. Rather than seeing a character struggling to reintegrate with society, the films became the antithesis of the first movie's story, embracing violence for the sake of violence. Stallone's John Rambo was no longer concerned with sparing lives, as each sequel saw him racking up a bigger and bigger body count. The one accidental death in First Blood turned into 74 kills in the second film, 115 in Rambo III, and a franchise record high in 2008's Rambo, which is estimated to be 252 kills. Rambo was no longer a traumatized soldier, becoming a killing machine.
John Rambo Should Take Its Lessons From First Blood, Ignoring The Sequels Entirel
The Rambo sequels chose to largely ignore John's PTSD issues, instead focusing on action spectacle. While the franchise has plenty of entertainment value, the character's arc feels disconnected from where it started, leaning into what the original movie labeled as causing war's traumatic and unforeseen repercussions. However, the John Rambo prequel has a chance to ignore the mistakes of the sequels, getting back to what made First Blood work.
Telling the story of John's time fighting the Vietnam War is bound to be rife with action, but it also presents the opportunity to show the horrors of war that caused his PTSD. What were merely quick flashbacks in First Blood can be expanded upon to show what John was forced to endure, making him a more sympathetic character and helping audiences better understand his state of mind at the franchise's start. While fans of the Rambo franchise have come to expect action, critics and audiences still agree that First Blood is the best installment, meaning that John Rambo may best be served by ignoring the mindless killing of the sequels and embracing the character-driven story of trauma he deserves.
First Blood
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- October 22, 1982
- Runtime
- 93 minutes
- Director
- Ted Kotcheff
- Writers
- Michael Kozoll, Sylvester Stallone, William Sackheim, David Morrell
