7 Even More Incredible Facts About 'Rambo'

7. Rambo’s trademark knife wasn’t supposed to exist

In the book “First Blood,” on which the film and the character John Rambo are based, Rambo never had any kind of survival knife, let alone a giant one that could take out the entire Hope police force, Wash added. Stallone. knife for effect, hoping to make the weapon a character of its own.

6. Without ‘Rambo’ there would be no ‘Predator’

When Rocky Balboa fought Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, no one in Hollywood was quite sure who Rocky’s next opponent might be. There was a joke that Rocky would have to fight some kind of Alien in Rocky V. After a while, screenwriters Jim and John Thomas began to take the idea seriously and wrote a hybrid Rocky-Rambo movie we call Predator. In Rocky V, Rocky fought a former student named Tommy Gunn. On the street. Near the bar. In case you were wondering.

5. Rambo wasn’t a killer – originally.

John Rambo never killed anyone in First Blood. There is only one death in the entire film, and it occurs in an accident when an overzealous police officer falls from a helicopter while shooting Rambo. In subsequent films, everything changes, of course. Rambo’s body count is 76 in First Blood: Part II and 132 in Rambo III. In Rambo, he appears to kill the entire Burmese army with one .50 caliber pistol.

Rambo First Blood 1982 | Then And Now 2022 | How They Changed

4. Stallone hated the first cut of First Blood.

When Stallone first saw the cut of First Blood, he hated it. It was three and a half hours long and Rambo’s dialogue was terrible. At first, Stallone wanted to buy the film so he could burn it. Instead, he cut the film down to 93 minutes, removing most of the dialogue, and that’s what you see when you watch it today.

3. There actually is a John Rambo on “The Wall.”

Arthur John Rambo was an artilleryman with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam. He was mortally wounded by multiple rocket-propelled grenade hits on November 26, 1969. As he and his fellow artillerymen came under heavy mortar fire, a nearby self-propelled howitzer was hit by a grenade launcher and burst into flames. Rambo moved his fellow soldiers out of the way and tried to move the still burning car away from where it would not pose a threat. He succeeded, but the car took away two more RPGs. The last one, killing Rambo in battle. Arthur John Rambo was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

2. John Rambo was almost played by John Travolta

Imagine how different action movie history would be today if Sylvester Stallone had not been involved in the writing and casting process. John Travolta was considered for the role of the former Green Beret and one man on the wrecking crew before Stallone stepped in and rejected the idea. Travolta also almost became Forrest Gump and Pete “Maverick” Mitchell from Top Gun.

1. Rambo commits suicide. In the book.

… and in the original version of the film. Remember when Sylvester Stallone recut the entire movie? Rambo’s suicide didn’t make it into the final version, even though that’s what happens in the book. Instead, Stallone asked several Vietnam veterans what problems they faced, and Stallone wrote a speech at the end of the film to tell the world about it. The original movie sounds terrible. Thank God for Sylvester Stallone.