Rambo III originally had a very different ending – which is why the alternate ending has aged terribly in the years since its 1988 release. The character of John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) was first introduced to the world in the 1982 film First Blood. An American Vietnam War veteran, Rambo struggles to find peace in the years following his time overseas. Of course, First Blood also shows the devastating consequences of small-town cops pushing an already exhausted—and superbly trained in combat—man to the brink of gratuitous brutality.
In 1988, Rambo III concluded the Sylvester Stallone trilogy with pomp (though it was later revived for new installments).
Rambo III follows the title character as he heads to Afghanistan to rescue his friend and mentor, Colonel Sam Troutman, played by Richard Crenna. Trautman traveled to Afghanistan to help the Mujahideen rebels in their fight against Soviet occupation. However, the old soldier is captured by Soviet invaders, and Rambo must save his friend and escape the war-torn country.
While the film is generally considered the worst of the Rambo series, the original ending would have made the film even worse, especially for today’s audiences. Here’s what happened in the deleted ending of Rambo III and why it aged horribly.
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How Rambo 3 Ends
At the end of Rambo III, the namesake warrior successfully rescued Trautman, killed a villainous Soviet colonel, and brought a fleeting measure of temporary peace to a small corner of Afghanistan. Rambo and Trautman leave the country and the film ends. Interestingly, this installment of the Sylvester Stallone film franchise also ends with a dedication that reads, “To the valiant people of Afghanistan.” Initially, however, in an alternate ending, John Rambo would have chosen to stay and fight alongside the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union.
Why Rambo 3’s Deleted Ending Would Have Aged Horribly
While the original ending of Rambo III might have made sense in the context of the film itself, the events that have happened since then would have meant that it has aged terribly. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union (at the direction of pro-Russian local authorities) was involved in a bitter fight against mujahideen rebel forces. The war in Afghanistan was a huge stupidity for the USSR and is considered one of the greatest failures in Soviet history. Sam Troutman has a provocative line of dialogue in Rambo III (co-written by Sylvester Stallone) where he directly links the Soviet-Afghan war to America’s misadventures in Southeast Asia.
He declares to his Soviet captors: “We already had Vietnam. Now you will have yours.”
The bitter irony here should be obvious to any student of recent history or any veteran of America’s recent foreign wars. After Russia withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 (before its final collapse in 1991), the various mujahideen groups were unable to reach a common consensus on how to move forward. Afghanistan remained engulfed in civil war for many years until the United States invaded Afghanistan following the unprecedented events of September 11, 2001.
While this generalization greatly simplifies the situation, in the alternate ending of Rambo III, Stallone’s protagonist joined a group whose members eventually formed the Taliban and allied with al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that carried out the 9/11 attacks. The optics of this creative challenge in a Stallone-led Rambo movie wouldn’t have been great anyway, but especially since Rambo himself is such an iconic character in American film. Needless to say, this now-lost conclusion would have caused the film to age horribly in today’s geopolitical climate. Even without the original ending, Rambo III still shows how the United States spent nearly two decades interfering in the affairs of a country it openly supported back in the 1980s.