The first Rambo film is significantly different from its successors. He’s much more serious, and there’s a reason for that: the character was inspired by a real soldier.
What’s Rambo all about? When most of you hear the name “Rambo,” you probably think of intense action, lots of explosions, and countless defeated enemies.
Rambo 2 and 3, as well as the subsequent films, shaped the image of the patriotic macho fighter. John Rambo’s (Sylvester Stallone) story began completely differently. Anyone who has seen the first film knows: the ex-soldier was not always as cool and hardened as in later spin-offs in the series.
Quite the opposite. In Rambo from 1982, which is called “First Blood” in the original English, we are dealing with a war returnee.
A soldier who served in the Vietnam War and is now back home struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the character is not fictional, but is based on a person who really lived.
Sylvester Stallone had a rival for a long time: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Trailer for the dark first “Rambo”
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The model for Rambo was a highly decorated veteran
Who was the character inspired by? The first film in the Rambo series is actually an adaptation of the novel “First Blood” by David Morell. The protagonist of the story was inspired by a US soldier.
More specifically from Audie Murphy. He was active on the American side in World War II and fought in Sicily and France, among other places. Actually, he shouldn’t have gone to war at all because he was too young for it. Thanks to forged documents, it still worked.
By the end of the war, Murphy received every award from the US Army and is now considered a highly decorated American soldier.
Sylvester Stallone later regretted one film.
What does this have to do with Rambo? Back in the US, Murphy, like Rambo in the film, struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. He suffered from insomnia, depression and always had a gun next to his pillow. He took medication for nightmares, and friends described him as moody and violent.
At least Murphy managed to start a second career as an actor. He also wrote down his war experiences in a book.
John Rambo is also an ex-soldier who has difficulty coping with life after the war. He has a broken personality in the film, and is far from the cool action hero of later spin-offs.
Although he uses the skills he learned in the war, such as guerrilla tactics, to survive against his opponents in the forest, he doesn’t look glorious doing it.
That changed in part two, where the dark concept of the first part was dropped and the focus was on stupid stories and over-the-top action. This also has its charm and is entertaining for a while, but the series never reached the depth of the first film again.
By the way, Audie Murphy died in a plane crash in 1971. So he never saw “Rambo.” Sylvester Stallone was jealous of a co-star in another film.