Sylvester Stallone has only one way to save the Rambo franchise – and it has to do with his biggest disappointment

Sylvester Stallone is like Konrad Adenauer. He just doesn’t know when it’s over. Rambo: Last Blood was supposed to be the final conclusion of its biggest action series, but according to an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Rambo 6 is coming anyway. If the film is to be good, the star has to take his Creed role as a model.

Against Sylvester Stallone’s will: Rambo 6 should show the next generation

Stallone had actually planned a prequel for Rambo 6, in which John Rambo from jolly football player to a traumatized one-man army in the Vietnam jungle. Apparently the producers don’t want to do that. Instead, the war veteran should appear in a supporting role and hand over the baton. All the better.

The role of mentor is tailor-made for Stallone in his late work. Nowhere is this more evident than in the first two films of the Rocky sequel Creed.

His appearance in Creed shows Sylvester Stallone’s late star role

It’s no wonder the action star was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the first Creed. The passion, the ambition, the working class humility, all the Rocky traits are still there. But Stallone has a keen eye for the years and the hard lessons of aging, stuck in the champion’s bones.

Rocky’s grief at the death of his beloved wife Adrian (Talia Shire in the original series) resonates with every movement. But she also taught him tenderness, a consideration and good nature that would have been utterly foreign to the underprivileged force of nature in the first Rocky.

In the Creed II hospital scene, when Stallone’s character bows his head in Adonis’ (Michael B. Jordan) anger, fiddles with his hat and sadly turns to leave, it’s clear how much the star has understood about the inner workings of an aging fighter . Not using that wealth for a character like John Rambo is sheer waste.

Sylvester Stallone has problems with the Creed role

Of course, there are two problems if Stallone is to model himself on Creed Rocky as Rambo. On the one hand, Sylvester Stallone’s de facto sacking from the Creed series ahead of Part 3 is certainly an inconceivable disappointment for the star. After all, the franchise started with nothing but his willpower. So does he? his worst career defeat as a blueprint wants to use for the swan song of his biggest action series is doubtful.

On the other hand, Rocky and Rambo are two very different characters. Rambo has no class consciousness, terms like underdog or sportsmanship don’t count for him. He does not live modestly out of humility, but because killing is easy business. And that’s all he really knows.

Creed is the perfect role model for Rambo 6

This only makes the character’s last appearance more exciting. Rambo is a far sadder character than Rocky but its tragedy is only told in the first Rambo and the better moments of the deeply problematic Rambo 5 at all. If Stallone connects his Creed experiences with Rambo’s story, he might not only give the character a worthy farewell. Rather, it does justice to its complexity for the first time.

That’s probably what Sylvester Stallone was aiming for with his prequel idea. But the mentoring idea is much more intuitive. After all, that’s the only way the action star could play a bigger role at all. And the role of the old fighter, whose scarred body and battered soul catch up with him at high speed fits him perfectly. He proved that alongside Creed with Tulsa King and Samaritan.

So what could a Creed-inspired Rambo farewell look like? The best idea would be a mentoring dynamic like that between Jaimz Woolvett and Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven: One is a cocky young hothead who fails to see the dire consequences of his actions. And the other, the walking death on two legs, the one behind Cruelty barely kept in check of the indignity of an aging body and the tenderness of a lesser chosen. In the end, however, he is irretrievably lost.

So Sylvester Stallone has to die as Rambo

Such a dynamic could fulfill all the functions of Rambo farewell. It shows Rambo as a mentor and warrior with an unprecedented complexity that reflects Stallone’s new role profile. She not only uses a sequel, but also gives him a compelling character development.

And it opens the door to the only truly honest ending to the series: Rambo loses the battle for his soul and dies madly in love with the bloodlust, in the hail of bullets. Like a perverted and tragic military experiment finally given the coup de grace.

I think Sylvester Stallone can swallow the humiliation of the Creed series for that. Because if he, Rocky and Rambo have one thing in common, it’s the ability to take humiliation and move on. Even if you are thrown out of your own house like Konrad Adenauer.

The 10 biggest streaming films of 2023 on Netflix, Amazon & Co.

In this installment of our Moviepilot podcast, Stream Browsing, we take a look at the big movies coming exclusively to Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Apple TV+ this year. The result is a list of ten special recommendations.

From the sci-fi epic to the potential Oscar nominee, everything is included. The talents gathered are particularly impressive. In 2023 we can expect new movies from Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Zack Snyder in the streaming space, while Gal Gadot, Leonardo DiCaprio, Henry Cavill and Chris Hemsworth will be in front of the camera.

*. If you make a purchase through these links or sign up for a subscription, we will receive a commission. .