If you ever want to feel whiplash while lounging on your couch just do a double feature of First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part Two. That’s what I did, having no idea of the trap Stallone had set for me. It rattled me so much I had to write an entire essay to find out why, despite there only being three years of separation between the Rambo series’ first and second installments, there is such a monumental shift in tone, politics, writing, character, you name it.

The Difference:

First Blood is a nuanced action film. It’s packed with the machismo, explosions and muscle expected of the genre but with a thematic richness not commonly associated with movies designed to sell action figures. It’s an anti-cop exploration of Vietnam veteran isolation and PTSD dressed like Commando. What really sells this is the subversive ending where Rambo breaks down and monologues about the horrors he saw during the war instead of indulging in a shootout with the main antagonist, Sheriff Teasel. It completely changes the audience’s perspective of what came before - Rambo’s fighting with the police was not a generic revenge-inspired bloodlust but an explosive outburst at society's mistreatment of him. The film reaches beyond the bounds of its genre to acknowledge that Vietnam veterans like Rambo were transformed into killing machines for The United States and then abandoned by the very people that transformed them. And it is this acknowledgment that renders First Blood as an unusually sympathetic and thought provoking action film that has stood the test of time.

Rambo: First Blood Part Two is all about excess (you can tell just from the bloated title). The pitch is this: Rambo is back, muscles bigger than ever, still full of rage, but this time he’s taking that anger back to Vietnam to save leftover American POWs. It’s the testosterone fueled junk the first film tried so desperately to elevate. All nuance is gone. With the Russian Lieutenant Colonel as the cartoonishly evil communistm its garish Cold War infused jingoism makes it pair with Rocky IV (which came out the same year) like wine and cheese.

Stallone’s Ego:

There are few groups of people less solipsistic than actors and Stallone, in terms of self obsession, exceeds most stars. In William Goldman’s book Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood (2003) while retroactively analysing the 1976 “Best Picture” Oscar he declares that Rocky wouldn’t have been given the award just years later as, “following Rocky, Stallone went through a period of public misbehaviour; a certain arrogance showed in his interviews and personal appearances” (p. 147). This ego is not unwarranted, Rocky burst Sly into stardom and is one of the greatest success stories from both a critical and financial stance of all time. The film had all the odds stacked against it (like Rocky himself), particularly the no-name lead who spoke in an odd way and yet the film still landed unknown actor Sylvester Stallone multiple gold statues. So yeah, I reckon anyone’s confidence would be raised by that at the very least.

The ego is predominantly a coping mechanism designed to protect us from harsh realities. Sly (2023), the Netflix documentary, goes into Stallone’s childhood where he was raised by an abusive father. When one’s external life brings no joy it is understandable to indulge in the interior to make oneself happy. While I can’t diagnose Stallone, I believe this traumatic childhood made him indulge this ego of his, spinning the truth that he was an abused boy and an outcast into a belief that he was not like other kids - he was something special, maybe even something greater than them. Again, none of this can be confirmed (and is probably quite a bit of projection from my part), but I believe this hypothetical belief that he was special became a part of his identity and the longer he went without addressing his parental trauma the greater a part of his identity these beliefs became until the stakes of it not being true became so great he chose to never address it. Thus, when the moment that Rocky succeeded his ego was vindicated. Stallone was special, was a genius, was whatever good thing he had needed to tell himself to survive his childhood. With such a high level of vindication for his ego, Stallone no longer had any chance to put that genie back into the bottle, his ego would be in control from this point forward.

Public Perception Split in Two:

Unfortunately for Stallone the success of Rocky would not be enough to satisfy his ego forever. No, in order to keep that repressed trauma at bay he’d need to continually have Rocky levels of success to fuel his self-obsession. Thereby creating a chainlink between Stallone’s view of himself and the success of his pictures. It shouldn’t really need to be stated all the ways in which attaching the reception of your films to your self worth could go wrong, but Stallone lacked this outsider perspective and blinded himself to the troubles he was about to face. Making matters worse was the astronomical success of Rocky. Critics and general audiences championed it alike, elevating the film Stallone birthed into an elite group of select films that resonated so deeply in culture that their ripples are still impacting modern moviemaking to this day. This sounds like the opposite of an issue for Stallone, it was everything he ever wanted, but in the end this unreplicable success only ended up giving him the white whale he’d spend the rest of his career chasing.

By achieving positive critical reception while selling out theatres worldwide, Stallone’s ego was complimented in two (often) opposing directions. For critics Stallone wanted to be viewed as an artist. For this reason to this day Stallone shows off this tender “artful” side by going on about how Rocky is actually a love story, not a boxing movie. Which is not a statement I necessarily disagree with but I think his continual need to correct his audience's perception of the film in a way that compliments his perceived writing capabilities is what’s telling. On the other hand, to the general public Stallone wanted to appear as an entertainer. The audience needs to leave every one of his films feeling just as entertained as they were after Rocky’s fight with Apollo Creed. Which makes sense, the reason why the film became such a box office triumph is that that last boxing bout gets the audience so into the action you almost feel like you’re taking punches with Sly and the film’s resolution, while Rocky doesn’t win, is undoubtedly inspiring. So Stallone’s ego had these two mythologised versions of himself that needed to be not just always on display but always receiving applause from all ends of the moviegoer spectrum no matter the film he was making.

Post Rocky To First Blood:

Stallone, before Rocky was released and became a phenomenon, made a verbal agreement to his first lead role in F.I.S.T., a Norman Jewison picture, which he honoured. While making this agreement he could not have known that a film he starred in could garner both critical success and be an international crowd pleaser. So with F.I.S.T., a film about a Cleveland warehouse worker becoming a labor leader of the “Federation of Inner-State Truckers,” we get a rare glimpse of Stallone not as an entertainer. With the director of In the Heat of The Night, themes of corruption and an anti-capitalist sentiment this film was a full swing at art and solely art.

F.I.S.T. made $20 million from an 8$ million budget (a profit sure, but much less than the studio or Stallone would’ve hoped for) and did not get much critical praise. To this day it is mostly forgotten. The most important part of making the film for Stallone was that he learned never to make films that aren’t at least partially designed as entertainment. To ensure this he created a rule for himself. F.I.S.T. ends with Johnny Kovak, Stallone’s character, getting killed - a real bummer that was never gonna bring people back to relive the ending or inspire people like Rocky does. More importantly, it’s not the kind of ending an entertainer should deliver. So Stallone vows to himself to never make a movie where his character dies from this point forward.

His next project is Paradise Alley which he writes, directs and stars in. His goal with this one is to of course ignite the same fire as Rocky did and get both critics and general audience back on his side post F.I.S.T.. It’s a story about three Italian brothers in 1940s New York trying to pave careers for themselves in the wrestling industry. He essentially transposed boxing into wrestling and the romantic relationship from Rocky into a familial bond between the brothers. The appeal to Stallone’s artistic side is clearly there and is bolstered by the fact that he’s now directing because if it’s successful all the credit has to go to him as the lead creative. To Sly there is also mass appeal - it’s another sports movie, now with a struggling family that ends with one of the brothers winning a wrestling match in a rainstorm resulting in the three of brothers reuniting. All Stallone needed was for critics to like the film and general audiences to flock to the theatre. Unfortunately for him, that didn’t happen, the film was poorly received and few people saw it.

With back to back failures and an ego that desperately needed validation, Stallone returned to the Rocky franchise. Rocky II is not the original Rocky, you will never hear Stallone ramble on about how it is actually a love story. It generates the bare bones Rocky formula that most of us are familiar with - it’s got the training montages and the big fight at the end with Apollo Creed. Now that sounds like the first film but the grittiness and devotion to interpersonal drama of the original almost completely vanishes from Rocky II (and the following sequels). It’s the first film as if it were just a boxing movie. It could be considered that because Stallone writes and directs the film that it is appealing to this artistic side of him but I don’t think that’s true. Stallone is never chauvinistic about his Rocky II credits and John G Avildsen would’ve returned to direct the film if he wasn’t busy with preproduction of Saturday Night Fever. Stallone made Rocky II without thinking of the critical reception because he was so desperate for a hit (we can’t forget his economic desires too) and in the end, Stallone, like his character in Rocky II, wins. It’s the first financial hit since the first, critics might not like it anywhere near as much but the general audience do, so his ego got at least partially satisfied.

You might think the lesson Stallone would have learnt was to sever his desires for good reviews and only rely on franchises and crowd pleasers from here on out, but you’d be wrong. In 1981 Nighthawks and Escape to Victory came out. Neither are really remembered. Stallone in Nighthawks is an elite undercover cop stopping a terrorist and in Escape to Victory is an American POW in WWII who helps defeat the Nazis in a fixed propaganda soccer match. Both have crowd pleasing endings where the good guys win against easily defined villains, but they also both have some artistic effort from Stallone, while he doesn’t have a writing or directing credit on either film they are both swings at playing new characters for him and exploring his acting range. Which serves as evidence that the part of Stallone’s ego that demanded to be taken seriously by critics still had some control over him. Neither films are remembered and are deemed ‘okay’ if you ask anyone who’s actually seen them so Stallone’s hunt for that white whale continued.

After this, he made Rocky III and First Blood in the same year. Rocky III makes sense for Stallone. He returned to safe waters where he gets to crowd please and solely indulge his entertainer side (while making a boatload of cash). First Blood however, is another film that wants both general audience approval and great reviews. The exact recipe for disaster that has harpooned every film apart from Rocky so far and yet, this one succeeds.

Why First Blood Succeeds While His Other Attempts Failed:

First, let's go over how First Blood appeals to both of Stallone’s desires. As stated before it is a gritty film about a Vietnam veteran excluded from modern society that takes out his anger on the police. It also has Ted Koetcheff (Wake In Fright) directing the film assuring critical appeal. On the other side, the film has general appeal from its genre. Stallone gets to pose with a gun on the poster and have a trailer that guarantees audiences loud explosions and ear numbing gunfire.

Although a cave is blown up and Stallone gets to show off his physique, Stallone’s entertainer side was not fully satisfied with the film’s original script as the story ended with Rambo being shot. Stallone applied his rule, Rambo was not to die and he rewrote the ending. Interestingly though, he didn’t just swap it from Sheriff Teasle killing Rambo to Rambo killing Sheriff Teasle, he completely removed the final shootout that the film seems to be building up to. What we get instead is Rambo breaking down before Colonel Trautman which is a decision that ultimately served both the artistic side of Stallone and his entertainer side.

For the entertainer side as stated, Rambo lives and we get the somewhat happier ending of him going to jail with the Colonel by his side. Additionally, Stallone, in Sly, claims that the high suicide rate of Vietnam veterans at the time was a motivating factor behind this decision as he wanted the ending to give them hope and not feel nihilistic for that audience. So while it is a dour end for a Stallone film, considering the moment, he is still using the ending to inspire hope in general audiences. For critics, Sly gets to show off his acting chops - a monologue about the horrors of Vietnam - I’m sure he imagined Rambo’s breakdown playing at Oscar night. But also this ending is what elevates the film above its genre. The audience fully expects a shoot out between the protagonist and antagonist and by not delivering it audiences are forced into introspection on why we would want that ending. So while Stallone brought forward a change in ending for general audience appeal either subconsciously or not he trojan-horsed an added layer of complexity for the critics to eat up.

So if First Blood is serving both of Stallone’s egotistical desires and he is actively forcing the film further in these directions why does it work unlike every other attempt he’s made post Rocky? It’s because the film functions as an allegory about Stallone being caught between these two poles.

The two forces Rambo is stuck between is his past as a soldier with Colonel Trautman as the physical manifestation of this and the police force headed by Sheriff Teasle. Like how the critical and general public are both audiences, the army and police are both institutions with the purpose of protecting the American public, yet, in both cases, neither can see eye to eye.

In this analogy the army is the general public. Rambo, like Stallone, was a member of them who has now been cast back into civilian hood or for Sly into stardom and because of this there remains an unspoken kinship and respect between the two that the critical/police side can’t understand. In the film the Colonel is the only person Rambo is willing to speak to while he is afraid and being persecuted which could equate to Stallone making Rocky sequels solely to connect with general audiences, and is an admittance that in times of need Stallone has had to rely on the response to his Rocky sequels for comfort. While that may seem like a copacetic relationship the film understands that this is not truthful for how most veterans feel about the army and is not entirely true for how Stallone feels about general audiences.

A greater level of complexity is reached by First Blood when we recognise that Stallone is admitting that the general public are somewhat responsible for turning him into an even greater outcast than he was before the fame. The army made Rambo a machine for killing, we don’t know why he chose to join the army but we can assume, like Stallone, Rambo was lost and needed the outward approval that army camaraderie (or making a hit film) brings. Rambo even earned a medal of honour for his work like Stallone won the Oscar. But after the initial honeymoon period between Rambo and his outfit or equivalently Stallone and the public where did they end up? It was never going to last forever, the war would end just as Stallone’s popularity and goodwill would wither. Inevitably, Stallone and Rambo’s elevation from the populous (via becoming a soldier/movie star) only soothed their pain in the short term and worsened it in the long run. As we empathise with these lost men (Rambo and Stallone) who made a decision long ago we recognise this ostracisation as a punishment for Rambo joining the army and Stallone pursuing acting. The more we empathise the more we understand their anger at the fact that this punishment is far too an extreme. So what this all translates to, for Stallone, is an admittance that he has been tortured by fame and he regrets that decision. Thus the monologue scene at the end is not only Rambo acknowledging the pain inside of him but Stallone reflecting on how he has suffered. Rambo’s PTSD equals Stallone’s trauma and through this breakdown they’re both starting to process these emotions.

On the police side, Sheriff Teasle initially seems nice to Rambo by offering him a ride. Soon we realise that Teasle only picked up this lonely drifter to kick him out of the small town and let him know he’s not welcome here. It’s certainly a reflection of how Stallone felt in 1982. The critics elevated him with great reviews for Rocky and then canned everything else he made after it. The town that the police are protecting is analogous to the sacred in-crowd of “great” films that critics protect from the sentimental crowd pleasers Stallone takes pride in making. When Rambo tries to enter the town in spite of the Sheriff’s orders he’s arrested and as he is taken to the holding cell he has no idea what he’s done wrong, it’s mistreatment for mistreatment sake. So Rambo takes action and the film plays out as a fantasy for Stallone of him unleashing his anger on the rotten critics who have punished him with their bad reviews. Rambo ruins the entire small town and lets them know they can’t protect it from the rampaging one man machine especially when he is backed (not physically but in belief) by Colonel Trautman (as Stallone feels unstoppable when backed by public opinion). While it plays like a revenge film Stallone knows that this revenge, metaphorically and textually, is extreme and over indulgent as Rambo realises this when he gets a child in his clutches and stops himself. The anger goes too far. It's as if the point of the plot was a way for Stallone to exhaust all his anger through bullets, hatchets and explosions till he got to the point past all of his externally driven emotions so he and Rambo could reach the point where they had no other choice but to look inward at the emptiness inside of them.

The very end of the film has the Colonel walking alongside Rambo as he’s taken to jail. While this is an additional punishment lopped on to both Rambo and Stallone there is an air of hope for them both. Now that they’ve realised the pain inside of them and acknowledged their respective PTSD/childhood trauma they have an opportunity to move forward. Rambo will live a better life, even in jail, because he is no longer dragged down by his psychological pain. The jail for Rambo is a life of fame for Stallone where he will always be subjected to criticism. There is no doubt that reviews or hit-pieces or scandals will keep getting published but there’s now hope for Stallone that with this self-actualisation he can recognise and control his dominant ego complex to not let the words of others hurt him and thus prosper as an artist, filmmaker, actor, writer and person.

The film was also beloved by both the general audience and critics because it rocks.

Post First Blood Blunders:

From here the story should end as Stallone went to therapy, processed his trauma and learned that the self is just a projection. From there he went on to make great creative choices that were not motivated by public or critical perception but the inner workings of his soul and he lived out the true meaning of the word, artist. Not to shock anyone, but that didn’t actually happen. Between First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part Two Stallone directed Staying Alive and teamed up with Dolly Parton to make Rhinestone. Both were flops, both are forgotten and both tried to show off a new side of Stallone - his first directed film without him as a star and his more sensitive musical side.

So Stallone craved the public’s approval once more and in 1985 both Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part Two came out. The Rocky series had already become a cartoon of the original film so the absurdity of Rocky (basically) winning the Cold War by himself is accepted (and if anything expected) by that audience at this point. However, making an equivalent leap in his first Rambo sequel was not.

Rambo: First Blood Part Two - An Insult:

The opening of Part Two is a slap in the face to its predecessor. Trautman comes to Rambo in prison and offers him the chance to go back to Vietnam and save some POWs who haven’t been released to end his jail sentence early. Based on how the previous film ended every audience member would assume that going back to Vietnam would be the last thing Rambo would ever do. It gave him horrendous PTSD and left him as an outcast with no place in society. Instead of lambasting the Colonel for even suggesting such a tone deaf and horrific deal Rambo agrees and on the condition that, “we win this time[.]”

Utter insanity.

You’d think that with Stallone’s desperate need to serve his audiences and be looked nicely upon that he wouldn’t dare disrespect lovers of the first film in such a way. But paradoxically it’s Stallone’s desperation that causes this change. 1985 was the pinnacle of Reaganism and anti USSR sentiment. So Stallone abandoned the thematic nuance and introspection of the first film for, as Pauline Kael (1985) put it, “a wired-up version of the narcissistic jingoism of the John Wayne-Second World War pictures.” Films about PTSD with anti-war sentiments were out of fashion so Stallone destroyed Rambo and rebuilt him into the paragon of 80s pro-war slop protagonists.

Kael’s use of narcissism is something to note because she’s one hundred percent correct. As we know, Stallone needed to continually one up himself to maintain the internal belief that he is special and has value. Where that led him was to make a film about how he could single-handedly win the Vietnam war in overtime while simultaneously sorting out those nuke threatening commies. Truly a one man army, Part Two goes to ridiculous levels to depict how Rambo can take down anything with merely a bow and arrow plus muscle mass. He even woos a lady with about one conversation. If you want a drinking game that’ll send you right to hospital, take a drink every time there’s a shot of Rambo tensing. Double if he’s sweaty and the sun is making his body look like a roast chicken. If Rambo: First Blood Part Two is subtextually about anything it is about how great Stallone is. The Rambo from the first film died in that jail cell and Stallone used his remains as a vessel for self-aggrandizement.

Where To From Here:

With this self-indulgent display, Stallone abandoned the critical audience. Looking at the rest of his career he next considers critical appeal over twenty years later in Cop Land which he, himself, admits in Sly. Rambo: First Blood Part Two establishes the silent stoic gunman deified by insecure men that Stallone would become all throughout the late 80s and 90s. It could be argued that Part Two touches on a real life topic. As First Blood was about the suicide rate of Vietnam veterans, Part Two is about America’s real unpaid war repartions that resulted in Vietnam holding POWs after the war. But that is not an interior subject of the film like First Blood’s veteran suffrage is, it is merely a reason to set up Rambo’s rematch of the century. If he actually wanted to explore such a topic the director of Escape to Athena wouldn’t have been hired.

Stallone V.S. Arnold:

A frequent debate had by action film junkies is Stallone or Arnold - who had the better career? It’s an interesting discussion to have because it ultimately comes down to taste; there isn’t a clear dividing line that elevates one from another. Which is so frustrating if you like Stallone because he wasted so much of his potential. He is the better actor, writer, director and overall artist than Arnold but I’d take Total Recall or T2: Judgement Day over any 90s Stallone film in a heartbeat. Schwarzenegger had so many more drawbacks: his accent, his lack of acting skills, his outsider status in Hollywood, but Arnold never had the ego of Stallone. He was aware of these shortcomings so he sought out the best action directors like James Cameron (who, it’s interesting to note, has a writing credit on Rambo: First Blood Part Two which has clear structural links to what he’d do in Aliens) and John Mctiernan and allowed himself to be a colour in their paintings. He also wasn’t fragile about sharing the screen with men just as muscly as him. Carl Weathers in Predator is an antagonist to Arnold’s squad but unlike in Rocky I or II Schwarzenegger never needs to prove he’s tougher than him by punching him in the face. While Stallone had all of this leverage over Arnold (and they were definitely competitors in the 80s and 90s), his ego (and Arnold’s lack thereof) weighed him down to the Austrian bodybuilder’s level.

There’s a world out there where Stallone truly is the artist he tells everyone he is. However, for that world to exist there’d need to be a Sly that didn’t wax poetic about these great triumphs; he’d just make them for himself and not be so desperate for the approval of every person on Earth. We could’ve gotten heaps of First Blood calibre films that were both entertaining and thought provoking, all stemming from an action star who was not just a hunk of meat but also a key figure in the story department. Instead we live in the tragic world with Rambo: Last Blood and an annoying has-been who knows deep down he could’ve had a better career.

References:

Kael, P. (1985). Rambo: First blood part II [Review of Rambo: First blood part II, by G. Cosmatos]. The New Yorker.

Goldman, W. (2003). Adventures in the screen trade : a personal view of Hollywood and screenwriting. Abacus.

Zimmy, T. (Director). (2023, November 3). Sly (A. Salsich & T. Zimmy, Eds.) [Film]. Netflix.