Sylvester Stallone now calls the Rambo sequels 'a cartoon' — and says the blame is all his
A blockbuster filmmaker regrets how Rambo’s arc unfolded across the franchise’s first trilogy — and you’ll want to know what they’d change.
Right, let’s talk about the Rambo franchise—one of those old-school action sagas that simply won’t roll over and die. It all kicked off in 1982 with First Blood, which, here’s the twist, was based on a rather bleak novel from 1972. That book? The main bloke, John Rambo, doesn’t actually make it out alive. But Hollywood being Hollywood, Sylvester Stallone decided Rambo would live to punch, stab, and explode another day. And, well, another four films after that—with a sixth on the horizon.
There are now five films in the Rambo series, with a sixth officially in development.
At the centre of it all is Stallone himself, who used the character of Rambo to work through his views on war, machismo, and the whole idea of American muscle on the world stage. In the first outing, Rambo’s a haunted Vietnam vet just looking for a mate in a small American town. Instead, he finds a local sheriff who fancies himself a bit of a hard man. The situation blows up—literally and figuratively—after some pretty nasty treatment by the authorities triggers Rambo’s war flashbacks, turning a simple encounter into utter carnage. The original film actually had stakes and emotional weight, thanks to Rambo’s PTSD and sense of not belonging anywhere.
Stallone’s Rambo Regrets
Here’s where things get interesting. Stallone, now hitting 80, is doing a bit of soul-searching. In his new memoir, The Steps, he admits he properly missed the mark with Rambo in the sequels. Where the first film had a character battered by war and trauma, the later ones went full action-figure—guns, muscles, bravado, but hardly a hint of real vulnerability. He reckons this was his doing, not Hollywood’s, and he’s not exactly pleased with how things turned out.
Stallone, chatting to The New York Times about his choices, made it clear he knew exactly where it all went wrong:
‘I didn’t really focus on the depth of what he was still going through while trying to save P.O.W.s. He’s trying to save his own soul. We never got into that. It’s just bravado, bravado, bravado. That’s all me. You realize, flexing your muscles is a lot easier than showing your soul. And it was terrible. It was like a cartoon.’
So, while Stallone once fronted a character who seemed the embodiment of American might—blunt force trauma with a headband—it was, by his own admission, a missed opportunity to dig deeper. The films turned from meditations on trauma to poster boys for explosion-heavy heroics.
From War Hawk to Dove
There’s another twist. Flash back to 1985, and Stallone was giddy at the idea of American power flexing its muscles. In fact, he once said that if you act tough on the world stage, you’ve got to prove you mean it—a very Rambo view, to be fair. But four decades (and plenty of reading) later, Stallone’s tune is nearly unrecognisable. He’s now vehemently opposed to war, calling it pointless and destructive, and admits his gung-ho attitude back then was, frankly, a bit naïve.
When pressed about his old war-movie bravado, Stallone’s updated philosophy on the subject couldn’t be clearer:
‘I hate it and I’m bitterly opposed to it. But at one time I was truly gung-ho. I don’t know if I was just trying to go against the current. In Hollywood, there’s a certain dynamic, as you know. I think it was just naïveté, really, because I read a lot, especially after First Blood, and I go, Wow, this is brutal, this is horrible, there’s no glory in war. None.’
The enduring irony, then, is that Rambo became the musclebound symbol of American force—just as Stallone’s own views shifted dramatically. He’s straightforward now about the futility of conflict, seeing nothing but destruction and no real winners, and he’s very much over that ‘bravado’ persona.
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