History YMMV / Rambo

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: See the entry under AwesomeMusic/JerryGoldsmith

** A truly bizarre example - the first ever review of the fourth Rambo movie went: "A glorious movie. The villains are obvious, the hero never speaks, and everybody dies." Who gave this review? ''Lieutenant Worf'', in a StarTrekTheNextGeneration ExpandedUniverse novel, which was written about fifteen years before the movie was filmed. It's surprisingly accurate.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: See the entry under AwesomeMusic/JerryGoldsmith (and to a lesser extent Brian Tyler for ''Rambo''). This is especially true for ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', even unto the AnimatedAdaptation being liberally tracked with the film's score.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: JerryGoldsmith (and to a lesser extent Brian Tyler for ''Rambo''). This is especially true for ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', even unto the AnimatedAdaptation being liberally tracked with the film's score.

** Becomes HighOctaneNightmareFuel when you find out that unfortunately the movie is not far off from the actual reality on the ground.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Most of the Rambo tie-in games aren't very good, most infamously the {{NES}} game adaptation.

* TearJerker: Rambo's outpouring of repressed grief at the ending of the film adaptation of ''First Blood'' is said by the author of the original novel to have saved the marriages of countless emotionally destroyed Vietnam War veterans, who afterwards learned how to cry again.
** The heartbreaking Karen Village Massacre of the fourth movie, and to a lesser extent, the massacre of the Afghanistan village in the third one.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj8_ZBeb-2E Brian Tyler's musical motif "Battle Adagio." It would take one with a heart of stone to not get teary eyed to this theme.]]

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: The sickening brutality of the Burmese military towards the Karen villagers in the fourth film.

* TearJerker: Rambo's outpouring of repressed grief at the ending of the film adaptation of ''First Blood'' is said by the author of the original novel to have saved the marriages of countless emotionally destroyed Vietnam War veterans, who afterwards learnt how to cry again.

* AdaptationDisplacement: ...not that many people had even heard of the novel. Then again, how many Rambo fans remember that the original ''{{Rambo}}'' (First Blood) was a depressing film about a ShellShockedVeteran fleeing the law?

** NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! from the first film.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: JerryGoldsmith (and to a lesser extent Brian Tyler for ''Rambo''). This is especially true for ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', even unto the cartoon liberally being tracked with the film's score.

** Colonel Zaysen (to be fair, large proportions of the Soviet Army as well) destroys entire Afghan villages, kills innocent people, women and children with mines, bio-weapons and other evil stuff for NO REASON, even when said people did nothing at all.

* TooCoolToLive: Of all the mercenaries, [[spoiler:only two including School Boy]] survive the climax of ''Rambo''.

* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler:En-Joo]] is the only mercenary who doesn't survive the climax of ''Rambo''.

** This Troper, being of Burmese nationality, would like to comment that the said fact is ''actually true in real life'' and has already crossed the line into MoralEventHorizon territory. [[spoiler:Imagine having a government that practices genocide ''against its own people''.]]
*** [[NaziGermany We can]].

* AdaptationDisplacement: ...not that many people had even heard of the novel. Then again, how many Rambo fans remember that the original ''{{Rambo}}'' was a depressing film about a ShellShockedVeteran fleeing the law?

* HarsherInHindsight: Rambo fighting with the Taliban against the Soviets, in light of the later role of the Taliban in real life. (This parallels the real-life HarsherInHindsight to real-life attitudes that praised the Taliban at the time of the Soviet-Afghan war.)

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: When Rambo rams his tank into the {{Big Bad}}'s helicopter in the finale of ''Rambo 3'', albeit an [[{{Narm}} ''unintentional'']] example caused by Stallone's trademark idiotic battle cry.

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: The end of the fourth movie has Rambo at long last going home, 30+ years after the end of the war that took him away from it, and looking behind him at the long road he's finally finished walking. The scene was poignant enough to singlehandedly make everyone decide that ''Rambo V'' was a bad idea.
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: JerryGoldsmith (and to a lesser extent Brian Tyler for ''Rambo''). This is especially true for ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', even unto the cartoon liberally being tracked with the film's score.

* {{Tearjerker}}: Rambo's outpouring of repressed grief at the ending of the film adaptation of ''First Blood'' is said by the author of the original novel to have saved the marriages of countless emotionally destroyed Vietnam War veterans, who afterwards learnt how to cry again.
** though Stallone's unique "accent" when bawling out the whole drama brought it dangerously close to {{Narm}} territory ([[YourMileageMayVary at least for this troper]]).

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj8_ZBeb-2E Brian Tyler's musical motiff "Battle Adagio." It would take one with a heart of stone to not get teary eyed to this theme.]]

** This Troper, being of Burmese nationality, would like to comment that the said fact is ''actually true in real life'' and [[strike:borderlines]] has already crossed the line into MoralEventHorizon territory. [[spoiler:Imagine having a government that practices genocide ''against its own people''.]]

-->'''Co''': "Rambo! You're not [[TheExpendables expendable]].

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Several. For example, Rambo, fresh after being tortured by Russians in ''First Blood Part II'', beating the ever-living crap out of his guards with a ''radio''...
** Sneaking up on a Burmese soldier in ''Rambo''... and beheading him with one swing of his sword.
*** The pacifist missionary finally takes action, and beats a soldier to death with a rock, face to face.
*** Rambo grabs a Burmese soldier from behind and [[strike:slowly crushes]] '''fucking rips out''' his throat with his ''bare hands.''
*** Rambo kills 5 river pirates with one shot each.
** Rambo threatening the sheriff in ''First Blood'' and reducing him to tears.
** Rambo, aka "The Fucking Boatman", popping out of nowhere and killing Burmese soldiers with rapid arrowing.
** Rambo laying waste to the Burmese forces with a .50 caliber machine gun. The highlight of the battle: Rambo getting shot in the shoulder and taking a moment to rest when he sees a truck full of Burmese reinforcements coming down the road. Cue Rambo jumping up, getting back behind the gun and unloading it at the truck, with the bullets ''chopping down the trees that stand between him and the truck'' and turning at least one of the soldiers into a human volcano and absolutely slaughtering the rest.
** Rambo killing the BigBad of part 4 in the only scene where they meet eye to eye.

* AdaptationDecay: The original ''First Blood'' novel is similar, but significantly different from the original movie, for example [[spoiler:Rambo was killed by Trautman]].
** To be exact, according to the DVD, at the first test screening, the immediate reaction to [[spoiler:Trautman euthanizing Rambo with a pistol]] from a hillbilly in the crowd was a furious "whoever made this film, we gonna STRING HIM UP!!" Rambo had earned so much sympathy from the audience that to [[spoiler:kill him]] after all the suffering he went through would be nothing short of a ShootTheShaggyDog story of the cruelest sort.
** PragmaticAdaptation: The ending of ''First Blood'' was changed not because they were hoping for sequels, it was changed because they felt the film was bleak enough as it was. Apparently, the original author said he was okay with the change.
*** Said original ending can be seen in a flashback in part 4. [[spoiler: Troutman shoots Rambo in the gut]].
*** Rambo's character in general is altered. In the book once he's pushed over the edge he kills many of his pursuers without mercy. On the flip side, Teasle was made much more sympathetic, with half of the book devoted to Teasle's perspective and gives his motivations for his actions. This gave two sides to the story and made the question of who the hero is more ambiguous. The movie heightened the contrast between the characters, making Rambo more of a sympathetic hero and Teasle more of a villain. This new sympathy for Rambo is probably what made the original ending to the movie do so bad with test audiences.
** Before the film adaptation of ''First Blood'', Vietnam vets were nigh universally depicted as kill-happy psychos; the decision to portray Rambo sympathetically at all was fairly groundbreaking at the time and part of what makes it such an endearing movie. For perspective, 2003's ''The Hunted'' was a much more faithful adaptation of the novel, with the Rambo {{Expy}} depicted as a brutal maniac who slaughters people for the thrill of it. Remember it today?
** In essence, the shift was from WarIsHell to WarIsGlorious, especially in the later Rambo movies.