History YMMV / Rambo

* ''YMMV/RamboTheForceOfFreedom

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/RamboIII Colonel Alexei Zaysen]] & [[YMMV/RamboIV Major Pa Tee Tint]]. See those pages for details.

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/RamboIII Colonel Alexei Zaysen]] from ''Rambo 3'' and [[YMMV/RamboIV Major Pa Tee Tint]] from ''Rambo 4''. See those pages for more details.

** ... But unfortunately, most of the Rambo tie-in games aren't very good, most infamously the {{NES}} game adaptation. It borrows a lot from ''Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link''. It wouldn't be a bad idea if it was properly executed. It was not. It did have some good things going for it like staying as faithful to the source material as possible (despite some deviations added to the plot), and having a pretty catchy soundtrack.

** The first three movies' ending themes count: The [[TearJerker tearjerking]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rMUsVq4o_E It's A Long Road]] from ''First Blood'', performed by Dan Hill, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JBBVS34WFY Peace In Our Life]] from ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', performed by Sly's brother, Frank Stallone, and Bill Medley's cover of Music/TheHollies' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqMdIZiuERc He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother]] from ''Rambo III''.

* MisaimedFandom: Rare case where the [[AscendedFanon studio ended up fostering it]]. Rambo of the first film was a TragicHero suffering severe PTSD. He was an AntiHero in the [[ClassicalAntiHero classical sense.]] Fans saw him as the [[RatedMForManly ultimate badass]] and the studio restructured the franchise into being about him being a OneManArmy ActionHero.

* SequelDisplacement: The sequels are definitely more well known than the first film. Take, for instance, the fact that it was titled ''First Blood'' and by the third film, it was called ''Rambo III'', or the fact that Rambo is known for high body counts, even though the grand total of dead bodies in the first film is a single AssholeVictim which Rambo didn't even kill on purpose.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: See BalefulPolymorph.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Interestingly, the Rambo movies are ''very'' popular in Japan.

** JerryGoldsmith, people. This is especially true for ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (Goldsmith quipped that this score paid for his house), even unto the AnimatedAdaptation being liberally tracked with the film's score.

* CriticalDissonance: All of the sequels were disliked by critics in Website/RottenTomatoes, but beloved by the audience. Except ''Rambo 3'', that is.

** Then there is the light gun game, proudly provided by SEGA. This one has movie footage (though following just ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', and ''Rambo III''), assault rifles for light guns (or Mac 10 modeled SMGS, depending on the cabinet), MoreDakka than even TimeCrisis, and when you use the LimitBreak, you '''scream''' along with Rambo and gain the brief ability to take no damage, AND use BottomlessMagazines. Definitely RatedMForManly. The only legitimate complaint about this game is, unlike ''VideoGame/GHOSTSquad'' and ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead 4'', there is no console version of this game.

** A ''Rambo III'' adaptation was made for the SegaGenesis that was a pretty good run and gun.

** The game based on ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'' for the Sega Master System is a pretty good over head shooter, if pretty hard to play. It's similar to Ikari Warriors, without the rotary controls, rescuing POWs, and the grenades being replaced by the bow with explosive arrows. You could even cheat the game over system by joining in as the second player just as the first player loses all their lives and vice versa.

** Then there is the light gun game, proudly provided by SEGA. This one has movie footage (though following just ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', and ''Rambo III''), assault rifles for light guns (or Mac 10 modeled SMGS, depending on the cabinet), MoreDakka than even TimeCrisis, and when you use the LimitBreak, you '''scream''' along with Rambo and gain the brief ability to take no damage, AND use BottomlessMagazines. Definitely RatedMForManly. The only legitimate complaint about this game is, unlike ''VideoGame/GHOSTSquad'' and ''HouseOfTheDead 4'', there is no console version of this game.

** And, to make things even more confusing, the director's cut of the fourth film is titled ''John Rambo''.

** Then there is the light gun game, proudly provided by SEGA. This one has movie footage (though following just ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', and ''Rambo III''), assault rifles for light guns (or Mac 10 modeled SMGS, depending on the cabinet), MoreDakka than even TimeCrisis, and when you use the LimitBreak, you '''scream''' along with Rambo and gain the brief ability to take no damage, AND use BottomlessMagazines. Definitely RatedMForManly. The only legitimate complaint about this game is, unlike ''GhostSquad'' and ''HouseOfTheDead 4'', there is no console version of this game.

* MisaimedFandom: Rare case where the [[SureWhyNot studio ended up fostering it.]] Rambo of the first film was a TragicHero suffering severe PTSD. He was an AntiHero in the [[ClassicalAntiHero classical sense.]] Fans saw him as the [[RatedMForManly ultimate badass]] and the studio restructured the franchise into being about him being a OneManArmy ActionHero.

* MemeticMutation:
** Rambo's motto from the fourth film - ''"Live For Nothing, or Die For Something"'' - has become the rallying battlecry for Karen Warriors '''in real life.''' Stallone has called this one of the things in his life that he's most proud of.
** NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! from the first film. More specifically, Stallone's melodramatic and almost incomprehensible delivery of the whole speech.
** The "nuclear-tipped arrows" from ''First Blood pt II''.
** "Going Rambo" became a term to describe anyone who are or try to be a OneManArmy.
** "Who are you?" "Your worst nightmare." from the third film became quite memetic for a while.

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

* CompleteMonster:
** Colonel Alexei Zaysen from ''Rambo 3'' is a brutal and psychotic Soviet commander who will go to any length to take over Afghanistan. He owns a prison camp and enjoys torturing and/or killing his prisoners using methods such as electrocution, severe beatings, and tying their arms to a rope and yanking it in the air. When he finds Rambo in an Afghan village, he [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill kills off dozens of innocent men, women, and children with mines and bio-weapons]].
** Major Pa Tee Tint from ''Rambo 4'' is a [[SociopathicSoldier sociopathic military-leader]] who forces villagers to walk into mine-infested marshes, and he and his men shoot and dismember families (including children and babies) of villages. He also threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who tried to stop his indoctrinating teenage boys into his army, as well as threatening to feed them their intestines. To add even more monstrosity, he's a depraved pedophile and has hostages in inhumane conditions.

* CriticalResearchFailure: ''Rambo III'' managed to put the hammer and sickle in the center of the Soviet flag rather than in the corner. How do you even make that mistake?
* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Mostly in the fourth film.
** Don't bother trying to change something if you ''know'' it won't change.
** ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer.

* HarsherInHindsight: Rambo III's foreword says that the movie is dedicated to the mujaheddin of Afghanistan. The mujaheddin, a catch-all term for "holy" warriors resisting the Soviets, included what would become Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: 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 single-handedly make everyone decide that ''Rambo V'' was a bad idea.
* HilariousInHindsight: This line from the second movie:
-->'''Co''': "Rambo! You're not [[TheExpendables expendable]]."
** 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 Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration ExpandedUniverse novel, which was written about fifteen years before the movie was filmed. It's surprisingly accurate.
* IconicCharacterForgottenTitle: The first movie is called First Blood, despite people simply calling it Rambo. This is probably why the fourth film was simply called Rambo, but it ironically made things worse.

* MoralEventHorizon:
** Art Galt crosses it when he recklessly shoots at Rambo without giving a shit about his own safety or that of the rest of the police department and actually threatens to kill the chopper pilot if he doesn't fly the chopper right.
** In the second film, Murdock crosses it when he orders the mission aborted and convinces Erickson to threaten Colonel Trautman with a shotgun if he has him press any further with his chopper.
** In the third film, Zaysen most likely crossed it with the Afghanistan village massacre. What's worse is that it's implied [[FridgeHorror he does this on a regular basis]].
** As for Tint from the fourth film, good luck guessing which of his many evil deeds helps him cross it.
* {{Narm}}: From ''First Blood'' sobbing Johnny Rambo recounts his traumatic [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar 'Nam]] experience, (making even hardass Richard Crenna's lip tremble) is this if it's not a TearJerker; the enunciation leaves something to be desired.
** There's also David Caruso's screams of pain when he gets stabbed in the leg.
---> "OH GAAAAAAAAWWWWDDD!"
*** The above was immortalised in ''VideoGame/GoldenAxe''.
** The part when the asshole deputy Art Galt dies has a bit of Fridge Humor: He's falling in slow motion but screaming at regular speed. So, does that mean he was squealing like a chipmunk on the way down?
** From ''Rambo 4'', Rambo's facial expression after being grazed by a bullet. My god, just... you know chill. He's not living for anything if he keeps shaking the camera around like that.
** That face comes built in (it was caused by forceps damage when he was born), so expect some narm any time Stallone yells.
----> "They would have RAPED her 50 times, and cut all your FUCKIN' HEADS OFF! WHO ARE YOU?! '''WHOUHANNYOYOU!?'''"[[labelnote:*]]Apparently, even Stallone thought it was narmful; said line was modified in the extended edition.[[/labelnote]]
** It's hard not to laugh when Rambo rams his tank into the {{Big Bad}}'s helicopter in the finale of ''Rambo 3'' because of Stallone's trademark idiotic battle cry.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: ... But unfortunately, most of the Rambo tie-in games aren't very good, most infamously the {{NES}} game adaptation. It borrows a lot from ''Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link''. It wouldn't be a bad idea if it was properly executed. It was not. It did have some good things going for it like staying as faithful to the source material as possible (despite some deviations added to the plot), and having a pretty catchy soundtrack.

* RetroactiveRecognition: [[Series/CSIMiami David Caruso]] plays one of the cops in ''FirstBlood''.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: ''Rambo'': Sometimes non-violence is not the answer, and some people can only be dealt with with force.
* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: 2008's ''Rambo'' is often considered to be the best of the three sequels.
* TooCoolToLive: Of all the mercenaries, [[spoiler:only En-Joo]] does not survive the climax of ''Rambo''.
* WhatAnIdiot: From part 4. "The dogs have led me to this old artillery shell. What's this, a string? Oh I know, I'll pull it!" (huge explosion)

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Interestingly, the Rambo movies are ''very'' popular in Japan. To the extent that there's a Rambo arcade game in Japan that has never been released in the United States.

** Major Pa Tee Tint from ''Rambo 4'' is an [[SociopathicSoldier sociopathic military-leader]] who forces villagers to walk into mine-infested marshes, and he and his men shoot and dismember families (including children and babies) of villages. He also threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who tried to stop his indoctrinating teenage boys into his army, as well as threatening to feed them their intestines. To add even more monstrosity, he's a depraved pedophile and has hostages in inhumane conditions.

** As for Tint from the fourth film, [[CrossesTheLineTwice good luck guessing which of his many evil deeds helps him cross it.]]

** Major Pa Tee Tint from ''Rambo 4'' is an AxCrazy military-leader who forces villagers to walk into mine-infested marshes, and he and his men shoot and dismember families (including children and babies) of villages. He also threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who tried to stop his indoctrinating teenage boys into his army, as well as threatening to feed them their intestines. To add even more monstrosity, he's a depraved pedophile and has hostages in inhumane conditions.

** "Being a Rambo" became a term to describe anyone who are or try to be a OneManArmy.

** In the third film, Zaysen most likely crossed it with the Afghanistan village massacre. What's worse is that it's made clear [[FridgeHorror he's been doing this many times before]].