When I was a kid, I rarely watched any “Kids movies” unless they were on the Disney Channel, which was the only paid “movie station” my family ever had when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. No HBO. No Cinemax. No Showtime. No “Movie Channel,” either. Remember The Movie Channel? Whatever happened to The Movie Channel and also why did they not come up with a more creative name for that channel? Oh woops, just looked it up and The Movie Channel still exists. Boy, I’m off to a great start here, aren’t I? Maybe next time I should do a little research before I start writing an article like this. Of course, I could always edit out the fact that I didn’t know The Movie Channel still existed, but then I would also have to edit out the fact that I just said I would edit out that I didn’t know the Movie Channel still existed. I might as well cut my losses, quietly move on with this article and pretend the last few sentences never happened.
So … uh … anyway … when I went to the local video store as a child—Video Paradise was its name—I don’t remember ever renting one single Disney movie or any Family movie for that matter. In fact, I never knew where the Kids and Family section even was until many years later. Video Paradise was actually two floors and the Family section was in the creepy basement that had the buzzing fluorescent lights. Why put the Family section in the basement? Seems like an odd choice, but that’s where it was. Granted, the basement was a bright basement, certainly not dark, but it creeped me out nevertheless, mainly because it was quiet and deserted down there. You know, it was one of those basements that got you nervous in your belly and would even make you have to run to the bathroom. There is something about being alone in a deserted section of a building with buzzing fluorescent lights; for some reason, it makes you have to go to the bathroom. Same thing happens in the “stacks” section of libraries that are quiet and deserted with buzzing fluorescent lights. Talk about a natural laxative, folks. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Oh, stop playing dumb with me.
Where was I, though? I’m sort of rambling here. Sorry.
I guess what I was trying to communicate is that, no, I never rented any Kids or Family movies from the local Video Paradise video store. Whenever I went there to rent movies, usually with my dad, we would automatically go to one section of the video store and one section only:
The ‘Action’ section.
In fact, for a long time, I don’t think I even realized there were other kinds of movies out there, like comedies or horror films. I thought all movies were Action by default since those were all I was exposed to as a child. I was maybe about four or five years old at this time and, despite my young age, there was no type of action film that was deemed by my parents (or at least by my dad) to be too violent for me. Whether it be Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (Commando comes to mind as a frequent rental of ours), Jean-Claude Van Damme movies (Double Impact was a favorite), Chuck Norris movies (Delta Force made multiple appearances in our VCR), Steven Seagal movies (Marked for Death and Under Siege were the best of his movies, in my opinion), Sylvester Stallone movies (Cobra was a go-to rental of ours)—no action film was off the table.
There was, however, an issue if there was sex in the movie and especially nudity. Violence? Totally fine. But sex and nudity? Well, that was when I would have to close my eyes and my dad would fast-forward through the sex scene, which was usually brief and usually towards the end of the second Act of the film, maybe around the 60-70-minute mark. This was, of course, if my dad hadn’t screened the movie ahead of time. Oftentimes, he would have already determined that a movie had too much sex in it for me to watch. But sometimes he would be caught off guard and have to do the fast-forward trick.
One action film that we rented frequently, mainly because there was plenty of great action and no sex whatsoever (there is only one brief and tasteful kissing scene in it) was the movie First Blood: Part 2, aka Rambo 2, starring, of course, Sylvester Stallone as Rambo. I was too young at the time to understand the backstory of John Rambo, how he was this elite, Congressional-Medal-of-Honor-winning, ex-Green Beret haunted by PTSD from his time doing special forces missions in Nam. All I knew was that Rambo was jacked—and I mean really ripped, especially in First Blood: Part 2—looked so badass, and the film had some great action in it, including tons of machine guns and, even better, fireball-like explosions.
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| First Blood: Part 2 movie poster |
Now, I should note that I never saw the first Rambo, i.e. First Blood, until several years later when I saw it on TV and was somewhat turned off because it was more of a drama—a psychological film about Vietnam veteran PTSD—than it was an action film, although there was still plenty of action in it. Today, however, I have great respect for First Blood. I think it’s probably the best film in the Rambo franchise, not in terms of action, but in terms of story. In the movie, Rambo is an ex-Vietnam-vet-turned drifter who finds himself in a small town in Washington State, searching for an old friend of his from the war. He learns, however, that his friend has died from cancer due to being exposed to Agent Orange. As Rambo continues to drift through town in a state of despondency, a cop thinks Rambo is nothing but a filthy drifter and he starts harassing him. Rambo gets upset. The cop subsequently arrests him. Then, the cops in the town jail beat on Rambo, this aggression triggers Rambo to have PTSD-type flashbacks and he essentially thinks he is back fighting in a war again … only now the enemy is the cops, not the Viet Cong. Action ensues …
I especially like the scene at the end of the movie where Rambo basically has a psychological meltdown and tells Colonel Trautman of all the horror he witnessed during his time in Vietnam. Most of what comes out of Rambo’s mouth are mere fragments of incohesive sentences, something about his fellow Green Beret buddy being blown to pieces. It’s hard to understand exactly what Rambo witnessed, but we get the general idea and it sounds horrible.
So, yes, today I give many a kudos to First Blood.
As a child, however, I was all about First Blood: Part 2.
This movie opens with Rambo in a prison work camp hammering away at rocks in a quarry. Colonel Trautman pays him a visit and asks if Rambo would be interested in doing a covert mission for the United States military, possibly in exchange for a presidential pardon of Rambo’s remaining prison sentence. The mission is to see if any American POWs are still being held in a Vietnam prison camp that Rambo himself had once escaped from during the war. Rambo agrees to the mission, not necessarily because he’ll get a pardon from his prison sentence, but mostly because he’s interested in saving POWs. Although he’s only supposed to take pictures of the POWs in these camps and not engage with the enemy, Rambo has every intention of saving the POWs if/when he finds them. As it turns out, POWs ARE found in the camp, Rambo tries to help them, he is spotted by the enemy, plenty of action ensues …
I don’t remember how many times we rented First Blood: Part 2 at the Video Paradise video store, but I do know that, at some point, I managed to tape the movie off of TV via our new and trusty Mitsubishi-brand VCR and this meant the movie was effectively mine to own and I could therefore watch it at any time. Actually, now that I think of it, I believe what happened is we had free Showtime or HBO for a weekend, First Blood: Part Two was on and, boom, I popped a VHS tape into my VCR and hit ‘record’. Remember how they used to do those free promotional weekends of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Movie Channel etc.? Sometimes you would have all four of the movie channels free or maybe even five, including Disney, but my family of course already paid to have the Disney channel. You felt like you hit the jackpot whenever you stumbled upon this promotion. You would be flipping through the channels and then, all of a sudden, you realized you had HBO … and then Showtime … and then Cinemax … and, yes, The Movie Channel! … and you would then procure as many blank VHS tapes as possible and get ready to record movie after movie … after movie …
Anyway, yes, I had First Blood: Part 2 recorded on a VHS tape in its entirety—even sans commercials—and I watched this movie obsessively. And I mean obsessively. Now that I reflect upon it, I guess I have an obsessive personality, because I tend to get obsessive about many things. For example, in the year 2006, I became obsessed with the album “Appetite for Destruction” by Guns N’ Roses (you can actually read about this obsession in my book Jungle F’ng Fever: My 30-Year Love Affair with Guns N’ Roses). Also, in late middle school and high school, I became obsessive about the Beastie Boys and bought every Beastie Boys T-shirt I could find (read about my Beastie Boys obsession in my book My Raging Case of Beastie Fever). Same thing happened with the band The Misfits during the summer between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college (read about this obsession in my Kindle single book I Turned into a Misfit!). I also tend to get obsessive about songs; if I like a particular song, I will listen to it over and over again, basically on a loop. There have been other times when I have become obsessive about collecting cassette tapes. Or DVDs. I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I apparently had this obsessive personality, pretty much since I was a child, because watching First Blood: Part 2 literally became an obsession of mine.
In fact, I remember, sometime in the late-1980s, my sister went off to camp in New Hampshire for the summer and when she came back, she found me on the couch in our finished basement downstairs, watching First Blood: Part 2. I specifically remember her saying, “I see that not much has changed with you.”
Why did I like the movie so much? Well, I think I liked it because it was a simple, straight-forward action film with lots of gun battles and explosions. Rambo was also a very heroic character and, just like any little boy out there, I liked stories about heroes. Why is that? I mean, why do boys like these kinds of stories? I guess it’s in the little-boy DNA—I can’t intellectualize any other answer to such a question. For better or for worse, most boys like action, war, military stuff, explosions, guns and heroes. Rambo 2 had all of that and mostly that and that only. In other words, it was light on story, heavy on action.
My obsession with Rambo went beyond merely watching the movie over and over again. I acquired multiple Rambo action figures at the local Kay Bee Toys store and got a few others for birthday or Christmas gifts.
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| This is the Rambo action figure I had |
I also specifically remember stumbling upon a Rambo toy kit in, of all places, a Christmas Tree Shop located in Dennis, Massachusetts (i.e. on Cape Cod). This kit included a plastic replica of Rambo’s badass survival knife, a red bandana, a replica of the jade Buddha choker necklace that Rambo wears in the movie for good luck, but it also came with this extremely authentic-looking pistol that made a popping sound when you pulled its trigger. This was the late-1980s, my friends, so these were the days when toy guns could still legally look like real guns. By 1992, a federal law was passed that said you had to put bright orange tips on toy guns so that they wouldn’t be mistaken for real guns.[i] If I remember correctly, I believe this law came about after an incident where a child in California got shot by a cop because the cop mistook the kid’s laser tag gun for a real gun.[ii] Remember laser tag? That game was pretty big in the ‘80s, but I’ll stop talking about laser tag before I go off on another tangent.
1980s Laser Tag commercial
Anyway, for better or for worse, the Rambo pistol that came with the toy kit looked so real and I loved that gun and I mean LOVED that gun. I had a lot of toy guns as a child (what boy didn’t back in the 1980s?), but that one Rambo pistol was definitely my favorite and I remember having that thing forever, well into the 1990s. As the years went by, the popping function stopped working and the gun also got significantly damaged. I remember the plastic breaking off in parts, I could eventually see into the innards of the gun, and I saw that the clicking of the trigger functioned via some sort of rubber-band elastic on the inside. I don’t ever remember getting rid of that gun, but I basically kept it until it was unusable.
With the help of all my action figures and other Rambo toys, I would often recreate scenes from the First Blood: Part 2 movie, at least to the best of my ability. Actually, I think I would also use toys from my G.I. Joe collection, especially for the purposes of replicating aircraft. If you’re familiar with G.I. Joes, you may remember the “Tiger Force” series of the toys. This was a special subset of G.I. Joe toys, maybe even a limited-edition series, but maybe I’m wrong about that latter part. There were a few different Tiger Force military vehicles you could get and I had at least three of these that I can remember: one was a plane (called the Tiger Rat), the other a helicopter (called the Tiger Fly) and the third was a fan boat (the Tiger Shark). I think the fourth vehicle you could get, which I didn’t have, was some sort of armored land vehicle.
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| The Tiger Rat |
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| The Tiger Shark |
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| The Tiger Fly |
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| The "Tiger Fly" Box |
I thought the Tiger Force helicopter I had looked a lot like the helicopter featured in First Blood: Part 2—you know, the one that the villainous Russian commando flies in the movie—so I would use this G.I. Joe Tiger Force helicopter and my official Rambo action figure to recreate the scenes where Rambo is being chased down by the Russian helicopter. I would make a lot of explosion sounds with my mouth, as well as gunfire sounds, the latter of which was accomplished with a talented roll of the tongue against the roof of my mouth. Making gunfire noises with your mouth was an art, man, especially machine gunfire. Do kids even do this anymore? I don’t have kids but I have nephews and I’ve spent a lot of time babysitting various children over the years and, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve heard them ever make any gunfire noises with their mouth. Is it politically incorrect for kids to do this now? Are boys encouraged to “play guns” as much as they used to be back in the 1980s? In fact, you don’t really see many toy guns being sold in stores anymore, unless they’re of the Nerf variety. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying this is a bad thing or necessarily a good thing. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe playing with toy guns would be seen today as something that leads to “toxic masculinity,” but I guess another argument can be made that men have become too soft over the recent decades and less masculine. I’m not taking any stance here; I just thought it was something worth thinking about. Maybe I’m simply out of touch. Maybe the kids of today still “play guns” and “play war,” just as much as they used to in the 1980s, and I once again haven’t done my research.
As for me? Well, I played Rambo quite a bit and I’m not just talking with toys and action figures, either. I have a vivid memory of being on the school playground during recess when I was in the 1st grade, probably in the 1988 area, and I distinctly remember fantasizing that I was Rambo doing a covert mission and I was being shot at by enemies and I was also even making gun noises with my mouth but not overly loud because I was old enough to know that I would look like a weirdo if I was really obvious about it. No, the fantasy was mostly taking place in my head. Unfortunately, this resulted in a bad “conduct” grade on my school report card, not because I was a bad kid, but because I wasn’t socializing well with others. In fact, I think during parent-teacher conferences, my teacher had to speak to my mother about me not playing with the other kids during recess. Little did the teacher know that I was actually deep in Rambo fantasyland inhabited by me, myself and I. I had no interest in playing with other kids during recess because I wanted to be alone in my world of Rambo. I did eventually “conform,” however, and start playing with the other kids on the playground, mainly to appease my teacher and parents. Playing Rambo by myself was seen as antisocial behavior and, since I lived to please, I had no choice but to properly “socialize myself” and limit Rambo fantasizing to something I did during my at-home playtime but not during school recess. If I were left to my own devices, however, I probably never would have stopped playing Rambo by myself out in public. Maybe I’d still be playing it all the way up to the present day …
In May of 1988, Rambo 3 was released. In this third installment of the franchise, Rambo is asked to join a mission where Colonel Trautman and a United States special ops team are providing “Stinger” missiles to Afghan rebels. The missiles will help the rebels fight against the Russians who are imperialistically trying to occupy Afghanistan. Rambo turns the gig down, Colonel Trautman does the mission without him, but Trautman is captured by the Russians and now Rambo needs to rescue him from a Russian base in Afghanistan. Rambo is discovered by the Russians during the rescue. Action ensues …
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| Rambo 3 movie poster |
I’m pretty sure I never saw Rambo 3 in the theater, I think we most likely rented the movie from Video Paradise when it came out on video, but I also know that I must have recorded Rambo 3 off the TV at some point because I remember watching this movie just as obsessively as First Blood: Part 2. I recently was talking about the Rambo franchise with a clerk at a music/video store called FYE (i.e. “For Your Entertainment”) and he said he liked the Rambo movies but that the franchise started going downhill with Rambo 3. Upon doing research on the Internet, it seems as though this is a common consensus, that Rambo 3 is inferior to the first two movies of the franchise.
As for me?
Well, I LOVED Rambo 3.
As a matter of fact, I think the more I watched Rambo 3, the more I eventually started to like the movie more than its predecessor.
I recently rewatched both Rambo 3 and First Blood: Part Two and I was somewhat surprised to find that they still hold up as good movies, at least in my opinion, which may of course be very subjective since I had such an obsession with Rambo as a child. I think what stuck out the most about the movies and what impressed me the most about the movies were the action sequences. When I was young, I took all the action for granted. I had no idea what kind of work went into creating such elaborate action sequences—all the squibs and pyrotechnics, fireballs, helicopter stunts etc. You have to keep in mind that these movies were made well before any CGI, so everything you see is the product of non-digital stunt coordination. The explosions and fireballs are real. The smoking helicopters are real. The gunshots are real. The squibs are real. It’s really quite impressive and it’s crazy to think of all the planning that had to go into such great action scenes. I don’t know if there are any good “making-of” documentaries out there, but I would love to see an extensive behind-the-scenes look at how they created these action sequences in both Rambo 2 and 3.
What also stood out about the films, especially First Blood: Part 2, was the soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. It’s a fantastic soundtrack, especially the opening theme that features this distorted-sounding bass guitar, something that I don’t think was all that common to hear in the 1980s. It reminds me of the distorted bass you hear a lot in early-1990s Beastie Boys music, particularly in their Check Your Head and Ill Communication albums. Think about the song “Sabotage” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Goldsmith’s distorted bass motif has a menacing and, frankly, badass sound to it. Again, I’m pretty sure this sound was unique for its time (circa 1985), maybe even unprecedented.
Jerry Goldsmith's First Blood: Part 2 soundtrack
The third thing that stood out to me, especially when it came to First Blood: Part 2, was the simplicity of the story. There is a brief setup to the movie within the first few minutes and we immediately know where the story is going, so when the opening titles begin about three minutes in, we know EXACTLY where we’re headed and feel super-pumped when we hear the aforementioned distorted bass sound of the Rambo theme. It’s almost fair to say that the first Act of the story is done within the first few minutes of the movie, basically within the pre-titles sequence. Everything is simple and to-the-point, not much fluff and razzle dazzle. In fact, while I was watching the movie, I was saying to myself that it doesn’t feel like a normal movie to me. It’s so to-the-point that it almost feels like a military documentary or something kind of ‘official’. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s almost as though you are bearing witness to an actual covert military operation and you’re going along for the ride. Does this make sense to anybody? Am I the only one who feels this way?
The fourth thing that stood out to me when I rewatched the Rambo movies was how much I remembered the movies, almost shot by shot. In fact, I almost knew what shot was coming before it even happened. Watching the films over and over again at such a young, impressionable age really etched the movies into my memory and they’re apparently still etched into my brain to this day.
Along the same lines, I also noticed that, while I was watching the films, I suddenly had this urge to go and play with action figures. I think this “urge” can be explained as both Freudian and Pavlovian. On a psychological level, watching the Rambo movies stimulated the inner child that is still somewhere in my subconscious and this inner child suddenly wanted to go recreate Rambo scenes with action figures. In other words, I don’t think “I” wanted to go play with the toys; rather, it was my inner child that was literally awoken from hibernation through the stimulus that was the Rambo movie. Pavlov’s dogs salivated for treats when they heard a bell because this was how they were mentally conditioned to respond to such a neutral stimulus. Well, the Rambo movies were my bell (i.e. my neutral stimulus) that didn’t make me salivate for treats but they made my inner child want to go play with action figures. Do you understand? It’s a fascinating psychological phenomenon.
But, yes, the Rambo movies have certainly held their own as solid action movies after all these years and are all the more impressive when viewed today knowing that they were all made well before the digital era. For budgetary purposes, no studio in their right mind would allow such an action film to be made in this “analog” manner because it would be way too expensive. Why not use CGI and save a few bucks? No general audience knows the difference or cares, right? Action is action, whether done digitally or for real in the analog world, right?
WRONG!!!
Sorry, didn’t mean to get so angry there.
I think the bottom line is that the Rambo films, along with other action films of this era, represent the peak of the action film genre, the high-water mark, the high bar, the … well, that’s all I got. Not that they are the best action films ever made but because of how they were made (i.e. non-digitally). Films started going the way of the digital in the 1990s (thanks, Jurassic Park, way to ruin everything—just kidding, JP is incredible) and I don’t think any action film these days is made in a similar manner to how the Rambo movies were made due to the aforementioned budgetary reasons.
As for me, I certainly acknowledge that the Rambo movies are not the best films ever made, but there will always be a place in my heart for them, especially for First Blood: Part 2. Having rewatched the films recently, I was struck by how enjoyable and “into them” I actually was. I was afraid that they wouldn’t entertain me as much as they did when I was a child, but they were actually still VERY entertaining, if not more so, since I was now able to understand Rambo’s backstory a little better than before.
Just two days ago from when I’m currently writing this, I went out and bought Rambo 2 and Rambo 3, on DVD, at the aforementioned FYE store. Perhaps I should have gotten Blu-ray or ultra-HD 4K super-DVD or whatever the heck the latest technology is, but I went with the DVDs because a) they weren’t too expensive (only about five bucks for each) and b) they had cool ‘extras’ on them. More than anything else, I simply wanted to make sure that I had a copy of First Blood: Part 2 and Rambo 3 on me at all times so I could watch the movies whenever I had the urge. Sometimes, when the going gets rough in life, all you want to do is watch your favorite film from your childhood, one that is essentially mindless but full of amazing visual action. I guess it’s comfort food for the soul. A guilty pleasure. Who knows, maybe I’ll even stop suppressing my inner child and start fantasizing about being Rambo again. If you see me out anywhere in public and I have a red bandana on and/or I’m creeping around like I’m in the middle of a covert operation and/or I’m making machine gun noises with my mouth, don’t think I’m crazy. Just give me a salute or at least an approving nod—Colonel-Trautman-stye—and then just please go about your business.
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MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies! and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, MY RAGING CASE OF BEASTIE FEVER, JUNGLE F’NG FEVER: MY 30-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR W/ GUNS N’ ROSES and I TURNED INTO A MISFIT! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.
Other trending articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:
Revisiting the Blair Witch Project
A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)
NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)
Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics
I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)
PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective
100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time
I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)
Remembering That Time I Tried to Stop a Shoplifter at the Wrentham Outlets
Making Your Good Writing Great
No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher
The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!
The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon
[i] “Toy Gun.” Wikipedia, 16 July 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_gun#:~:text=In%201992%2C%20the%20Department%20of,or%20are%20entirely%20brightly%20colored.
[ii] Sahagun, Louis and Peter H. King. “Deputy Slays Teen-ager Wielding Toy Laser Gun.” LA Times, 9 April 1987, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-09-mn-363-story.html.
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