The arc of John Rambo, first begun in 1982 with Ted Kotcheff’s broody action film First Blood, has been an unusual one to say the least. Rambo (sensitively portrayed by Sylvester Stallone) was initially presented as an emotionally wounded ex-soldier who had been deeply stained and hollowed out by the violence he experienced in the Vietnam war. When Rambo first whipped out his hunting knife and began eviscerating small town sheriffs, it was meant to be seen as the final, tragic crack in the soul of a broken man.
Audiences, however (and perhaps bafflingly), latched onto the film’s exhilarating violence and to Rambo’s soldierly efficiency more than to his tragedy, leading First Blood’s subsequent sequels to transform the titular trauma sufferer into a tragedy-free, unstoppable all-American badass killing machine and pop culture’s central symbol for unchallenged American military might. A character who was originally meant to stand as a symbol for the damage that war can do to a soldier is now best remembered as an unkillable human machine gun.
Source: IGN.com Rambo: Last Blood Review