10 Sequels That Totally Undermined The Previous Movie's Ending

10. Rambo Returns To Vietnam - Rambo: First Blood Part II

Up there with Rocky Balboa as one of the characters who helped make Sylvester Stallone an action megastar in the 1980s is John Rambo. In his first appearance in First Blood, the Vietnam veteran fought a very personal war, while battling debilitating PTSD, betrayal from the government who sent him to battle in the first place, and being made a pariah on the streets.

After eventually being talked down from taking on an entire army of the authorities by himself, Rambo's situation got the better of him and he broke down. Living a civilian life had been made impossible for him, and he turned himself in, ultimately to be sent to prison. The 1972 novel by David Morrell ends on an even darker note, with Rambo being killed by Trautman rather than being talked down from the brink. 

Rambo: First Blood Part II is a different beast entirely, a gonzo eighties action-fest that presents John Rambo with a chance to get his soldiering on again by the same government who betrayed him, lied to him, and ruined his life in the first place. He accepted the offer in a move that completely undermined the meaning of First Blood's emotional ending, with Rambo happily redeployed to the jungles of Vietnam almost a decade after the United States' withdrawal.

Though the sequel was a commercial success, it wasn't received so well critically, and you could argue that the franchise would have been better served ending after just one movie. Had Rambo stayed in prison and never been seen on screens again, the message put across by the first film would have been so much stronger.