10 Famous Movie Endings That Had Radical Last Minute Changes

9. First Blood Should've Been The Only Rambo Film

Rambo became one of the most successful action franchises of all time, an increasingly over-the-top and ridiculous bloody farce that saw Sylvester Stallone's Vietnam vet air dropped into the politically iffy war zones of the era, cutting down the bad guys with a huge ruddy mini gun. Which was a weird turn for the character, since his initial on screen appearance was a pretty straight, down to earth drama about the effects of the war on the people who fought it, and the crappy time they had when they tried to come home. Except it had more stabbings of David Caruso than, say, Coming Home. First Blood, which saw John Rambo coming to blows with an antagonistic local police force, originally had an ending befitting its downbeat tone - which would have severely affected the chances of a sequel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp1mdSQ4BfI This tends to get forgotten amidst the muscle-bound Sly Stallone in a red headband shooting people in the face, but the first Rambo movie was actually adapted from a novel. David Morrell's First Blood came out ten years before the film was made, and was a much more intense and difficult work than even what ended up on screen. It was a semi-serious, fairly grim story about a Vietnam veteran who finds himself unable to break out of the cycle of violence and, rather than rooting for him against the police as you do in the film, you just want this maniac to get some help. Which he...sort of gets, in both the film and the book, from his former special forces Captain Trautman. First Blood the film ends with Rambo being talked down by Trautman, who sympathises with the mental and physical trauma the war caused, and promising to help him get over it. Which is pretty nice! Everybody wins! Except David Caruso. This was radically different to the original ending, which was more faithful to Morrell's book, and saw Rambo being killed by Trautman at the anti-hero's behest, as he found himself not only with nothing else to fight for but nothing else to live for. Which puts a bit of a different shine on that Jerry Goldsmith song.