9 Movie Franchise Staples That Actually Came From Sequels

7. Rambo's Body Count - Rambo: First Blood Part II

Action movies always feature a lot of on-screen death, but the Rambo franchise seemed to have a fetish for having the highest body count in the business. Over four movies and three decades, the Vietnam vet has shot, exploded and gutted hundreds - if not thousands - of bad guys as a one-man army, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, in the first film Rambo only kills one person, indirectly, by throwing a rock at them.

The entirety of First Blood, unlike the sequels, is about the character refusing to kill everyone he sees. Hounded by the police for not being the kind of people they want in their quiet town, no matter how far he's pushed, Rambo never intentionally kills any of his pursuers, despite being capable of murdering them all at the drop of a hat and with one of his massive arms tied behind his back.

The story of this original flick offers a surprisingly deft exploration of post-Vietnam America and the psychology of returning veterans and their position in society - something which is drowned out of the sequels by infinite-ammo LMGs being weirded by a shirtless Sylvester Stallone.