Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo: First Blood Part II ending has a profound impact on the character, tying together the major themes of the movie and its overall meaning. Stallone returns to the role he made famous in the 1982 original First Blood (based on the novel by David Morrell), playing John J. Rambo, a former Green Beret who served in Vietnam that returned home to a new kind of war, which put him at odds with everyone around him, including local police and the National Guard. Imprisoned after his debacle in First Blood, Rambo is visited by Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) with an offer to go on a top secret mission to recon for American POWs still in Vietnam, which would grant him a pardon and set him free.
