Rambo: First Blood

Factual error: Col. Trautman should be wearing his rank insignia on the flash (small patch) on his beret. All officers wear their rank on their flash, enlisted men wear the unit crest. (This error was corrected in Rambo II and III.)

Factual error: The military cannot be used to help execute civilian law except during emergencies. Rambo could, I guess, be considered an emergency however, once the national guard was called out, they would have had jurisdiction over the Podunk police department. When Brian Denehy told them to wait for them, and then subsequently to clean up their mess, he would not have been in charge at that point.

Cinderdan

Factual error: In the scene in the police station, where Rambo was about to get shaved, he had a flashback of the vietcong guy slicing his chest up. The vietcong guy was noticeably speaking Cantonese instead of Vietnamese.

Factual error: The state police cars have light bars that show blue on the left and red on the right. In real life, the light bars would be red on the left and blue on the right.

Continuity mistake: When Rambo crashes through the road block in the army truck it's still daylight outside but when he's approaching the gas station it's nighttime. How could so much time pass when he was within minutes of town when he went through the road block?

More mistakes in Rambo: First Blood

Rambo: NOTHING IS OVER! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protestin' me, spittin', callin' me "Baby Killer!", and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me, huh?! Who are they, unless they been me and been there, and know what the hell they're yellin' about?!

More quotes from Rambo: First Blood

Trivia: Originally there was an alternate ending shot for the film in which Rambo killed himself, however, this was found too depressing and the script was changed for him to survive.

Scrappy

More trivia for Rambo: First Blood

Question: I was wondering, at the beginning when the cop is about to shave him, why does he freak out about the knife but can kill people with his own knife?

Metalligod666

Chosen answer: Because it's a knife that someone else is holding and can use against him. It's common for people in dangerous professions to regard their weapons as tools. For example, police officers who commit suicide by handgun rarely use their service weapon, but rather a personal firearm.

Captain Defenestrator

Additionally, I believe it is made clear during that scene that Rambo had previously been tortured at some point, and one of the tools used was a knife. So the combination of being restrained and having someone approach with a knife caused him to basically have extreme PTSD and so he attempts to escape.

oldbaldyone

More questions & answers from Rambo: First Blood

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.