Rambo: The Force of Freedom was ostensibly a children’s cartoon based on the Rambo movies but, in reality, the show changed almost everything about Sylvester Stallone’s iconic antihero. John Rambo has always been a conflicted character. In the original novel First Blood, Rambo was introduced as a deeply troubled Vietnam veteran who struggled to acclimate to life at home after witnessing and partaking in the atrocities of war. Like fellow ‘70s antihero Travis Bickle, this version of Rambo was a disturbed man capable of committing heinous acts of violence and unable to maintain a stable mental state.
However, while the first Rambo movie did depict the character semi-accurately, Rambo: First Blood Part II completely upended this. Where Rambo: First Blood was a radical anti-war movie that highlighted the psychological damages wrought by Vietnam, Rambo: First Blood Part II was a jingoistic, gung-ho celebration of extreme violence and on-the-nose patriotism. In the sequel (and every subsequent Rambo movie), Sylvester Stallone’s musclebound Rambo used machetes, machine guns, and nuclear-tipped arrows to slaughter masses of faceless villains in the dubious name of “freedom.” While this was far from Morrell’s original novel, the character’s transformation still wasn’t yet complete.
4 The Force Of Freedom Cut Rambo’s Gore
In 1986, Rambo: The Force of Freedom became the first G-rated television adaptation of an R-rated movie franchise. Ostensibly an adaptation of the Rambo movies, in reality, The Force of Freedom was as confused as its contradictory title. While Morrell hated Rambo: Last Blood due to its glamorization of gruesome bloodshed, the author need not have worried about this when it came to The Force of Freedom. Although the children’s cartoon did depict Rambo and his eponymous army unit the “Force of Freedom” using real guns full of real bullets to fire at their enemies, there wasn't a drop of blood spilled in The Force of Freedom’s 65 episodes.
The Force of Freedom didn’t remotely resemble its supposed inspiration, and this wasn’t helped by the cartoon’s inability to translate Rambo’s disturbed psyche to a younger audience. As the first children’s animated TV show based on an R-rated hit (but not the last, thanks to Robocop, Tales from the Crypt, and The Toxic Avenger), The Force of Freedom jettisoned any mention of death. Bad guys had their cars and tanks riddled with bullets and pelted with grenades, only to step out unscathed seconds later. However, if this sanitization of firearm use seemed far-fetched and irresponsible, the worst was yet to come.
3 The Force Of Freedom Dropped Rambo’s Past (& PTSD)
Incredibly, the word “Vietnam” is never uttered in the entirety of The Force of Freedom’s 65 episodes, and all traces of Rambo’s PTSD vanish alongside his wartime experience. While First Blood’s ending proved Rambo was still fighting the Vietnam war in his head, The Force of Freedom made him into a squeaky-clean kid's television star with no traces of the psychological scarring left by his military service. This might have been The Force of Freedom’s most outrageous change to the Rambo franchise since this turned a series that was originally intended to be a condemnation of permanent war into a celebration of the military-industrial complex.
Dropping Rambo’s past left the character with few defining characteristics in The Force of Freedom, an issue that was exacerbated by Stallone not reprising the role in the series. As a result, The Force of Freedom felt nothing like its inspiration, with the cartoon becoming an in-name-only addition to the franchise. While the central premise of Rambo acting as a global mercenary did have its basis in the strange politics of the Rambo movies, the kid-friendly tone of The Force of Freedom made it a far cry from the character’s darker, gorier original movie incarnation.
2 The Force of Freedom Ignored Rambo’s Real-Life Resonance
Perhaps aware that the series couldn’t get away with referencing ongoing real-life wars while ignoring Vietnam, the creators of The Force of Freedom instead opted to invent countries and conflicts to make its storytelling more straightforward. Rambo and the Force of Freedom fought S.A.V.A.G.E. (Specialist-s of Vengeance, Anarchy, and Global Extortion), a terrorist organization whose motivations were essentially committing evil acts for their own sake. This, conveniently enough, gave Rambo carte blanche to use any level of military hardware to stop the paramilitary group (especially since all of his bullets miraculously caused no injuries).
The fact that Rambo fought in real wars made the movie franchise’s politics fraught with controversy. Famously, a fake screenshot of Rambo III’s ending claimed that the sequel was dedicated to the Mujahideen, a joke that drew attention to Rambo’s canonical of anti-Communist groups that were later accused of war crimes. As such, it makes sense that The Force of Freedom didn’t just forget about Vietnam’s existence, since the children’s show needed to set its wars in imaginary countries to avoid aging poorly. However, despite this, some episodes were set in Europe and Las Vegas.
1 The Force Of Freedom Lost Stallone
While Sylvester Stallone’s creative contributions to the Rambo franchise have been divisive over the years, the actor was at least as annoyed by The Force of Freedom bastardizing Rambo’s story as most fans of the series. Stallone disowned the show for understandable reasons, stating “The movie was not supposed to be for little kids” and “I wouldn`t let my own children play with those toys.” Stallone’s hatred of Rambo’s TV show extended to the show’s line of tie-in toys, which were a transparent attempt to profit off the R-rated series by creating expensive plastic toys for small children based on its characters.
Fortunately for Stallone, The Force of Freedom was not a major hit. Even in the landscape of ‘80s children’s television (where almost anything that shifted a significant number of toys was guaranteed to be renewed), the series only racked up 65 episodes before The Force of Freedom was canceled in 1986. The Force of Freedom lasted less than one year, although the show did still manage to produce more episodes than Robocop and The Toxic Avenger’s cartoon spinoffs. Despite this, Rambo: The Force of Freedom remains a creative low point in the Rambo franchise.
