Rocky Balboa, Rambo, The Expendables...

It looked like Stallone had his shit together. He was making movies for his hardcore fans, and more importantly for himself. And why not? He was washed up, he had nothing to lose. But now, with the success of Rocky 6 and Rambo 4, and with all the positive buzz surrounding The Expendables, Stallone is being offered big paychecks again. And he's taking them. Apparently he never cared about the fans. Apparently he never cared about bringing proper closure to the Rambo and Rocky stories. He's the man his harshest critics have always said he was: a soulless dimwitted ego-driven hack who's looking for an easy paycheck. And it breaks my heart. Fuck you Stallone, for making me believe in you. I hope you die.

Kojjiro! wrote:

I don't know why you all are going 'no' so much, after Rambo IV was released he up front said he thought he would make a few more Rambo Movies. I liked Rambo IV, Rambo III, Rambo II and the first one, and I'm really excited to see him take out a monster. It just sounds interesting.

See, I had no problem with more Rambo sequels, so long as they were reasonable. As FNJ said, Rambo has always had an element of realism to it. Maybe not a huge element, but an element. The originally proposed sequel, with Rambo fighting drug traffickers in Mexican border towns, now that sounded cool. The Mexican government and Mexican law enforcement are notoriously ineffective, and the drug cartels are armed significantly than the Mexican police, so the police rarely ever attempt to engage them. Rambo vs. drug cartels would have been fantastic.

And there are so many other cool places they could have gone with this, too. Let me paint you this picture with my imagination brush. Rambo IV ends with Rambo going back to the States to visit his elderly father and make his peace with him. So we'll have Rambo 5 takes place like 5-7 years after that. He ends up marrying that woman from the last movie and they have a young daughter. And then she gets kidnapped by a pedophile. And then that's the whole movie. Rambo uses the internet to track down pedophiles, whom he brutally tortures for any information they might have, then kills when they are no longer of use to him. His actions attract the attention of local law enforcement, who then he must evade. But when he discovers that the head of the state police is also the leader of the internet pedophiles and the man who has his daughter, Rambo is faced with a difficult mission: how can he rescue his daughter and kill his enemy without killing any of the innocent men under his command? And how long can he evade capture when the man he's hunting is also hunting him?

See, that would be awesome. It's topical, it's gritty, and it's got shades of First Blood. That's fucking gold.

The Rambo V that's been greenlit already got made. It was called Soldier, it starred Kurt Russell, and he averaged more money per spoken line than any other actor in history.

Eh, his daughter was a teenager in Taken. So this is completely different. Also, Taken was PG-13. Stallone always goes for the R, so this will be darker. Also, Taken takes place in France. Everyone knows there are pedophiles in France. The French are smelly, horny, cheese-eating winos. They're more animal than human. Anything goes over there. A movie set in America will be more interesting and threatening.

Also, Liam Neeson pulled classic Steven Seagal bullshit in Taken. That whole "I have a giant fucking ego so that bad guys aren't even going to so much as scratch me" thing. I hate that. In a GOOD action movie, the hero gets the shit beaten out of him, but still wins. Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis always do it up that way.