Pelé's bald patch; retitling to Victory; Ipswich Town's decline; Michael Caine's soccer; Stallone's goalkeeping; no scrimmage scene; Pelé celebrating with broken ribs; Hatch's Paris subplot; Russell Osman's unsold kit
Everyone being impressed by Pele's juggling is raised, but countered that in the 1940s it would have been mind-blowing. — Bill Simmons
Ipswich Town kind of peaked here and has fallen on hard times. — Bill Simmons
Michael Caine the soccer player: per the internet, leg issues meant a stunt player, Kevin Beattie, did his running scenes, and Ardiles reportedly called him awful and unable to run 20 yards. — Bill Simmons
Stallone's goalkeeping is tough and his team role fluid; the counter is that the film never claims he is good, though holding off the Germans and saving a penalty from a top player is highly unlikely. — Chris Ryan
There is no good scrimmage or practice scene, while 13 minutes go to Sly and the French woman; the film gets to know only Caine, Stallone and the colonel, unlike The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape. — Bill Simmons
John Wark reportedly said Stallone wanted to score the winning goal; a corner-kick version was tried, and the penalty save took six rehearsal takes. — Bill Simmons
Pele jumping in to celebrate with seven broken ribs. — Bill Simmons
The German goalie tried to save the bicycle kick for realism, and no wide shot of the actual kick could be filmed. — Bill Simmons
Hatch's escape and Paris sojourn could be cut entirely; it seems added to introduce a female character, and his capture is never shown, though his shower escape from camp is liked. — Bill Simmons
Russell Osmond reportedly kept his whole kit, a signed ball and a director's chair; they should go up for internet auction. — Bill Simmons
Bill Conti's score; the crowd singing the French anthem; the crooked referee; widescreen and HD; Prisoner FC; Pelé's practice scissor kick; POW camps and domesticated British officers; the closing credits; the good Nazi; the announcer; beating Nazis; the soccer; Pelé
The music: Bill Conti is the goat, and this may be the number one sports-movie score, with dire, comeback, celebration and evil themes. — Bill Simmons
The crowd singing what is believed to be the French national anthem before the penalty gives goosebumps; one sings along without knowing the language. — Bill Simmons
The crooked referee is in the bag for the Nazis; the Allies play down a man for about 70 minutes and still tie. — Bill Simmons
Widescreen and HD reinvented the movie; it is a top-five thank-God-for-HD film. — Bill Simmons
The team calls itself Prisoner FC, noticed on about the 57th screening; someone should make the jerseys. — Bill Simmons
Pele's scissor kick on Sly in practice is amazing, and his final goal resembles a Champions League scissor-kick goal against Leverkusen. — Chris Ryan
POW camps are always a killer premise, especially British officers who have domesticated the camp with sweaters, pipes and gardening, like Colonel Waldron. — Chris Ryan
The closing credits listing each player's country helped a pre-internet viewer learn who the players were. — Bill Simmons
The good Nazi who just loves soccer is pulled off, though if so, why not manage the team, resign, or escape with them. — Bill Simmons
The ending will win, but a couple of picks from the first 90 minutes are included. — Bill Simmons
The first von Steiner and Colby scenes are liked: the cat-and-mouse while Steiner watches the soccer, "Can I have my ball back," and the negotiation proposing a friendly match. — Bill Simmons
Colby objects not on moral grounds but over boots and resources, prioritizing beer and shirts for the players while other prisoners stay caged. — Chris Ryan
The first big training sequence leads to Pele grabbing the chalk; any time Pele gets to cook, the film is great. — Bill Simmons
Pele's character being from Trinidad is presumably a wartime workaround, even though Stallone's character is in the Canadian Air Force. — Bill Simmons
No other pick until the last 30 minutes, which hold five of eight picks. — Bill Simmons
Pele gets demolished with apparent broken ribs, turns back while walking off to the music, and that leads to the cross, Stallone kicked in the face, and the blurry counterattack; that minute is put up against any minute in a sports movie and named the pick. — Bill Simmons
The famous tunnel scene is floated as a possible pick: Hatch urging escape, the Scottish player insisting "we can win this," and Pele's speech. — Bill Simmons
The next two Allies goals are praised; a team down to 10 men scoring unanswered goals never happens, with a disallowed fifth joked about as German VAR. — Chris Ryan
Pele returns holding his ribs to set up the bicycle kick, and the good Nazi stands up to applaud it. — Bill Simmons
The penalty stop and crowd-rush escape are loved, though the Germans would surely have opened fire and hundreds would not escape. — Bill Simmons
Final pick: Pele getting hurt through the first Allies goal is the favorite minute of the movie. — Chris Ryan
The other pick goes with that, calling the Ardiles goal the favorite goal, with the comeback culminating in Caine walking into the halftime locker room, where one player has a compound fracture and Pele cannot breathe. — Bill Simmons
Orion executive Mike Medavoy proposed OJ Simpson as the Terminator and Arnold as Kyle Reese; Cameron rejected Simpson as too likable at the time and the pursuit image as racially wrong. — Bill Simmons
Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson reportedly declined the Terminator, while Tom Selleck was considered because the machine was originally imagined as an ordinary man able to blend in. — Bill Simmons
Sting is the one Kyle Reese alternative treated as credible and exciting, though Michael Biehn is defended. — Bill Simmons
Knife and Blade magazine; real canvas coat; broken nose on set; stuntman injury; Frankenstein comparison; salary; Dennehy's Vietnam claims; deleted flashback scene
Knife fans love the film; a 2011 Blade magazine article credited Rambo with revitalizing the cutlery industry, and the knife was picked out with great care. — Bill Simmons
The canvas for Rambo's coat was real rotten canvas found by the crew; Stallone still has it. — Bill Simmons
Stallone broke Lester's actor's nose in the jail escape, so the bandage later is real. — Bill Simmons
The stuntman doubling Teasle broke his back when the first take of the car jump went too high. — Bill Simmons
In the DVD commentary Stallone compares Rambo to Frankenstein's monster, with Troutman as the doctor. — Bill Simmons
Stallone asked for $3.5 million; Kassar and Vajna gave him $2 million plus TV sales. — Bill Simmons
Dennehy implied he served in Vietnam but finished his Marines service before U.S. forces deployed. — Bill Simmons
A deleted flashback with a Pet of the Month model is on the special-edition DVD; deleted scenes are usually cut for a reason. — Bill Simmons
Caruso is the other nominee, playing it far less cool than in his later TV roles; Stallone earned his explosion after staying quiet all movie. Each host keeps his nominee. — Brian Koppelman
Research: the first rough cut ran over three hours, Stallone wanted to buy and destroy it, and it was recut to 93 minutes. — Bill Simmons
The 93-minute cut is fine, though ten more minutes in the woods would be welcome. — Brian Koppelman
The cuts show, as when Teasle is told the deputies were rough on Rambo and a state cop just says "those assholes." — Brian Koppelman
The Troutman–Teasle drink at the bar feels forced. — Bill Simmons
The long version probably had Teasle's war service; the book's Korea-versus-Vietnam veteran tension was an easy thing the film did not use. — Bill Simmons
Counterpoint: the bar scene is loved for putting the two actors together. — Brian Koppelman
There are almost no women and the one woman is also the only person of color, raised explicitly as an interesting point rather than an aged-worst pick. — Brian Koppelman
The number-one aged-worst pick is the Dan Hill end song "It's a Long Road," which is played on air. — Bill Simmons
Dan Hill, of "Sometimes When We Touch," is defended; the other side wishes for a band like Foreigner. — Bill Simmons
Partial concession: there is no reason an American movie should have a Canadian singing the end song. — Brian Koppelman
From the arrest to the motorcycle is as good as action filmmaking gets; the stretch from the shaving to the cliff runs about 30 minutes. — Bill Simmons
Stallone took real punishment, as when Ernie Shavers sent him to the hospital. — Bill Simmons
The cliff scene: Art threatens Rambo from the helicopter, Rambo jumps into the tree; Stallone did the bottom third of the fall himself and broke a rib. — Bill Simmons
The jump has been ripped off for 40 years; unlike Butch and Sundance, Stallone looks like a war machine hanging from the cliff. — Brian Koppelman
The perfectly timed rock hitting the helicopter glass is compared to a throw from deep left field. — Bill Simmons
The night hunt, with the "We ain't hunting him, he's hunting us" line, has Rambo taking out the deputies one by one. — Bill Simmons
Troutman's first scene ("God didn't build Rambo. I made him") and Teasle's disgust are another pick. — Bill Simmons
The rats play better on a theater screen; Stallone reportedly got bitten and needed a tetanus shot. — Bill Simmons
Rambo taking the Jeep ("That's how accidents happen") and blowing up the gas station are two more rewatchable moments. — Bill Simmons
The "Nothing is over" ending is shockingly good acting, but it is flagged as not rewatchable because it is so emotional. — Bill Simmons
The final pick is the jail escape through the cliff, about a 30-minute stretch; kept to one scene it is jail to motorcycle, with Troutman's entrance also named. — Bill Simmons
Crenna is praised along with The Flamingo Kid; someone else reportedly had the Troutman part until the day before. — Bill Simmons
