Movies That Changed Everything...

[SteyrAUG]

My first nomination: First Blood (1982).

It's easy to dismiss "Rambo" films due to the sequels but this was the first film that gave VN vets their due and long outstanding respect. And did it 5 years before that Platoon "fairy tale." Here was a film that showed a guy who did his duty but was written off by society anyway because they projected their values onto him.

Martial Arts, back in 82s Stallone studied unarmed combat like few actors before. The escape from the sheriff's office sequence was the closest thing to Bruce Lee choreography that any America actor other than Chuck Norris had ever come close to. The fact that Stallone did it, who really wasn't a martial artists was very impressive.

Serve the red meat, the cliff diving scene along with the self stitching was almost as impactful in 1982 as the beach landing scene in Saving Private Ryan would be decades later. Even the tactics were mostly sound, watching him strip the truck for useful stuff was pretty on the money.

We ain't hunting him...he's hunting us. Sure we had been given some Green Beret lore in previous films, but the ambush sequence in the woods had every wannabe in America buying a Rambo survival knife with a compass in the cap just in case they had to get all VC on the local constabulary. That scene was pure porn for the Soldier of Fortune magazine crowd.

Wasn't that a HK-93? Usually it takes a Michael Mann movie to bring out the exotics, but along with a brief appearance in the beginning of John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing", most of us saw the HK-93 for the first time in First Blood. Of course it didn't matter, you can't shoot what you can't see...."I could have killed them all...I could have killed you...let it go."

Compared to the action military theme films being put out by Arnold at the time, First Blood was Citizen Kane of the genre.

[CRAMBONE]

You are one odd duck my friend. I’d love to share a pint with you one day. The world is burning down around us and your doing movie reviews. Props to you Sir.

But I do see your point of view and I think I agree. First Blood is the best Rambo movie.

[SteyrAUG]

You are one odd duck my friend. I’d love to share a pint with you one day. The world is burning down around us and your doing movie reviews. Props to you Sir.

But I do see your point of view and I think I agree. First Blood is the best Rambo movie.

We got to talk about something besides "OMG the sky is falling" and you guys are the only ones that I can have a reasonably intelligent conversation with. And yeah, odd duck...that's usually been me.

[pag23]

I vote Heat.... Really opened the eyes to some in LE, that highly motivated and trained bad dudes with a lot of superior firepower, will overcome the shotgun and pistol that most patrol cops had at the time. It really helped to push the rationale for long guns and the need for PC with rifle threat plates

Oh and I vote Rambo as well, I can watch it over and over...

[Averageman]

Because it showed that you didn't need Hollywoods approval and that you could make a statement even if you really didn't have a coherant point to your protest.
It killed the last bit of the Studio system.
Easy Rider.
I liked the camera work and the soundtrack, the actual point of the whole thing being anti establishment was a bit lost on me.

[HKGuns]

I don’t think movies change anything and you might be giving the perverts far more credit than they deserve.

[AndyLate]

We got to talk about something besides "OMG the sky is falling" and you guys are the only ones that I can have a reasonably intelligent conversation with. And yeah, odd duck...that's usually been me.

Honestly, this.

Andy

[Slater]

In the sci-fi world, there was before "Alien" and after "Alien". It was that influential.

[Det-Sog]

Die Hard. Everything was overdone in true 80s fashion. The original overkill movie. Nothing else ever touched it in a workable way. Like First Blood, the sequels sucked.

The UH-1 Huey getting blown out of the sky... "Looks like we're gonna need some new F.B.I. guys".

The Sig P226 would have rightfully won the contract with the military over the unheard of Beretta 92 if not for Die Hard. Everyone wanted a Beretta after Die Hard. They were everywhere.

[chuckman]

Arlington Road, 1999 (I think). One of the first movies that showed ultra-right/ultra-nationalist domestic terrorism.

Star Wars franchise.

Toy Story franchise. Half the movies are adult innuendo and adult inside jokes. Same with Shrek movies.