Tracing the Influence: Retraced Edition
Tag: Rambo
Ashura / Secret Commando title screen (1986) 🔗
This Sega title has the distinction of being both a properly licensed Rambo tie-in (in North America) as well as a Rambo rip-off (in Japan and Europe). But while the latter two versions don't have the lovingly pixeled movie poster pose the US release proudly features on the title screen, they still grabbed some photos from throughout the movie for reference. (They only use various vaguely Southeast Asian looking buildings for the images in between stages where the licensed one has more John Rambo, though.) Interestingly, the characters were redesigned for the Japanese original to give them a more unique look, but in the later European release they were turned (back?) into proper clones. In turn, only the Japanese version also features Sly's body on the box cover.
Ashura cover (1986) 🔗
While this game was released in the US as an actual Rambo game, the same isn't true for this Japanese version, so this is absolutely an illegitimate use of Stallone's likeness. I'm almost convinced the left guy isn't taken from the same movie (which is odd, given how deliberately the game borrowed from it), or it might have been a really obscure still only found in some contemporary Japanese magazine.
Adax cover (1992) 🔗
A late addition to the Atari 8-bit library made in Poland, Adax is a platformer with a sci-fi bend where you fight enemies mostly by punching and kicking them. Nonetheless, the dude on the cover art got a massive rocket launcher. That is of course because his pose is very recognizable as the poster for Rambo: First Blood Part II.
Double Hawk cover (1990) 🔗
Sure, the two muscle men on Sega's shooting gallery are made to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, but there's a kind of reverse Gryzor situation going on: At least both torsos are clearly both taken from the latter's Rambo poses, as you can clearly make out on the muscle definitions and even the scars on his chest. The big faces on top are a bit of a guessing game and they might be from different or a mix of references. I'd wager on the soldiers and war machinery in the foreground also being lifted from somewhere else, but those are a bit harder to find and identify.
Ikari Warriors flyer (1986) 🔗
The entire raison d'être for SNK's Ikari Warriors series is to let you play at Rambo in a legally (barely) distinct manner, so it would be weirder if the original artwork for the Japanese arcade version didn't rip off several publicity photos from First Blood Part II. The artist tried to draw one of Sylvester Stallone's arms in a different pose to have him appear ready to throw a hand grenade, with rather mangled results.
Super Contra arcade flyer (1987) 🔗
Much like the first game in the series, the artist for Super Contra's promo material clearly understood the assignment, this time really uniting both of the 1980s big muscle action stars on one flyer. Not satisfied with telegraphing the game's influences through a picture, the English version of the flyer also proudly proclaims: "He's not human. He's not alien. He's the predator!!" There's some liberties taken, especially with the faces, but Sly's neckline is still an exact match. The Schwarzenegger stand-in doesn't fit quite as neatly, so either the artist modyfied the pose somewhat, or there might be an obscure alternate still out there that was used as a reference.
