The new
Rambo movie has existed for 15 years. Back in 1993 it was called
Hot Shots! Part Deux.
Think I'm kidding? Compare the two:
Rambo actually has Rambo in it,
Hot Shots has Charlie Sheen as a Rambo parody, both feature technically challenging archery shots, both have long passages on a river in sampans and fishing boats, both have comically cheesy dialogue, both are armed with large-caliber machine guns with limitless ammo, and both tout their body count proudly. At one point in
Hots Shots!, Sheen, clad in the trademark Rambo tank top and red headband, assaults militant patrols in the jungle. Wave after wave of soldiers descend on Sheen's Topper Harley and he repels them with what appears to be an M-60. As soldiers fall, a counter racks up the dead and at one point proclaims itself as the "BLOODIEST MOVIE EVER." Not only does this scene directly foreshadow the new Rambo by more than a decade, it basically gives Sly the blueprints for his own scene, which is so similar I question who was spoofing who.
And a side note on the
Hot Shots! series: I miss'em. Spoofs just aren't the same anymore. Too many of them are filled with blatant celebrity parody — Britney Spears getting kicked into a pit with her baby as if in
300 … hahaha!
Epic Movie,
Date Movie,
Not Another Teen Movie,
Scary Movie … none of them are any good and with each successive picture more distance is put between us and the glory years with Charlie Sheen and Leslie Nielsen. Their movies spoofed ideas and specific movements of film, not just the films themselves. The first
Hot Shots! managed to make fun of Tom Cruise because it was a successful
Top Gun parody. Modern spoof invention would rely on a Tom Cruise lookalike jumping around on a couch and pushing Scientology while holding hands with men. That may be the way the public recognizes Tom Cruise, but the spoofs of days gone by found material from the films themselves and not the gossip rags at the supermarket.
The new Rambo movie has existed for 15 years. Back in 1993 it was called Hot Shots! Part Deux.
Think I'm kidding? Compare the two: Rambo actually has Rambo in it, Hot Shots has Charlie Sheen as a Rambo parody, both feature technically challenging archery shots, both have long passages on a river in sampans and fishing boats, both have comically cheesy dialogue, both are armed with large-caliber machine guns with limitless ammo, and both tout their body count proudly. At one point in Hots Shots!, Sheen, clad in the trademark Rambo tank top and red headband, assaults militant patrols in the jungle. Wave after wave of soldiers descend on Sheen's Topper Harley and he repels them with what appears to be an M-60. As soldiers fall, a counter racks up the dead and at one point proclaims itself as the "BLOODIEST MOVIE EVER." Not only does this scene directly foreshadow the new Rambo by more than a decade, it basically gives Sly the blueprints for his own scene, which is so similar I question who was spoofing who.
And a side note on the Hot Shots! series: I miss'em. Spoofs just aren't the same anymore. Too many of them are filled with blatant celebrity parody — Britney Spears getting kicked into a pit with her baby as if in 300 … hahaha! Epic Movie, Date Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Scary Movie … none of them are any good and with each successive picture more distance is put between us and the glory years with Charlie Sheen and Leslie Nielsen. Their movies spoofed ideas and specific movements of film, not just the films themselves. The first Hot Shots! managed to make fun of Tom Cruise because it was a successful Top Gun parody. Modern spoof invention would rely on a Tom Cruise lookalike jumping around on a couch and pushing Scientology while holding hands with men. That may be the way the public recognizes Tom Cruise, but the spoofs of days gone by found material from the films themselves and not the gossip rags at the supermarket.
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