Goofs for
First Blood (1982) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: Colonel Trautman mistakenly wears a U.S. Army Special Forces *crest* on the patch of his "green beret". As he is an officer, he should be wearing the insignia of his rank, i.e. a silver eagle, on his beret patch. The error was corrected for the next two films in the series, Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988).
  
  
• Continuity: In a chase scene, the parking light lens pops off the sheriff's car when it hits a bump and is back in the next shot.
  
  
• Continuity: When John is escaping from the police station on a motorcycle, chased by sheriff Teasle, the police car gets very dirty but in later scenes it is all clean again.
  
  

• Continuity: Rear view mirror in sheriff's car.
  
  
• Continuity: Rambo is hiding on the hillside above the road waiting for an opportunity to jump onto the canvas top of the last truck in the convoy. As that truck approaches the canvas sides are unrolled and "down". Seconds later when he jumps on top, the canvas is rolled "up" halfway. Seconds later as the same truck in shown going down the road the sides are back down.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Rambo jumps onto the top of the army truck, a landing pad can be seen underneath the canvas.
  
  
• Continuity: During the initial chase with the motorcycle, the sheriff's car's rear right hubcap disappears and reappears several times.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Shadow of the cameraman can be seen on the other side of the roof when Teasle first climbs up onto it for the final showdown.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Ramp can be seen when Rambo jumps over railroad tracks with motorcycle.
  
  
• Continuity: Before going through a police roadblock, the windshield of Rambo's vehicle is cracked by gunfire. After the roadblock, the bullet holes disappear.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Deputy Gault is seen to be wearing buckskin-colored cowboy boots while seated in the helicopter. However, when he falls out, the stuntman is wearing low-top black shoes with white socks. His hair is a different color from Galt's, too.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Rambo is racing down the pavement on the motorcycle, shouting "get out of the way" to terrified pedestrians, his mouth indicates he is shouting "fucking move it".
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the bike/patrol car chase in the beginning, Rambo rides a Yamaha XT 4-stroke bike - the sound effect is that of a 2-stroke.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Sheriff lets Rambo out of the car and pulls away, the boom operator and cameraman are reflected in the side window of the police car.
  
  
• Continuity: When Rambo is running from the police, just before the jump to the tree, he has a decent amount of stubble on his face, which is why the cops wanted to shave him earlier. When he comes back from seeing the cliff, there is a close-up of his face and he is clean-shaven.
  
  
• Continuity: The white markings on the front of the truck that Rambo drives during the chase, change between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Rambo steals the 2 1/2 ton truck. It has an M60 machine gun in the back. Rambo jumps the cop cars with the truck. The truck lands and the tail gate flips open with no gun. When the truck drives away the tail gate is up. When Rambo stops the truck he gets out and the M60 is just sitting in back with ammo ready to grab.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Rambo is driving truck over the bridge road block towards the end of the movie, it is daylight. When he reaches the town which is not that far from the bridge, it is dark.
  
  
• Continuity: When Rambo falls through the trees after jumping off the cliff, he becomes caught (impaled) on his left arm. He hangs for a few seconds by his left arm before the branch breaks and he falls the rest of the way to the ground. When he rolls over, he is clutching his right arm, which is covered in blood.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During his conversation with Sheriff Teasle (just before the "body bags" comment), Col. Troutman's mouth movements are slightly out of sync.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Rambo is driving the truck and pushes the cop car into the path of the broken down car, the explosion starts the second the cars make contact. In the next shot during the fireball, the two cables that held the static vehicle in place are visible.
  
  
• Continuity: When the sheriff follows Rambo into the woods, Rambo surprises him and shoves him against a tree and cuts his left cheek. Throughout the rest of the film, the cut is on his right cheek.
  
  
• Continuity: When John holds the knife to Teasle's throat in the woods, the placement of the knife changes.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the end scene, with Rambo and the Colonel in the police station, Rambo is talking about how he came home from the war and was met by protesters at the airport and he makes the comment "So I come back from the war and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting, calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap". However, when the audio says "crap" at the end, his mouth can clearly be seen forming the word "shit".
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At 1:17:37, near the start of his rampage in town, Rambo, moving from our right to left rounds an alley corner with a building edge to his immediate right, a 6 foot high wooden fence in the near distance behind his left shoulder, and two Post office boxes, a drop box and a bulk storage box such as a carrier would put excess mail in while he finishes his rounds in front of the wall, under his right elbow. At 1:19:40, the film editor flipped that shot, and everything in the shot from 2 minutes earlier is there, just reversed.
  
  
• Factual errors: The medal is frequently, albeit incorrectly, called the Congressional Medal of Honor, stemming from its award by the Department of Defense "in the name of Congress". It is correctly the "Medal of Honor".
  
  
• Continuity: After Rambo hijacks the convoy truck and forces the driver out, the driver jogs away from the opposite direction Rambo drives in the truck. In the next scene, Teasle drives up the road, approaching the jogging cop from behind. Teasle would have met Rambo on the road from the direction he was driving.
  
  
• Continuity: Teasle eventaully allows Trautman to try to talk Rambo into coming out of the mountains. This takes place in late afternoon, but it is night before Trautman actually talks to Rambo.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Rambo and Trautman talk, Rambo never keys the mic on the radio. However, he could have the mic set to voice-activated, a common feature on radios.
  
  
• Continuity: When Teasle drops off Rambo near the bridge, he speeds away. He drives for about 20 seconds or so, and then he sees Rambo in the rear view mirror, walking back towards town. He throws the car in reverse and is instantly back at the spot where he dropped Rambo off.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the police are spraying Rambo's back with the fire hose, if you look closely you can see pieces of his "scars" coming off.
  
  
• Errors in geography: This movie is set in America. There is an American flag hanging in front of the police station. The police wear American police uniforms, with American flags on them. During one scene, an officer says "Why don't you let the state police handle this." Yet, during the scenes filmed in town, you can see signs all over the place that say "Hope" and "Kettle Valley" which are parts of the province of British Columbia, Canada, where this movie was filmed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Rambo is at the bottom of the precipice, and the police are shooting at him, he holds his eye in pain, as if shot in the eye. The police also remark that Rambo is wounded. However, the next time we see Rambo, there is no injury to his eye at all.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Rambo picks up Galt's body to see if he is still alive. Rambo turns his head for a split second. If you look closely when Rambo turns his head, you can see the "fog" from Galt letting out a breath of warm air, indicating that he is still breathing.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the police are hunting Rambo is the woods, Mitch say something along the lines of, "Hunting? We ain't hunting him. He's hunting us." If you look closely at his mouth, it's not even moving.
  
  
• Continuity: In the cave, Rambo is making his way through the water. There is nothing on his back going around the corner. Rambo rounds the corner and there are several rats on his back. They are crawling all over him. Several seconds go by before he actually notices them.
  
  
• Continuity: When Teasle wrecks his police cruiser, the horn is stuck in the "on" position. It stays on for several seconds and then magically becomes unstuck without explanation.
  
  
• Continuity: When Rambo hangs on the cliff, the water underneath flows to the right and in the next moment to the left. Later it flows to the right again.
  
  
• Continuity: When John is escaping from the police station on the motorcycle, when he is riding on the sidewalk, you can hear him yelling "get out of the way." This does not correspond with the movements of his mouth which clearly indicate he was actually saying something else.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Col. Trautman lectures the sheriff, describing Rambo's tombstone in Arlington National Cemetery as saying "Here lies John Rambo ... killed in Jerkwater, USA". In reality, Arlington does not inscribe tombstones with such sayings. Stones simply bear name, rank, dates of birth, death and a Cross, Star of David, or Islamic crescent. (May count as "intentional goof" as Trautman may have been simply making a point to sheriff).
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Rambo is freezing running through the woods wearing only a tank top, he finds an old burlap fabric and fashions himself a poncho to keep warm, yet when he finds the dead deputy who fell from the helicopter, he doesn't bother to take his nice warm jacket.
  
  
• Continuity: As Rambo makes his way through the cave looking for an escape route, he crawls through waist-deep water, only to emerge completely dry.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: SPOILER: Camera visible in far left corner when the drug store explodes.
  
  

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