Imagine how different the film franchise might have looked with Al Pacino or Michael Douglas as John Rambo, a Vietnam vet stitching a cut in his own biceps.

For starters, the biceps would have been a lot smaller.

John Rambo returns for a fourth time today in the simply titled "Rambo," and no one knows if Rambo still has juice (and we're not talking human growth hormone). After all, the world, including its notion of action heroes, is a far different place than in October 1982, when "First Blood" debuted.

Sylvester Stallone was not the first choice for the role, one of two iconic parts he has played in the past three decades.

"Many prominent actors and directors, including Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Nick Nolte, Michael Douglas, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, had passed on it for one reason or another," Stallone wrote in "Sly Moves," his 2005 book about weight loss, strength training, willpower and how to live your dream.

"But I connected to the Rambo story. Plus, they most likely ran out of actors, so their misfortune was my good luck."

In "First Blood," Rambo is an ex-Green Beret haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam. He wanders into a town called Hope (no, not that one) and gets in a nasty tussle with the sheriff, played by Brian Dennehy in all his big-shouldered menace.

Rambo, drawing on his combat training, proves formidable prey for the lawmen. Col. Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna), the Green Beret who trained Rambo, warns, "He was taught to ignore pain. He can live off the land. He can eat things that make a billy goat puke."

The original and final versions of the film were far different in length, tone and ending. The first cut was almost three hours long with much more information about neglected soldiers -- and, by the way, Rambo died.

The movie was edited to 97 minutes, Rambo lived and much of the dialogue was omitted. "He expressed himself clearly with sinewy catlike moves and haunted eyes that said everything about the estrangement and abandonment he felt," he recalled in the book written with David Hochman.

His only regret?

"My borderline insane choice to play the character in a damp, moth-eaten tank top during the coldest Canadian winter in a hundred years." Production came on the heels of the third "Rocky," so Stallone already was frightfully fit.

When the movie was released, the Post-Gazette lamented the use of the cliched mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran and redneck sheriff.

A review by the late George Anderson concluded, "As a combination survival and action film, 'First Blood' delivers enough excitement to please fans of this sort of thing, although it must settle logically for a less than wholly satisfying ending.

"It must be said that Stallone is one of the few actors who could be credible in such a physically grueling role."

By the time Rambo returned for Memorial Day weekend in 1985, he was a cultural icon, with the box-office figures and movie merchandise to prove it.

"Rambo: First Blood, Part II" earned $32.5 million in six days, beating the James Bond movie "A View to a Kill" and the Richard Pryor comedy "Brewster's Millions." Not impressed? That's $62 million in today's dollars.

In the second film, Rambo was sent into Southeast Asia to find American servicemen reported as missing but believed held prisoner by the Vietnamese. It featured his famous question to a superior officer: "Sir, do we get to win this time?"

The PG review at the time predicted, correctly: "Action audiences are going to love 'Rambo.' ... Critics may bemoan its severely limited formula, but such complaints never landed a glove on Rocky."

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman devoted a column to Rambo, pointing out that timing can be everything when it comes to movie heroism. She noted that the sequel was No. 1 "on the hit parade during the terrorism in Beirut, Frankfurt and San Salvador."

On June 14, 1985, not long after the movie opened, a Boeing 727 bound for Rome was commandeered by armed terrorists. A 17-day ordeal left a U.S. Navy enlisted man dead and many passengers and crew members beaten.

In the real world, hostages feared a rescue mission and President Reagan called for a reasoned response, Goodman wrote. "But in movie theaters, audiences released a shriek of jingoistic joy when a lone vet took on the Commies abroad and the lily-livers at home to save a different batch of prisoners."

In fact, after the hostages cleared Mideast airspace, Reagan appeared on television to address the nation. Before his formal statement, he quipped, "After seeing 'Rambo' last night, I know what to do the next time this happens."

By early July, it was clear the president had lots of company. The movie passed $100 million at the box office, and more than 700,000 "Rambo" posters, plus countless T-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers, had been sold.

Plans were under way for a slew of spinoffs, including $150 bow-and-arrow sets, bandanas, comic books, water guns, toy helicopters and boats, walkie-talkies, rubber knives, computer games, knapsacks, pencil cases and duffel bags.

A spokeswoman for the merchandising and licensing arm of Stephen J. Cannell Productions told the Post-Gazette, "The characters are past the movie at this point. Everybody knows about Rambo," including 6-year-olds who could not see the R-rated movie but coveted the lunch box.

The manufacturer of Cabbage Patch Kids even obtained an exclusive worldwide license to market a Rambo doll and accessories based on the movie.

Fast-forward three years. Memorial Day weekend of 1988 brought "Rambo III."

The movie was beset by problems while shooting in such locations as Israel, Thailand and the United States, and reports of a whopping $63 million budget, plus another $20 million for the star.

During promotional interviews in New York, Stallone joked, "The only thing missing was a plague of locusts. We had the heat, which hit 130 degrees in the desert in Israel, we had transportation problems, change of directors, script troubles, an Israeli union strike. I was hoping one of the tanks would fall on me and get me out of this whole thing."

In the third installment, Rambo was living with Buddhist monks in Thailand when a sadistic Russian officer in Afghanistan captured Trautman, his friend and mentor from Vietnam. Rambo to the rescue.

This time, the movie grossed $21 million in its first six days (more than $36 million today) and critics begrudgingly gave Stallone his due.

PG film critic Marylynn Uricchio was aghast at the movie's budget but wrote, "With his glowering eyes and tree-trunk neck, Stallone has formidable presence -- the kind of presence that can turn a no-plot picture into a blockbuster. That's why he gets paid a fortune, and 'Rambo III' should make a fortune because Stallone delivers with a vengeance."

If timing fueled "Rambo" fever in 1985, it worked against the third movie. By the time the movie came out, the Soviets had announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

"There on every station in the world was Mikhail Gorbachev kissing Nancy Reagan on the cheek, so by the time the big Russian had unpuckered, the Soviets were now our new best friends and Rambo was decreed to be a red-baiting, right-wing killing machine," Stallone recalled in "Sly Moves."

Or maybe, he joked, it was payback for what happened to Dolph Lundgren's Drago in "Rocky IV."

In 1988, Stallone promised there would be a "Rocky V" (there was, and then a sixth) and a "Rambo IV," although it's unlikely he envisioned it would take two decades to fulfill that pledge. "I'll keep playing Rambo until my ankles give out."

Or the audience does.