I suggest getting them all. Rambo I is a classic, Rambo II expanded was a long overdue gift and Rambo III is already a gift (for it already was expanded, thank you Intrada.)
You might have a bit more trouble finding Rambo I, but it's out there.

All three are cool -- FIRST BLOOD is one of my VERY VERY VERY favorite Goldsmith scores -- RAMBO II a bit less so, RAMBO III a bit more so. All are terrific, and they're all of a piece. You won't be sorry. Lay in the whole pile of em. (Make sure in every case they're the EXPANDED ones: FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO III from Intrada; RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II recently expanded by Silva Screen.)

First Blood is probably the tighter vision, certainly it is a massive, gut-crunchingly brutal piece of music with some beautiful passages. More like grit-encrusted 70s material. The empathetic approach from the inside out.

Rambo II is popular (Jeff Bond cites it as "nimble"). I personally found it overblown in the worst sense of a composer's boredom, pile driving ear fatigue. Millions of notes just sprayed out. Liked the asiatic opening and the first few cues with that 70s blaxploitation disco string figure. The "Peace in my Life" melody never really seemed like Goldsmith to me, no heart (hey that's from 6 Degrees of Separation) or conviction. (I really liked the movie though as a cartoon, goofy anti-communist, anti-Russian, anti-CIA, anti-government politics of the pic aside, George Cosmatos rules!)

Rambo III is my choice of Rambos. Too long but beautifully structured with an almost Homeric, elegiac feel. The Jupiter Rising Rambo chords work in the best bombast fashion. The afghan lyrical cues are threaded like some of G's best fatalistic military threnodies. Possibly the first big Goldsmith score moving toward that gleaming minimal style of his 90s work, less note-y in this instance but also achieving a bigger sound as the broad gestures cover a wider expanse in a sense giving the movie form, as usual.

My memory of RAMBO III was that the last battle with the tank or the copter or whatever it was (only saw it once, when it came out) was retracked with II; otherwise, the score is pretty much the same as represented on the Intrada CD. (I remember picking up the Scotti Bros. CD and being dismally disappointed at how much wasn't there -- "The Boot," for example, a gorgeous action cue, one of many. Intrada to the rescue, eh.)

You pinpointed my own problems with the RAMBO II music pretty well -- "sarcastic" isn't the word I'd have picked, but it's pretty close to being right on the money. I thought at the time that RAMBO II was a weird sort of parody of the awesomely heartfelt original FIRST BLOOD music; the overuse of electronics didn't help, but neither did the picture's relative lack of heart. Once Rambo became a cartoon character (both in the live action and in the literal sense), people tended to forget how sincere the original FIRST BLOOD really was, and how sharp a director Ted Kotcheff can be. (The recent Susan Faludi book, "Stiffed," includes an interesting section on the genesis of Rambo, from David Morrell's novel through the various scripts that were written -- everyone from David Rabe to Stallone seemed to have hacked at it.)

Second unit director Peter Macdonald wound up directing RAMBO III after Russell Mulcahy (of HIGHLANDER fame) was dismissed. It's the least interesting or fun of the three pictures for any number of reasons, but compared to the tersely professional Kotcheff and the admirably loopy Cosmatos, Macdonald had/has no style at all -- what he does best is stage explosions, and let the big boys take the credit (a source on the European set for David Seltzer's ridiculous SHINING THROUGH told me that Macdonald really ghost-directed a LOT of that picture; Seltzer ran into considerable budget trouble and, I've noticed, hasn't been allowed to direct since.)

FSM boarders, remember the "Fart noises" thread?

FSM boarders, remember the "Fart noises" thread?

I agree that Morrell's novels of the past several years have been kind of tedious -- he's found his new niche (espionage) and is writing accordingly. Well, we all have to make a living. TESTAMENT, BLOOD OATH, and THE TOTEM, however, are all astonishing, little-heralded works that are WELL WORTH searching out. You heard it here first!

This has probably been addressed elsewhere, but I must ask: does the Varese version have liner notes, and if so, by whom? Those in the Intrada version were serviceable, but unremarkable. Hell, I wish I could have gotten a crack at it. FIRST BLOOD is my favorite Goldsmith score after PAPILLON and the first STAR TREK.

You might pay less by ordering directly from the album's issuer, Intrada. The thing should still be widely available.

I KNOW this is a must-have score, I have the First Flight track and love it. I just want to know if I should go with the official release, or if there's so much missing that I'd rather get the boot (if there is one).

The shop where I saw this is a bit more expensive than others, but the usual CDs still go for slightly less than ATS 300 there, compared to the 500 for Night Crossing. They sometimes have rare items, but I missed all of them, like Williams' Heidi. So the only reason why I buy there is that I go there hoping I might find something that's otherwise hard to get, and ending up buying a score which I'm sure I could get for $3 less at some other place, just because I HATE it to leave a CD store without having bought a CD (stores have made much money from me that way already, but I also have bought many scores which I might not have gotten otherwise).

(I have never paid $34 for one single CD; I can get two normal-priced score CDs for that)

NP: Supergirl (Jerry Goldsmith) - Thanks Mark!

Did a bit of checking ... Footlights, for example, has it for $25. Probably Intrada's deal is the best you will find. (Curiously, Footlights also claims to stock the previous version, though I don't know if they actually have any on hand. Anyway, no point in having it when the longer version is available.)

Intrada tends to charge more for special editions like this, e.g. FIRST BLOOD, INCHON and KING SOLOMON'S MINES.