“I want to rewrite history.”
September 26, 2018 10:37 AM Subscribe
> Tell me a new story.
That's too hard, but new people who haven't heard the old stories are being born every minute, so it's more cost-effective to just retell the same story to a new audience.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:00 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
That's too hard, but new people who haven't heard the old stories are being born every minute, so it's more cost-effective to just retell the same story to a new audience.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:00 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Rocky IV was (IMO) the rock bottom film
It features the greatest entrance in all of film history.
posted by Damienmce at 12:24 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
It features the greatest entrance in all of film history.
posted by Damienmce at 12:24 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
I've watched every Rocky movie except Balboa probably 100 times. CREED is a totally acceptable modern continuation of a story I thought was over. I'll miss Ryan Coogler directing, but I feel good about it. I see surprisingly little nationalism which is an upgrade from the previous Drago story to my mind.
posted by zerolives at 12:34 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by zerolives at 12:34 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Rocky IV was (IMO) the rock bottom film of the Rocky movies
Stallone won the Cold War with that film, single handed!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:17 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Stallone won the Cold War with that film, single handed!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:17 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Obviously, being British, I was cheering for Tony Bellew in the last film (and the Everton product placement seemed very odd). May be Drago will get revenge for Tony! Come on Viktor!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:22 PM on September 26, 2018
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:22 PM on September 26, 2018
I think we olds have to come to terms with some harsh truths: people born the year ROCKY 4 came out are now 33. If you are 28 years old, the only Rocky movie you might've seen in the theatre was ROCKY BALBOA, but you didn't see that movie because no one did. These stories *are* new to the vast majority of the core moviegoing audience, and because they're being recontextualized in our time, with black people at the center both in front of and behind the camera, there is external worth in retelling them. And since they're echoes of our cultural past, those 28 year-olds are already predisposed to seek out and understand these stories.
posted by incessant at 1:26 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by incessant at 1:26 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Rocky III is one of those pictures I watch every time it's available for viewing on TV or Netflix or what have you. Which means I've seen it about 65 times.
posted by holborne at 1:28 PM on September 26, 2018
posted by holborne at 1:28 PM on September 26, 2018
Rocky was OK, but I much preferred Bullwinkle.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:10 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:10 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't know what to think about this one. Creed felt like a really solid way to say goodbye to the world of Rocky Balboa, but I am not at all opposed to seeing more Michael B. Jordan in pretty much anything and Rocky Balboa already felt like a really solid way to say goodbye to the world of Rocky. So...yeah. This might be great
You have it right the second time: Rocky Balboa was the goodbye movie (and a great one at that). Creed is a spinoff that happens to be in the Rocky universe and, as a bonus, still features Rocky as the new Mickey.
I'm all for a new series about Adonis Creed, down to the the part in the movie where Rocky goes the way of Mickey.
posted by linux at 2:18 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
I support this only if there's a scene where Michael B. Jordan gets punched and blacks out and goes to his happy place where he meets his dad who plays piano and tells him to keep his chin up.
Though I guess in boxing it would better to keep your chin down.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:54 PM on September 26, 2018
Though I guess in boxing it would better to keep your chin down.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:54 PM on September 26, 2018
Creed was so good it made me angry after I watched it earlier this year. Partially, because I feel like no one told me it was that good for too long and partially because it was just ... unfair, maybe? ... about how good it was. I know that's a weird reaction, but it was really one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I watch a lot of movies and I guess I was angry I waited as long as I did to watch it.
(When it was first being advertised, it took me a lot longer to realize that oh, it was a Rocky movie, despite, you know, being called Creed and about boxing. And taking place in Philadelphia. I think some of that was intentional, though. It's not really a Rocky movie. It's a Creed movie.)
Having said that, I don't know how much I care about this. Michael B. Jordan is wonderful, as is Tessa Thompson. But the trailer didn't make it seem like it was going places the first one didn't. And maybe "Like Creed, but just more" isn't a bad way to advertise it, bu it just doesn't quite work for me.
I'll probably see it eventually, though.
posted by darksong at 4:02 PM on September 26, 2018
(When it was first being advertised, it took me a lot longer to realize that oh, it was a Rocky movie, despite, you know, being called Creed and about boxing. And taking place in Philadelphia. I think some of that was intentional, though. It's not really a Rocky movie. It's a Creed movie.)
Having said that, I don't know how much I care about this. Michael B. Jordan is wonderful, as is Tessa Thompson. But the trailer didn't make it seem like it was going places the first one didn't. And maybe "Like Creed, but just more" isn't a bad way to advertise it, bu it just doesn't quite work for me.
I'll probably see it eventually, though.
posted by darksong at 4:02 PM on September 26, 2018
I'm all for a new series about Adonis Creed, down to the the part in the movie where Rocky goes the way of Mickey.
But who's going to play Mr. T in Creed III? I pity the fool.
posted by nubs at 4:03 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
But who's going to play Mr. T in Creed III? I pity the fool.
posted by nubs at 4:03 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
But who's going to play Mr. T in Creed III? I pity the fool.
Maybe they realized no one could play Mr. T, which is why Creed II is going straight to Drago.
posted by linux at 4:43 PM on September 26, 2018
Maybe they realized no one could play Mr. T, which is why Creed II is going straight to Drago.
posted by linux at 4:43 PM on September 26, 2018
The fact that Rocky tells Adonis "He's got nothing to loose" and Adonis' "You don't think I can beat this guy" makes me think that Ivanovich Drago is playing the Mr. T role. In Rocky 3 Mr. T was the hungry ambitious guy who rattled Rocky's cage enough to get him to accept the challenge, and then out-trained him.
Thinking of that you could do a really neat arc with Drago's kid as well. Dad was this Soviet show-pony, presumably life kind of went on the skids for him after the Soviets realized that beating a guy to death then loosing at home wasn't quite the propaganda coup they had been hoping for. Then the 90's happened. The life expectancy of a Russian male dropped by about 7 years (It recovered between 2006 and 2014). So this kid probably grew up in a fairly rough setting with a pretty strained home life. But he's got his dad's gift for fighting, and that's enough for him to literally beat his way out into a better life.
Hell, they could hit some of the same beats from Rocky 3 and Rocky 4 as one movie in Creed 2 if they're ballsy enough.
posted by Grimgrin at 7:10 PM on September 26, 2018
Thinking of that you could do a really neat arc with Drago's kid as well. Dad was this Soviet show-pony, presumably life kind of went on the skids for him after the Soviets realized that beating a guy to death then loosing at home wasn't quite the propaganda coup they had been hoping for. Then the 90's happened. The life expectancy of a Russian male dropped by about 7 years (It recovered between 2006 and 2014). So this kid probably grew up in a fairly rough setting with a pretty strained home life. But he's got his dad's gift for fighting, and that's enough for him to literally beat his way out into a better life.
Hell, they could hit some of the same beats from Rocky 3 and Rocky 4 as one movie in Creed 2 if they're ballsy enough.
posted by Grimgrin at 7:10 PM on September 26, 2018
where Rocky goes the way of Mickey
I'd be there opening night if I knew Stallone was going say "You're gonna eat lightning and you're gonna crap thunder!"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:52 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd be there opening night if I knew Stallone was going say "You're gonna eat lightning and you're gonna crap thunder!"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:52 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
I support this only if there's a scene where Michael B. Jordan gets punched and blacks out and goes to his happy place where he meets his dad who plays piano and tells him to keep his chin up.
My theory on Creed was the entire film was a dream in the head of an incarcerated boy who once watched Rocky. The idea started with the dream-like quality of the ATV scene, but a there were a bunch of hints that it was all a childish fantasy:
In the very beginning there's the line that "he's a good kid, but he fights all the time" which is something no adult would ever say about an incarcerated child. But it is something a child would like to imagine caring adults would believe to be true.
Then Mary Anne adopts him. Her lifestyle and her home are copies of Aunt Vivian from The Fresh Prince. She's given no life of her own; when Adonis isn't around she has nobody else, except a glass of wine in her big fancy house, to keep her company. This is how a child who doesn't understand adult relationships might imagine a rich woman's like to be like.
There's the notion that an educated and successful Black man would walk away from his comfortable career to chase a new manhood quest. There's the horribly unrealistic romantic interactions between Adonis and Bianca. Finally the whole lost father-figure relationships with coaches, trying to prove his manhood through gratuitous displays of strength and violence. All as a child would imagine how the world works without ever having experienced it except through a television screen.
Either that, or it was just a poorly written script that relied on a bunch of super lazy tropes.
posted by peeedro at 4:48 PM on September 27, 2018
My theory on Creed was the entire film was a dream in the head of an incarcerated boy who once watched Rocky. The idea started with the dream-like quality of the ATV scene, but a there were a bunch of hints that it was all a childish fantasy:
In the very beginning there's the line that "he's a good kid, but he fights all the time" which is something no adult would ever say about an incarcerated child. But it is something a child would like to imagine caring adults would believe to be true.
Then Mary Anne adopts him. Her lifestyle and her home are copies of Aunt Vivian from The Fresh Prince. She's given no life of her own; when Adonis isn't around she has nobody else, except a glass of wine in her big fancy house, to keep her company. This is how a child who doesn't understand adult relationships might imagine a rich woman's like to be like.
There's the notion that an educated and successful Black man would walk away from his comfortable career to chase a new manhood quest. There's the horribly unrealistic romantic interactions between Adonis and Bianca. Finally the whole lost father-figure relationships with coaches, trying to prove his manhood through gratuitous displays of strength and violence. All as a child would imagine how the world works without ever having experienced it except through a television screen.
Either that, or it was just a poorly written script that relied on a bunch of super lazy tropes.
posted by peeedro at 4:48 PM on September 27, 2018
I didn't feel offended by Rocky IV's jingoism because it was so ham-fisted that it felt like a parody. Plus, mid-80s Dolph Lundgren was one of cinematic history's great practical special effects, and there just isn't that much to the movie; Hunter S. Thompson saw it and said something to the effect that it's two or three music videos and then Rocky's beating the crap out of the big Russian dude and that's it.
Also, Clubber Lang Jr.? Terry Crews or GTFO.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, Clubber Lang Jr.? Terry Crews or GTFO.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
there just isn't that much to the movie
Hold up there Halloween Jack, Rocky IV has a lot going for it, I mean if you are like me and dig some Exodus type symbolism. Look, for example, to the fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago. Apollo is introduced to the song "Living In America", dressed in Uncle Sam-like attire as befitting the representation of the US, but he enters the arena under a giant golden bull icon amid gaudy excess of capitalist show, showing clearly how we've gone astray from our important values and have allowed ourselves to be threatened by a soulless Soviet machine in Drago. It's only when Rocky eschews the trappings of modernity, returning to a more natural state where he ascends a mountain, find his faith, and returns to deliver it to the people that he is able to triumph. He's basically Moses in boxing gloves, saving us from worship of false idols and godless communism.
With that inspiring message you say there isn't much to the movie? Pshaw.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:22 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Hold up there Halloween Jack, Rocky IV has a lot going for it, I mean if you are like me and dig some Exodus type symbolism. Look, for example, to the fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago. Apollo is introduced to the song "Living In America", dressed in Uncle Sam-like attire as befitting the representation of the US, but he enters the arena under a giant golden bull icon amid gaudy excess of capitalist show, showing clearly how we've gone astray from our important values and have allowed ourselves to be threatened by a soulless Soviet machine in Drago. It's only when Rocky eschews the trappings of modernity, returning to a more natural state where he ascends a mountain, find his faith, and returns to deliver it to the people that he is able to triumph. He's basically Moses in boxing gloves, saving us from worship of false idols and godless communism.
With that inspiring message you say there isn't much to the movie? Pshaw.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:22 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
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The choice I don't likeis bringing in the son of Drago as the bad guy; Rocky IV was (IMO) the rock bottom film of the Rocky movies and appearing to mix in some elements of Rocky II doesn't help much either.
Tell me a new story.
posted by nubs at 11:22 AM on September 26, 2018