...About the Rocky Franchise

Even if your opponent would fight as hard as they can to get their way instead of you getting your way, you don't have to be enemies. That's what I learned from the Rocky movies. That's what I learned from Carl Weathers.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I'm Stephen Monteith, and I'm hereto talk about the Rocky franchise, specifically
how it shaped my view of howcharacters should be dealt with in stories and
how character should be developed in reallife. I grew up watching the Rocky

(00:29):
movies. The first movie came outabout five years before I was born,
and so growing up I saw thema lot, about as often as I
saw any other movies, about asmuch as I watched Star Wars or Star
Trek. It was a really importantpart of my childhood, and a big

(00:55):
reason for that was because of thecharacter Apollo Creed. Earlier this month,
the actor who played Apollo Creed,Carl Weathers, passed away. It was
a very It had a deep effecton me when I learned that he had

(01:18):
died, because he's always been sucha big part of that franchise. And
spoiler alert, his character does diein the fourth movie, but as I'll
get into a little bit later on, he did leave a legacy for the
remaining movies. But first, letme talk about about the movies themselves.

(01:51):
If you haven't seen them, Ireally recommend watching them. I'll try not
to spoil too many plot points fromthese movies, but like I said,
they've been around for like four decadesnow, some of them, so I
mean it's it's kind of like spoilingCitizen Kane at this point. My favorite

(02:15):
movie was always Rocky three, simplybecause of how Rocky and Apollo sort of
sort of came together. The firsttwo movies. It started off with them

(02:36):
as opponents, with them, youknow, fighting each other for the boxing
heavyweight championship, and it's the firstmovie has Apollo as the champion, you
know, and he's and he's he'strying to find an opponent to fight him

(03:00):
for the championship because his standard opponentcan't make it. So he comes across
Rocky Balboa, who is an amateurboxer, and he decides, as well,
this would be a good show,you know, I'll give an amateur
a shot at the title. AndRocky very nearly beats him, but not

(03:28):
quite. They don't, you know, There's no knockout or anything like that.
Apollo wins on points, but justthe fact that Rocky came so close
to beating him really affects Polo.In the next movie and Rocky two,
he's just so consumed with this ideathat this amateur, came so close to

(03:53):
taking the title away from him,and he's getting all these letters from all
these people who who called the fighta fake, call him a fake,
you know, And and so hedecides to challenge Rocky to a rematch.

(04:14):
Really Rocky and Apollo are I mean, even though the movies started off just
being called Rocky, Rocky, Rockytwo, Rocky three, et cetera.
Like I say, Apollo was justas much a part of them as Rocky
was as Sylvester Stallone's character. Theythey develop both of their characters alongside each

(04:41):
other. You see the focus goingback and forth between the two of them
in the first two movies. Oneis the champ Apollo and the other is
Rocky, the underdog challenger. Andeven though Apollo uses some dirty tricks to
try and get Rocky back into thering, he never fails to respect Rocky

(05:09):
as a fighter. In fact,the first move the second movie, rather
one of the first scenes, isthey're both uh, they're both in the
hospital because they did that much damageto each other at the end of the
first movie, but Rocky comes toApollo's hospital room. It's a very brief

(05:32):
scene and he asks him, didyou give me your best, and Apollo
is just like yeah, and Rockyis just like thank you. That scene
is always stuck with me. Andit was a while before I realized why.

(05:54):
Rocky three really helped me understand why. And this is where Rocky.
He's now the champion and he hasa new opponent, a new type of
opponent too, played by mister Tcalled Clubber Lang. And Clubber is not

(06:15):
a guy who respects his opponents.Clubber is a guy who destroys his opponents.
He's a boxer who, in thewords of Rocky's trainer Mickey, will
kill Rocky to death inside of threerounds. And even though Clubber claims that

(06:38):
he doesn't hate Rocky, he isvery much, very much an angry individual
who who has clear disdain for Rocky. He does not have the respect for
him that Apollo did, and hedoesn't respect Apollo. We get a couple

(07:00):
of we get a couple of briefscenes between the two of them, and
you can tell that you can geta sense that this that even though Apollo
has fought so many people, thathe always respects them, and when he

(07:25):
sees the lack of respect that Clubberhas for for not just for him,
but for Rocky as well. Itdoes not sit well with him at all.
Now, clubber Lang does take thetitle from Rocky briefly in Rocky three,

(07:47):
but that after he does, Apollois willing and even eager to help
Rocky win it back. And that'sthat's when I don't remember. I mean,

(08:15):
maybe it was the first time Isaw it, maybe it was the
tenth time I saw it, butit just made so much sense to me,
the moment that Apollo came to findRocky after Rocky had had lost the
title and thought that everything was overfor him, but Apollo comes to him

(08:39):
and offers to help him learn howto win it back. He even says,
maybe we can win it back together. And there's a trope in fiction

(09:05):
called enemies to lovers. It doesn'treally apply to the two of them because
well, they don't become lovers,but they do become like really best friends
after that. And they were neverreally enemies either. They were opponents.

(09:31):
There's something about I'm not a boxer, I'm not involved in the sport at
all, But it occurs to methat Apollo has the right idea about the
sport that even though you face somebodyin the ring, even though you're you're

(09:56):
hitting them and trying to knock themout, even if you can, and
at the very least trying to landmore hits on them than they are on
you. Even though you're competing forwhat Apollo called the greatest title in the
whole world. That doesn't have tomake you enemies. You can put each

(10:18):
other in the hospital for weeks,you can you can literally destroy each other's
lives, but that doesn't have tomake you enemies. There was a there's

(10:43):
always been, I guess, abit of a joke about how the Rocky
movies just keep going on and onfrom one movie to the next, from
one fight to the next, fromone opponent to the next. But to
me, what really tied the firstthree movies together at least was always Rocky's

(11:11):
relationship with Apollo. Now he hadhis uh, he had his relationships with
other people, with this trainer Mickey, with of course his wife Adrian,
and his brother in law Pauli,and and usually you can sort of get

(11:35):
caught in a rut with storylines likelike having a Monster of the Week,
you know, type a TV showlike The X Files, or like I
don't know, mighty morphin Power Rangersor something like that, where you just
go from one from one opponent tothe next. But but what really keeps

(12:01):
what really kept rather the Rocky moviesfresh for a while was that even though
he does in later movies start goinggoing on to just the next opponent and
just the next opponent, the firstthree movies at least kept that relationship up

(12:26):
between Rocky and Apollo. They wereable to build a foundation of respect for
each other, and that eventually becamefriendship once they stopped being opponents, once
they stopped beating the crap out ofeach other, and and it led to

(12:54):
like I said, in the fourthmovie, it led to Apollo's death.
The Ring Yeah a Russian, aRussian boxer played by Dolph Lundgren uh.
In two rounds, he beats Apolloso bad that Apollo actually dies, and

(13:20):
of course that gets Rocky just justuh just completely roaring for revenge. He
literally roars at one point during histraining the Russian boxer Ivan drago Is.

(13:46):
I'm gonna get a little bit intohis character now because it'll be a little
bit important later when I talk aboutwhen I talk about Apollo as legacy,
which I mentioned earlier, it seemsif you're not really paying attention, it

(14:09):
seems like this Russian boxer is justanother one of those monsters of the week,
you know, just another one ofthose fighters that Rocky needs to take
on, just one more opponent.But even Drago is able to show Rocky
some respect and I think even lookingfor a bit of respect for himself.

(14:39):
When we're introduced to Ivan Drago,he's this I should mention that this was
back when the Soviet Union was stilla thing, so there was a big,
you know, USA versus USSR themegoing on with Rocky four. But

(15:01):
when Ivan Drago is introduced, he'sintroduced as a very stoic, a very
non speaking type of type of athlete. He's somebody who lets his fists do
the talking. And this was instark contrast with Apollo, who is very

(15:24):
much a showman, very much atrash talker, very much somebody who will
get in your face, and likeI said, he even used some of
that on Rocky in their early matches. But in Drago's case, all it
does is is is pretty much guaranteethat Drago is going to take him out,

(15:54):
because well, Apollo was simply nomatch for him, but it does
highlight the character differences between them.Drago is just looking for respect. He

(16:15):
is. He's always in one ofthree types of uniforms. He's either in
his training uniform, in his boxinguniform, or in his Soviet Army uniform
during press and everything like that.He's very much a character who is built
around this idea that he's that he'srepresenting his country, especially on the world

(16:41):
stage, especially in front of Americansand American press. He doesn't know how
to how to speak up for himself. His wife, who's played by Bridgete
Nielsen, she's very much his mouthpiece. She is clearly enjoying the status

(17:06):
that she gets from being married tohim too. She'll talk to the press,
She'll be the one who answers allthe questions and who gives all the
quips and who lays on all thecharm, while her husband just has to
keep winning. That's his sole job, that's his only responsibility and probably always

(17:34):
has been. That's all he knows. And then and then after he defeats
Apollo, after he kills Apollo andRocky agrees to be his next opponent,

(17:57):
they fight Inrussia. They have theyhave a very long, very drawn out
fight with each other. It laststhat's much longer than just the two rounds
that Apollo did. And since it'staking him so long to knock Rocky out,

(18:21):
since it's taken him so long towin, his Russian handlers from the
government get really frustrated with him,and they come up to him while he's
sitting between between rounds and resting alittle bit between rounds, and they tell

(18:45):
him that he needs to get outthere and he needs to win. And
Ivan just snaps and he grabs theand he grabs the government official by the
throat and lifts him up and says, I fight to win for me,

(19:11):
And then he turns to where therest of the Russian pullet Buro is sitting
up in the stands, and hepoints up and he repeats for me.
It's a pretty brave moment for him. I mean, this is the Soviet
Union we're talking about, and hehas just defied them in front of the

(19:36):
whole world. Everybody is watching thisboxing match between East versus West, and
he just and he just embarrassed theRussian government, the Soviet government. So
now, I mean, now hehas to win. And when he goes

(19:59):
out for the f final round infront of Rocky. He says to him,
to the end, it's a reallyit's a really subtle bit of character
building for him, but it's well, I mean, lifting the guy up

(20:19):
by the throat was not very subtle. But the part where he says to
the end is because now now he'smaking it a fight between him and Rocky.
Now it's between the two of them. There's no more East versus West,

(20:41):
there's no more Soviet Union versus UnitedStates. Now it's just the two
of them. And I think itreally does alter things because while Rocky obviously
was taking it personally before four,and while we can assume that Evon was

(21:03):
taking it personally as well, nowthey have a measure of respect for each
other now that I mean. Thereare two movies after that, but I
really don't want to get into those. I want to move on to the

(21:27):
second part of the Rocky franchise,and that's the Creed movies. There have
been three of them. The thirdone came out last year around this time.
Michael B. Jordan is the titlecharacter, Adonnis Creed Donnie Creed.

(21:51):
He's he actually just had a birthdaya couple of days ago, so happy
birthday to him. The first movie, the first Creed movie, came out
in twenty fifteen, so I guesswhen I first saw a trailer for it.
Might have been in twenty fifteen,it might have been in twenty fourteen.

(22:11):
I don't really remember when. Ijust remember that I was that I
was sitting in a theater and don'tremember which movie it was, but the
trailer started up, and Michael B. Jordan wasn't a big superstar back then
like he is now. This wasten years ago. Yeah, he comes

(22:33):
on and he's doing a little bitof boxing training and everything, and I'm
just sort of not really paying thatmuch attention to it. But then there's
a scene between him and Rocky soVester Sloan's on the screen, Michael B.
Jordan's on the screen, and I'mjust like, wait a minute,

(22:56):
what's going on here. It wasa little bit, a little bit at
about Rocky five. He tries totrain somebody, but that guy turns out
to be like Club or Lang.He turns out to be a guy who
doesn't respect other people. He justwants other people to respect him. So
he's not a you know, thekind of guy who's gonna be carrying the

(23:17):
Rocky franchise into the next whatever.But but this guy, Michael B.
Jordan the trailer. The trailer goeson and it's revealed that he is Apollo
Creed's son, and that's when Ireally started paying attention to the trailer.

(23:37):
I think that's when I really startedsaying to myself, Okay, this is
something to do with character. Thisis a character that we that we can
build on, this is something wecan work with. And then of course
Creed, the name of the movie, shows up on the screen, thinking

(24:00):
to myself, all right, nowI'm interested. See, like I said,
I don't know much about boxing.I haven't watched a lot of boxing
movies. Even though I watched theRocky movies growing up, it really wasn't
about the boxing for me. Itreally was about the characters. So when

(24:22):
five and six came along and thecharacters didn't really matter as much to me
as Apollo had, I just neverreally got into them that much. But
here's Apollo's son, and I'm justthinking, well, this could get me
back into it, This could youknow, rekindle my interest. So I

(24:48):
saw that movie and it was reallygood. You know, Michael B.
Jordan obviously is a very talented actor, very talented performer and Sylvester stallone Let's
not get ourselves. Despite you know, being mostly known for action, he
is a very good writer. Hewrote and or directed most of the Rocky

(25:11):
movies, so he's very and hewas involved in writing this one as well.
So so there was a lot ofreally great, really great scenes between
the two of them, And ofcourse with with Donnie, his character is

(25:37):
actually Apollo's illegitimate son. He itturned out that Apollo did have an affair,
he did cheat on his wife.So when Donnie, so, when
Donnie loses his mother, he actuallygets paid a visit by Apollo's wife,

(26:00):
who's played by Felicia Rashad Now andshe takes him in and becomes his mother,
and that and that gives us alot of angles to explore, a
lot of a lot of relationship dynamicsare at work here, especially with Donnie

(26:22):
wanting to to learn more about hisdad, wanting to you know, live
up to that legacy that Apollo leftbehind, and of course Missus Creed is
telling Donnie that there are all thesethere are all these things that you don't

(26:45):
know about the boxing life, especiallyyou know, at the level that Apollo
fought at. She tells him thingsthat that you never really think about,
but that make perfect sense once youhear them. You know about all the
about all the minor inconveniences and thebig obstacles that all come along with just

(27:10):
with being a fighter, not evenbeing a champion, just with being a
fighter. And she wants him tostay away from the life that God his
father killed. But obviously Donnie doesn'ttake her advice. He seeks out Rocky
and and gets and gets Rocky's sideof the story, and they start building

(27:40):
up a relationship with each other thatthat leads to Donnie becoming a contender.
And then the second movie, CreedToo, which is I'm probably gonna say

(28:00):
that it's my favorite of the Creedmovies because it brings Drago back into the
franchise. Now, like I saidbefore, Drago lost his fight against Rocky.
Immediately before he lost his fight againstRocky, he basically made himself a

(28:25):
target of the of the Russian government. And you just do not get away
with doing that. When he lostthat fight, he lost everything. He
even lost his wife, like Isaid, and she was his pr She

(28:45):
was his she was the face ofhis career basically as much as he was.
And when he was lifting up thatgovernment official by the neck, she

(29:07):
was just down there yelling up athim. No knit. So it's no
surprise that when he lost he didn'tjust lose his career, he lost her
as well. But he had ason with her, Victor Drago, and

(29:34):
apparently she left Victor too, Sonow it's just Ivan Drago and his son
Victor trying to make their way inthe world. And Evan's looking for a
little redemption in his life. Soeven if it's a vicarious redemption through his
son, and Victor becomes the newthe new Russian boxing threat that Donnie's gonna

(30:03):
face, and of course Donnie's gothis own feelings about facing the son of
the man who killed his father.There's it's a really moving it's a really
moving film in a lot of ways. You've got so many people who are

(30:30):
trying to get a little bit ofredemption in their life, so many people
who are trying to live up toa legacy left by their fathers, but
at the same time build up theirown legacy as well, and at the
same time you've got Rocky, whowho tries to warn Donnie about these kinds

(30:57):
of battles, not just matches,but battles. He tells him that that
when he fought Ivan Drago, thatthat things were broken in him that have
never been fixed. And and this, I think is where boxing as a

(31:30):
metaphor for life keeps coming back.You know, that's that's that's kind of
the hallmark of these movies. Andit comes back again with his line there,
when you get in a battle forrevenge for whatever reason, you risk

(32:00):
breaking things that can't be repaired.So you've got to know that you're in
these things for the right reasons.And it is it is interesting. I
won't talk about how that movie ends, but I will say that there is

(32:22):
that there are indications that Evan Dragohas learned that lesson as well, and
that Donnie and Victor have earned thekind of respect for each other that Rocky
and Apollo did. So there isso he does live up to his father's

(32:52):
legacy in that respect, at least. It's really it's really the most important
lesson that I think these movies haveto teach us. And there's so many
important lessons too. There's so manyreasons why Rocky three and Creed two are

(33:17):
my favorite movies out of the franchise, but that the other movies in the
franchise are not that far behind them, you know, there's not you know,
there's not that much daylight between them, you know, as they say.
And but for all the lessons thatyou can learn from these movies,

(33:43):
I think the lesson that all ofus need to learn, especially now,
is that just because somebody is youropponent, just because somebody is facing off
with you who wants the same thingyou do and they want it just as

(34:06):
badly as you do, even thoughonly one of you can walk away with
the prize, that doesn't mean youhave to be enemies. You can be
opponents, you can be adversaries,but you don't have to be enemies.

(34:30):
There's so many competitions out there wherethat's true. But there are more areas,
and I think we can all namea couple of them. This is
twenty twenty four. We're going tohave one of the biggest electoral rematches in

(34:57):
this nation's history in just a fewmonths, and it's for the presidency.
I remember seeing an image, apicture a few years ago of a bunch
of former presidents still living that wereall that were all just sort of grouped

(35:24):
together around the resolute desk in theOval Office, and they were all smiling,
and they were all clearly, youknow, standing there with respect for
each other, even though they werealmost as far apart in terms of politics
as you could get. You know, some of them had had pretty pretty

(35:49):
hard fought campaigns, even against eachother at times. I even remember one
time during the election of two thousandand eight when when the Republican candidate John
McCain was asked, was pressured oncamera by a voter at a rally to

(36:19):
try and get him to say somethingmean and nasty about Barack Obama. And
John McCain wouldn't do it. Hewould not treat his opponent like an enemy.

(36:42):
It's a hard lesson for some people, but life doesn't have to be
about making enemies. Even if youropponent believes the opit you do, even
if they would fight as hard asthey can to see to it that they

(37:10):
get their way instead of you gettingyour way, you don't have to be
enemies. That's what I learned fromthe Rocky movies. That's what I learned
from Apollo Creed. That's what Ilearned from Carl Weather's thank you for listening.

(37:42):
I'll talk to you more later