Rocky IV and Rambo II: Long live America!
And the Russian general secretary gets up from his grandstand and applauds – for Rocky Balboa, the hated Ami, who came in the cold, first to train in the ice desert, then to Moscow, to fight the “fight of the century”. A fight against the supposedly overpowering Ivan Drago. A struggle of the political systems.
That the smaller rocky wins. After 15 round blue spots and broken bones, the victorious American wraps himself into the stars and stripes in the face of the Russian audience. And calls towards the Soviet boss: “If I can change, then you can also change – then the whole world must also change!” The Secretary General in the film, whose Herz Rocky conquers, is a Gorbachev look. The dream scenario of an union, like conceivable by a child that brings two argumentative parents together on the hands.
Rocky IV and Rambo II: Long live America!
1985 was a tough year for Stallone. If he caught Drago in December, he fought in a different part of the earth in the summer. In Asia, as John Rambo. In Vietnam he saved captured US soldiers, “Pows”, and still won the war that America declared lost in 1975. Ten years and in the film later it looked different: the one-man army mowed the Vietcong in droves. President Ronald Reagan invited Stallone, all media reported on the private screening in the White House. Reagan found “Rambo II: the order” so: “good”.
Leather stocking with scars and warts
Maybe you have to live in the eighties and have been very young. Maybe you also have to have been Americans with low education. This is the only way to see this propaganda of the Cold War without putting your hands over your head. To be honest, one cannot imagine that nowadays someone in Hollywood would get through with these films.
However, both works were deadly concerns for stallone. Rambo and especially Rocky have already been icons of the action cinema, and he learned to assess their potential better and better. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, who succeeded as a “Conan” and “Terminator”, he was a rival with no less expandable figures in the neck.
But Stallone knew what he had to do with his franchises. From the 1976 promoted boxer, he had made a rich millionaire in “Rocky III” (1982), who only has to regain the ambition, the “eye of the Tiger” in order to be able to defeat the street fighter Clubber. So a role backwards for Rocky, Back to the roots. The traumatized Vietnam veteran Rambo, in turn,, in his American homeland, as shown in the first film from 1982, no one wants to see his fulfillment in the former war zone. Even if he always emphasizes that he doesn’t really want to murder.
Rocky IV and Rambo II: Long live America!
1985, at the beginning of the filming of “Rambo II-The Mission”, Stallone was at least physically in the form of his life, the 39-year-old looked like a leather stocking with scars and warts, every visible muscle was defined. In order to be able to implement his plans, with George P. Cosmatos, he committed an unknown director, whom he conducted accordingly, and with James Cameron an even young filmmaker whose script he was to reject.
Stallone took over the Stunts itself
The official end of the Vietnam War was only ten years ago, and the fascination of the Americans with the idea that the US soldiers that were still captivated in Vietnam’s jungles could still vegetate.
Bring the boys back home. Stallone then developed a revenge epic from this idea, which at least sought his peers unparalleled as an action film. Jerry Goldsmith composed a score whose Tschingderassabum sounded like war. Stallone took over the stunts themselves, welding pores can be seen in large shots, constantly flying around a splinter around the ears, joints squeaking, there are realistic explosions: the jungle is bleeding.
The test audience turned to laughter
In addition, a dramaturgy that follows the steady principle of capture, outbreak and back. Rambo finds the camp, is detained himself, the Russians are in there, he breaks out, losing an accomplice in which he had fallen in love. He takes revenge on the three enemies “Charlie”, “Iwan” and the US covers who had played double game-because Rambo should never find US soldiers, his trip was a PR measure, it should end the uncertainty of relatives in America.
Rocky IV and Rambo II: Long live America!
However, what involuntarily funny potential Rambo reveals, shows a scene that made the test audience laughed before the theatrical release and therefore disappeared from the film: When Rambo’s companion Co Bao (Julia Nickson) dies in his arms, the direction leads a triple zoom on him, and the man screams an incredulous “NOOOOOOOO!” gen sky. A real McBain moment, from the “Simpsons” to “Team America”, copied a thousand times.
At the end of the film, Rambo is allowed to keep one of his notorious monologues again, in which he explains that his bloody deeds do not forced him, but are the result of the requirements of his environment. Bodycount this time: 57 Vietcong. Billing result: $ 150 million, in the same year it was only “back to the future” more successful ($ 210 million).
The USA Schünde “Anti -Soviet mood”
In third place in the most successful films of the year was another stallone – just “Rocky IV: The Battle of the Century”, $ 127 million. Directed by Stallone itself. The producers have the strip after a period of 24 years (then it was replaced by “The Blind Side”), labeled with the predicate “most successful sports film”. As a propaganda work, this film is even more entertaining. After Rocky’s mentor Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is beaten in the ring, the champion decides to compete against the culprit Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in Moscow.
A real event was still working. The Americans continued to be under the impression of their spectacular summer Olympics, organized in Los Angeles the previous year when a man with rocket drive flew through the stadium at the opening ceremony. Previously, the Russians and 13 other Eastern Bloc countries had announced that the sporting event.
Reason: The USA Schüre “Anti -Soviet mood”. Perhaps that was also a revenge: four years earlier, the Americans had announced that the games in Moscow stay away because the Soviets came in Afghanistan.
The path for 83 gold medals was paved to the opposing Americans, and Rocky also made it clear a year later which nation produced the best and, above all, fairest athletes, and how to do this at all. At least not: The Drago processes futuristic devices in a windowless sports institute and is injected with all sorts of means with observing a team of scientists and Brigitte Nielsen. Rocky, on the other hand, drives it into the snowy Russian forests, he steals muscles when chopping wood and pulling tree trunks. No sparring, but also no doping. Will Rocky defeat the fighting machine with these means?
Is Rocky a super person?
Like all boxing fights of the “Rocky” films-the best is probably the second fight between Rocky and Clubber Lang (Mr. T) from the third part-this is also impressive to look at here; Stallone and Lundgren are said to have agreed to put real blows in advance. At some point Rocky’s face looks as red -fueled as a sunset in Canada. Many fans of the film probably went through the imagination, the more serious they saw things.
In the “FAQ” section of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) there are curious examples. “Drago had literally pounded Apollo Creed. And he keeps hitting Rocky on his head – he still loses. Is Rocky a super person?” – Answer: “No, Rocky is not a super person. And there are different explanations for this, just as he does the apparently impossible – and drago defeated. A simple explanation would be that Rocky can collect an incredible number of blows without being defeated.”
Pushin ‘or’ Hearts on Fire ‘? “
The “Rocky” supporters only show a similar zeal for the most popular sequences of the films, the training montages. The clashes of the most important exercise units are underlaid with songs, whose motivational strength athletes are still passionate about in the IMDB. The length of the song is decisive for the structure of the training. “Which song goes better with the lifting of weights: ‘Pushin’ or ‘Hearts on Fire’?” To this day, every workout film parody grabs the development of a protagonist and thus the plot, which is usually due to three and a half to four minutes, which breaks down for weeks.
Of course, the “Rocky IV” soundtrack was also a child of his time. The 1980s were full of scores with an excavated, specially composed hard rock pieces, whose interpreters none (Rober Tepper, John Cafferty), who ran over vitamin B (Frank Stallone) or their lives apparently in a soundtrack, which were hanging from HIT.
“About ET?”
Like Kenny Loggins, who was also responsible for “Footloose” (1983) or “Top Gun” (“Danger Zone”, 1986). However, James Brown, who can even present his “Living in America” with a performance in the film, get the greatest musical appearance before the fight between Creed and Drago. Already a bit strange to experience Brown with this song about the beauty of the American cities as an advocate of the American dream, you consider what political discussions he led to in the 1960s with his songs.
Sylvester Stallone would later send his Rambo into battle twice (bitter irony: even in 1988 in the fight for the Taliban), Rocky still took action three times to this day. “Creed”, the story of Apollo’s son, who is now training Balboa, is starting in the USA on November 25th.
Stallone actually no longer wanted to indulge in illusions after his “struggle of the century” against Drago. “Who should I still fight against now?” He asked 30 years ago. “About ET?”