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Every change in Rocky IV: Rocky Vs. Drago

posted 3 years ago by TMC-4 (19571)
13 replies | jump to latest

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/qs4973/every_change_i_noticed_in_rocky_iv_rocky_vs_drago/

No exploding gloves at the beginning

No Rocky v Apollo sparring in the beginning

Extends Rocky III recap instead

No Paulie bday party (!). No robot at all (!!!)

No anniversary cake in bed with Adrian

No car wash scene

No steroid question and Popeye joke during training session

"A normal heavyweight averages 700 pounds of pressure per square inch" is missing. Instead, they just show Drago hitting 1850 psi without context.

Adds yard talk between Rocky and Apollo

Adds kitchen scene with Rocky and Adrian

No robot interrupting dinner talk

Cut "regular people" line when Rocky and Apollo are watching old fight

No dressing room scene before Apollo fight

Cut ominous music before Apollo fight

No greeting between fighters' wives before Apollo fight

Rocky isn't announced before Apollo fight

Moved Drago's wife smoking to before the fight instead of after round 1

Added more to convo between Rocky and Apollo between rounds

Added Duke's speech at funeral, longer Rocky speech, talk with Adrian

Adds meeting with boxing officials who say Rocky can't fight Drago

No Drago's wife speech at press conference

Adds Drago trying to talk at presser (This was actually funny - a reporter asks Drago if he can talk and he just says, "Yes.")

"He's gonna have to kill me" speech moved from staircase talk with Adrian to cabin with Duke

Added stupid earmuffs joke between Rocky and Paulie in Russia

No kids watching fight from home ("What do you think we are, nerds?")

No "knock him out" speech from Duke before round 15

Adds ref warning to Rocky's corner before 15th

Different KO, no real count in new version. In original movie, Drago tries to get up, falls through ropes after about an 8 count

Different celebration, jumps into Duke's arms

Extended celebration, Rocky taps gloves with Drago after his speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvf8O9_lO2U

https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22777136/rocky-iv-directors-cut-review-stallone-rocky-vs-drogo

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/11/rocky-iv-rocky-vs-drago-review-silly-directors-cut-is-a-losing-battle

[–] MaximRecoil (4268) 2 years ago

You missed the biggest and worst change, i.e., they cropped it down to 2.35:1. This movie, like all of the Rocky movies, was originally framed for 1.85:1, so the only way to change it to 2.35:1 is to crop the top and/or bottom, which removes picture content that was originally meant to be seen and makes the framing look zoomed-in/cramped.

If you want your movie to be 2.35:1, you're supposed to decide that before you start filming, obviously, and the best way to do it is with an anamorphic lens, because it squeezes a 2.35:1 image onto a 1.375:1 frame of film and then an opposite type of anamorphic lens on the projector "unsqueezes" it back to 2.35:1 on the movie screen. Doing it that way utilizes all of the available resolution of each 1.375:1 frame of film; nothing gets cropped.

Nearly all 2.35:1 shot-on-film movies were shot with an anamorphic lens. A notable exception is some of James Cameron's later movies, e.g., Terminator 2. He shot them with a spherical (non-anamorphic) lens on Super 35 like you would normally shoot a 1.85:1 movie, but then cropped them way down to 2.35:1. This is a worse way of doing it because you're cropping away about half the film's resolution, but it isn't even close to being as bad as what Stallone did with this director's cut of Rocky IV, because at least Cameron's movies were originally framed for 2.35:1. In Stallone's case, not only did he discard a bunch of the resolution but he screwed up the intended framing as well.