You know what the best part about writing a blog is? You get to come up with shit like this to write about. So its post St. Patrick's day, I am not even thinking about going to bed (energy drinks will do that to you), so I decide to flip through YouTube and watch random videos. Of course I eventually got to some Rocky training montages, and had a brilliant brainstorm. Why not use this built up energy to see which montage is the best? It gives me something to do, it will be fun, and it gives me an excuse to just watch the training montages. So after watching each montage (twice) I think I am ready to write this. Before I get to it here is the criteria:
Chills
You know when you watch something so amazing it just sends chills throughout your body? Well I subjectively rated the chills I got from watching each scene (bonus points if I got them the second time through) on an arbitrary scale, and ranked the montages accordingly.
Music
You can not have a good montage without good music, this almost goes without say.
The scene
Is it even possible to compare these? I will go more into what this category is when I talk about the montages.
Overall Impression
A simple rating for the overall experience.
Note* I guarantee some of you will disagree whole-heatedly with my rankings and I am cool with that, you are more then welcome to let me know how I could have ranked these better. Also, I am only doing movies 1-4, so if some scenes are missing, you know why. Anyways...
# 4 - Rocky 3 Training Montage: West coast style
Chills: 6/10
Scene: 9/10
Overall impression: 8/10
Total: 33/40
The music used for the montage was great as was the scene. So Rocky has to go West to befriend former rival Apollo Creed, who will train him to use quickness and agility instead of brute strength to win. What the montage lacks in chills, it makes up in the training department. Some of the drills Apollo had Rocky do were downright fun to watch. Also, this training montage gave us the birth of bromance; that embrace that Rocky and Creed do when Rocky finally bests Apollo in the beach race is so surreal.
# 3 - Rocky 1 Training Montage: The Original
Music: 10/10 (you might see a pattern here)
Chills: 8/10
Scene: 8/10
Overall Impression: 8/10
Total: 34/40
Man, those trumpets get me every time. It is unbelievable how well the songs for these montages were chosen. I do not think that there is a person on this Earth who has seen a Rocky movie and is not amped to do something, anything, when they hear the "gonna fly now" music. Unlike the montage in Rocky 3, Rocky 1 delivers in the chills department. Firstly, I do not think any athlete could be loved this much in the real world. Just watching Rocky running through the slums of Philadelphia, being greeted by everyone (love when the dude throws him a fruit) makes you feel good when you watch it. To top it off, the training is very enjoyable (I think Mickey is 100 percent the reason for this), and the montage gives us the iconic image of Rocky hopping up and down on the stairs when he completes his run. Picking between this and number 2 on this list was border-line impossible. By the way, if you are wondering what the best 'chills' moment in the Rocky series is, hands down its this. I don't care if I gave away my number one scene for the 'best in-fight scenes in the rocky movies' feature that I will definitely do eventually; this clip gets a 20/10.
#2 - Rocky 4 Training Montage: Mother Russia
Music: 10/10
Chills: 8/10
Scene: 9/10
Overall Impression: 8/10
Total: 35/40
The beauty of Rocky 4 is that it gave us many brilliant montages, (with 'No easy way out' being spectacular) including not one, but two training montages! This montage also has the distinction of having different music than the others. But you know what? It works. I don't know if it's the piano, or the drums, or the sound effects, but for whatever reason the song in the first montage works. The real beauty of this montage however, comes from the scene. I mean, just look at where this man is training! I don't think I could last a week in an isolated Russian village, where the only pastime is to work out to prevent yourself from going insane. What makes this even better is when we see that while Rocky is chopping down 100ft trees, sawing wood, and tossing rocks, Drago is training with state of the art technology (and steroids), under supervision of Russia's greatest training team (assumption). On that note, why anyone would volunteer to spar with Drago is beyond me. Also, what exactly is with the random guys following Rocky around as he runs in the Russian tundra? Did they lose a bet? This was never properly explained. This montage got bonus points for Rocky screaming "Drago!" at the top of his lungs after he scaled a ridiculously high mountain.
#1 - Rocky 2 Training Montage: "What are we waiting for?"
Music: 10/10
Chills: 9/10
Scene: 9/10
Overall Impression: 8/10
Total: 36/40
So we get the run through Philadelphia with a brilliant addition: the kids. I knew it was going to happen, I tried to resist getting goosebumps, and for the millionth time I failed. You have to have a heart of stone not to like the scene of him letting the kids tag along for a bit, only for Rocky to hit full speed, beat them to the top of the stairs, and then celebrate with them. As was the case with Rocky 1, the presence of Mickey makes the training a lot more fun to watch for some reason (those abs when the dude is punching rocky just look brutal). Add in the "going the distance" song and you have yourself one hell of a training montage. Picking between these was next to impossible, and in a few years this order might change entirely. It truly is incredible that these movies withstood the test of time and are all watchable to varying degrees today. This might be the funnest thing I have ever written about.
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