Rocky is one of those cultural institutions that’s inescapably referenced, parodied and otherwise appreciated at every turn. If you’ve never seen Rocky, you’re wrong. You’re probably seen enough of it, in bits and pieces dispersed through the rest of the world, to know exactly what it’s all about. After surviving a run of six movies over 30 years, it all must mean something.
To be perfectly honest, my own interest in Rocky was only sparked in 2006 with the release of The Meat action figure, and my interest in boxing went as deep as trying to defeat Soda Popinski in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! Still, we all love a good movie about a person beating the odds to become something special and live their dreams. It’s like Scarface, but with much less cocaine and naked weirdness. I think that any film that’s earned an Academy Award for Best Picture is worth owning in the best possible format.
Of course, after the highly rated Rocky, the films suffer a steady decline in ratings points until the relatively successful comeback of ‘Rocky Balboa’ in 2006, but it’s more about watching the odyssey of a single man over a span of 30 years than embracing a flawless cinematic experience. With Stallone expressing no interest in pursuing a Rocky 7 at this point (despite online interviews which were garbled by BabelFish suggesting otherwise), this is very likely the definitive collection for the entire saga, and in the best available format.
We’ll worry about what format comes next when it actually happens, but reports from this set pretty definitively state that the earlier films were simply shot on older technology that never anticipated the crystalline clarity that we have today. In short, grainy films are grainy. It can be a big part of the atmosphere and the charm, and to remaster things to the point where they no longer resemble the actual master is an exercise in pointlessness, and to a large degree, artlessness.
The Blu-Ray set includes seven discs in a great little shiny slipcase. Each disc obviously contains one complete film, with a seventh disc set aside for a bunch of extra features : the usual Making Of and Behind The Scenes stuff, a game, trailers, commentary from Stallone himself, interviews, and tributes to both James Crabe (director of photography, originally on the 2006 DVD ‘Definitive’ edition of Rocky) and Burgess Meredith (Mickey, also available on the same DVD). There’s no scene guide in this package, so be sure to retain the slipcase for all of this information. Ignore the Amazon reviews for this also – they display low ratings only because Amazon lowered the price on the item after said reviewers purchased it and have nothing to do with the product itself. I think that the intellectual leap it will take to get humanity to use Amazon product reviews properly is akin to what it took to invent the wheel. Seriously, people.
In a severely limited Blu-Ray collection, or any DVD collection, this is an essential part to have around. Godfather, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Rocky – these are the essential collections of movies that should exist in any collection. Snag it for around 50 bucks, which is a stellar price for a full epic in superior fidelity.
