Rocky Balboa

Sitting bored at home, I was flicking through a thousand channels of nothing, looking for nothing in particular, when I came across Rocky. I hadn't seen the movie in around 5 years. The name of the movie immediately brought a smile upon my face. Rocky, the ultimate feel good film.

Everything about the story of the original Rocky is great. This was the movie that made Sly Stone a superstar.

Stone had tried unsuccessfully for years at selling the script to movie studios with himself playing Rocky. The studios wanted a established actor playing the lead. Thankfully for everyone Sly Stone held out. The stars eventually aligned and Studio X accepted and allowed Sly Stone to make the movie he had in his mind. And the rest is history.

I think Sly Stone channels the frustrations of the years of trying to sell this movie into this movie. His angst is channels into the character of Rocky.

I think the reason I love this movie is its allows viewers to empathise with a character that

If we put aside that this is an excellent character to emulate in our writing, let me start by saying that this is a character that any man can look upto as a hero.

He is the classic archetype of a hero. When these characters are written and portrayed correctly, they carry the weight of all other hero archetypes you have read about before, and add to it. They help add polish to the statue of hero’s we all carry in our minds.

Why is this character worth emulating? The trait of his arc is that the mountains each person needs to overcome will not come when you expect or want them. They will not be there when you are prepared mentally or physically. Rockys strength is having the balls to face the defining point of his life then. More than that, that’s what makes him a hero. To overcome a challenge that has been set before, with a boring formula or with ample resources would make him a useful cog in a machine that breeds success. Rocky, is a creation of a broken machine. One that creates a toy that it has no use for, if not for fate. Had Rocky worked his hardest from youth to be a boxer, maybe he would still me middling.

Winning the belt would prove to the world that he is worthy of recognition. Going the distance with Apollo creed would mean that he would gain some self-worth that maybe he isn’t a bum. The fact that he sets parameters on his own success