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Rocky IV (1985) - 15 corrections

Directed by Sylvester Stallone, starring Brigitte Nielsen, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Dolph Lundgren, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire (add more)

Genres: Action, Sport

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
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During the Apollo/Drago pre-fight festivities James Brown is singing the song "Living in America". At certain times during the song James Brown is too far away from the microphone for his voice to be heard as it sounds. And at certain times his lips aren't even moving when we hear lyrics of the song being sung. [So he's miming - not the first singer to do it,especially at a big event like this.]
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After Rocky defeats Drago, he is speaking in the ring and mentions that his son should be sleeping by that time. In the montage following Rocky and Adrian's discussion about the fight with Drago (the one where they're on the staircase), there's a shot showing that Rocky's car has a Pennsylvania license plate. Moscow is eight hours ahead of the eastern time zone of the United States. For Rocky Jr. to be up past his bedtime watching his dad, the fight had to have taken place very early in the morning Moscow time. For example, if it's 11:00pm in Philadelphia, it's 7:00am in Moscow. [Rocky has always been portrayed as being of somewhat below average intelligence and may not know what the time difference is between Philly and Moscow. Plenty of very intelligent people make these mistakes all the time and they haven't been pounded for 15 rounds by Dolf Lundgren. The movie never states when the bout is held although evening is assumed. In any case, it is a character mistake not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Gibbsdoc
In the first fight between Apollo and Drago, towards the end of Round 1 and even into Round 2, Apollo is getting pummeled. Before his eventual knockdown (and death) mid Round 2, we see the referee step in to try and control Drago, and he is violently shoved aside, and the match continues. Anybody knows in real boxing, within seconds the referee would have stopped the match and disqualified the offending boxer, if not already stopping the match minutes or rounds beforehand for one boxer dominating over the other. [This is an exhibition bout, not a sanctioned event. The referee may not even be certified but may be a "celebrity" referee; there may not even be a licensed fight doctor with the authority to stop the fight (which certainly would have happened whether Apollo wanted to stop or not). The unofficial nature of the fight adds to the tragedy of the events and emphasizes the ruthlessness of the Russian fighter - no mistake here.]
Edit Corrected by Gibbsdoc
During the 2nd round of the fight between Drago and Rocky, after getting tossed to the ground by Drago, Rocky makes his way up and out of the corner and takes a couple of hits to the head and goes right back down to the ground and gets back up. The referee does not start a count on Rocky for being knocked down. Even though this is an exhibition bout, the standing eight count rule should still be in effect in this case. According to professional boxing rules (Safety During the Competition) the standing eight count is "waived in some circumstances." Considering Drago killed Apollo Creed and was killing Rocky up to that point in the bout, the standing eight count should not have been waived. [Once again, it is emphasized that this is an exhibition bout, not sanctioned. There is no way to know what rules are in force and which are not; since this is a Russian referee and the bout is taking place in Russia and the entire event is set up to see the Russian destroy Rocky, the idea that a standing eight count would be mandatory seems to be a stretch. In any case, it is a character choice (the ref) not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Gibbsdoc
When Apollo Creed fought Ivan Drago, Drago knocked him out in the second round. In the scene, Drago pulls his left hand back ready to punch, then a closer shot shows how his right fist hits Creed, and again in the next shot it shows how Drago's left hand has just landed. [It was actually a left that hit Creed, not a right. The camera angle was coming from the left and you can clearly see the back of a glove during the slow motion bit which could only happen if a left was thrown. Creed's head position and reaction make it appear to be a right.]
Edit Time
If Ivan Drago could have really punched as hard as three average heavyweights, Rocky would have gone down after two powershots at the most. [Not necessarily. Drago could hit with 2150 pounds of pressure just after his drug injection, with time to prepare his punch at a stationary target in a climate-controlled environement. Against Rocky, a human, moving target who was hitting him, Drago's punching power diminished greatly over the course of the bout. In addition, the Russians could have rigged the machine for the press conference.]
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In the scene before Rocky and Drago enter into the ring.You see some countries names.When it comes to the Soviet Union.You see CCCP/Russia.It should have been CCCP/USSR. [This is incorrect, it actually does say CCCP/USSR not CCCP/Russia.]
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Rocky trains in Siberia in December for weeks, yet when he fights Drago he has a near full-body tan. It's doubtful that he went to a tanning salon. [Not necessarily true. We could surmise that Rocky continuously tanned in his hometown, and then left for three weeks. That amount of time gone wouldn't necessarily affect his tan.]
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During the inevitable training sequence about 25 minutes from the end, Drago and Rocky are shown shoulder pressing; Rocky the wagon and Drago the barbell. Rocky's weight is certainly impressive looking, but Drago's it is impossible. While the film-makers wanted to show the immense strength of the doped-up Soviet, there is almost no way he can slow press over 450 pounds shown on the bar. The world record in the Olympic clean and jerk is just around 500 pounds and that is with momentum and throwing the bar up. [Not impossible. Some of today's strongest bodybuilders are handling even more weight than that. Check out the current Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, as well as IFBB pros Markus Ruhl and Art Atwood. Markus Ruhl has shoulder pressed over 500 lbs in the seated position for several reps. I have pictures and videos of Ronnie Coleman and Art handling even more weight.]
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When 'team Rocky' arrives in Russia to train for the Drago fight, Pauly starts to complain about the Spartan conditions. One of the complaints he makes is that he will be missing college football's Rose Bowl game. The Drago/Balboa fight took place on December 25. Prior to the forming of the BSC in the late 1990s, the Rose Bowl always took place on January 1. Hence, he would have been home in plenty of time to catch the game. [First and foremost, Paulie is an idiot and a drunk. The idea that he could make such a silly mistake is completely in character. Secondly, he's seen Rocky II and presumably knows that sometimes, after a fight with a particularly tough opponent, Rocky needs a little hospital attention. Paulie's being pessimistic and not too bright. In other words, he's being Paulie. Not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by K.C. Sierra Time
During the dinner scene when Rocky and Apollo are discussing Apollo's possible fight with the Russian, Adrian advises against the idea, claiming Apollo had "been retired for nearly five years." We assume Rocky IV happens about 1985, that would put Apollo's retire year, according to what Adrian said, somewhere about 1980, or maybe slightly previous, say in 1979. In the movie sequence, we presume Apollo retired as he said he did after his loss of the title to Rocky, and that (at least in movie time) was about 1976, when their rematch took place. So Apollo had been retired over 8 years, not "nearly five." [As has been pointed out about these films before, the year they are made is not necessarily the year they are set in.]
Edit
In the scene where Rocky is driving his car after the talk with Adrian, he begins to have flashbacks of events that have happened in the previous three movies. During those scenes, there are a couple of shots which show Drago, standing alone in the dark with a strobe light flashing for effect making it seem like he's standing in front of Rocky, for the fight. His face in these scenes show him as though he has already been fighting but unless it's just Rocky's imagination it doesn't make sense to have it look that way since Apollo, didn't even make a scratch on Drago's face during their fight. Rocky is the only fighter to ever seriously beat Drago, so his face wouldn't have looked like that until it was their fight at the end of the movie. [Yes, the flashback does happen in Rocky's imagination (or at least his memory), so it would appear differently from reality.]
Edit Corrected by Myridon
In the scene where Apollo is playing with his dogs in the pool and watching the news announcing the arrival of Drago, he has one tennis ball in his hand, in the next shot from another angle he has three tennis balls, and in the next shot he has only one again. [He was throwing the balls for the dogs to bring back to him in the pool. While he's watching the TV, you can hear them keep splashing in and out.]
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At the end of the movie when Rocky is addressing the Russian crowd, the crowd breaks into applause after Rocky says "If I can change, and you can change..." but before he finishes off emphatically with "...everybody can change.", the part that should spur the applause. The timing of the applause seems quite unusual, and is done merely to make the scene more dramatic. [This doesn't seem like a mistake to me. It's not unusual for an audience to react to a speaker's words before he finishes his thought. When Rocky began speaking about people's attitudes changing, they reacted spontaneously.]
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In this movie Rocky is celebrating with his wife their almost 9 year anniversary of their wedding. That is not correct, because this movie was in 1985 and they got married in Rocky II in 1979. That is 6 years not 9. [They didn't get married in 1979. It was 1976. Rocky and Apollo's first fight is in January of 1976 for the Bicentennial. Rocky proposes to Adrian on the day he gets out of the hospital following the fight and they are married in the next scene. Rocky 2 may have come out in 1979, but the events of the film take place in 1976.]
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