The story of Rocky and Sugar both carry on the theme of the American dream in two ways that are different from each other and the general concept that comes from the American dream.
Going into the movie Rocky I was expecting lots of boxing and exercise and Rocky himself trying multiple times to climb the stairs to the museum until he finally gets there, but none of that happens for the vast majority of the movie. This detail that they took to almost never include Rocky’s previous fights made a lot of sense to me because the majority of the movie made it seem like Rocky is a loser who missed his chance to become something great. For example Rocky had all of his equipment put into a bag and on a hanger that everyone in the gym referred to as “Skid Row” which was explained to mean that the person on “Skid Row” was about to be kicked out the gym. This felt like Rocky was some sort of bum, but when the idea of him missing his chance entered my mind was when he went back out to confront Mickey, the owner of the gym, and Mickey replied by showing off a younger African American boxer and used the phrase “real potential” to describe the athlete. After this one engagement with Rocky and Mickey don’t meet until he gets the chance of his lifetime to fight Apollo Creed for the championship. Mickey coming to Rocky’s apartment and suggesting that he trains Rocky to stand a chance was an uncomfortable conversation in general because Rocky only ever added in half-assed comments into the conversation until Mickey adds in that it would be his greatest moment, which got Rocky upset because he never actually got a chance himself to be great, but Mickey was a very popular boxer before he became a gym instructor, and that idea is what pissed Rocky off and he went off on a tangent on how his situation stinks, his apartment stinks, and his life stinks, and there’s hardly any chance in any of this actually changing in his life. The conversation did get so tense that while Rocky was yelling Mickey just slowly slipped out the door and left the apartment almost as if he was disgraced of himself for not considering how Rocky could profit but only how Mickey could profit off of it, thankfully Rocky chased him outside the house and apologized and they walked off into the next day of Rocky waking and starting his training regimen, which the ending of the scene felt good to me because something as important as the championship should be given the most amount of effort possible which Mickey would help Rocky achieve.
I think that’s a fundamental difference between the two American dream films because while Rocky was thought to be past his prime with no talents until the fight with Apollo Creed made the people who disrespected Rocky to think he had a shot. Sugar, on the other hand was very well respected since the beginning of the movie and people would flock around him in his homeland of the Dominican Republic, talking about how he one the greatest pitchers in baseball. It’s reasonable to believe this because all we see for the vast majority of the games he plays is him striking out people with little effort. When Sugar finally gets a chance to play in a higher league of baseball in America he rejoices and everyone throws a party telling him to remember each and every one of the party participants for various reasons.
Once sugar finally gets on a team and actually starts pitching he performs the same type of magic for the start of the games ,then the head coach would always switch him out much to Sugar confusion. This also confused me because I knew there had to be a good reason to switch out someone that good. This consistency frustrates Sugar even further when an old friend of Sugar from the D.R joins the same team and proves to better than Sugar. This is where I felt one of the highest contrast in the two movies. Sugar had his talent seen early on and many helped him perfect it turning something that started as a hobby into a real passion, however Rocky was never given that type of acknowledgement for the vast majority of the movie with Mikey claiming Rocky rarely loses a fight, but being too barbaric and having no style in the ring makes Rocky a crappy fighter.
I felt it was incredibly interesting was all the time the two protagonists spent away from their sports. Between boxing Matches we see Rocky work for a loan shark as a thug, is awful at it shown being way too nice to those without the money the pay back the loan, he also develops a love interest in Adrian, Paulie’s,his best friend's sister. The pair goes on one and hit it off after that Rocky and Adrian are always close together in scenes following. In “Sugar” we see him with large groups of people whether he’s in the D.R or America and they most conversations are about baseball and in spanish which makes conversation in America difficult for him because no one spoke spanish as fluently as him except his friends and the end of the movie. When in America Sugar constantly distance himself from non spanish speaking people, Rocky never experiences a language barrier in his movie, Sugar leaves all of his family to pursue something great only to leave it behind in the end, and Sugar felt enough regret he called his uncle to try and get back on the team, but that never happens instead he runs across a hispanic carpenter while looking for a job to support himself and his family and at this moment I was reminded that Sugar was building furniture and parts a house for his mother and Sugar was apparently really good at it the craft. He is then re-introduced to another old friend from the D.R and a baseball team full of “rejects” of the professional baseball world and the movie closes with Sugar smiling while reciting his name and his former professional baseball team. I think that was the most important moment in the movie because the sport started off as a hobby and we see it end as a hobby and it felt great watching him finally enjoying the sport he loves and not have to worry about being good for his family since his income comes from a different source and I enjoy how they presented the American dream here: happy and stable.
Rocky’s ending is a little different because while the title fight between Apollo and himself is the next day Rocky visits the stage of the fight and comes under the conclusion he can’t win and he confides in Adrian that as long as he can do what no else has , last a full fifteen rounds, then he would consider himself a winner, and that’s just what happens Rocky and Apollo trade blows for an entire fifteen rounds, with the maximum number of rounds reached the ring is filled with reporters and Adrian slips into the ring while Rocky calls for her and the winner is announced under muffled screams as the two embraces. Now it can be assumed that Rocky did lose because nobody was facing the two embracing as if to take pictures of the winner of the fight or holding up Rocky’s arm as if he won the fight by the judges vote, however that doesn’t matter because Rocky completes his goal and the movie displays the American dream in the form of acknowledgement because even though he lost the fight he completed his objective, which would be self-acknowledgement, and Adrian is proud of him which is the acknowledgement of the most important person in his life. 
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