Amerika

[Cowlesy]

What do you guys think?

YouTube - Amerika - It Takes a Village to Raise a Child (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA_dI2ia0QM)

[Andrew-Austin]

What is that from? Creepy, reminds me of the borg.


YouTube - We are the Borg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyenRCJ_4Ww&feature=related)

[michaelwise]

The village idiots ain't getting their grubby paws on my child. No how no way.

[Erazmus]

What is that from?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is it. Never heard of it before, now I want to see it. Thanks Cowlesy

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/

[RCA]

Here's another interesting movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144938/

[Cowlesy]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is it. Never heard of it before, now I want to see it. Thanks Cowlesy

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/

That looks like it might be it --- I've never heard of it before

[Brian4Liberty]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is it. Never heard of it before, now I want to see it. Thanks Cowlesy

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/

Yep, that looks like it. It's from an old TV mini-series. They broke the US up into regions...each a puppet state for the Soviets.

[Erazmus]

That looks like it might be it --- I've never heard of it before

I saw Kris Kristopherson in the video, and just looked him up in IMDB. It looked like an old movie so I just scrolled down to the 80's and 90's and saw Amerika. :)

[Deborah K]

Just looked to see if it could be bought or rented at netflix and blockbuster......nope. :(

[Deborah K]

Here's the write-up:

As the brainchild of writer-director-producer Donald Wrye, the 14 1/2 hour ABC movie event Amerika marked one of the most expensive and controversial miniseries in the history of prime time television when it bowed over the course of seven nights in February of 1987. Regarded as something of a conservative counterpoint to Nicholas Meyer's The Day After (which screened on ABC, four years prior and allegedly demonstrated leftwing bias - prompting very outspoken criticisms from Republican pundit Ben Stein), this $40 million production imagines a dystopian future set in the late 1990s. When the drama opens in May of 1997, the Russians have effectively won the Cold War by wresting control over the United States, with the backing of a U.N. Peacekeeping Force. Although the initial takeover was not annihilative or even apparently violent, the consequences are overwhelming; a puppet leader holds court in the Oval Office, the American economy has fallen to pieces with Midwesterners lining up for vegetables, and gulag prisons are scattered across the land; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of refugees have hit the countryside and wander aimlessly. The majority of the action unfurls in a rural Nebraska community, where onetime antiwar protester and presidential candidate Devin Milford (Kris Kristofferson) has just been released from a gulag, and now discovers his family farm being whittled away by the Russians. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Peter Bradford has somehow landed a position in the government hierarchy and finds himself being drawn in more deeply. Across the land, Russian stormtroopers engage in acts of violent intimidation, such as burning farmhouses and brainwashing abductees, while the Russian occupiers systematically maneuver on the political front to bring the once-powerful republic tumbling down. The supporting cast includes Christine Lahti, Wendy Hughes, Sam Neill, Armin Mueller-Stahl and many others; the title, of course, was intended to reflect "America" as modified to a slightly more Russian spelling. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

[Cowlesy]

Here's the write-up:

As the brainchild of writer-director-producer Donald Wrye, the 14 1/2 hour ABC movie event Amerika marked one of the most expensive and controversial miniseries in the history of prime time television when it bowed over the course of seven nights in February of 1987. Regarded as something of a conservative counterpoint to Nicholas Meyer's The Day After (which screened on ABC, four years prior and allegedly demonstrated leftwing bias - prompting very outspoken criticisms from Republican pundit Ben Stein), this $40 million production imagines a dystopian future set in the late 1990s. When the drama opens in May of 1997, the Russians have effectively won the Cold War by wresting control over the United States, with the backing of a U.N. Peacekeeping Force. Although the initial takeover was not annihilative or even apparently violent, the consequences are overwhelming; a puppet leader holds court in the Oval Office, the American economy has fallen to pieces with Midwesterners lining up for vegetables, and gulag prisons are scattered across the land; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of refugees have hit the countryside and wander aimlessly. The majority of the action unfurls in a rural Nebraska community, where onetime antiwar protester and presidential candidate Devin Milford (Kris Kristofferson) has just been released from a gulag, and now discovers his family farm being whittled away by the Russians. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Peter Bradford has somehow landed a position in the government hierarchy and finds himself being drawn in more deeply. Across the land, Russian stormtroopers engage in acts of violent intimidation, such as burning farmhouses and brainwashing abductees, while the Russian occupiers systematically maneuver on the political front to bring the once-powerful republic tumbling down. The supporting cast includes Christine Lahti, Wendy Hughes, Sam Neill, Armin Mueller-Stahl and many others; the title, of course, was intended to reflect "America" as modified to a slightly more Russian spelling. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide


uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....what does one say to that?

[Deborah K]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....what does one say to that?

I dunno...but.....it seems to be a scenario that we're all expecting to happen.

[Cowlesy]

I dunno...but.....it seems to be a scenario that we're all expecting to happen.

Well, my surprise was just that, if you substituted a few terms for more modern ideas, this guy sounds like he was eerily on to something.

[Deborah K]

Well, my surprise was just that, if you substituted a few terms for more modern ideas, this guy sounds like he was eerily on to something.

I'd really like to see this movie...gonna search around a little more.

[RCA]

You can buy the entire series on Ebay for $50 with free shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Amerika-The-Complete-Miniseries-on-DVD_W0QQitemZ230449597980QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_DVD _HD_DVD_Blu_ray?hash=item35a7ddce1c

[Deborah K]

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_(TV_miniseries)


Amerika has remained unseen on American television since its original telecast on ABC. A VHS box set of the miniseries was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1995, but no official DVD release is available. Portions of the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris were released on CD by Prometheus Records in 2004 (in a limited edition of 3,000 copies). The novelization is widely available from used-book sellers and online auction sites.

[Deborah K]

You can buy the entire series on Ebay for $50 with free shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Amerika-The-Complete-Miniseries-on-DVD_W0QQitemZ230449597980QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_DVD _HD_DVD_Blu_ray?hash=item35a7ddce1c

Thank you! It's VHS but I still have a couple VCRs laying around.

[Cowlesy]

You can buy the entire series on Ebay for $50 with free shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Amerika-The-Complete-Miniseries-on-DVD_W0QQitemZ230449597980QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_DVD _HD_DVD_Blu_ray?hash=item35a7ddce1c

bought a copy. will let you know if it is any good (and if the seller is any good).

[Anti Federalist]

Heard that Jericho took some of it's ideas from Amerika.

Heh, I'm old enough to remember watching it on TV.

[RCA]

Thank you! It's VHS but I still have a couple VCRs laying around.

The Ebay auction is for DVD's, but I have a feeling they are VHS bootlegs copied to DVD.

[RCA]

There is also one VHS copy of this movie on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/FREE-AMERIKA-BROADCASTING-VHS-BRIAN-KINCAID_W0QQitemZ120396397001QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVH S?hash=item1c082f39c9

[Anti Federalist]

The Ebay auction is for DVD's, but I have a feeling they are VHS bootlegs copied to DVD.


Amerika has remained unseen on American television since its original telecast on ABC. A VHS box set of the miniseries was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1995, but no official DVD release is available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28TV_miniseries%29

[Cowlesy]

yeah i figure this is someone who took the the time to record the VHS onto a DVD, so definitely a bootleg.

I don't even know what a VCR is, so I have to go with a DVD.






(kidding)

[Deborah K]

The Ebay auction is for DVD's, but I have a feeling they are VHS bootlegs copied to DVD.

Oh you're right! I thought it was VHS, probably because of what I read. I wonder what the quality would be since it's a copy from a tape.

[Deborah K]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28TV_miniseries%29

copy cat. ;)

[Anti Federalist]

copy cat. ;)

I know...:p

[RCA]

Let's hit Anchor Bay up with requests to release Amerika on DVD:

http://www.anchorbayentertainment.com/index.asp?p=Contact_Us

[Danke]

"Amerika criticized American society in the 1980s, implying that apathy and an unwillingness to defend freedom on the part of many citizens made the Soviet takeover rather easy. At one point, a key Soviet official observes that their plans for conquering the United States succeeded far beyond their wildest dreams, because once the nation had been defeated, Americans turned inward, not caring about national issues, seeking only to retain a piece of the prosperity that had once been theirs. "It (the Soviet coup) worked because you lost your country before we ever got here," says the Soviet leader. "You had political freedom, but you lost your passion ... How could we not win?"

This theme is echoed by another character later in the film:

Nobody wanted to risk anything for anybody else. Everybody was afraid they were going to lose what they had. They knew it was bad. They were just afraid it'd get worse. That's all they lived for – for things not to get worse.

Another speech, by politician Peter Bradford (see below), lashes out at apathetic American attitudes:

Damn, I'm so tired of this "I'm an American" bull! Where was all that patriotism when it counted? Where was that willingness to sacrifice? Nobody wanted to join the damn army to defend the country unless they got paid well! Nobody wanted to give any time to public service unless they could make a career out of it! And I didn't notice a lot of us giving up our lives in the last 10 years!

An early scene shows schoolchildren in Chicago learning about Social Darwinism, which is characterized as the dominant philosophy in the old United States before the Soviet conquest and occupation, and a speech delivered by one child later in the series demonstrates the extent of Soviet indoctrination in the new America:

We are the voice of the new generation. We are the voice of the new people. The destructive ways of the past are gone. We will replace them with our vision of the future. The Party will lead us to the new age. There have been those who have tried to stop the new age. They are the corrupt reminder of the past. They have tried to confuse us with the idea that the old America was a good country. We know that lie. History teaches us that lie. We are grateful to our Soviet brothers who saved the world from destruction, and we can now join them in a world of socialist brotherhood. Everyone will go to school, everyone will have a job, everyone will be equal. No one will exploit or be exploited, and all those who oppose this wonderful vision will be crushed."

[BuddyRey]

If it's good, will y'all upload it to teh YouTubes for us? :D

[Erazmus]

I would imagine they could do a remake of the mini-series, they did this with V. I think they've screwed up V. They'd probably do the same thing to this series. A DVD version could be cool. I look forward to watching Amerika soon. Gonna see if I can get my hands on a copy.

[Erazmus]

If it's good, will y'all upload it to teh YouTubes for us? :D

There's probably a torrent out there.

[roho76]

There's probably a torrent out there.

For those who know how to use it:

http://www.kickasstorrents.com/amerika-1987-parts-1-5-t3097457.html

[Deborah K]

I have to post this here since it's relevant to the topic:

YouTube - Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 9/9 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAyLHSNKuQ0&feature=related)

This interview was done by a rather young G. Edward Griffin back in 1984.

[Erazmus]

I want to watch Red Dawn now. :)

[Brian4Liberty]

I have to post this here since it's relevant to the topic:

YouTube - Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 9/9

This interview was done by a rather young G. Edward Griffin back in 1984.

Of course the warnings about big government, central planning and manipulative media are all very relevent, but I wouldn't trust that KGB guy for a second. He sounded like a neocon fear monger to me.

[Erazmus]

Anyone watched it yet? :p

[Deborah K]

Of course the warnings about big government, central planning and manipulative media are all very relevent, but I wouldn't trust that KGB guy for a second. He sounded like a neocon fear monger to me.

Really Brian? I'm hearing the neo-con-ish rhetoric. Point it out. Here are some quotes:

"Bringing a country to the verge of crisis." (Done- 9/11)
"To promise people all kinds of goodies." (Done - healthcare for all)
"To de-stabilize the economy." (Done)
"To eliminate the principle of free market competition." (In progress)
"To put a big brother gov't in D.C. and with benevolent dictators." (Bush - Obama)
"They will produce false illusions that the situation is under control." (Yet to be seen.)
"Unlike myself, you will have nowhere to defect to......this is it, this the last country of freedom and possibility." (True statement)

Is it the fact that he's former KGB? I mean, the truth is the truth in spite of the messenger.

[Brian4Liberty]

Is it the fact that he's former KGB? I mean, the truth is the truth in spite of the messenger.

Like I said, a lot of the message warning about big government was OK. After about the half-way point it's all about how we're at war, gloom and fear, the end will come tomorrow and we'll all get shipped to Alaska as slaves. The Soviets fell apart, that didn't happen. Most of the neo-conservatives gained access to the Republican party via their strong anti-Soviet stand, kind of like that guy did. And like that guy, they were mostly ex-communists. People beating war drums for you to fight their battles (with their enemies and ex-comrades) deserve some skepticism.

[Captain Bryan]

For those who know how to use it:

http://www.kickasstorrents.com/amerika-1987-parts-1-5-t3097457.html

What codec does this use? I can't get picture when I use VLC.

[Cowlesy]

Through 2 of 5 DVD's, interesting message so far.

I give the freelancer who made these credit, for some obscure 1980's series of shows, he did a good job of getting it on DVDs with workable menus, sound, etc.

[angelatc]

What codec does this use? I can't get picture when I use VLC.

All the codecs I ever needed: http://majorgeeks.com/K-Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack_d5230.html

[JeNNiF00F00]

What do you guys think?

YouTube - Amerika - It Takes a Village to Raise a Child (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA_dI2ia0QM)

What do I think? I think its pretty fuckin' scary!