Red Dawn

[CaptUSA]

Ok, so I'm finally starting to see the trailer:



What do you think?

I remember when the original came out. I was just a kid, but it probably was responsible for setting me on the path towards understanding liberty.
The original was beautiful. (of course, it looks dated now) The scenery was just about perfect, and the plot themes and characters were well-constructed. The messaging about political maneuvering, gun rights, war, and insurgency were awesome.

This new one looks pretty Hollywood, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Thoughts?

[QuickZ06]

O look, another hollywood remake. How original.

[Anti Federalist]

O look, another hollywood remake. How original.

No $#@!, what the hell happened, did a plague target screenwriters or something?

Remakes of old movies, old TV shows and old comic books with a load of computer graphics which make the whole thing look like a video game is all they seem to have anymore.

[MelissaWV]

It looks awful.

[Lucille]

They should have stuck with China as the invading force. North Korea invading the US requires way too much suspension of disbelief.

[John F Kennedy III]

They should have stuck with China as the invading force. North Korea invading the US requires way too much suspension of disbelief.

That's what happens when TPTB have control over how Hollywood makes their movies.

[jmdrake]

They should have stuck with China as the invading force. North Korea invading the US requires way too much suspension of disbelief.

But then folks might have thought more about this speech.

[Pericles]

They should have stuck with China as the invading force. North Korea invading the US requires way too much suspension of disbelief.

I hope the black market can supply the original version. Will check out the remake to see if the black market efforts will be worth it, or stay with the 1984 version.

[osan]

They should have stuck with China as the invading force. North Korea invading the US requires way too much suspension of disbelief.

North Korea?!! Really? That's about as credible as being militarily attacked by an 83 year old woman stuck in a wheel chair with such bad COPD she needs 24x7 oxygen just to be able to sit still without passing away.

Truly it is the end of days.

[pcosmar]

Truly it is the end of days.

It truly is misdirection.
Our own Government is a greater threat.

[osan]

It truly is misdirection.
Our own Government is a greater threat.

Greater threat than what? The vast population of functional imbeciles over which it reigns? I'd call that a push.

[The Freethinker]

North Korea?!! Really? That's about as credible as being militarily attacked by an 83 year old woman stuck in a wheel chair with such bad COPD she needs 24x7 oxygen just to be able to sit still without passing away.

Truly it is the end of days.

Thank you. And something tells me, Osan, that you're a military man. Perhaps it's the fact that your nick is the same as the name of a US military installation in South Korea.

You know much of the US public is composed by ignorant sheeple when Hollywood thinks it can get away with a movie portraying North Korea as capable of launching an invasion of the continental United States. North Korea's air force has airplanes from the 1950s; its pilots barely get any real training due to lack of fuel. At least 90% of North Korea's ground troops are stationed near the DMZ to deter any possible northward move by the South Korean army. The training North Korean military personnel conduct is strictly to defend North Korea from outside attacks and to overrun South Korea. They do not have bomber aircraft, they do not have missiles to reach the continental US (despite their rhetoric), and while they do have a 100,000-strong spec ops force, their goal, again, is to infiltrate South Korea and to cause havoc so as to stun a response to a North Korean invasion, thereby easing the objective of taking over the South.

However, even that would be a lofty goal, as the South Korean army, while smaller, is generations ahead in technology. It is fed the way the US army is fed: like a first-world military. It actually has an air force to speak of. And thanks to the US military's bases both in Japan and South Korea proper, the South Korean military enjoys the advantage of massive US air support. US air support would not in of itself neutralize the formidable might of the thousands of Soviet-era artillery pieces deployed along the DMZ which could and would rain dozens of thousands of rounds on Seoul in a few hours' time - but it would be sufficient to create an Asian "Highway of Death" equivalent whereby the aftermath would witness rows upon rows of wreckage on the Northern side.

If, therefore, North Korea would be hard-pressed to survive a few weeks against a combined US-ROK effort against its military (let's not even mention an effort to march to the Yalu, as General Douglas MacArthur nearly accomplished in late 1950), it would be the stuff of dreams for North Korea to invade the United States.

But of course, Hollywood and the people it targets know none of this. Hollywood won't be getting money from me to watch this piece of nonsensical trash. If it had been China, at the very least, we would've been talking with a feasible foe.

[MozoVote]

Yeah, very similar cinematography as so many other action or disaster flicks over the last decade or so.

The actor selections look formulaic too.

[CaptUSA]

The dialogue looks predictably Hollywood. Made for soundbites for the commercials.

Any thoughts about the messaging? How similar will it be to the original?

[juleswin]

I just watch the news about the Iraq war if I want to relive Red Dawn. Their resistance is getting pummeled by the blue invaders. I wonder if the American audience would be able to see the similarities between Red Dawn movie and the war in Iraq?

[MelissaWV]

I just watch the news about the Iraq war if I want to relive Red Dawn. Their resistance is getting pummeled by the blue invaders. I wonder if the American audience would be able to see the similarities between Red Dawn movie and the war in Iraq?

Probably not, considering even the tag line talks about not thinking about the threats to our safety.

[Shane Harris]

I just watch the news about the Iraq war if I want to relive Red Dawn. Their resistance is getting pummeled by the blue invaders. I wonder if the American audience would be able to see the similarities between Red Dawn movie and the war in Iraq?

Don't you know the Iraqis wanted us to invade! We liberated them. duh

[phill4paul]

The original was about average everyday Americans fighting back. This one has an ex-marine with a police chief father. Yeah! Uniforms to the rescue.

[MelissaWV]

The original was about average everyday Americans fighting back. This one has an ex-marine with a police chief father. Yeah! Uniforms to the rescue.

Don't forget that the females in the original did not look like they might break into a Pantene commercial at any moment?

[phill4paul]

Don't forget that the females in the original did not look like they might break into a Pantene commercial at any moment?

Ha! Right, right.

[Shane Harris]

Review of the original by Murray Rothbard: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard64.html

It’s not only the Supreme Court that follows the election returns. Hollywood, too, does its bit, and movie theatres have been increasingly filled with right-wingy patriotism, like the rest of the media this endless summer. I went to see Red Dawn expecting a bout of anti-Soviet warmongering, but instead was pleasantly surprised. This is hardly a great picture, and is indeed flawed. But Red Dawn is an enjoyable teen-age saga, and, apart from right-wingy pro-NATO credits at the beginning of the film, it is not so much pro-war as it is anti-State. The warfare it celebrates is not interstate strife, but guerrilla conflict that the great radical libertarian military analyst, General Charles Lee, labeled "people’s war" two centuries before Mao and Che.


The beginning of the picture is exciting, if idiotic. Cuban, Nicaraguan, Mexican and other Commie Hispanic troops, headed by Soviet advisors, parachute into and successfully conquer the entire prairie Mid West, from the Rockies to the Mississippi. In the opening sequence, the Red paratroops swiftly invade and, for some reason, annihilate a high school in the mythical town of "Culver City," Colorado, presumably somewhere in the East Slope foothills of the Rockies. In a neat touch, gun control has made it easy for the Commie occupiers to round up all the registered guns in the area. But a half-dozen high school kids escape and set up a guerrilla camp in the Rockies. Jed, the older leader and a former school quarterback, whips the other reluctant lads into shape, and soon the tiny guerrilla band, using light arms, mobile tactics, and superior knowledge of the terrain, strike terror into the Red occupying forces while brandishing the rallying name of "Wolverines." There are some revoltingly macho touches at the beginning, especially when one of the young lads receives his mystical baptism into the guerrilla rites by drinking the blood of his first kill – fortunately a deer rather than a Commie. These touches subside after a while, although they are hardly softened by the appearance of two young lady guerrillas who are fierce and androgynous enough to pose for a Viet Cong or Algerian guerrilla poster.


One of the best parts of the picture is the graphic portrayal of how the Red response to the Wolverines runs the gamut of the U. S. counter-revolutionary responses to the Vietnamese. That is, at first the Russian commander decides to hole up in the cities and military bases, into the "safe zones," whereupon the Wolverines boldly demonstrate that in guerrilla war there are no safe zones, and that the "front is everywhere." At that point, another crackerjack Russian commander takes over, and replicates the "search and destroy" counter-guerrilla response of the Green Berets. This is more punishing, but still does not succeed.

One big problem with the picture is that there is no sense that successful guerrilla war feeds on itself; in real life the ranks of the guerrillas would start to swell, and this would defeat the search-and-destroy concept. In Red Dawn, on the other hand, there are only the same half-dozen teenagers, and the inevitable attrition makes the struggle seem hopeless when it need not be.

Another problem is that there is no character development through action, so that, except for the leader, all the high school kids seem indistinguishable. As a result, there is no impulse to mourn as each one falls by the wayside.

But whatever flaws the movie has are redeemed by one glorious – and profoundly libertarian – moment. The Nicaraguan-Cuban insurgent leader is increasingly unhappy acting as a State occupying force. He tells the implacable Russian commander: "Once I was an insurgent. Now I’m a policeman" – the last word spoken with profound contempt. He writes his wife: "What am I doing in this cold and lonely spot, so far away from home?" So that, in the climax of the film, as one people’s war guerrilla to another, he saves the hero, Jed, and allows him to slip out of the Russian net. Ideology, left and right, gets swallowed up in hands-across-the-sea of people’s guerrillas against their respective States.

In all war pictures there is the annoying pacifist nudge, griping about "how do we differ from them," since both are shooting and killing. (The LeFevre-Smith motif.) Jed’s answer is satisfactory enough, even though lacking profound argumentation: "Because we live here!"

Another fine touch is that the evil informer who almost does the Wolverines in is, naturally, the son of the town Mayor, who is identified by friend and foe alike as "the politician." The Mayor, who directs the betrayal, cringes fawningly if despairingly in carrying out the orders of the occupation force.

All in all worth seeing – exciting as well as libertarian.

[GunnyFreedom]

The original was about average everyday Americans fighting back. This one has an ex-marine with a police chief father. Yeah! Uniforms to the rescue.

Sorry, there are a crap-ton of veterans out in society. My complaint with the original Red Dawn was a conspicuous lack of veterans. I rather like the fact that a former Marine is involved, and I actually find that more realistic rather than less.

Indeed, it looks a bit too Hollywood, and Melissa is right about the impossible grooming, but special effects aside I sure hope they went the Star Trek remake route rather than the Star Wars remake route. It has real potential.

[phill4paul]

Sorry, there are a crap-ton of veterans out in society. My complaint with the original Red Dawn was a conspicuous lack of veterans. I rather like the fact that a former Marine is involved, and I actually find that more realistic rather than less.

Indeed, it looks a bit too Hollywood, and Melissa is right about the impossible grooming, but special effects aside I sure hope they went the Star Trek remake route rather than the Star Wars remake route. It has real potential.

As a vet I understand that there are many vets in society. Still, the reason why I liked the original was that the Wolverines were composed of high schoolers. They had no combat experience and had to come into adulthood fighting as guerrillas. Later, they were tutored by a downed pilot, but until that time it was an 'oh-$#@!' situation for them. Adding a vet into the mix takes away from that. IMHO. Tomorrow, When the War Began had these same elements and as far as a knock off I believe it will be seen as a better movie.

[Liberty74]

The original was about average everyday Americans fighting back. This one has an ex-marine with a police chief father. Yeah! Uniforms to the rescue.

Except when the real $#@! hits the fan, our government will be in cahoots with those invading our country. The DHS will go on national TV declaring the "ex-marine" is the terrorist. Oh never mind, our government has already done such. Silly me.

I think some of you miss the point here. Our government uses the media and particularly Hollywood to portray some type of future reality.

[KingRobbStark]

The only way they could have made it worse is too include the characters from Twilight. The titles seem similar.

[MelissaWV]

The only way they could have made it worse is too include the characters from Twilight. The titles seem similar.

They included the male lead from Hunger Games, and the dude that plays Thor (whose brother was in Hunger Games, so they kind of look alike). They put everyone in that pretty age group where teen girls are supposed to shriek with delight over them. And I don't see any of the original in this remake.

[Tod]

For contrast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc

For some reason it won't embed for me. When I click okay, nothing happens.

[idiom]

Jericho and Last Resort are much more realistic at this point.

[matt0611]

Even China invading the US would be a huge stretch. North Korea? Pfft.

Looks pretty stupid to me.

[GunnyFreedom]

Even China invading the US would be a huge stretch. North Korea? Pfft.

Looks pretty stupid to me.

the more 'impossible' the enemy, the better, IMHO. A plausible enemy begs only itself, but an implausible enemy can be anybody, even our own.