Thus, we’re getting hit with posters and trailers up the ying yang. Many featuring star Chris Hemsworth, who you might know as everyone’s favorite thunder god, Mulungu! Josh Hutcherson of Detention fame also is advertised a lot, making girls hungry for a game of Q and A starring the handsome young actor. Also other people are in the film, but they haven’t gone on to be famous so fuck them, they don’t get much facetime!
Red Dawn being remade has caused a lot of groaning, because the original had the specter of he Cold War backing up the fear and paranoia the film fed on. Now, the Cold War has been over for a decade and an entire generation has grown up not living in fear of instant nuclear annihilation from the Commies. At worst, the only real dangers are the threats of terrorists attacks, which would be brief disruptions that would launch the US into wars far away leaving the average kid unconnected to in any way. So the concept of America being invaded by an occupying force is rather laughable. Okay, it’s fucking stupid.
It got even more stupid when March 2011 saw MGM digitally altering the invading villains from Chinese to North Korean to not tick off China and keep access to their theaters to make megabank for their other films. Producer Trip Vinson said: “We were initially very reluctant to make any changes, but after careful consideration we constructed a way to make a scarier, smarter and more dangerous Red Dawn that we believe improves the movie.”
By “improves the movie” he means “improves the movie’s chance of making it’s $75 million back. Please see our movie. Please.”
No.
I mean, I’ll have an open mind. Maybe.
What is odd, is the altering of the villains from Chinese to North Korean makes the film strangely similar to the video game Homefront, written by John Milius – one of the writers of the original Red Dawn along with Kevin Reynolds. Homefront is totally plausible, according to the consultant they overpaid – “We went to a very rigorous, academic research process to make sure to not only look at North Korea’s current state but to look at historical examples how things could parallel and turn events. History repeats itself. From today to the day the invasion starts in the game, if you combine everything, the odds are very very slim this becomes true. But when you look at the storyline step by step, every step is a coin flip but a plausible step. So once you get there, it’s plausible. And from there the next step is plausible as well. Even though the whole thing is fictional, it comes with plausible baby steps.”
Yeah.
Open mind, open mind, open mind…
So the Remake Red Dawn is written by Jeremy Passmore and Carl Ellsworth and directed by Dan Bradley. Here is a cast list I copy/pasted from somewhere a year ago:
Chris Hemsworth as Jed Eckert
Josh Peck as Matt Eckert
Adrianne Palicki as Toni Mason
Josh Hutcherson as Robert Morris
Isabel Lucas as Erica Mason
Edwin Hodge as Danny Bates
Connor Cruise as Daryl Jenkins
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner
Alyssa Diaz as Julie
Brett Cullen as Tom Eckert
Michael Beach as Mayor Jenkins
Will Yun Lee as Captain Lo
Now, beyond the fact the original film has been basically adopted by the Right as something everyone needs to prepare for, it also featured a lot of good writing and nuanced characters on both sides. It was even a sort of metaphor for Mujahideen guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. I really doubt there will be that much interesting things going on in the remake, which will probably be as bland as humanly possible in a film involving lots of explosions. Judging from the trailer, there will also be far too long before the country gets invaded, so that’s not a good sign, either.
But open minds….
Propaganda posters from the filming of Red Dawn featuring Chinese symbols including the August 1st star. I do not know how these will be altered for the final film with the villains changed to North Koreans:
Poster for the remake:
