Many of those who read this blog will no doubt remember the original 1984 film "Red Dawn," written and directed by John Milius and starring Patrick Swayze and a young, pre-batshit crazy Charlie Sheen. In the film, the Soviets (that's the Russians, for you post Cold War youngsters) invade America and a group of red-blooded American high-school students form a guerrilla band to fight the commie occupiers in the Colorado Rockies. It's a Cold War classic and one of my favorite movies.
So naturally I was excited to hear they were remaking the film, this time with the Chinese communists as the foreign invaders in present times. Rather than fight the Red Menace (that's the commies, snotnose!) in Colorado, this time the young freedom fighters would fight them in Michigan which makes the name of the guerrilla unit make even more sense: "Wolverines."
After the film was shot, however, the studio fell into bankruptcy and the film sat on the shelf awaiting financing. Recently, according to the LA Times:
[P]otential distributors are nervous about becoming associated with the finished film, concerned that doing so would harm their ability to do business with the rising Asian superpower, one of the fastest-growing and potentially most lucrative markets for American movies, not to mention other U.S. products.Connecting a few more dots, James Wesley, Rawles at SurvivalBlog.com points out:
As a result, the filmmakers now are digitally erasing Chinese flags and military symbols from "Red Dawn," substituting dialogue and altering the film to depict much of the invading force as being from North Korea, an isolated country where American media companies have no dollars at stake.
Producer Tripp Vinson was quoted as saying: "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". [...] Did MGM's "careful consideration" include the management reminding them that Sony now has a stake in the newly-reorganized MGM? And is it it just a coincidence that the Chinese government is now "co-investing" with Sony? I think not.So the Hollyweird film industry, which regularly throws itself huge gala events to celebrate its own relevance and "artistic integrity," was willing to bend over and redo their "work of art" for the sake of a fistful of Chinese yuan. Whores! Yet if the film was about a pedophilic abortion doctor on a spiritual journey to paganism, and some Christian investor asked them to change one frame of film, the whole damned town would rally around the project and decry the "small-minded fascist's" attempt to stifle their free speech.
And about making North Korea the villains who invade America: Come on! True, the Norks have a "million man army," but I'm betting that most of them would drown swimming across the Pacific to get over here since they have no airlift or sealift capability to speak of. The few that did make here alive would still only be armed with obsolete commie-shit equipment and could be easily picked off by American military personnel, National Guard units, local police, Boy Scout troops, fly fishermen, and gas station attendants.
The filmmakers tried to even the odds a bit by having America have recently gone through an economic collapse (definitely the most believable aspect of the film). Even if America's economy totally collapsed, our barter economy of .22 rimfire ammo and backyard zucchinis would still dwarf the nonexistent economy of North Korea.
China was a much more believable economic and military threat for the film, but the filmmakers pussed out and did the bidding of the nation that is this century's other "toughest kid on the block." So Hollyweirdos: "Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
12 comments:
They may do this very well Bawb. They have had years of experience at appeasing the religion of peace.
Hollyweird like much of the artistic community like to view themselves as daring to challenge traditional thought, which generally manifests it self in denying rationality. The reality is that they are gutless and would sell their grandmothers grave if it suited them.
It would make a lot more sense for the NKs to land on the West Coast rather than swim right around the continent to get to Michigan. LOL
What foreign power, except maybe Kenya, would WANT Michigan these days? Of course, one could rightly argue that large portions of Michigan's cities are already Muslim occupied territory.
I'll probably see the movie once when it comes out on DVD, but I'm already set to be disappointed. Oh, how could they ruin the Golden Oldie of all Commie-killing movies???
As for swimming around the continent, Jim, don't forget they could take shortcuts like the Panama Canal or the possibly the Beaufort Sea. This leaves only the piddling Pacific Ocean for them to cross, thus making the movie much more believable.
Well I was thinking of California as a logistical choice but there are credibility issues that in retrospect make this doubtful.
It is after all a dubious assertion that if an oppressive Marxist regime were to invade and take over, that anyone there would notice. There might be some objections to all those uniformed guys with guns, but if it was explained that they were swat squads to deal with KKKapitalist exploiters, they would probably be welcomed with open arms.
In short it would be difficult to see what they would find to fight about there.
The idea of the Korea menace has already been thoroughly explored in the movie "Team America". How could the revamped "Red Dawn" compete with that? I'm so wronely.
OK, Jim, you're right. If they invaded Detroit nobody would actually notice the difference between the current Democrat administration there and the Norks. The Commies might even spruce the place up a little bit.
"...our barter economy of .22 rimfire ammo and backyard zucchinis would still dwarf the nonexistent economy of North Korea."
Bawb, you know how to put things in perspective.
With the US owing how many trillions to the Chinese, we don't have the balls to upset them. They might call our marker, and then it would be tits-up for our economy.
The Chinese are our new masters now.
When the DVD comes out, you may be able to get the original version (if it's not bootlegged already). And I'm betting it would outsell the bastardized version. I'd buy the original over the sanitized.
Yeah, you rock Bawb!
BEN, nice article, although you seemed to adapt some of Bawb's stylistic quirks.
I remember back when Bush 1 gave China most favored nation trading status. At the time, there was a great amount of rejoicing among American firms about selling Coke or Nikes to 1 billion Chinese--what a great new market. Now I struggle to find an article of clothing or bag of frozen food that doesn't come from China (forget about electronics--that is impossible). This did not turn out quite the way they told us it would.
Sorry, Ben. I get confused sometimes.
Or stupid.
That's okay stranded, I needed a good cry. It gets a bit cold here in Bawb's shadow.
Thank you Taxation without Representation... I think. I think America would do just fine having free trade with EVERYONE (including China), but not with the 500-pound gorilla of government standing on the throat of our own economy and industry via taxation (current and delayed through debt) and regulation.
Yeah, sorry about that Ben. It must be a real prick doing all that hard work while Bawb basks in the kudos.
As the last of 11 kids, I was constantly called my brother's names. We had a third grade teacher that never called me by my name and she lived on the next farm over. Still can't remember me.
Again, apologies to Ben.
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