Red Dawn (2012)

Red Dawn



After dealing with a massive headache of production issues over the last few years—mostly stemming from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer going broke back in 2010, which caused endless delays—the first trailer for the Red Dawn remake finally dropped the other day.

Just to catch everyone up, this is a remake of that 1984 classic by John Millius. In the original Millius version, the USA was facing off against the Soviet Union, but for this remake, they originally cast Chinese people as the villains. However, the studio eventually decided to swap them out for North Korea instead. They actually went as far as digitally replacing all the Chinese flags in the footage with North Korean ones. FilmDistrict, who picked up the rights from MGM, made the call because they were worried that portraying Chinese people as the bad guys might tank the movie's chances in China.

The cast features Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Avengers, Star Trek, Snow White and the Huntsman), Isabel Lucas (Immortals, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Daybreakers), Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights, upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Josh Peck (Ice Age franchise), Tom Cruise, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, Supernatural, The Losers). It’s pretty wild to think about how most of these actors were relatively unknown when this was being filmed, even someone like Chris Hemsworth, who's a massive star now. It'll be interesting to see if their huge breakouts over the last few years help pull people into theaters for this one.

Dan Bradley is making his directorial debut here, and the US release is set for October 21st.

TRAILER

IMDB
Wikipedia

The trailer looks great.
In the initial draft, the whole reason for the Chinese invasion of the USA was this massive American debt owed to China—basically, they occupied the USA "to collect."
At this rate, China will be more powerful than the USA very soon, if they aren't already, so that premise might actually hold some water. But the way it stands now? The idea of poor North Korea occupying America is just so incredibly far-fetched that the whole thing feels totally absurd and ridiculous right from the jump.

North Korea is honestly pretty terrifying; they could probably take on the USA with those heavy-duty plastic weapons of theirs just as easily as you'd think.
They really should have leaned into the fantasy genre a bit more for this one.

Just wanted to point out that Americans actually put out a movie with a pretty similar vibe back in 2010: Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010) 🙂

The trailer looks like a total disaster. My only hope is that they lean even harder into those cheesy, patriotic one-liners and plaster every single frame with waving American flags in the background just to drive the point home.

I just finished watching the original Red Dawn (1984)...

It’s a decent watch, but...

...given that it was produced back in 1984, the premise is hard to swallow. In terms of sheer lack of realism, it feels very similar to those old war movies they used to make here back in the sixties...

They even include a monument to fallen soldiers in the film.

nimblemarlin6 said:The trailer looks great.
In the original concept, the catalyst for the Chinese invasion of the USA was the massive American debt owed to China; essentially, the Chinese would occupy the USA "to collect on the debt."
China will likely be more powerful than the USA soon, if they aren't already, so that might actually carry some weight. But as it stands, the idea of a tiny North Korea occupying Americais so incredibly far-fetchedthat the whole thing sounds completely absurd and ridiculous from the get-go.

They made it unrealistic on purpose...

Otherwise, they might have accidentally handed the Chinese an interesting strategic idea... and you can't exactly go around blaming other (more powerful) nations for everything these days.

.

Even the original was only filmed once it became clear the Soviet Union had economically collapsed and a full-scale war was off the table. Up until the late seventies, everyone was terrified of the Soviets like they were the plague.

It’s a similar story with "The Siege" (IMDB). It was shot five years before the Twin Towers attacks and almost ended up in the trash, only to blow up in popularity after 9/11.

If they had tried filming a war against China, they probably would have ended up behind bars and the movie would've been banned.

You honestly can't make this stuff up... and now there's a remake 🙂—seriously, do they just run out of ideas entirely? At this rate, you’d have better luck walking into a Vegas sportsbook and betting on which movie is going to be the next big flop...

Yes, well... the original Red Dawn from 1984 is simply superior...

And I am not merely making this claim out of childhood nostalgia; I actually sat down and watched it for the very first time just a few weeks ago.

Ultimately, the older film possessed a level of brutality that this new version failed to replicate.

I’m only about halfway through this movie and honestly, it’s just terrible... I think I might actually just turn it off right now...
I guess I was being pretty foolish to assume it would get even slightly better, especially since it was listed as a top-rated title on The Pirate Bay 😢(

Screw political correctness, honestly. China is such a massive market that they won't allow any negativity, and then you have this idea that North Korea is somehow going to take down the world's biggest superpower, even though they’d probably struggle to handle South Korea on their own. ☕

I guess I'm just looking for a movie where some foreign power actually manages to absolutely wreck the Americans, you know? This one was okay, I suppose, but it didn't quite hit that level of satisfaction for me.

placidrider48 said:Man, I just want to find a movie where some country absolutely wrecks Americans—like, total annihilation. This one was okay, gave me a little bit of a thrill, I guess.

I don't know about Americans, but apparently there's this old Bulgarian film from back in the communist era where they actually take out James Bond.😂

Just watched it... and honestly, I’m still reeling from how much of a total pile of garbage it was, even if they tried to wrap it up nicely. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am officially fed up with these American superhero movies featuring bottom-tier acting and trash scripts... ugh!

Keith Garcia7 said:Just a quick heads-up: Australians already released a film with a similar theme back in 2010. Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010) (2010) 🙂

This movie puts Red Dawn to shame. The books are just as good.

Red Dawn fell apart because of the script. If you're selling an invasion to an audience, you should actually focus on the invasion instead of leaning on cheap patriotism and explosions. It’s a shame; I really expected more from this one.

Entertaining enough, but you'll forget it pretty quickly.

Honestly, Tomorrow is definitely a much better movie than Red Dawn. Since they’re both dealing with pretty similar themes, you can really see the difference. For me, the worst part about Red Dawn was that brother character—he was just incredibly grating.
The main guy...

Kevin Hayes83 said:Honestly, Tomorrow is a much better movie than Red Dawn. Since they're basically tackling the same themes, I just couldn't stand that annoying brother character in Red Dawn...he was just so
unlikable compared tothe lead...

Oh, and I forgot to mention... what a total hack of an actor! What a garbage movie.

Tomorrow, when the war began
TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN

You can catch it on FOX this Monday, May 6th at 9:20 PM. 🙂

It’s playing on PBS right now.

Gave up on this after just 10 minutes. Honestly, it’s boring as hell.