Red Dawn (2012)

Word is this is a North Korean invasion.

Sigh. Make believe. Yeah, its that land mass that doesn't light up at night.

nasa_earth_lights_east_asia.jpg
 
So a country with a population of 24,000,000 people invades a country with a population of 311,000,000? Sigh...

China would have kind of made sense really, jeez, they could have even said it was a metaphor for the economic situation or something. I guess the studio was scared of the repercussions from China for the release of future films?
 
The backstory seems very similar to that of the video game Homefront -- which was written by John Milius, writer of the original Red Dawn.

Backstory

The game's backstory begins during the early 21st century, with tensions between North Korea and global powers running high due to North Korea's military aggression, including its successful tests of nuclear weapons and the sinking of a South Korean ship.
In 2013, one year after the death of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il (which, incidentally, came in December 2011, several months after the game's release), his son and successor, Kim Jong-un, reunites North and South Korea to form the Greater Korean Republic (GKR). By 2015, a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, both now nuclear-armed states, has devastated the global oil supply, causing prices to skyrocket. This precipitates extreme economic turmoil and massive social unrest in the U.S. Subsequently, in 2017, the U.S. military recalls much of its overseas presence, particularly in the Pacific. A year later, Japan is conquered by the GKR under the threat of full-scale war.
In 2022, conditions in the U.S. worsen with the collapse of the financial system and an Asian bird flu epidemic that claims millions of lives. In 2024, Korea continues its expansion by annexing most of Southeast Asia, including its emerging economic powers. A year later, the Korean superstate launches a supposed GPS satellite that is actually an orbital weapon. It detonates a high-altitude nuclear device over the U.S., creating an EMP burst that wipes out much of the nation's electrical infrastructure. In the ensuing chaos, the KPA launches an amphibious invasion that seizes control of Hawaii and much of the U.S. Pacific Coast. KPA paratroopers are deployed over the Midwest and, with the U.S. military severely crippled and scattered, are able to effectively divide the nation at the irradiated Mississippi River, placing the Western states under GKR occupation.
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That said, this, like the forthcoming Robocop and so many others, is a movie which should never have been made.
 
Well the first one was nearly as ridiculous, Cubans and Nicaraguans...but still wicked fun to watch. Like the bastard child of Roland Emmerich's airhead antics plus the NRA's knuckle-dragging world view. And Jenifer Grey shooting sh*t.
 
The first one was Russians and Cubans, and the backstory was that Mexico failed, and a Soviet-backed coup gave Cuba control over much of Central America.
 
This is not good - every time they show a cheesy uber patriot film like that, America engages in an other war soon.

When I came out of "Pearl Habour" (enemies invading US soil), I told my girfriend exactly that, and a few month's later - dang, 911.

Hope I'm wrong this time.

Gonna be a cool flick to watch though, I really liked the first one back then.

Frank
 
The thing is that when you look at the trailer for this movie the closest thing it actually represents, in the recent history, would be Iraqi or Afghan terrorists fighting US occupying forces (idealistic kids fighting a culturally different and technologically superior force with makeshift weapons, roadside ambushes etc). So, interestingly this look both patriotic and anti-patriotic depending which way you interpret it.

But yeah, it looks like the cheese factor is going to be very high in this movie.

(And BTW I'm not being political; I'm talking about a movie, geddit?)
 
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Maybe harsh but I hope this fails.
Just watched a bunch a docs on NK...then someone pm'd the trailer....and I was like aaaah right !?
Yes its still a movie its fictional ...but please I cant buy it without laughing at the idea.

yes Love the first one...and I think why it was sucha a succes becuase it was very possible !!! but yeah anyways the story looks bad .
 
The main reason they changed it from China to North Korea is that they're afraid of losing some international profit, of which makes up most money from movies these days. Being a purely 'american patriotic' film, I don't see why that's of much concern... but even as a Canadian I like those films. A chinese market is a stretch though...

The movie looks fun though. Always like these stories.
 
Aliens would have been a more plausible enemy for this remake. Congrats Red Dawn remake, you just about made Battle LA seem like a gritty documentary at this point.

Since we are talking Red Dawn, how about Martian colonies rebelling against an invading army from Earth? That makes sense in terms of the title "Red" Dawn. As if a new dawn is on the horizon for the oppressed people of the red planet. At least a sci-fi treatment of this kind of concept could have worked as a set up for the film's strategic and political situation. Hell, make it take place on a terraformed Mars and you can pretty much film it in the woods of Vancouver or use the desert in Utah for the surface of Mars. No fancy pants big sets required, except maybe a remote mars colony town or outpost. Movies like Aliens, Avatar, and Starship Troopers get away with having soldiers going to war on other worlds but having more 21st Century style clothing and high tech but still relatable technology and weaponry. Red Dawn set on a terraformed Mars done as a gritty and relatable sci-fi action film would have been pretty easy to do.

Yeah, I know. Mars is supposedly a death sentence for movies (bull crap I say). Thing is we aren't talking about a 200 million John Carter type epic here. Red Dawn, the original at least, was a more intimately scaled war film that focused on the perspective of the invasion from that of the Wolverines, the high school kids. The same approach looks to be done here, and could have been done more plausibly as a sci-fi film than what they went with having North Korea invading the USA. What is next, a remake of the Chuck Norris classic Invasion USA, starring Brad Pitt with a scruffy beard?
 
Mars? C'mon.

China could have ben plausible, but North Korea makes it laughable at this point.

A gutsy Red Dawn remake for this decade would have been set in Iraq for instance, it would stop and make people think for a moment, a kind of role reversal movie where he Iraqi kids talk English and the invaders talk something else to make them seem more foreign. I mean you don't have to go to outer space to make use of an alien culture.
 
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