Bad news from Lileks:
Over the fire I chatted with a neighbor who’s working on the “Red Dawn” remake. Get this: in the new version, China and Russia invade the US – to put a stop to our greed. There are times you wish you had a mouthful of kerosene so you could do a flaming spit take. If this is how the film turns out, it’ll be hilarious; it’s as if the filmmakers were a bit ambivalent about all the horrible jingoism that such a film might unleash, so they had to temper it with a bit of theoretical altruism that could be true, you know, in a sense. I almost expect the Russians and Chinese to invade to enforce Copenhagen protocols, and the brave Americans fight back for a modified rollout of carbon emission standards that will allow domestic industry to perfect the new HydroWind Energy System, which the Chinese don’t want because they just signed a UN agreement to respect patents of other countries.
Jeebus weeps.
[Afternoon update]
I have a confession to make. Despite accusations by leftist trolls in the past that I’ve worn out the video from watching it so much, I’ve never actually seen Red Dawn.
Just when you think right wing rants about Hollywood being rabidly anti-American are nuts – Hollywood does something like this.
The director of the origional movie red Dawn must be pissed.
Oh well – perhaps its just a rumor…
Deciding that my vituperative skills are wholly unequal to this occasion, I deleted what I just typed. My reaction is best expressed by spluttering.
If the Hollywood crowd lived modesty, you could respect them while disagreeing, but…
Are they crazy? Evil? Has our society become so out-of-kilter that having what it takes to succeed (in the popular arts, anyway) is correlated with being nuts or malicious?
On the other hand, this rumor could be propaganda by the occupiers. More seriously, if the USSR or China successfully invaded the US, what would they say? “We want your stuff”? Nah, they’d deliver some pap about how it was our fault (greed, weakness, villainy, etc) that they were forced to invade us.
gs,
doesn’t this dovetail nicely with Michael “I’ve made 50 mil but that doesn’t mean I’m rich” Moore’s new flick?
The same people who flaunt million dollar homes, big cars and lavish lifestyles, tell us they think capitalism is evil? I may be evil then, because I’ve been chasing money all my life, but at least I’m NOT an elitist hypocrite.
And I predict they’ll get a mediocre turn out at the middle-class America multiplex, if they go along this streak. But it’s their hypocritical investment of time and money, not mine.
My grade for a movie depicting Communists, current or former, attacking us to stall American greed, I give the idea ONE FINGER UP.
Kurt H. writes: “On the other hand, this rumor could be propaganda by the occupiers. More seriously, if the USSR or China successfully invaded the US, what would they say? “We want your stuff”? Nah, they’d deliver some pap about how it was our fault (greed, weakness, villainy, etc) that they were forced to invade us.”
Sort of like ObamaNation. They won’t just say “We want your stuff” but have to cloak the proceedings in piety.
Somewhat related with the Avatar trailer they made a big deal about during Sunday afternoon football. While over all the special effects look to be stunning I’m pretty iffy about the plot that I’ve seen so far. Yet another evil white man wants to rape the land and crush any indigenous life or culture to get to it at any means necessary movie. It even comes complete with evil slave driver slowly puffing a huge cigar, “Muahahaha”. In fact, I’d almost say it looked like FernGully 2.0 for quasi-grown up types, “Noooo, this is OUR magical forest, just leave us alone!!”.
Red Dawn was one of those “so bad it is good” movies. It is pathetic that Hollywood cannot find anything better, that they need to rehash turds like this. Might as well be watching Battlefield Earth.
If they want to redo Red Dawn they should just take John Titor’s alternate earth history and do a film of that. Now that would be fun.
Anyone remember the movie version of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears? Hollywood changed the bad guys from Islamic jihadis and German Red Army Faction terrorists to … neo-Nazis!
As the linked Wikipedia article notes: “It has also been noted that a larger percent of profits stems from international audiences, and American filmmakers work to avoid alienating large segments of this customer base.”
After all, Hollywood wouldn’t want to lose the deranged anti-American demographic.
Issues of American greed aside, consider a completely different take on Hollywood delusion: How delusional do you have to be to think that China might go to war to reign in American over-consumption? Talk about a one-way ticket to mass unemployment in China …
*Jedi Mind Trick* The only movie based on any of Tom Clancy’s books was “The Hunt For Red October”. There were no other movies. */Jedi Mind Trick*
JP, can you do that trick again to make me forget who played Jack Ryan in Red October?
*blink* Huh? What was I saying? Oh yeah … I thought Hollywood did a pretty good job on The Hunt For Red October, the only movie based on a book by Tom Clancy.
See, I though Alec did an okay Jack Ryan. “Jack, next time you get a bright idea put it in a goddam memo!”
You know what movies was awesome? The Matrix. Shame they never made any sequels …
And wouldn’t it be cool of George Lucas approved someone to go back and tell Darth Vader’s rise & fall story? They should be sure to get someone with a Shakespearean background though, to be sure they really captured the romance and tragedy of it, and not get distracted with special effects and silly Ewok-like creatures. I bet it would rock.
Meh, there’s only one reason to watch “Red October,” and it happens to be the same reason as any other Sean Connery movie.
Oh, and I’m surprised no one’s said it yet, but… “Wolverines!!!!”
Update:
That’s a great flick if you’re a middle-schoolboy during the Cold War. Not so sure it would play well today — seriously, it would look like plaid polyester flares.
Just so long as he didn’t start with a whiny kid or cgi comic relief character.
Come on, Rand! Red Dawn is a Classic (especially now that Swayze has passed on). All-star cast, cheesy block-buster script, easily-identified heroes and villians, drama and suspense, mucho explosions and death, a tragedy with an uplifting finale. Schoolkids sticking it to the Man. American cinema at it’s best!!
You know what movies was awesome? The Matrix. Shame they never made any sequels …
Here’s xkcd’s take on that …
I saw Red Dawn at the movie theater on original release (trivia: it was the first PG-13 movie, that rating having been created in a hurry because of a minor uproar over the level of violence in the PG-rated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. First 15 minutes aren’t bad; they capture the sense of panic and “WTF is going on??!!” that a real situation like that would undoubtedly cause. The rest of the movie, not so much. Overall, I wouldn’t take the time to watch it again.
“Anyone remember the movie version of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears? Hollywood changed the bad guys from Islamic jihadis and German Red Army Faction terrorists to … neo-Nazis!”
Yeah, I went out and saw Sum of All Fears at the movies — so they changed it to . . . new-Nazis! I don’t care if they changed it to . . . Rush Limbaugh radio audience! In reality, with this movie coming out after 9-11, we all knew it was about jihadis and the names were change to protect the not-that innocent.
By the way, the one cool thing about the book that the movie hardly touches is Tom Clancy’s idea of “Terror, Inc.”
You know how in Star Trek, Vulcan is a planet that has at least millions, perhaps even billions of beings on it, but how every one of the Vulcans all seem to know each other?
I guess Tom Clancy is the same way and his theory on international terrorism, and why in an oblique way it made sense for GWB to declare war “on terror”, which everyone thought was stupid, declaring war on a mode of social disruption instead of on the actual combatants. You see, like the Vulcans in Star Trek, the terrorists, whether they are IRA, AIM, Basque Separatists, jihadis, and maybe, just maybe, some of the kooks in Upper Michigan with connection to McVeigh, well, they all pretty much know each other.
Clancy’s idea is that throughout the world there are all of these “alienated people” following all manners of radical causes that on the surface have nothing to do with each other, but beneath the surface they all have this alienation and hatred of “The Man” or “The West” or “The System” in them, and they find ways to share what they know and help each other out.
In the Clancy non-fiction book on Special Forces, I will never forget the description of the US Special Forces stand-off with the Italian Army in Sicily over these four guys from the Achille Lauro attack, where Reagan “did a dump in the punch bowl” by doing the “crazy” thing of sending F-14 jets to intercept the terrorists who had negotiated with Egypt for safe passage, dumping them into the laps of our Italian allies.
The commander-on-the-ground, after the boys in Washington started to have second thoughts about the effort to bring the terrorists to America to stand trial for murder of an American, was told “to do what you think best”, and he had a little parlay with the four terrorists, who were remarkably cool about the whole thing. Two of the terrorists were Middle-Eastern looking “button men”, and the Italians eventually “did the righteous and even for them dangerous thing in terms of terror reprisals” of taking custody of the buttom men for the murder on an Italian ship. One of the terrorists was this “rough looking guy”, I can’t remember his Blah-blah Abbas nomme de guerre, although there is This Abbas and That Abbas and if jihadist terrorist has so many “Fathers”, I would hate to meet the mom. Anyway, this dude was set free to be a guest of Saddam until on the eve of the Iraq War he was “sanctioned”, not clear if it was by our guys or by Saddam’s henchmen.
And then there was the “red-haired guy” whom are commander-on-the ground couldn’t figure out where he placed in the whole thing. Yeah, I know there are redhead Iranians and even Pakistani’s, but this guy looked Northern European. Was he IRA? Who knows. But like the Star Trek Vulcans, the terrorists all seem to know each other, both in Clancy fiction and in real life.
Sorry, I got mixed up. These guys’ nomme-de-guerre are Abu-This, Abu-That, Abu-Thatotherthing, and with the cause having that many Abu’s, I would hate to meet Mammu.
“Patriot Games” was pretty close. If they butcher “Red Dawn” like the rumor, I predict it will do as well as some other forgettable remake I can’t remember.
some other forgettable remake I can’t remember
By definition!
Dave G – Red Dawn missed out on a Hollywood standard. IIRC, there were no car chases in it.
Hollywood is incredibly good at taking a classic book, completely murdering it to satisfy American teenage boys of all ages, and then compounding the error by making enough sequels to completely suck the juice out of the idea. Case in point: Starship Troopers. The degree of incompetence shown by the MI in the movie is incredible, and what the heck happened to the power armour?. The book didn’t have crypto-Nazi overtones, either. Starship Troopers II was a waste of 2 hours of my life.
They are also very good at creating an original movie with a really good idea and plot – and then sequelizing it to death. Police Academy and Rocky, anyone?
Paul M,
the only thing wrong with your, “they changed it to protect ??? because of 9/11” kinda line is that they were ALREADY shooting it when the WTC was hit. Actually, by then it was probably just about finished and post production was most likely well under way.
Said changes were widely announced in the press, prior to the start of filming and Clancey fans were hot, WAY before shooting started. There was some limited e-mailing and online petitioning about the changes. The announcement of Ben “Aflac” as the hero was a hot button issue too.
You don’t really believe they could shoot a movie, starting after September of “X” year, and have it in theaters by the following May? It’s just 262 days from Sept 11, 2001, to the U.S. premiere of Sum of All Fears, on May 31, 2002.
They can’t write, produce, set, shoot, cut, advertise and release a movie that quickly. Seriously, you can’t think that they do?
The truth is, that Hollywood types changed so they WOULDN’T make radical Muslims mad, and so they COULD sell the movie in Muslim countries.
How’d that work out for us? The not pissing off radical Muslims part, I mean.
The original Red Dawn is *MUCH* more subtle than just about everyone gives it credit for being.
First off, all of the Wolverines except for 2 die within about 6 months of the invasion, and no more than 1 or possibly 2 months after the Russians bring in actual competent troops, instead of second and third rate occupation troops, to deal with them. The only ones who live through it do so because they ran away.
The “bad guys” are made to seem human: Colonels Bella and Strelnikov both care for their men, and Bella seems particularly disgusted with what he has to do. Strelnikov is a stand-up honest soldier who is hates political correctness. Young Russian soldiers are made to seem like, well, young soldiers everywhere: Just tryin’ to get a date with a cute girl, or sightseeing with their comrades.
On the other side, though, we have “heroes” like Jed Eckert, who when asked what the difference between the Russians and the Wolverines was, could only come up with “Because we live here”. Robert, who goes goes numbly psychotic, willing to kill any Russian or Cuban because they killed his father, and even willing to kill Darryl, the mayors son who gets caught and is made to swallow a tracking beacon.
Then we have the quisling mayor, willing to go along to get along. As far as I know, he survives.
So, the lesson of “Red Dawn” appears to be run away or collaborate with the enemy if you want to live.
If it weren’t for the ending shot of an American flag waving over ‘Partisan Rock’, the movie would be *MUCH* darker and ambiguous.
I suspect that most people who think it’s a single-minded blindly patriotic film have only seen the first half-hour or so, or they get so numbed by the explosions that they miss the subtlety of this movie.
Would Russo-Chinese rule be worse than Team Obama/Reid/Pelosi?
Wait a minute…Chinese and Russkies against the current administration – wasn’t that a Star Trek episode?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Piece_of_the_Action_(Star_Trek)
How could the Terminators be worked into this flick?
Ok, weirnes – they are filmingit north of Detroit in Troy Michigan. Now Detroit looks like after the halacaust – Troy though is real upscale?