By Jason Apuzzo. • Libertas made news yesterday with our exclusive first look at the ‘uncensored’ version of MGM’s new Red Dawn remake. It’s conceivable that our review will be the only look at that film anybody’s going to get – which would be astonishing, but there it is. You can thank MGM’s new masters for that.
However, I wanted to follow up today by noting that MGM’s decision to alter the film – and digitally remake the villains into North Koreans – has been received poorly just about everywhere. The reason for this is obvious: there is absolutely no narrative reason to re-cut the film along such lines except to satisfy China’s market gatekeepers. There is certainly no real-world reason to depict such an invasion as being spearheaded by an impoverished prison-state like North Korea, particularly when the basic premise of the film is supposed to be our financial ‘indebtedness’ to the invaders. The last time I checked, we’re not indebted to North Korea.
The current spin we’re hearing behind the scenes is that the film is being re-cut to now depict the invading force as a ‘communist coalition,’ an undefined ‘red menace’ of nations, with the North Koreans featured prominently. What nobody seems to be asking is what such a coalition would be worth without the sponsorship of China. Or are they expecting Transnistria to do the heavy lifting here? Or maybe Vietnam?
Sensing how badly this is all going over, one of Red Dawn‘s producers, Tripp Vinson, gave a somewhat peculiar interview to Aint It Cool News yesterday. Here’s part of what Vinson said:
The changes made to Red Dawn in the last few weeks were made in consultation with military think tanks and people that specialize in game theory. Really smart people that spend their days constructing doomsday scenarios for our military and government. The type of people that know the limitations of the North Korean military. The type of people that can project a series of events that could lead to some very scary things happening to our Country. I can assure you, we listened well to those people, especially with regards to the capability of the North Korean military.
Red Dawn isn’t for everyone. So, if you are interested in seeing a movie filled with preachy political discussions – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you love movies in which Americans are the bad guys – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you get emotional watching daytime television – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you’re a vegetarian – Red Dawn probably ain’t for you.
But! If you like meat with your potatoes, muscle cars that roar, tanks, guns and things blowing the f*** up by American’s kicking some Commie ass – then we have something special coming your way.
WOLVERINES!
OK, My comments to Tripp here would be as follows:
1) If you like movies that don’t pull their punches in order to please the communist Chinese, then I guess Red Dawn “ain’t for you,” either.
2) These “really smart people” who “specialize in game theory” had better be geniuses, if they can figure out how North Korea is supposed to be able to invade America when at the moment they can barely feed their own army. Really, these had better be Nobel Prize-level people, because I have a Ph.D. from Stanford and even I can’t figure this one out.
[Sigh.] We’ll be keeping an eye on all this at Libertas as this story continues to unfold.
• In related news, Jeremy Passmore – who co-wrote Red Dawn – will now be writing the screenplay to something called DMZ, which apparently “revolves around an international group of soldiers who enter the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to retrieve a U.S. satellite. The disparate heroes soon learn that there is something much more deadly in the DMZ than enemy soldiers.” Is it Red Dawn‘s distribution deal that they discover? Anyway, it sounds like a fun project, so we’ll keep an eye on it.
Probably what they’ll be finding in the DMZ are aliens. Or the Miami Heat’s offense.
Also: did you know that the sequel to Tomorrow, When the War Began – the ‘Aussie Red Dawn’ – is already shooting right now Down Under? They’ll probably have three of those films done by the time Red Dawn comes out.
• There’s a lot happening right now with X-Men: First Class. The first posters getting released are being panned (approriately), there’s a new production still out (see the top of this post; I’m liking January Jones’ outfit here), and the Russian trailer for the film features some new footage. Btw, don’t all trailers somehow sound cooler in Russian?
As a side note, X-Men‘s Jennifer Lawrence just landed the lead for The Hunger Games. I’ll talk about that more in my next Invasion Alert!
• Two more Cold War spy projects were just announced. John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is being adapted, to star Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy and Ciaran Hinds. That’s a helluva cast. Oldman will be playing Smiley in that one, the spy who comes out of retirement to root out a Soviet agent lurking in MI6. Oldman talks a bit about the project here. Also: HBO is apparently developing an 80s-era Russian spy drama called Reds. Presumably this will not involve Warren Beatty. Or Marge Schott.
• The UK’s David Cameron is apparently an avid James Bond fan (of the Roger Moore vintage), and the Guardian is actually complaining about this. Would they prefer him to be a Fawlty Towers man? I don’t understand the UK any more.
• In related Cold War News: Simon Pegg talks about Mission: Impossible 4 here, there’s more casting news for Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar (see here and here), the schedule for the Kennedys miniseries is here, Apollo 18 has a new Russian poster (see above), a new Transformers 3 trailer will be coming soon, and Michael Bay talks here about how James Cameron sold him on 3D for Transformers 3.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Russian model Irina Shayk, the SI Swimsuit Edition covergirl, has apparently been giving her neighbors in New York quite an eyeful. According to a recent story, Ms. Shayk doesn’t believe in curtains, and so her neighbors recently demanded that she install them in order to, shall we say, limit her full exposure to the pages of magazines. You’d think these New Yorkers would appreciate what she’s doing to their property values.
And that’s what’s happening today in the Cold War!
Posted on March 18th, 2011 at 3:32pm.
Wow, that sounds like a whole lot of pandering by that Red Dawn producer. Sure, that’s how we wish Hollywood would revere red state America, but that sounds like they know they lost the only audience they had for their movie by making an artistically foolish choice.
And I don’t care how many smart people you get, you can’t manufacture reality from implausibility.
This producer apparently doesn’t think people are intelligent enough to see what’s going on. I suspect he’s in for a rude awakening.
Thanks for the excellent review, Mr. Apuzzo.
A thought: Aren’t the Chinese also among the world’s foremost perpetrators of industrial theft, including movie piracy? How else could changing the villains of the remake to North Koreans help MGM’s bottom line in China except by making it even more pirated than it normally would be?
Thanks for your comment, Lee. My strong sense is that MGM is already prepared to write this film off. They’re not making these changes because they expect the film to play in the Chinese market – they’re making them in order to protect other properties down the line, such as the Bond and Hobbit films.
Good call on the UK: Its culture is dying a slow death.
As for Red Dawn, it’s all so sad, but I’ll see the film if it ever hits the light of day. If you make a movie about taking up arms to defend your home, I am there — I even paid to see Avatar.
Also, Amazon has The Way Back for only $15.99 on Blu.
I love the way Blu-ray prices are plummeting. That’s happening so much faster than it did initially for DVD – or even VHS, for that matter.
What’s happing with Red Dawn right now is basically just corporate spin control. Here’s the issue that I haven’t really even addressed yet: the original film was the product of John Milius’ personal vision as a filmmaker. As soon as they decided to treat Red Dawn as yet another brand-name to resurrect, the die was cast. The new film was inevitably going to be subjected to the buffets and storms of corporate agendas.
Red Dawn re-edited to substitute North Korea for China is like WKRP in Cincinatti re-edited to take out all important rock music of the era that made the show great and substitute it for cheap muzak to save/make a few bucks.
But the fans sniffed it out and the WKRP discs flopped…same here for Red Dawn.
And yes to the Millius’ vision reference. Millius is/was an intellect. Someone with a distinct voice and perspective. Millius’ conservatism was not born of muscle cars, meat and potatoes and lunk headed simplicity. The producer’s quotes are insulting to a conservative.
And here is a thougth if they really care, why not release one version here and another in China? Why are they not mentioning that? A Red Dawn about China invading the US is scary because in some way it seems at least plausible…North Korea?!?!?!?!?! I may rent this for a laugh on DVD…when I have a free rental.
Nicol, thanks so much for articulating something that was bothering me all along about that producer’s remarks: namely, how insulting they are to conservatives. His comments were saturated with cynicism – he apparently thinks Milius’ original audience was just a sea of Larry the Cable Guys. Milius himself, whom I’ve met, is really nothing so much as an old-fashioned romantic – and highly erudite. This is the guy who wrote Apocalypse Now, and The Wind and the Lion, after all.
My husband and I have made a pact to never watch remakes. We broke that promise for Clash of the Titans and we were right, it was horrible. We saw Red Dawn the original and loved it. We will refuse to watch it now and this thought that the North Koreans can even get over here in a full enough force to invade us? Wow premise is so unbelievable that we are most definatly taking a pass on that. Thank for the update!
We couldn’t stand the new Clash either. Read our review of it here:
https://www.libertasfilmmagazine.com/robin-hood-clash-of-the-titans-and-the-undermining-of-the-western-hero/