Long intro short: A friend of mine at work got to talking today, and the subject came to “Red Dawn” being out on DVD (I had no idea! :smack: ). Anyway, being the Cold War freak I am, I remembered the ABC miniseries “Amerika” around Feb 14, 1984. (I remembered the date because I was at my cousins’ wedding in Arizona at the time - I was in the 4th grade and was pissed that I couldn’t watch it.)
Some questions:
Is this on DVD or VHS too? If so, where can I get a copy?. Is it worth renting or watching, which leads me into my next question . . .
What was the basic plot? I vaguely remember scenes of Apache helicopters in the sunset, and a picture of Lenin in an American classroom. Was the US overrun and attacked by the Commies?
I’m sure more questions will come to mind . . . But help me out on these in the meantime. . .
in 1994 the us had been taken over for 10 years via the Commies. There was an underground resistance movement, and Kris Kristoferson and his son were somehow involved. the rebs took over a TV station and were about to broadcast something when some other character killed Kris. Then his son gave some Patriotic speech. I don’t remember if the US gotr free or not (i don’t think they did). the war seemed not to be nuclear (but i was 6, so some of this may be a bit vague, but i remember local news channel did a “could this happen” story, and discussing it with other first graders at Erie Elementary.
I was just about to post the IMDB link, but Hail Ants beat me to it. I think that’s what you were describing. It doesn’t look like it’s available in DVD or VHS though.
cmburns, I never saw the series but I did read WARDAY by Whitley Streiber. I guess it’s not so much a “Amerika” but more of a “The Day After” kinda book. . .
Tripler
Great read, if you can get your hands on it. . .
I appreciated the fact that it was even made & that it gave a pretty
nasty depiction of what US life would be like under Soviet occupation- tho still not nasty as it really was. It came about after Conservatives complaining about ABC’s THE DAY AFTER challenged TV producers to actually make a drama about what a Soviet takeover of the US would be like.
I did not like that a promising beginning had a looong drawn-out boring middle & a pro-appeasement ending (the Soviet Puppet-US Presiden Sam Neill, while sympathetic to Kris’s wish to free the US, realizes Kris’s speech will provoke the Americans to rise against the
Soviet occupation, which will then violently crush them & probably nuke US territory, so he has Kris killed before he can make his American-rousing speech.)
The Soviet occupation occurs after the USSR develops a high-tech Electro-Magnetic Pulse generator which knocks out the electrical controls of America’s nuclear defense capacity. Thus, no nukes had
to be deployed in the earlier invasion.
I found RED DAWN to be much more patriotic. It’s amazing in retrospect that AMERIKA provoked the controversy it did (“it will provoke greater hostility between the US & the USSR!!!”)
I have a friend who was interested in it a couple of years ago, so I searched for a long time for it on the net - I was never able to find it anywhere. I wound up buying him a copy of the book that was made from the movie.
DISCLAIMER: I never ever do this for my own personal reading. I hate the “gee, they made a book out of the movie” phenomenon.
I’m sure it’s being repressed as part of a giant conspiracy run by T.H.E.Y. Hope you have better luck than I did!
Does anyone remember the SNL skit called “Amerida.” The US is taken over by Canada, and the kids are saying things like “grade 8” instead of 8th grade, and using words like “queue.”
I could’ve sworn there were a series of Young Adult books with the same title/premise. I don’t know if it was a direct adaptation though, and I don’t know which came first.
My dad insisted that I tape the thing for him, so he could watch it later. (He didn’t have his own VCR, and was skeered of the contraptions.) He passed away later before he ever could bestir himself to see it, though, and I’ve never had the heart to erase it. I believe it was on CBS? Because I got bad reception on CBS back then, and so I’m guessing the tape quality isn’t very good.
But I guess I’ll never erase it. It has Sam Niell in it, I guess that’s worth something…
Hope you have better luck than I did!