For purely marketing concerns, MGM has altered it’s remake of Red Dawn so that the invading country is North Korea, rather than China. (Yeah, just try to keep a straight face.) The Chinese, however, are disappointed:
Well, they won’t even get that.
Maybe now they’ll re-value the Yuan?
If they are afraid of insulting the Kremlin, they could substitute the Russians with the Dutch.
I know we would love it!
Surely you don’t doubt North Korea’s much documented ability to deploy a clone army to the states at 48 hours notice?
Well, I won’t be seeing it now. Not even on video. Fuck 'em.
To be fair, the makers of the movie have scaled down the conflict to reflect the change from China to North Korea. Instead of the invaders taking over half of the United States, the movie will now involve the heroic defense of a houseboat anchored off the Santa Monica Pier. The ragtag band of freedom fighters are forced to fall back to the boardwalk arcade to plan their counterattack and/or try to improve their Tron score. It’s truly gripping.
John Milius must be pissed. The remake of his anti commie movie bowing down to communists. Then again, the recent video game he wrote (yes they are written by someone sometimes) about an invasion of the US also uses North Korea as the bad guy.
Sure, feed the North Korean internal propoganda machine.
As much as they’re bowing down to communism, they’re bowing down to capitalism. It’s a win-win.
In all fairness, according to the article, the Chinese in the movie were apparently part of a coalition of countries (including Russia) that invade the US…on the other hand, all I’d seen and heard of the movie so far (including behind the scenes footage and ads) seemed to feature China pretty exclusively.
I can’t help but wonder if the “coalition” element was another addition in editing—some exposition that it’s a multinational invasion, but it just happens that the invasion sector the film takes place in is under North Korea’s jurisdiction, and we just happen to never see any other invaders. Maybe having someone from “high command” screaming over the radio in Russian, too. Stuff like that. If so, it’d be at least kind of clever.
I am actually much more disappointed/disgusted that they are re-making red dawn at all. The movie wasn’t that great to begin with.
As long as the soldiers all use kung-fu, I won’t mind.
Actually, when a movie wasn’t that great, that is a good reason to remake it. Like The Thing.
I agree with the first half of your sentence, redoing a good premise that was done poorly is a great reason to make a remake, but not the second, the original The Thing is a great movie.
I concede. I have not seen it. I have regularly heard that the original is not as good as the remake.
I haven’t seen the first in a loooong time, but I always considered it the worst of the two; as well as being farther from the source material (Who Goes There?).
Not to derail this thread but yeah, they are two very different movies and both good for different reasons but since it is older and was made with different sensibilities, I can understand why people may not like the original.
So we’re supposed to be afraid of two countries that are-- well–doing their best to outdo us at capitalism (one of whose markets MGM can’t ignore)? MGM wants to save its cake and eat it too, methinks. Thank God North Korea is still around.
And what’s wrong with good ol’ generic terrorists from countries like [Imaginary Place]-i-stan?
It’s been ages since I’ve seen Red Dawn but weren’t the 500 million screaming Chinese on our side?
“They were.” [fwoomph]
