So lets talk about the Red Dawn remake

[Mr Bean]

Buzzfeed's summary
For those of you who don't know about Red Dawn it was a 1984 cheesy 80s action movie about Soviet paratroopers invading small town America to secure our supplies of cheerleaders and football... or something here's the old trailer For the original. Anyway the plot is simple, foreigners invade.. small town America rallies together and kicks ass! Except things go south quickly and by the end of the movie most everyone is dead and while America wins in the end it's a sobering tale about how much war sucks... also Communism is bad. It's a cheesy 80s action movie except it's not a tale of heroic people overcoming impossible odds but a rebel group doing some damage and slowly getting dieing as attrition rears it's ugly inevitable head.

Fast forward to 2012 and now the evil invader is... North Korea... Everyone and their brother already made fun of this when Homefront was released about North Korea invading the US in that game, want to know why it's silly look up those threads. But originally the invaders would be Chinese except MGM makes a ton of money from the Chinese market and they thought a movie where the Americans win would never sell.. I'd say film two endings to show in each country but then movies can only have one ending unless Christopher Nolan is your director.

Regardless I have two gripes with this movie.
1. It's being done in the first place, I should have thought the bombs that Total Recall, The Invasion and the like is if you take a Cinematic classic and remake it you HAVE to be better than the original or you won't make your budget back nine times out of ten. Word of mouth is a harsh mistress and nerds love to bitch. Even if the original was not a great or a good movie... if it was classic then remaking it is a dozen times more risky then cracking out one of the thirty thousand other scripts in the MGM vault and making that instead.

2. Not once do they shout Wolverines, the thing the movie is know for. What everyone remembers about the movie if they forget 99% of the rest of it, about to do something stupid or suicidal? Time to shout WOLVERINES!

[Sea Skimmer]

I'd bet the Chinese would have banned the movie no matter what if it had China in it. Even if it had a different Chinese victory ending, odds are serious parts of the movie show the Asian invader as acting you know, like an evil Asian invader. In fact, no way could it be a remotely decent remake without that. Plus it might be banned simply for the fact that it is an American film showing America/China war. I would imagine MGM has contacts in China they discussed this with.

The biggest problem is people just can't make action movies like they did in the 1980s. Its basically not possible standards and effects and such have just changed too much.

[weemadando]

I think that we covered this in the original "They're remaking Red Dawn" thread, but what's the bet that they ignore all the ways they could interestingly tell a spin on insurgency (like for Thor who is now on the other side of one from Iraq and Afghanistan) and instead will be all like: "OMG I LUV THIS GIRL, BUT WE HAVE TO SHOOT KOREANS B4 WE CAN HOOK UP!"

[Kuja]

Did Total Recall really bomb? I'm aware it debuted at #2 behind Batman's last hurrah for the moment but did it really do that badly?

[Block]

Did Total Recall really bomb? I'm aware it debuted at #2 behind Batman's last hurrah for the moment but did it really do that badly?

and in what world was it not superior in every conceivable way to the piece of garbage that the original was?

[ray245]

The biggest problem is people just can't make action movies like they did in the 1980s. Its basically not possible standards and effects and such have just changed too much.

Well if the movie bomb, then MGM really should fire the idiot who think that remaking Red Dawn is a good idea. Portraying the Chinese as antagonist when you are trying to expand your marketshare in China is not a good idea from a corporate point of view.

Even if MGM decides not to change the Chinese army into the NK army, it is quite hard for the audience to buy into the idea of China invading USA. There isn't any real cold war between China and USA to really sustain the idea of a conflict between the two nation. Even one of the most possible cause of war between the two nation, namely fighting over Taiwan is now highly unlikely after the KMT party won the elections.

[Gandalf]

Somehow they appeared to have missed the point of the original. I didn't think that possible.

[mr friendly guy]

I will laugh if China still bans it from the Chinese market despite the digital changes made. China apparently have some rule about protecting local products which limits the amount of foreign movies, so they would most probably pick Hollywood movies which are popular to allow to screen, rather than a movie which struggled to find financing with the company going bankrupt.

Back to the original negative portrayal of the Chinese soldiers. I mean showing the Chinese like evil invaders killing civillians * while Americans equals good, never mind how awesome the US behaved in the Abu Gharib, and, oh never mind. It smacks of bullfuckery of the highest order.

* this came from the review in one of the previous threads where they allegedly got an advanced copy of the movie before they changed it to North Koreans.

[mr friendly guy]

Just to add on, I just saw the trailer. It looks like they did have Chinese, er I mean North Korean soldiers gunning down civilians, something we know American soldiers will never do.

[Sarevok]

Yeah. If an Arab director made a movie about America from Iraqi POV it would be branded terrorist propoganda. No theater would show such a film in USA.

[ray245]

I will laugh if China still bans it from the Chinese market despite the digital changes made. China apparently have some rule about protecting local products which limits the amount of foreign movies, so they would most probably pick Hollywood movies which are popular to allow to screen, rather than a movie which struggled to find financing with the company going bankrupt.

The issue isn't about trying to release this film in China. It's an attempt to please the Chinese so that they will allow future MGM produced movies to be screened in China.

Of course, the Chinese can still decide not to forgive MGM for making this movie and only choose to screen non-MGM movies in China.

With Americans being quite disillusioned about fighting a war, I wonder if this movie will bomb at the US box office. International box office return is unlikely to look good for this movie.

[Darksider]

Ok, that shit in the trailer about the norks using an EMP weapon? They are literally using the exact same plot as Homefront.

[Stark]

The one where Korea reunited one day for no reason and then Japan surrendered? :v

[Darksider]

Yeah, that's the one. Literally the only amusing parts of it are the levels where you stop fighting the North Korean army and start shooting up a bunch of redneck survivalists.


But that's mostly because I fucking hate rednecks.

[Gandalf]

Interestingly, it appears that only some parts of the US are affected by the magic EMP.

So presumably they valiant second amendment Americans are going to seize control of the device, at which point the MARINES show up and save the day.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Probably the best line in the original film will surely not appear in this one... Which is a shame, as it was the only thoughtful thing in the entire first move, and I realized was actually quite insightful, really, about the how and why of insurgencies and what they do;

the exchange between two of the Wolverines I'm referring to was during the execution of the traitor and the captured Spetsnaz soldier, where one of them is begging Jed not to execute them:

"If we shoot them how are we better than they are?"

Jed answers: "Because we live here," and then shoots them.

[Julhelm]

It's not surprising they use the same plot as Homefront since the script for that was penned by John Milius who of course made Red Dawn.

[RogueIce]

Interestingly, it appears that only some parts of the US are affected by the magic EMP.

So presumably they valiant second amendment Americans are going to seize control of the device, at which point the MARINES show up and save the day.

Fuck the Marines, I still maintain the NOAA Commissioned Corps should save the day.

"Look Wolverines, it's the Navy here to save us!"

"YAY!!!"

*epic gunfight later*

"Thanks for saving us, US Navy!"

"Navy? Hah! We're the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, son!"

Seriously, if they did that this remake might have a higher cult status than the original.

[someone_else]

I think that we covered this in the original "They're remaking Red Dawn" thread, but what's the bet that they ignore all the ways they could interestingly tell a spin on insurgency (like for Thor who is now on the other side of one from Iraq and Afghanistan) and instead will be all like: "OMG I LUV THIS GIRL, BUT WE HAVE TO SHOOT KOREANS B4 WE CAN HOOK UP!"

Most action movies with teens seem to be like that (even fucking Avatar is like that). The "I'm doing hero stuff only because I want pussy" pisses me off to no end.

Back to the topic, what I don't understand is why the hell they don't simply make a parallel universe where they can have whatever they want without offending China or The New Powers that be.

The dumbest viable idea about this is turning the Chinese soldiers into Nazis and set this a while after they won WWII (and the Cold War was USA vs Nazi Europe + Nazi Russia). I mean, it even sounds logic consequence, if you ignore how the hell did they manage to win against the wole world (maybe with some kind of superweapon that makes look A-bombs like second-rate shit). And is still much less bullshit to swallow than Homefront since hey, it's not our timeline, everything can go exactly how they want wihtout it looking horribly goofy.

[weemadando]

Fuck it, just make "The Man In The High Castle" if you're going to do that.

And then watch how badly that can be mauled by Hollywood.

[Minischoles]

Amusingly the guy who made the first Red Dawn also wrote Homefront - which is where they seem to have stolen the plot for this movie.

I'm actually somewhat looking forward to it, pretty people remaining implausibly pretty and clean while fighting a guerilla war. It looks like they're actually taking the entire thing super seriously and so America Fuck Yeah that it's going to be unintentionally hilarious.

[someone_else]

Fuck it, just make "The Man In The High Castle" if you're going to do that.
And then watch how badly that can be mauled by Hollywood.

Suuure, the book was mostly character development.
That's completely impossible to do in a movie due to time constraints even if you give it to serious people. You can make a good TV series on it though (again if you don't have the issues Hollywood has).
Hell it's nearly impossible to do a half-decent Harry Potter movie that does not just broadly resemble the book (nevermind totally sucking like the real movies), and you think it's possible to make a The Man In The High Castle?

Besides, its set well after Nazi conquered everything, so not much fun for an action movie.

I was thinking more of the world Captain America is set in, and the Avengers are in. It's close enough to our world but does simply do the shit it wants without caring.