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Comment RSSRed Dawn Remake – Trailer
13.08.12 # Trailers # 9 Comments
What if America was invaded by a hostile army and its civilians put under occupation? I’m not talking about the League Of Shadows in The Dark Knight Rises. This time it’s naughty North Korea and they’re ready to shoot your dad in the head.
Sure looks like we’re celebrating heroic acts of terrorism.
I love the concept of Red Dawn, it’s edgy, un-pc and if done right can give you the chills. But the ’84 original wasn’t anywhere near as good as its concept. This looks more polished but hampered by trying to be more politically correct – it was meant to be the Chinese invading in the remake, but at some point the studio chickened out and digitally altered the invaders to North Koreans. That just doesn’t sit right, North Korea doesn’t seem like it could invade the US in a credible way. Also the trailer mentions a mysterious device that ‘knocked out the US army’, one that will turn the tide if they grab it – that feels like a plot device from a G.I. Joe movie. Why not just have a credible, less cartoony invasion? It’s much more frightening.
The lead character is now a Marine ready to train the others, in the original they were civilians winging it. Does this miss a big part of the appeal?
The remake has been on the shelf since 2009 and while that normally indicates a movie’s terrible, in this case the delay was due to MGM’s financial problems. The other completed film stuck with it, Cabin In The Woods, turned out to be one of our favourites of this year so far. It’s actually fortunate for the studio that Red Dawn was delayed because Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson have become stars in the last three years, thanks to Thor and The Hunger Games.
Red Dawn is released on November 21st in the US. I’ll be watching it.
I’ll watch it with curiosity but I hate remakes where the plot is basically the same. Remakes with a twist would be better. Last man standing vs. A fist full of dollars, Clash of the Titans vs. Clash of the Titans, etc. Hated them all. What next, A clockwork Orange remake?
I liked the look of the trailer. They seem to have a great young cast to make this thing work.
It’s so terrifying that the US is under attack from cartoon planes!
The original was a cartoon fantasy, full of old fashioned heroics and was powered along the shear silliness of Cuba invading the US. It was never edgy or even supposed to be edgy. It was fun because it wasn’t unselfconsciously stupid mach0 fantasy from a man who chomps cigars for breakfast and has had the same buzz cut since birth. In other words it was fun because John Milius is a funny, personable interesting, though not humourless or unself aware, man with a taste for stupid things. Remove that and all you’re left with is a faux serious thriller based on a dumb idea. The attempts to make it more PC only make it dumber.
Sheriden,
Sorry, to disagree with you but,
Films rarely get shelved because they are bad. Hollywood has no taste. They care about money and will happily release terrible films if a studio thinks there is a possible profit. This is why you get sequels to rubbish, rotten remakes and so much utter rubbish on at multiplexes. The idea that an industry that releases Norbit, the Sitter and makes sequels to GI Joe (a film based on a small plastic toy) is concerned with artistic merit is plainly ridiculous. It’s always about money. The Red Dawn remake, like Cabin in the Woods, had no bankable star until Thor and the Avengers were hits. That’s why it is being released now. They haven’t re -viewed it and discovered a hidden gem . Sometimes it is just cheaper to sit on a film than market it. Were Case 39 or The New Daughter really worse than the rubbish that is released? In the past was The final terror really so bad it failed to live up to standards set by such cinematic titans as The Forrest and Don’t Go in the Woods. . In fact shelving films usually indicates that there was an above average budget involved and further funding has been withdrawn.
I can see the appeal of the original, I personally found the tone disappointing and production values distractingly weak too often (eg the guy ‘chasing’ the car at a strange half-speed with his hand extended in desperation (0:54 below)). A film about a foreign invasion of American, or British, soil by a plausible enemy I do believe could make a chilling and powerful film, if made by the right people. There are glimmers of it in the first film.
I agree movies get shelved or severely delayed for a variety of reasons but very often it is because of the combo factor of being both bad and the studio/distributor doesn’t have confidence in them. It costs money to release a movie. The Adventures Of Pluto Nash or Prozac Nation for example were long delayed and dumped for this dual reason. Working in distribution in London there are rooms filled with posters of finished movies on the shelf that will never get released (or will sneak onto dvd years later) for these reasons, often with well known actors. Also the financial situation will often fall apart because people involved can see it’s turning into a stinker. In the case of Red Dawn and Cabin in the Woods though they were genuinely on the shelf because of MGM’s financial problems or they would have been released before, it’s the same reason there wasn’t a James Bond for the last 4 years, MGM was basically frozen.
Fair point with Red Dawn. It’s a taste thing. Personally I love the original.
On the second point, unless you are talking about about very low budget films that fail to find distribution, I still say the main reasons movies are shelved is finance.
Miramax brought loads of acclaimed foreign films in the 90s but shelved them because they realised the audience was too small.
My broader point was how can quality be a factor when you look at what is released. Trick “r” Treat, All the Boys Love Mandy, The New Daughter and I believe Grace all sat on the shelf, but Tortured, The Omen remake, The Hitcher remake, Norbit, The Devil Inside was rekeased! Even if a film happened to be utterly useless and sat on a shelf, so many films that are worse or as bad are released that the notion that in most cases quality is much of an issue makes no sense. It is simply impossible to make a film, that is even remotely technically competent, worse than the Hottie and the Nottie. I just don’t believe that Hollywood is teaming with producers of such noble artistic integrity that they give beep about quality control. If it was, don’t you think Adam Sandler would be suffering by now, given the critical drubbing everyone of his films takes. For God’s sake, man, Micheal Bay is still working and could probably get a $200 plus million dollar budget to film Shia Labeouf taking a dump. In fact he did! Twice! And called the results Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon!
Yeah bad films get released without delay but I’m saying in those cases the studios are pretty confident they will make money. When it’s a bad film and they think it will struggle to make money, that a common reason things end up on the shelf for a few years. Sometimes a factor changes after a while that prompts them to give it a go, with Case 39 it was that Bradley Cooper became a star with The Hangover.
The reason films have their release date pushed back is because there is an ‘issue’, Shutter Island was pushed 4 months because they looked at it and knew it had no chance of an Oscar, The Thing remake got pushed back 6 months because audience test scores were poor and they had to do reshoots. The ‘issue’ is sometimes purely financial so the quality of the film is solid, but any delay is indicative of a problem, and is never a good sign.
It’s interesting you mention audience testing, because it is often a tool of studio control used against film makers. If a bunch of kids with the attention spans of gnats say things like “it cudda been a gud movie, but, man, it sucks so bad, it’s so slow” it’s re-edited. In truth screen testing usually makes things worse. In the case of the Thing pre-make the writer and director both say that screening results were used to impose more CGI instead of practical effects. The studio were pushing for CGI in the first place. A lot of the time the early tests are for industry people who have a fixed idea of what they think the audience wants and seize on even minor criticism in otherwise positive audience reactions to impose their ideas later.
And the Oscar nominations are very much dominated by financial concerns because the exposure gives less commercial films a bigger chance of making money.
Sheridan, I envy you your faith
im a 50 year old a–hole who served the first part of my 20 years in the us military in the cold war 80s. i agree all movies ask you to enter a fantasy world. but i likewise guarantee you most of 1920s europe would have laughed at a movie about a nazi army on steroids rolling over their borders. and for those who make the comments about cubans from the first movie, i would inform you that some 10000 cuban troops served in african conflicts in the 80s at the soviets behest. and the grenada campaign many people laugh at was about an airfield being constructed that would handle heavy lift aircraft. our forces(i was there{ captured cubans, nicaraguans, north koreans and soviets on the island. i have seen the translated files where the soviets wargamed an operation using forces from all these nations , gathered in nicaragua, to strike into the southern usa with another strike thru alaska into the northwest. Could they have done it? who knows. I am glad we didnt have to find out.
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Post By Sheridan Passell
13th Aug
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