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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Red Dawn: the movie that defeated Russia and captured Saddam...

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:45 / 14.12.03

...it can't be that bad, surely.

I've never seen this film, but am seized by an overwhelming desire to do so. This has, I admit, largely been inspired by this thread, which is purely belter, and explains pretty much everything you need to know about the 80s, and that the Communists pioneered the "ad homnium" attack. Bless.

Here is another classic.

Had they hit Europe the US would have aided and Russia would be slowly knawed down. A good book series to read in the Ender's Shadow books. It's science fiction but it gives a good inside on war strategies and tactics. Esspecially Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets (the latest of the series).

So, yes. What was the film like? Does anyone have any fond memories of it? Did it express a real fear, and how did it handle it?

18:09 / 14.12.03

My favorite line is from Powers Boothe, as a downed USAF pilot who joins up with the Outsiders, er, I mean the Wolverines.

PILOT: "The only ones on our side are six hundred million screamin' mad Chinamen."

KID: "I thought there were over a billion Chinese."

PILOT: "Yeah. There were."

Ah, Reaganiffic jingoism, my life feels so empty without you.

18:12 / 14.12.03

Ah, yes. Also, Boothe to a kid carving his kills in the stock of his AK.

PILOT: "All that hate's gonna burn you up, son."

KID: "Keeps me warm at night, sir."

Aside from being a Cold Warrior's cinematic wetdream, it was a decent guerilla war film.

With Teen Mujahadeen Heartthrobs aplenty!!

20:38 / 14.12.03

Red Dawn lives with the likes of Phantom of Paradise and The Warriors in my "I saw a bit of it on TV really late at night and it was fucking mental!" file.

That John Milius, eh? What a crazy guy.

Remember 'Big Wednesday', his absurdly macho, homo-erotic and positively militaristic surfing movie? What larks.

20:45 / 14.12.03

Remember 'Big Wednesday', his absurdly macho, homo-erotic and positively militaristic surfing movie?

And racist. You forgot racist.

Never seen Red Dawn. The thing I always think of when I hear the title is the big boys at school I didnt like, really, really liked Red Dawn, and that's always been enough to make me steer well clear.

20:49 / 14.12.03

Certainly it seems time that whoever owns the rights to red dawn should considered giving it a theatrical re-release...

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:36 / 14.12.03

What has more action than any of the Rambo movies, the touch of class found only in Godfather, and the special effects of Krull? Red Dawn! This is one of the most overlooked war movies of the early 80s. If you haven't seen this then you are not a true Swayze fan. In this movie Patrick Swayze hyptnotized you like only he can. If you consider yourself a true American and you haven't seen this movie then go back to Iraq, Jack!

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

21:50 / 14.12.03

South Park recently did a parody of it, with old people invading instead of Russians. I hadn't thought about the movie at all for YEARS until I saw that.

Saw it in the theater when it came out and thought it was horrid crap, but on TV it's a decent enough waste of time on an afternoon.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:43 / 15.12.03

I saw it when I was about 10 and I managed not to take it seriously, that thread on IMDB is about the funniest thing I've ever read, it almost makes me want to sign up and post.

Red Dawn is interesting as a kind of extreme sign of the times pies of nostalgia, it's not that much worse than the Rambo films. Though I would've thought for the true Swayze enthusiast they'd want to watch the visual ballet that is Steel Dawn.

15:41 / 15.12.03

Never seen it, but I remember the radio ads on offshore pirate station Laser 558 fondly. Laser had roughly two advertisers, the other being USA Today, so the Red Dawn spot got played about fifteen times an hour.
Concluded with a smirking voice saying "not bad for a bunch of kids, huh?" Indeed.

15:55 / 15.12.03

Patrick Swayze as the inspirational leader of a bunch of American High School kids.

Predates Donnie Darko by aaaaaaaaaages...

15:58 / 15.12.03

Oh, and props to the guy on Barnes and Noble who recommended Ladyhawke - one of the best films of all time, IMHO. Not only does it have a knight who's also a werewolf, played by Rutger Hauer, which is perhaps the coolest idea for a character, ever, but the title of the film is entirely derived from the fact that there is a lady in the film who can turn into a hawk. That is high-concept film-making. Oh yes.

18:17 / 15.12.03

and strangely enough the opertion that ended in the capture of Saddam was called...Red Dawn!!!

18:48 / 15.12.03

um... wasn't that why this thread was started?

18:59 / 15.12.03

channel 4 news in the UK has just picked up on the red dawn tip - looks like everyone is trying to get some value-added content to their repoprting of saddam's capture...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:58 / 15.12.03

Ah, I remember when Channel 5 first started- they'd show a movie every night, and cos they didn't have much money, Red Dawn was on pretty much every month. What a truly, truly wonderful film. Although I doubt I enjoyed it in the way Milius intended.

But you have to ask yourself... what the FUCK did Harry Dean Stanton think he was doing appearing in it?

01:40 / 16.12.03

Paying the rent.

06:39 / 16.12.03

better than repo man.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:06 / 16.12.03

Harry Dean Stanton did one of the voices in the Care Bear movie.

07:57 / 16.12.03

Dawn also has Super Fly in it, and in a cruel reversal of fate, he is pimped by the Cubans. He becomes the hooker with the heart of gold by letting Swayze and his brother die from exposure rather than shot.

09:25 / 16.12.03

I saw Red Dawn years ago, though it seems to be shown on Dutch TV damn near every week. Between beating up stoners and date-raping cheerleaders, I wonder how the Wolverines found time to fight a resistance. Funny that webboard took a couple of pages of blather before someone got around to mentioning reprisals.

Last night I had a few people over for dinner and a showing of the DVD of Invasion USA (1952) and Red Nightmare (1962). They're both pretty good, though Red Nightmare has the advantage of being shorter and narrated by Jack Webb, of DRAGNET fame). Funny as hell, and Red Nightmare has a cameo by Robert Conrad (or should that be "Comrade?") as fellow lathe operator "Pete."

The whole point of the night was Cold War Two, in honor of Bush pushing US military bases on New Europeans (we've got plenty in the 'Stans) as Zhirinovsky's paranoid nationalists have their best electoral showing in years.

I hope sometime to digitize Commie Plot Comics, from National Lampoon.

(sign on Pleas^H^H^H^H^HNew Stalinville church: CHURCH CLOSED - GOD DEAD)

09:37 / 16.12.03

Harry Dean Stanton did one of the voices in the Care Bear movie.

That knowledge has completely made my day.

I guess his contribution is probably pretty anti-climatic, but I can still just imagine him putting his heart & soul into the portrayal of "fucked up recovering alcoholic bear".

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:40 / 16.12.03

"That's why I don't know a care bear that doesn't do speed."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:52 / 16.12.03

Hey, speak for y'self. I don't want no Care Bears in my car.

No Communists, neither.

Haus of Mystery

20:27 / 16.12.03

Red Dawn is not better than Repo Man, foolish child.

Has anyone seen Invasion USA with Chuck Norris? That's a reeeeeeeeeaal liberal movie...

21:59 / 16.12.03

Red Dawn is not better than Repo Man, foolish child.
I know you are, but what am I?

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:43 / 16.12.03

Harry Dean Stanton in the Care Bears is up there with Orson Welles in Transformers: the Movie. Nonetheless, we must remember that HDS' greatest role was without doubt Pretty in Pink. Dude may take bullets and get his brain eaten by aliens, but deep down he's just a blue-collar guy trying to do his best for the beautiful daughter who reminds him too much of his departed wife.

And fight communism. What role did he play in Red Dawn? Cuban or Wolverine?

11:05 / 17.12.03

HDS was the uncle of Swayze and Charlie Sheen. I believe he gave them guns and horses after the Cubans invaded.

13:17 / 17.12.03

I think the real question is: Will Bin Laden be brought down by Operation Road House or Operation Point Break? Every terrorist is going to quit Al Qaida in disgust one word gets out that their leader was finally captured through the careful planning and execution of Operation Dirty Dancing.

15:16 / 17.12.03

I've seen it many times on a boring Sunday afternoon. Decent gurellia fighting, BIG RED SCARE! I especially like how the key to the Russian's victory was deployment of units via passenger planes. Though why anyone would want to fight a land war from the other side of the planet over turf as bigh as North America is beyond me. Historically, it seems to have been beyond the Russians as well. Or maybe they were just afrid of Reagon gunning them down with Star Wars weapons from within his terminator mecha suit.

Anyway, I always preferred Rocky 4 for good commie bashing fun. Its Rocky vs the human embodyment of communist Russia! Its Big! Its Strong! Its full of Steroids! But when the crowd cheers, the little Italian can still beat it down, though he suffers brain damage for it. I'm sure there's a political parallel to be drawn there somewhere.

And by the way, I've got Repo Man on DVD.

uncle retrospective

09:04 / 18.12.03

There is also The Price of Freedom roleplaying game from West End Games based (I think) on Red Dawn. Roll the dice kill the Reds under your bed with out leaving your parents basement.

Tryphena Absent

12:34 / 18.12.03

No, no, Bin Laden's going to be brought down by Operation The Neverending Story.

17:59 / 18.12.03

How about operation Return to Oz(ama, you see), if we're throwing around bad 80s movies?

Plus then we can take out Kim Jong-Il in Operation The Craft, thus managing a double whammy of Fairuza Balk references.

And then we can follow the Neve Campbell link by taking out Bush in a devious double-cross called...Operation Wild Things! God, if we could just slip a Showgirls reference in here the plan would be perfect.

The bit where Osama pours champagne over Blair's tits while being massaged by Kim is probably not going to make CNN, though, even if they are willing to show round-the-clock footage of Saddam Hussein looking like a man being attacked by the Ultimate Vampire Toupee.

Hmm.

Brigade du jour

20:37 / 23.12.03

I watched Red Dawn about fifteen years ago, only really because I had the BIGGEST crush on Lea Thompson (strange Oedipal Back To The Future complications, don't ask) and I just found it all a bit confusing.

I could see I was supposed to side with the protagonists, but when Patrick Swayze smeared fresh deer blood on C Thomas Howell's face (or whatever it was) ... well, let's just say I discovered All The Right Moves pretty quick.

Hmm ... All The Right Moves.

22:34 / 26.12.03

but the Repo man is always intence!