Finally saw "Red Dawn"; Reactions & Question.
- Thread starter Kind of Blued
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Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
Um, no. First, if it is just the S and W you are talking about, then it isn't the nation, is it? Secondly, the majority of the population aren't hunters or put food on the table via means such as hunting.
A large portion of the population doesn't own guns (60-75% of adults) and a goodly number of those have never fired a gun.
A nation of riflemen? I don't think so. We don't even have a nation of gun owners.
adobewalls
Member
As to the premise for Red Dawn:
How many members here grew up knowing older men (WW2 and Korean vets) that kept their Garand or .45 put away for the day "when the Rooskies come up from Mexico"?
I can remember several from my youth that were so convinced.
How many members here grew up knowing older men (WW2 and Korean vets) that kept their Garand or .45 put away for the day "when the Rooskies come up from Mexico"?
I can remember several from my youth that were so convinced.
Opsboss
Member
Have the DVD. It's a classic. Full of nonsense and errors... but a classic nonetheless.
Best, Ops
Best, Ops
Kind of Blued
Member
Well, see, the problem is that you mistakenly took "nation of riflemen" to mean that every single person in the country is great with a rifle, then acted like we were dumb.
K3
Member
One of my favorite movies of all time.
The part I didn't like was the little tank battle. I can see a T72 (I believe) with such target acquisition issues, but the American armor appeared to be an Abrams, and they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside!
I like how Jed usually stuck with his bolt action rifle, though I did see him at times with what appeared to be an RPK.
The part I didn't like was the little tank battle. I can see a T72 (I believe) with such target acquisition issues, but the American armor appeared to be an Abrams, and they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside!
I like how Jed usually stuck with his bolt action rifle, though I did see him at times with what appeared to be an RPK.
Starcheck55
Member
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- Nov 20, 2008
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- 164
this is actually my greatest fear of a remake. I DO NOT want a CG movie, nor do i want a low budget stinkfest with no action. The plot line and the characters are what made Red Dawn so good, I hope they don't mess that up trying to make it into a special effects thrill ride (see: Star Wars revenge of the sith).
When this movie came out I was about 12 years old. I went to my father and starting squawking about how scary that it "might really happen" and so on.
He reminded me in his wisdom that in 1962 we were aware of 12 missles being erected in Cuba and the movement of supporting troops was completely obvious to anyone in this hemisphere. There would be a very small chance that in the early 80's we would miss a few million troops crossing the Atlantic to various staging areas and also amassing near the Beiring straight. After that I slept well again.
He reminded me in his wisdom that in 1962 we were aware of 12 missles being erected in Cuba and the movement of supporting troops was completely obvious to anyone in this hemisphere. There would be a very small chance that in the early 80's we would miss a few million troops crossing the Atlantic to various staging areas and also amassing near the Beiring straight. After that I slept well again.
Mr.510
Member
I might be scarred for life.....
Red Dawn is one of my all time favorite movies. I saw it the first time at the old John Danz Theater in Bellevue the day it opened. I was a 15 year old WW2 nut and that movie was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. A couple weeks later I talked my dad into taking a friend and I into Seattle to see it at some huge theater. That was double-cool 'cause my dad packed heat when we went "downtown".
My buddy was amazed and figured I had the only dad in Bellevue cool enough to carry a 1939 Walther P38 with teeny little swastikas all over it! 
When I got my first AK I brought it home and showed it to my wife. I pulled it out of the box and asked her to cover her ears. Then I raised it over my head and yelled, "Wolverines!". She didn't get it but I couldn't stop smiling for a week!
Red Dawn is one of my all time favorite movies. I saw it the first time at the old John Danz Theater in Bellevue the day it opened. I was a 15 year old WW2 nut and that movie was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. A couple weeks later I talked my dad into taking a friend and I into Seattle to see it at some huge theater. That was double-cool 'cause my dad packed heat when we went "downtown".
My buddy was amazed and figured I had the only dad in Bellevue cool enough to carry a 1939 Walther P38 with teeny little swastikas all over it! When I got my first AK I brought it home and showed it to my wife. I pulled it out of the box and asked her to cover her ears. Then I raised it over my head and yelled, "Wolverines!". She didn't get it but I couldn't stop smiling for a week!
Red Dawn celebrates the era of Reagan uber-patriotism, the ominous threat of the Soviet bear, and common Cold War fears. I saw it as a kid and the first thing I wanted to do afterwards was dig a fox hole in the woods- not realizing the only legitimate land-invasion target of the Soviets back then was West Germany (and W Europe) not the US.
The Soviet plan was much more complicated. They disguised the first wave of Spetsnaz as commercial planes, and then dropped them in to capture/neutralize key points and the passes in the Rocky Mts. Many people don't realize that is what Spetsnaz were trained to do- get behind NATO lines and take out airfields, HQs, communication bases, etc.
Nukes were also coordinated to take out key points of communication- remember Gulf War I? If you can make your enemy's leadership blind, deaf, and mute... you've won half the battle.
The "hispanic hordes" marching up from Mexico was a secondary move once the gates were open.
Honestly, the set some very important pre-conditions for WW III otherwise it couldn't happen: 1) NATO falls apart 2) all of central America goes super-communist 3) the USSR faces intense eco pressure internally (which isn't far off base) that forces them to expand to avoid collapse.
I think a key indicator of reversing what you heard was when Col Bella is speaking spanish early in the film.
We sort of laugh at Cuba today, but during the 80s they did have troops in Angola, and even took on the South African army (a highly professional force at the time) and allegedly "won" (though this is disputed).
It is scary, but their approach follows the mold of what the Soviets and Nazis did during WWII (and the Soviets after the war). I think "Duke" mentioned this. Why run around and search houses randomly? The Nazis loved files and records- so when they went into Poland for example, they used any info they found to go after anyone who would resist German rule.
I agree- the scene where the Spetsnaz are ambushed in the snowy woods shows them carrying AKS-74 (the side folders) is awesome. Although the commander at the end of the film (final shoot out) had some type of submachine gun. Can anyone verify if that was a legit Warsaw pact weapon?
What is illogical? That the Soviets would never capture and torture an American teen into revealing the location of his partisan friends? Or the actual technology of the homing bug? I'm not going to research what homing tech was available in the 80s, but you would be surprised what kind of stuff each side developed during the Cold War and stocked it on shelves.
I think the debate over whether or not to execute the captured Russian and the traitor is one of the best twists of the film, and shows a turning point of the morality of the film.
"Because we live here!" - that saying could sum up many conflicts in the world over the centuries.
Again, Red Dawn does a good job because many of the occupation concepts are based on real Soviet (or Nazi) history:
- re-education camps, used in USSR in Siberia after they went into Poland in 1939, and obviously after 1945. Communists also used these camps after 1975 in Vietnam (meanwhile the hippies were celebrating "peace", yet they had very little concern about the tens of thousands of former ARVN officers and officials who were rotting in these camps under the communists)
- use of hostages. In occupied Poland, Russia, and France the Nazis had a ratio set up, a certain number of hostages would be shot for every German soldier killed by partisans. This was exactly what they did in Red Dawn (when they mowed down the group in the field).
- inability to defeat small unit partisan tactics with conventional forces- this is well depicted in the film, and was learned by the US in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the French in Vietnam/Algeria.
* on this note, after the Hind attack the officer makes an interesting summary. He gives a high estimation of the enemy body count, when its only 1 in reality. This echoes the concept of using high estimated body counts as evidence the larger side was "winning the war." You'll notice the US has abandoned this policy in Iraq and Afghanistan (there is not the same obsession with enemy body counts).
- rapes- there is a reference that Leah Thompson had been raped (perhaps sodomized) by Russians troops. This is one of the taboo topics of the end of WWII, the scale of rapes by Soviet soldiers in eastern Germany. Ironically, they did not just rape defenseless German women ages 7-70, but liberated Jewish women, Hungarians, Polish, and other female slave workers they came across.
- collaborators- the mayor changed sides eagerly to gain advantage (even turning in his own son). This happened in France in the 40s, and in East Germany after 1945- many Nazis became the most gung-ho communists (hey the marching was the same). Obviously some former Baathists are now serving us in Iraq as well, this concept has happened in history many times.
So many people dismiss Red Dawn as an mere action film, but it does its best to present a "what if" of the Cold War based on what the communists did in many conquered and occupied countries.
The Soviet plan was much more complicated. They disguised the first wave of Spetsnaz as commercial planes, and then dropped them in to capture/neutralize key points and the passes in the Rocky Mts. Many people don't realize that is what Spetsnaz were trained to do- get behind NATO lines and take out airfields, HQs, communication bases, etc.
Nukes were also coordinated to take out key points of communication- remember Gulf War I? If you can make your enemy's leadership blind, deaf, and mute... you've won half the battle.
The "hispanic hordes" marching up from Mexico was a secondary move once the gates were open.
Honestly, the set some very important pre-conditions for WW III otherwise it couldn't happen: 1) NATO falls apart 2) all of central America goes super-communist 3) the USSR faces intense eco pressure internally (which isn't far off base) that forces them to expand to avoid collapse.
I think a key indicator of reversing what you heard was when Col Bella is speaking spanish early in the film.
We sort of laugh at Cuba today, but during the 80s they did have troops in Angola, and even took on the South African army (a highly professional force at the time) and allegedly "won" (though this is disputed). It is scary, but their approach follows the mold of what the Soviets and Nazis did during WWII (and the Soviets after the war). I think "Duke" mentioned this. Why run around and search houses randomly? The Nazis loved files and records- so when they went into Poland for example, they used any info they found to go after anyone who would resist German rule.
I agree- the scene where the Spetsnaz are ambushed in the snowy woods shows them carrying AKS-74 (the side folders) is awesome.
Although the commander at the end of the film (final shoot out) had some type of submachine gun. Can anyone verify if that was a legit Warsaw pact weapon? What is illogical? That the Soviets would never capture and torture an American teen into revealing the location of his partisan friends? Or the actual technology of the homing bug? I'm not going to research what homing tech was available in the 80s, but you would be surprised what kind of stuff each side developed during the Cold War and stocked it on shelves.
I think the debate over whether or not to execute the captured Russian and the traitor is one of the best twists of the film, and shows a turning point of the morality of the film.
"Because we live here!" - that saying could sum up many conflicts in the world over the centuries. Again, Red Dawn does a good job because many of the occupation concepts are based on real Soviet (or Nazi) history:
- re-education camps, used in USSR in Siberia after they went into Poland in 1939, and obviously after 1945. Communists also used these camps after 1975 in Vietnam (meanwhile the hippies were celebrating "peace", yet they had very little concern about the tens of thousands of former ARVN officers and officials who were rotting in these camps under the communists)
- use of hostages. In occupied Poland, Russia, and France the Nazis had a ratio set up, a certain number of hostages would be shot for every German soldier killed by partisans. This was exactly what they did in Red Dawn (when they mowed down the group in the field).
- inability to defeat small unit partisan tactics with conventional forces- this is well depicted in the film, and was learned by the US in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the French in Vietnam/Algeria.
* on this note, after the Hind attack the officer makes an interesting summary. He gives a high estimation of the enemy body count, when its only 1 in reality. This echoes the concept of using high estimated body counts as evidence the larger side was "winning the war." You'll notice the US has abandoned this policy in Iraq and Afghanistan (there is not the same obsession with enemy body counts).
- rapes- there is a reference that Leah Thompson had been raped (perhaps sodomized) by Russians troops. This is one of the taboo topics of the end of WWII, the scale of rapes by Soviet soldiers in eastern Germany. Ironically, they did not just rape defenseless German women ages 7-70, but liberated Jewish women, Hungarians, Polish, and other female slave workers they came across.
- collaborators- the mayor changed sides eagerly to gain advantage (even turning in his own son). This happened in France in the 40s, and in East Germany after 1945- many Nazis became the most gung-ho communists (hey the marching was the same). Obviously some former Baathists are now serving us in Iraq as well, this concept has happened in history many times.
So many people dismiss Red Dawn as an mere action film, but it does its best to present a "what if" of the Cold War based on what the communists did in many conquered and occupied countries.
shooting4life
Member
It just got moved to the top of the que
grilledcheese
Member
Excellent analysis, buck00.
You just saved me a bunch of typing.
Jeffrey
You just saved me a bunch of typing.
Jeffrey
K3
Member
buck00 misse dhis calling as a movie critic.
Nice analysis.
Nice analysis.
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