The New Red Dawn, and MGM’s Lost Backbone

by Little Miss Attila on March 17, 2011

Yes, they are really changing it so that we are invaded by North Korea. So, as my husband points out, they are going to make it The Mouse That Roared.

Why is it that the Soviet Union had a sense of humor about the original film, but the Chinese don’t about this movie? Actually, we don’t really know which the problem is: either 1) the Chinese are hypersensitive, or 2) MGM lost its balls, and can’t find them anywhere. Of course, even if the Chinese are hypersensitive, that’s no reason to buckle–it’s a reason to say, hey, action films are, practically by definition, camp.

Greg Gutfeld:

China has become such a big market for Hollywood, MGM studios have decided to replace the Chinese with North Koreans [in the remake of Red Dawn].

Yep, in a first for Hollywood: filmmakers actually digitally erased Chinese flags and symbols and replaced dialogue… so now North Korea are the invaders.

Because, with that country, there’s nothing to be gained, financially. It’s as lucrative as a Kathy Griffin porn site.

Color me unsurprised.

Hollywood may be where dreams are made, but it’s also where wimps are cultivated.

I mean, look who they chose, just seven years after 9/11. The Chinese!

How’s that for cowardice? Here real life hands you an honest-to-God adversary – radical Islam – and you choose a country that makes your tennis shoes.

Wusses.

The paper says the “changes illustrate just how much sway China’s government has in the global entertainment industry.”

But an MGM spokesman says no one spoke to anyone linked to the Chinese government.

So i guess they gave in without a fight.

Which makes you wonder how quickly they’d fold when faced with a real threat.

It is impressive, though–the rush to collaborate with a country that doesn’t even occupy you . . .

Here’s an old post at Blogmocracy about the problems the RD remake was having from the very beginning.

Via the Hot Air headlines, Jason Apuzzo has a review of what the new Red Dawn was before it was gutted. He may be off the mark, however, in implying that the version that featured Chinese forces somehow made a statement about the nature of the Communist regime there. In this type of storyline the invading power really only needs to be another superpower.

Turning the Norks into a superpower, though, is an epic fail. This is a huge disappointment: it’s as if we were being cinematically invaded by Liechtenstein. Or the town of Bell, California.

UPDATE: “Norks” for Australian readers. These happen to belong to Leelee Sobieski:

{ 2 trackbacks }

The Spot-On Quote Of The Day… « The Camp Of The Saints
March 17, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Just how far has America fallen? We used to fear the Soviets. Now we fear…the Norks. « The TrogloPundit
March 18, 2011 at 3:17 pm

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

richard mcenroe March 17, 2011 at 5:54 pm

NORTH KOREA?! We could stop a Nork invasion by just throwing hamburgers! French Fries! Singly!

Reply

Richard March 17, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Wow. Even I can’t suspend disbelief to that level.
I’m constantly amazed at the shallow end of the gene pool that is Hollywood.

Reply

ponce March 17, 2011 at 6:41 pm

How dare them libruls attempt to maximize their profits!

What are they, Commies?

Reply

richard mcenroe March 17, 2011 at 8:05 pm

I’m old enough to remember Ponce’s great-great-grandaddy writing a stern letter to the Times of London, defending Mr. Bowdler and his gelding of Shakespeare…

Reply

Darrell March 18, 2011 at 4:12 am

One day we will get a single movie about the hundreds of millions of people who died under the
various flavors of Socialism and the misery inflicted on the living.

Probably when the last of them join the dinosaurs.

I’m surprised that they didn’t make the Tea Party the villain, so there is that.

Reply

TWB March 18, 2011 at 5:28 am

Never mind the fact that an invasion by North Korea isn’t even plausible. One thing that made the first movie good was the fact that you could envision an invasion by the Russians.

China? Yes.

North Korea? Not so much.

Reply

richard mcenroe March 18, 2011 at 8:02 am

TWB __ I used to joke that the only way I’d ever get recalled to active duty was if the North Koreans landed in Malibu…

Reply

KLH March 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm

It would have been more realistic to be invaded and taken over by the cast of “Mama Mia.”

Reply

TWB March 18, 2011 at 3:18 pm

At which point, KLH, we’d surrender if they’d only stop singing that damn song.

Reply

exiled_Alaskan March 18, 2011 at 6:22 pm

Silly Hollywood an invasion by either country would go something like this they land they turn and shoot their leasders then defect in masse, the thing about Communists they have to put guns and fences up to keep their people in, we have to do it to keep people out.

Reply

ST March 19, 2011 at 12:37 am

I for one would LOVE to be attacked by norks. Cs or bigger, please.

Folks, every time you see Kim Jong Il’s regime shortened to that name, remember it means something else from Sydney to Perth.

Reply

Billy March 19, 2011 at 2:15 am

This is absurd beyond measure. North Korea? Really? This movie is already out of the orbit of reality. At minimum, the writers, producers, et al. could’ve substituted a nation with a GDP greater than 1.

Reply

Cancel reply

Reply to TWB:

Previous post:

Next post: