Red Dawn

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Red Dawn
Directed by	John Milius
Produced by	Sidney Beckerman Buzz Feitshans
Written by	John Milius Kevin Reynolds
Starring	Patrick Swayze Charlie Sheen Lea Thompson Jennifer Grey C. Thomas Howell Brad Savage Darren Dalton
Music by	Basil Poledouris
Cinematography	Ric Waite
Editing by	Thom Noble
Distributed by	MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
Release date(s)	August 10, 1984
Running time	114 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4,200,000
Gross revenue	$38,376,497

Red Dawn is a 1984 American war film directed and co-written by John Milius and also written by Kevin Reynolds. Set in an alternate timeline during the mid-1980s, the film is largely an exploration of American fears during the Cold War. In words of review^[1], "Red Dawn also accurately depicts the fear of Soviet occupation during the Cold War".

The backdrop of Red Dawn is an invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union and their Central American allies. However, the onset of World War III is merely in the background of the plot and not fully elaborated upon. The story follows a group of American high school students who resist their foreign occupiers through guerrilla warfare and call themselves the Wolverines, after their local football team, some of whom are members.

Red Dawn was the first movie in film history to be released with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating.^[2] At one time, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute.^[3]

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Cast 3 Themes 4 Development 5 Cold War 6 Operation Red Dawn 7 Remake 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The prologue of the film explains that Communist ideology has taken root in many nations of the world, especially in South America and Central America, due to falling economic conditions and food shortages. The Soviet Union has experienced its worst wheat harvest in 55 years, and invades the former countries of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe such as Poland where mass rioting has occurred. Previously West Germany was forced into disarmament when the "Greens Party" (sic) (Green Party) came into power there, and as such left helpless to the Soviet onslaught (the film was made in the decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall). These events cause global disruption and tensions, and NATO and the United Nations are left political non-entities. With the onset of World War III looming, the United States is left standing alone.

The film begins when a normal September morning in the small Colorado town of Calumet is unexpectedly interrupted by the surprise appearance of Cuban and Soviet paratroopers in the empty fields behind the local high school. As the paratroopers begin their attack and begin rounding up the townspeople, a small group of teenagers grab their weapons and supplies and flee to the nearby mountains where they had previously hunted with their fathers. The Arapaho National Forest becomes their base.

When they return to find news on what has happened, the boys are given sanctuary for a time by an old couple, who inform them that they are "40 miles (64 km) behind enemy lines". The couple charge them with the care of their two granddaughters, Toni (Jennifer Grey) and Erica (Lea Thompson) Mason. Led by Jed Eckert (Patrick Swayze), his brother Matt (Charlie Sheen), and their friends Robert (C. Thomas Howell), Danny (Brad Savage), Daryl (Darren Dalton), and Aardvark (Doug Toby), who call themselves the Wolverines after their high school mascot,^[2] they begin a resistance against the Soviet-allied occupation force.

As the result of escalating guerrilla attacks, the Soviet field commanders now view the Wolverines as a serious threat. Initially, the occupiers had tried terror tactics, executing groups of civilians following every Wolverine attack, to intimidate the local population and the Wolverines into halting their attacks. However, this tactic backfired, and civilians lent increasing support to the resistance movement. Following a rise in popular support for the Wolverines, the Soviets decide to stop reprisals against civilians and begin hunting the Wolverines themselves. Spetsnaz commandos are sent into the mountains to eliminate the resistance, but the commandos are ambushed and killed by the Wolverines.

The Wolverines are weakened, however, by the attacks and other events, and their morale erodes as the war of attrition takes its toll on their numbers. Even though the civilians are increasingly resistant to Soviet rule, the occupation forces are pushing the resistance to the breaking point. The remaining Wolverines are ambushed by three Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and Robert and Toni are killed, leaving the group reduced to four: Jed; Matt; Danny; and Erica. The survivors realize that they cannot outlast the Soviets, and if they keep fighting, they will all die. Determined to save at least some of their number, Jed and Matt stage a suicide attack on the Soviet regional headquarters in order to distract the troops while Danny and Erica escape to "Free American" territory. The ploy works: Jed and Matt are killed, but Danny and Erica are free.

The film's epilogue, narrated by Erica, suggests that the United States successfully repels the invasion some years later; a plaque is displayed with "Partisan Rock" in the background, a rock which throughout the film has been a recurring motif as each dead comrade's name has been inscribed upon it by a member of the Wolverines.

[edit] Cast

• Patrick Swayze as Jed Eckert
• Charlie Sheen as Matt Eckert
• C. Thomas Howell as Robert Morris
• Lea Thompson as Erica Mason
• Jennifer Grey as Toni Mason
• Brad Savage as Danny
• Powers Boothe as Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner
• Harry Dean Stanton as Tom Eckert
• Darren Dalton as Daryl Bates
• Doug Toby as Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon
• Ben Johnson as George Mason
• Lane Smith as Mayor Bates
• William Smith as Col. Strelnikov (The Hunter)
• Vladek Sheybal as Gen. Bratchenko
• Ron O'Neal as Col. Ernesto Bella
• Roy Jenson as Mr. Morris

This marks one of the three films Swayze and Howell did together, the other two The Outsiders with Dalton as well, and Grandview, U.S.A.. Swayze and Grey went on to appear in Dirty Dancing.^[4]

[edit] Themes

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Red Dawn depicts collaboration, portraying the local mayor as someone who works with the occupational forces. Actor Lane Smith plays the role of the "Vichyste" mayor who tries to appease the occupational authorities. He watches as several of the residents of his town are executed as reprisal hostages and later gives up his own son (who is later executed by the Wolverines as a result) to the KGB.

Director John Milius portrays the private ownership of weapons as a necessary element of anti-Communism. Early in the film, a bumper sticker seen on a truck states a classic gun owner’s creed: "They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers." The shot moves down to a dead man's hand holding an M1911 Colt pistol, which a Soviet paratrooper later picks up. As the protagonists flee the initial invasion of Calumet, they stop at a local sporting goods store owned by one of their fathers. He tells them to gather supplies and gives them several rifles and pistols along with boxes of ammunition (the father and his wife are later executed because of the guns missing from the store’s inventory). In a later scene, Colonel Bella, the Cuban officer, instructs the KGB to go to the local sporting goods store and obtain the paperwork of local citizens who own firearms. The Cuban officer specifically refers to Form 4473, which is the actual BATF form used to record the sale of a firearm by a dealer to a private citizen in the United States. Later in the film the Wolverines make almost exclusive use of captured Soviet weapons such as AKMs, RPKs, and RPGs from their first engagement onwards for greater effectiveness.

[edit] Development

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The script for Red Dawn was written by John Milius and Kevin Reynolds (director of The Beast, Waterworld, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) from a story by Reynolds. The original screenplay, called Ten Soldiers, was more akin to Lord of the Flies, the classic novel (and later two films) about the aggressive nature of man, than to the action film it eventually became. Some of the changes made to Ten Soldiers included a shift in focus from the conflict within the group of teens to the conflict between the teens and their oppressors, and the acceleration of the ages of some of the characters from early teens to high school age and beyond. John Milius was inspired to a degree by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, basing the tactics of the "Wolverines" on those of the mujahideen in fighting the occupying Russian army.^{[citation needed]}

The movie was filmed in and around the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Many of the buildings and structures which appeared in the film, including a historic Fred Harvey Company hotel adjacent to the train depot, the Las Vegas train yard, and a building near downtown, which was repainted with the name of "Calumet, Colorado", where the movie was set, are still there today as they appeared in the film. An old Safeway grocery store was also converted to a sound stage and used for several scenes in the movie.

Before starting work on the movie, the cast underwent a realistic intensive eight-week military training course. During that time, production crews designed and built special combat vehicles in Newhall, California. Among their "army" were 15 Soviet armored vehicles (including a ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" mobile antiaircraft gun, several T-72 main battle tanks, and various BMP and BTR armored personnel carriers), several Yak-38 "Forger" vertical take-off and landing Soviet Naval aircraft (the Soviet Navy flag is clearly visible on the side of the air intake), and three Mi-24 "Hind-A" helicopter gunships (improvised from Aérospatiale Pumas). Soldier Of Fortune Magazine reported that the movie's Soviet T-72 tank was such a precise replica that "while it was being carted around Los Angeles, two CIA officers followed it to the studio and wanted to know where it had come from".

Five of the 36 parachutists who took part in the invasion scene early in the film were injured when high winds blew them as far as one mile (1600 m) off target. Parachutist Jim Fisher, wearing a Soviet paratrooper uniform including full Soviet insignia and including an AKM Assault Rifle, landed in a tree and found himself calling out to local rescuers including armed citizens and police: "Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I am not a Russian soldier!"^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cold War

The movie was released at the height of the Cold War; less than 5 years after the capture of the US Embassy in Iran in 1979, which led to the 444 day-long hostage negotiation (and failed rescue attempt Operation Eagle Claw) in 1980 and 1981; only two years after the US invasion of Grenada where US Special Forces and Delta Force members fought against Cuban military forces; and only one year after Ronald Reagan, elected to his second term as President of the United States, announced his prototypical Strategic Defense Initiative Star Wars missile defense system as a military necessity to give America an advantage against nuclear attack. The fall of the Berlin Wall was only 5 years away, and the total economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union was only 7 years away. The Soviet attack outlined in the film was a test case for the US War College with a certain element of plausibility, given the political climate at the time the movie was released.^[5]

[edit] Operation Red Dawn

The operation to capture former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was named after the movie (Operation Red Dawn), as well as its targets, which were dubbed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2. The Army captain who named the mission said that: "Operation Red Dawn was so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie." Director John Millius said about the operation's name: "I was deeply flattered and honored. It's nice to have a lasting legacy."^[6]

[edit] Remake

Two top executives at MGM, Harry Sloan and Mary Parent, announced that a remake of Red Dawn is in the early stages of pre-production in May 2008 at the Festival de Cannes. This was announced along with a big-budget rebuild of RoboCop, which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss. The remake of Red Dawn is slated to be directed by Dan Bradley, who has previously worked as a second unit director and stunt coordinator on films such as The Bourne Ultimatum, Spiderman 3 and the Quantum of Solace. MGM has announced that Red Dawn will be remade "keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in".^[2][7] In a further announcement the same month, Dan Bradley has been confirmed as the director with Carl Ellsworth, screenwriter of Red Eye and Disturbia writing the updated screenplay.^[2][8] Ellsworth will be working from a story written by Jeremy Passmore. Vincent Newman (A Man Apart) is also acting in a producer capacity.^[9] Australian Chris Hemsworth has been cast in a lead role.^[10]

Ellsworth has said:

"The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we’re in. As ‘Red Dawn’ scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again? It was later revealed that the Chinese would be the invaders and they would be aided by the Russians later on."^[11]

Joining Hemsworth are Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki for the film, with a possible setting of Spokane, Washington. Marquette, Michigan is being considered as a filming location.^[12] Tony Gilroy, who wrote The Bourne Trilogy and Micheal Clayton will do a rewrite of script. .^[13]

[edit] See also

• Alternate history
• List of nuclear holocaust fiction
• World War III in popular culture
• Culture during the Cold War
• Grey Dawn, an episode of South Park which parodies Red Dawn
• Freedom Fighters, A video game about a Soviet Invasion of New York City, very similar to Red Dawn.
• World in Conflict, A Video game about a Soviet/Chinese Invasion of America. Red Dawn was the main influnce for the game.
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, A video game that depicts a full scale Soviet Invasion of The United States.
• Amerika (TV miniseries), A television show about The United States under the rule of the Soviet Union.
• Homefront (video game), an upcoming video game written by John Milius, who wrote and directed Red Dawn, about a North Korean invasion of America.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Red Dawn

• Red Dawn at the Internet Movie Database
• Red Dawn at Allmovie
• Red Dawn at the TCM Movie Database
• Operation Red Dawn Irony - The Guardian

Preceded by Ghostbusters

Box office number-one films of 1984 (USA) August 12, 1984

Succeeded by Tightrope

v • d • e Films directed by John Milius Dillinger (1973) · The Wind and the Lion (1975) · Big Wednesday (1978) · Conan the Barbarian (1982) · Red Dawn (1984) · Farewell to the King (1989) · Flight of the Intruder (1991)