Red Dawn may have sucked and I’m certain the remake will suck as well. But this is what we get in the theatres these days.
When was the last time someone saw anything remotely original in the theatres? Movies cost so much to make these days and so few people go to see them that producers are only willing to put the money down on something they can guarantee an audience for. So franchises that were previously successful are as close to a sure thing as we can get these days. Why do you think we have Batman 3X2 and Sipderman 1x2 and Superman 2x2 and every conceivable marketable Marvel character coming out as a film?
To be honest, I miss the 80’s. When directors were willing to try anything and fail at it. Put up millions of dollars on a stupid idea and see if it works. I mean some of our favourite movies probably looked completely hopeless before they hit the cutting room floor. Red Dawn was one that failed. But you know that The Terminator, Predator, Alien 3, could just have easily been met with the same fate. At least people were trying back then.
Fight Club BOMBED at the box office and who didn’t see the premise and say “What a dumb-sounding movie.” Blade Runner did extremely poorly. on its release. But at the very least producers/directors were still trying new ideas. I don’t even need to mention Evil Dead or Donnie Darko.
So hats off to the original Red Dawn for trying and failing. And shame on the new Red Dawn for being so uninventive that they couldn’t even think of a successful movie to remake.
That said, Red Dawn did influence the equally goofy, but perhaps equally fun PC game Red Alert 2
“According to NORAD we’ve got Soviet aircraft coming at us from all directions and ground troops pushing up through Mexico. I don’t know how they snuck in on us!”
