An analysis of the movie Red Dawn

JB - May 23, 2021

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I love the movie Red Dawn. There is the 1984 original and then a 2012 remake under the same idea but with updated modern day action. 

Here’s a quick summary of the plot. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it:

Kids are attending school when all the sudden enemy paratroopers begin landing outside of their school and attacking. A small group of students are able to escape and flee to the mountains to their summer cabin. They then enact guerrilla warfare on the town below where all the adults and their fellow students are held as prisoners of war under the name of their high school mascot the Wolverines!

I’ve always enjoyed this movie because of the idea of a WWIII event happening here in your local home town. (would dread this if it ever happened, but its a fun scenario to think about)

What would you do if you were in the position of these kids who have evacuated to the mountains? Would you bunker down or fight back and save your family?

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Good afternoon TB,

Didn’t see movie; wasn’t here. Some of the people we were working with did see it and told us about plot, etc.

In reply to question; Would bunker down. Not because of lack of training or age … if they were high school kids, many militaries of world use teens.  Fighting as a partisan requires food/water, medicines/first aid supplies, proper field clothes, …  (Where have we heard this before ?!)

When one of the guys told us part of the plot was that Washington, D.C. was destroyed by a nuc, we really did laugh – because many of us remember the unofficial Civil Defense poster with caption: “No one would dare bomb this place and end all the confusion”. Besides the laughing, a couple said “We won the war!”

My only indirect contact with the movie was via some veterans magazines. Apparently the movie had someone saying that in WWII, after Pearl Harbor attack, US territory was never attacked and occupied. Two of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands were occupied by the Japanese. The magazines had some sort of an apology.  Wasn’t familiar with movie background to understand the magazine entries.

Had heard that the movie was a BIG HIT in US.

 

I’m with Mr. Bob here. While it makes for good TV, I don’t have the military expertise to fight back against trained soldiers. I would quickly get captured and killed.

Bunkering down would be the safe and smart thing to do in this situation. 

 

The 2012 Red Dawn is pretty awful and very unrealistic. The OG 1984 Red Dawn is where it’s at. That movie will forever be a classic imho.

 

 If there is chatter about an insurgent group living in the hills and attacking troops and causing chaos, a heat seeking drone with a missile will make quick work of them. 

Haven’t seen the 2012 version and don’t know if that was shown in that one.