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There is a discussion over on Free Republic (FR) involving the 1984 film, Red Dawn--the flik involves a scenario where the USA is unexpectedly invaded by the enemy, and the reaction of Americans to it. Links are provided below to both FR and an online run-down on the movie itself. Your responses here and/or on FR would be interesting, I'M sure.
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Red Dawn
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For other uses, see Red dawn (disambiguation) .
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
Harry Dean Stanton
Powers Boothe
Jennifer Grey
C. Thomas Howell
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
Language English
Budget 4,200,000 USD
IMDb profile
Red Dawn is a 1984 film by John Milius about an invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union, and the resulting guerrilla actions of a group of American high school students in the fictional town of Calumet, Colorado. The movie features Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, and Powers Boothe.
Produced in the last decade of the Cold War, Red Dawn has become something of a cult classic and has become a touchstone of 1980's pop culture. Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a PG-13 rating ( The Flamingo Kid was the first film to actually receive the rating, but was not released for 5 months after certification.)
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Plot summary
* 2 Backstory
* 3 Themes
* 4 Development
* 5 Taglines
* 6 Trivia
* 7 Cultural references
* 8 See also
* 9 References
* 10 External links
[edit] Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The plot is based around a Soviet and Cuban/ Latin American invasion of the United States in the late 1980s, igniting a world war . The story is about young people resisting the resulting Soviet occupation.
In the small Colorado town of Calumet, a normal fall morning is interrupted by a massive airdrop by airborne forces into the town. After a massacre at their high school, a small group of teenagers who flee into the hills to escape the Soviets with a small amount of rations and hunting weapons. Eventually the youths begin an insurgency against the Soviet-allied occupational forces. The group call themselves the Wolverines after their school's team/mascot and proceed to set ambushes, use sniper attacks, booby traps, and raid the occupiers' supply depots and convoys.
Over time, the Wolverines are joined by a downed fighter pilot, Tanner, who instructs them in more formal military tactics. the Wolverines liberate a "political prisoner camp" in town where the Soviets had rounded up citizens whom they thought might offer resistance to their occupation.
Eventually, they make a disastrous foray to the front lines of the war in a Rocky Mountain pass where American and Soviet tanks are engaging each other, resulting in the death of Tanner (the pilot) and Arturo, known as "Aardvark."
The field commanders of the occupying forces now view the Wolverines as a serious threat. They had first tried terror tactics, executing groups of civilians following every Wolverine attack, however, this resulted in the civilians lending increasing support to the the insurgents. Strelnikov, a counterinsurgency specialist, arrives to declare that there will be no more reprisals against civilians. Strelnikov instead sends a commando squad into the mountains - where they are ambushed and killed by the the Wolverines.
The group finds a tracking device among the dead commandos. Daryl, the son of the collaborating mayor of the town, admits that the Soviets had forced him to swallow a tracking device, explaining that he only did it as a result of coercion. Jed shoots the sole Russian survivor of the commando squad but is unable to bring himself to kill his friend. Robert shoots Daryl in cold blood, prompting the group to realize that there is no way to avoid the evils of war. The Wolverines break camp out of fear of additional raids by the Soviets.
Things become increasingly hard for the Wolverines; their morale has eroded as the war of attrition takes its toll on their numbers. The Soviet occupation forces are pushing them to the breaking point, although thanks to the Wolverines, the Soviet hopes for keeping the civilian population shocked into complacency and unable to fight back have all but collapsed.
The remaining Wolverines are then ambushed while eating food from crates dropped from a passing Soviet convoy they had intended to attack. Several heavily armed Mi-24 helicopter gunships appear and attack the Wolverines, and though Robert is able to disable one with an RPG, they suffer losses, Robert is one, choosing to die in a hail of gunfire, and the other is Toni. Strelnikov arrives after the battle, implying that the food from the convoy was in fact used as bait to set up the attack.
The Wolverines numbers are down to only four; Jed and his brother Matt, and Danny and Erica. Jed and Matt realize that they can't outlast the Soviets and if they keep fighting they will all die. Matt tells Danny and Erica to head for "Free America," insisting that some of their number must survive. The two brothers, meanwhile, stage a diversionary attack on the Soviet occupation's headquarters in town so that Danny and Erica can escape. Jed and his brother are both shot and mortally wounded by Strelnikov, although Jed manages to shoot and kill him as well. Jed staggers away as he carries his brother in his arms. Bella, the Cuban colonel who has commanded the occupation forces from the date of the invasion, has the chance to shoot the two brothers, but decides to let them go. Bella had been composing a letter to his wife just minutes before the attack, telling her he was planning on handing in his resignation. Jed staggers away with his brother to a park bench to wait out his final moments. Meanwhile, Danny and Erica successfully escape into "Free American" territory.
The film's epilogue suggests that the United States won the war several years later; a plaque is displayed with " Partisan Rock" in the background, which pays tribute to the Wolverines killed in action, and reveals that the events in the film occurred during the "early days of World War III."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Dawn&oldid=129945223
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Dawn&oldid=129945223
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1831565/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1831565/posts
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