I went out to see Red Dawn with some friends on Friday night (thus, yesterday’s last-minute blog entry) and came away with some new-found knowledge that you all might find interesting.
First off, it’s a remake of a movie originally produced in 1984. Back then, the U.S. was invaded by Russians. This time around, it’s the North Koreans. The original version of the remake made China the bad guys, but that was changed shortly before the movie’s release. Why? China was probably like “Hey, don’t make us the bad guys!” and we were like “We’ll do what we want!” and they were like “Don’t make us the bad guys or we’ll sell your country to the highest bidder!” and we were like “Okay, sorry.” (The actual reason is the Chinese likely wouldn’t have released the movie in their country, thereby gashing the production company out of some major profits, so they made the change after all the filming was done.)
That actually made the movie a little more interesting at times. Consider: the invaders wouldn’t bother learning the English language—they let their guns do the talking. Lots and lots of talking. And explosions. There were plenty of explosions, too. But when words were spoken, the movie used subtitles. And since the bad guys were Chinese up until a few months before the movie was released, they were speaking Chinese. When their nationality changed, the movie needed to use voice-overs, too. When Major Badguy starts yelling in the face of Colonel Badguy, you can see that his words don’t match the movement of his lips. With voice-overs and subtitles, I thought it was only a matter of time before troops started pointing to the ocean, yelling, then up pops the subtitle, “GODZILLA IS INVADING CALIFORNIA!!!”
Everyone should take note of this next thing: if people want to kill you, never hide out in a place with only one exit. That’s common sense, really. I mean, if Godzilla ever did invade California and sent a burst of atomic flame breath into the opening of your hideout, it’ll only be a second before you won’t have any lips left for proper voice-overs.
The last bit of knowledge only came because we stayed through the credits. When those were done and the lights came up, I put my jacket on, turned around and saw a couple in the back row that… well, they didn’t realize the credits were over. They never moved as we left the theater and I warned the usher waiting outside that there was a couple in the back row that… well, they didn’t realize the credits were over. We stood outside as he went in and a minute later, two teenagers indignantly stormed out through the door. When he came back out, the usher informed us that it’s extremely awkward to tell people with their lips locked together that the movie is done.
