In this film, the Soviets and Cubans invade and conquer the USA, with no nuclear response from the USA, by apparently defeating the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Reserves. However, they are routed by a bunch of teenagers out west. I found this somewhat hard to believe, because I am not a f----ing moron!
Milius is a genius. Not only did he add realism & patriotism to Red Dawn, he's also responsible for the most interesting lines of Apocalypse Now and the brilliant USS Indianapolis dialogue from Jaws. And the fact that Walter Sobcack in the Big Lebowski is based after him makes all of his works stand out even better.
Not to mention The Wind and the Lion and Dirty Harry including the iconic "Do you feel lucky today?" monologue. His filography reads like my fave movie list.
In this film, the Soviets and Cubans invade and conquer the USA, with no nuclear response from the USA, by apparently defeating the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Reserves. However, they are routed by a bunch of teenagers out west. I found this somewhat hard to believe, because I am not a f----ing moron!
It's a shame critiques like this can't be monetized on youtube. This video is nearly 2 hours long, meaning it took dozens of hours to produce and edit.
Don´t tell my government this. But in Sweden we are much more armed than people think. And gunownership is really fairly common. Some things are like psudo open secretes. Things that a lot of people know, but nobody talks about. The sports and hunting. People know that hunting rifle is quite common. And its kind of complicated to get a hunting license. Getting a sport license is... not like a walk in the park, but quite a bit easier. People tend to just forget this category exist. In the 50-tys shooting ranges was set up all over the country to make children train shooting at a early age. The open secrete... they are still there.. and they are still in use. I moved for work. So i live in a Town i didn´t grew up in. A friend of me asked if i wanted go shooting, and well of cause i wanted. Here is the fun part. The city shooting range (there are usually two in every town, in central, one in the woods) in this town is in the school. And i mean, literally inside the school building. In the cellar right below the biology class. jr High Teens go down there in Gym class practicing. School shooting every day
They did such a good job of making replica tanks that the CIA actually had two guys follow them a bit and ask where they got the tank. The ZSU was a great knock off as well. The helicopters were definitely not HINDs but they looked the part. I love this move now and forever. Hard not to choke up a bit when the Partisan Rock narration..
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 they used Egyptian Maadi rifles for AKs and Valmets for RPKs so they didn't have to do much heavy lifting on those. The prop department did a really good job with the heavy machine guns, grenades and AA/RPG launchers.
"Matt, RPG!" was one of my friends and I favorite line from any movie. Around the time my mom bought me a toy gun.... AK-47. She said they were all the same, but with this movie I was able to jump around as one of the freedom fighters with my stolen AK. Awesome movie.
Here's something I should also point out. In your devils advocate critique at the beginning, it includes the line "How would these children even know how to use an RPG" What whoever wrote that doesn't seem to know or perhaps conveniently left out (I'm assuming this is one of the reviews you picked to prove the point) is that the RPG-7 is not an unpopular weapon amongst african child soldiers. Lots of weapons of this period were designed to be idiot-proof on the basis that in a total war such as that one would take place between the Soviets and the USA, you would need to conscript a fuck ton of people and teach them how to use your weapons really quickly. Funnily enough, the remake sees some of the kids using FN Minimis (SAWs) which are belt fed and do not fit this idiot-proof doctrine, they're not that intuitive.
For those who are getting upset at the supposedly "anti-American" take on the film offered early in the vid ... I state very clearly in the narration (and with onscreen captions) that I'm presenting that viewpoint from a Devil's Advocate position to save the comment section filing up with such rhetoric. I then spend the rest of the vid annihilating that interpretation of the film and giving it the praise it deserves. And yes, the current Ukraine situ is shedding a new light on this film. At the same time, if you want to make sense of the entire cold war situ (which never really ended, it just got turned down a couple of gears for a decade or two) then I highly, highly, highly recommend ... Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. Also ... All episodes of Criminally Underrated Movies ... Ep 1 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture ruclips.net/video/yO-QdAFBaZ0/видео.html Ep 2 - Psycho 2 ruclips.net/video/kydlEbyV3vE/видео.html Ep 3 - Heaven Help Us / The Catholic Boys ruclips.net/video/C2-O2RdQz94/видео.html Ep 4 - Red Dawn ruclips.net/video/5IjwZGT4V9U/видео.html Ep 5 - The Black Hole ruclips.net/video/LdhcX9YonMI/видео.html Ep 6 - A.I. Artificial Intelligence ruclips.net/video/hD66njCw_bE/видео.html
Can’t wait for total bong island sharia bong boy. 20k rake and grooming a year? How many bongs getting killed? N riots in bong land? Do nothing? Let slags vote for more N’s? Haha pidor
I had a class @ university on "apocalypse movies", unfortunately it didn't have this one. A movie you might like to review similar to this : "Panic in Year Zero!" 1962. It was released at the height of the cold war, B+W, Ray Milland, Frankie Avalon. "Somebody dropped a bomb, Dad....Crazy kick?".
Basil Poledorus knocks it out of the park with the Red Dawn score like he did on every film he worked on. Every movie he worked on is like 40% better just from his music.
At least here in the US, "Saving Private Ryan" wasn't critiqued for being too right-wing, too pro-gun, too pro-war etc because whether they consider themselves liberal or conservative, a huge majority of Americans dearly love to tell themselves that the US won WW2 and saved the world almost single-handedly. That's simply not true, in fact it's stunningly inaccurate, but we've been taught that relentlessly for generations. And the movie suits that view in a very comforting way. I would love to see the same basic story done by a Russian director, set at the same time but further to the east... Milius is indeed an interesting character, and his work is interesting because of it. He's wonderfully talented at crafting real zingers, those iconic one-liners you mentioned. He's equally skilled at packing both subtle and ham-fisted references and symbols into his work. But he can also paint in very broad strokes, almost in a cartoonish fashion. His movies can be described as much more like a comic book than a novel, and that's not generally meant as a compliment by his critics. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; of course many movies are structured like comic books! After all a storyboard really is just a comic book. But those who dislike him use that as a (weak, in my opinion) excuse to dismiss everything he did as little more than a childish propaganda poster. I appreciate you taking the time to describe how he and his work are more complicated than that. Great work overall, this was compelling and fascinating to watch. Thanks for that!
I don't think the word "hate" was misheard as "heat", Robert twists the "burn you up" metaphor to contrast with the cold of the mountains. He hates the enemy with a burning passion, which is eating at his soul but it's also the driving force that keeps him pushing through the adversity.
There is a manual on prepping written by a guy who lived in a ruined city during the Bosnian war. He says toilet paper and lighters are the single most valuable items when things devolve down to 'barter economy'. These two items basically replace standard currency
@@Michael-bg3cu Perhaps if you Google "One Year in Hell", there should be a PDF file with the original story. There is plenty of commentary to be found at most large content prepper sites.
You know I think rather than the American Indian comparison, I always presumed it to be putting Americans into the shoes of the soviet war in Afghanistan
Some of the Indian comparisons can be a stretch (Long hair?). Peoples throughout history have found themselves thrust out of a comfortable existence when an invading army rolled in, some taking up arms to fight back. Red Dawn made it more relatable to an American audience that never experienced it. Someone on IMDB thought it was unrealistic the Soviets would fire at high school kids in the classroom; I shared an account of Soviet soldiers executing Estonian schoolchildren in 1941 for raising the Estonian flag in front of their school.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 Really? Soviet soldiers executed Estonian schoolchildren? It''s a fake, or else the modern, SS-loving Estonians would have shouted about it at every corner. I checked the pieces of the exhibition at their Museum of Soviet Occupation. Nothing there either. Should have been the main attraction of their museum, hell, they would have made a couple of monuments devoted to that within the last thirty years.
I read an article somewhere where Milius said exactly that was his intent, after watching news about the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. He thought Westerners needed to think of that invasion as if it were happening to them. Milius was a clever fellow.
I was just thinking about how the late Harry Dean Stanton's role as Jed and Matt's father although small is so well acted, believable and most of all memorable. Stanton makes one of the biggest impressions in the film and has one of the best dramatic lines saying "Avenge me" through the fence of the internment camp the invaders setup for war prisoners. This emphasizes their father's underlying desire for his boys to survive, beat the invading forces and maintain some normalcy again.
@@alanfaulkner1311 Mr. Faulkner, I recommend you Helen MacInnes' 1951''Neither Five Nor Three", fortunately reedited in hardcover, October 2013. However try to get the paperback edition from Fawcett Gold Medal, or The Laurel Leaf Student Edition, I've read that the new edition has altered somewhat the English of the original. Ms MacInnes stands shoulder to shoulder with both John Le Carre (''The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'') and Arthur Koestler (''Darkness At Noon") But go first to Amazon for the comments. You will find the same rabid rage already manifested against "Red Dawn". Only one reviewer got it right. Needless to say, I totally concur with him, along the principle of : "If there is a left, there's bound to be a Right ! Why should the left be the only one that's `right`?''
I understand "diversity" in movies is a popular topic nowadays. But personally I just want to be immersed in a believable depiction of the setting. I lived in a rural area out West in the Sierra foothills until recently. There are very few "non white" people in those areas. It's not like living in the South or in a city. I lived near a town with a population of about 2400 people. I would guess maybe 5% might be classified in a book somewhere as "latino", but they were completely American and native English speakers, not recent immigrants, so they didn't stand out. I think the entire black population was a single family of a few people. So to me, the skin complexion of the citizens shown in this movie is realistic and makes the town feel more immediately believable than it would be if somebody made the movie today (I haven't seen the 2012 version). I also enjoyed the depiction of the "rugged individualist" culture and the hunting traditions. I like movies that embrace the values and beliefs of the society being examined, whatever that may be. This allows me to get immersed into that culture and to appreciate the story from that world's perspective. It is an unfortunate vice of many moviemakers that they can't avoid making "adjustments" or casting sociopolitical judgements from a modern Los Angeles viewpoint.
Another interesting bit of trivia about Red Dawn has to do with the great actor and body-builder William Smith who played the Russian Colonel Strelnikov. Smith - who had a reputation as one of the strongest guys in Hollywood and was a prolific character actor - was a USAF veteran and cold warrior, was fluent in Russian, and reportedly participated in some significant national security missions in the Korean War. Smith, who just recently passed away, was one of the all-time great tough guys.
I was living in Las Vegas nm when red dawn was made they said it was Colorado that the invasion was happening but it was filmed in nm Patrick Swayze loved the town so much he bought property there I loved the movie I really wish they would still make movies like red dawn with all the political correctness nowadays movies are horrible in the 80s movies were great not like the sjw caca we get now
I saw this with my 16 year old babysitter on HBO when i was in second grade. We ate popcorn and hugged each other during the scary parts. I had nightmares and fantasies for years.
It provoked an inexplicably (???...!!!) rabid reaction rarely seen since Walter Wanger's 1956 ''Invasion Of The Body Snatchers". Is it because both cut too close to the bone of the matter for comm-fort ?
Born in 74 and people outside of my age group can never understand how great this movie is and how this totally seemed like it coulda really happened when it came out
The shot at 1:51:34 is in the style of real world combat footage, where the camera is typically pointed at the troops, not at what they're firing at, and from which it's absolutely impossible to get an idea of what's happening. I grew up seeing that angle on the news, it's fairly obvious to me now that you drew my attention to it.
yep, it's what soldiers see during tactical maneuvers. i think, such shot was picked to demonstrate how inexperienced and unsure wolverines were and how they have changed later.
I'd argue that sense of confusion makes perfect sense in the grand scheme of the scene itself. As stated, the characters did not want this, but here it is. They did not want to have fight, but now they are. And if they let these guys get away, they'll tell the occupying force in town where these kids are, and that's it. They had no choice in that moment, and that's not something anyone really wants to be faced with. When your choices are kill an adversary, or, let them go and potentially tell others who will come capture you, torture you, *rape you*, and then probably kill you? I know maybe one or two people that would choose the latter over the former, but everyone else I know will go "That choice is 'easy'. Kill the baddies".
@@jessebrown233 I totally agree with you and that frightens me.My father who is 76 years old said the exact same thing.It seems like they’re engineering a mentality here that would welcome them here as if it were the French grateful to see the allies liberating them from Nazi Germany-Frightening thought
You are so on the nose for being critical of the “left vs right” narrative in contemporary politics. It’s something that has no just affected politics but various other aspects of life as well. It’s definitely a relic of the post Vietnam years and got worse during the post 9/11 years here in America. It’s just tribalism. I hope this contemporary world wakes up to this.
As much as I have lived my life inclined towards liberal thought on social issues and conservative thought on financial and military issues, today’s Democrats have proven themselves to be everything the old time conservatives said they were. I still don’t care who anyone wants to be or who they love, but the Democrats are criminally insane at this point.
"SAC" as referenced in Red Dawn does not refer to Strategic Airlift Capability (the transportation of vital goods during times of war or other emergency) but rather Strategic Air Command, which was the U.S. Airforce system for maintaining nuclear deterrence via bombers (such as the B52) during the Cold War.
I did not see Red Dawn until I was already an adult, about 10 years ago. When I was a teen I had to read "Tomorrow When the War Began" for English class. I like a lot and the author even came to the school to talk about it. It is about teenagers defending Australia from invasion. The story is from the point of view of a girl's diary. There are 7 books in the series plus 3 books about after the War. There is also a movie and tv series (important to read book first). The author purposely wrote the book so that no country could be identified as the invader, the book was supposed to be about teenagers reacting to a tough situation. The movie and TV series portray the invaders as Asian.
I saw that movie...did not know there was a series too, though the end of the movie sure made it clear they intended to continue the franchise...fun movies
Collative Learning well, I can only speak for myself. I like long videos. The longer the better. That is if they are good... which is the case with your videos. Here a recommendation: Check out the review of the Videogame „Soma“ on the Channel „Mauler“. One of my favourites...
Red Dawn was and still is one of the best movies of the 80’s! Every kid myself and my friends included thought of ourselves as Wolverines. The Cold War still cold and our pretend battles were always US vs USSR and this movie embodied our own wish to be child soldiers fighting for freedom. It plugged right into our daydreams. Yea, if Russia invaded the US me and my friends would be just like the Wolverines. Be a Wolverine, run to the hills Just get some guns and Cheerios... “Rambozo The Clown” - The Dead Kennedys.
There definitely are many scenes in this movie that stir my emotions in sorrow, some to tears. The concept of losing your loved ones right in front of you or not knowing of their whereabouts amid disaster is something very surreal and makes you closer to them in spirit and resolve. As an active gun owning American, this movie resonates with me quite a bit.
Red Dawn reminds me of a quote by R Lee Ermy’s character in ‘Siege of Firebase Gloria’. He’s in the midst of an internal monologue about the almost psychotic cruelty of the VC towards POWs and pro western civilians. He pauses and reflects, “but I guess we’d do the same thing if charlie occupied South Carolina.” As a veteran and a former police officer, there’s nothing glorious about hurting other people or having your life threatened. You just do what you have to do to survive and try to live with it afterwards. In March of 2022, I just want to move to Alaska and disappear.
I might be a whole generation past this film being made but i always liked that Red Dawn Poster. That Shot of dozens of parachutes dropping from the clouds into a small town is eerliy chilling
1:31:00 -- Alexander Nevsky really worth a look, especially its "Battle of the Ice" sequence, which reenacts a medieval battle between the invading Teutonic Knights and the Novgorod Russians. Set to a magnificent Prokofiev score (which has a fair claim as the greatest movie score in history), the sequence was shot on an actual frozen lake, and a number of extras drowned during the filming. A Stalinist movie, yes -- but also a sequence depicting a resistance against a better armed invader...an irony surely not lost on Milius.
Alexander Nevsky is epic, I remember getting the Eisentstein box criterion made in high school and it blew me away that film immediately became a favorite classic film of mine
Of interest to people debating on the Soviets and Nazis comparison, go check out Operation Osoaviakhim. It is basically the Soviets' version of Operation Paperclip after WWII. I once watched a documentary on the Concorde superplane, and one historian described that the hired Nazi scientists tried designing the Soviets' version of the Concorde superplane. I think this aspect was mentioned in Antony Sutton's Best Enemy Money Can Buy. For people who still say the Soviets weren't antisemitic despite their track record showing Stalin and the likes to have lied about their supposed attitudes to Jewish people, if the Soviets really cared for Jewish people, then they should've put the Nazi scientists on the Nuremberg Trial instead of hiring and hiding them. And if Kubrick was putting in themes about Nazi reemergence in US government in his movie Dr. Strangelove because Wehrner Von Braun of Operation Paperclip was parodied as Strangelove, then could the same be said with the Soviets' recruitment of Nazi scientists?
@@collativelearning Yeah, I always like it when the UK citizens talk about the shame of others. It reminds me why others call you hypocrite. Von Braun (an SS officer) developed V2 missiles that directly killed many Brits. Were there many protests in the UK prior to or after von Braun managed to accomplish the Moon expedition? Speaking of recruiting the Nazi scientists: look up the photos of the V2 missile standing upright and compare it to the Saturn V. Do the same for the Korolev's Vostok. The overwhelming majority of Nazi scientists fled to the West. The UK used the results of their work too. All of the German scientists returned from the USSR after Stalin's death. Von Braun became a naturalized US citizen, there is a crater on the Moon named after him. A crater named after the guy who helped to kill the UK citizens. Russia should not be ashamed of anything.
@@rafail3, only people without any knowledge and taste, but an head full of CIA-propaganda equate Comrade Stalin to the dirt bag Hitler, especially in the United Slave&Genocide-States of America. The Soviets eliminated the nazis almost alone. 95% of the Wehrmacht's best troops were destroyed before the "holy" D-Day. Building a concentration camp isn't the same as freeing it - and will NEVER be. Thanks to the CCCP! It speaks for itself, that the "nation" that bombs regularly "based" on outrageous lies, waited over a decade in the case of Hitler (who wanted to kill ALL Slavs) and still wants to kill a communists. I would say: Shared hobbies melt together. "Red Dawn" is pure projection.
The soviets not liking the Jews is nothing special,it just so happens that everywhere they go,people don't like them be it in a far-right,far left,capitalistic,monarchal system,must be that infamous irrational anti-semitism hardwired in gentiles,i guess,kinda like those bigots asking for a ceasefire in Gaza,oh well.
In regards to the kids having so-called unrealistic success against the Soviet invaders, I think this can be reasonably explained by the setting of the movie. This isn't a major population center, and as such, far fewer resources would be spent trying to dominate the people in this area. Until the Wolverines' notoriety leads to the deployment of the elite Russian unit tasked with wiping our favorite guerillas out, we're not seeing the Russian's A Team. These non-elite troops are very much B, C or even worse tiers in terms of training. After all, why deploy your best troops where they are not needed? This could even be the equivalent of a punishment posting for "underperforming" units and officers, like Siberia was in the USSR.
@Slave of Jesus Ever read Beowulf? "Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning." Real men like Vlad the Impaler literally lived this.
I love this movie and have special memories associated with it. But, yeah, I think that certain dialogue like that "Avenge me!" that are really cringe-worthy. There are three or four such clunky moments in Red Dawn.
I watched the movie for the first time when it came out on 4K disc, expecting nothing more than a shallow "american kids triumph over inept evil commies" war-as-adventure propaganda movie, which would have been fine. But I didn't expect how dark, raw and depressing the movie is. It's not pro war in the slightest.
People complain about product placement but I go outside my house, there is a Shell station and a Marathon gas station. Next door is a car dealership with an assortment of cars of various manufactuers. Going down town I can see a Kroger, a Walmart, a BP, a Burger King, a McDonalds, a Wendys, ETC. My family prefers pepsi products but I prefer Coke's Barqs over Pepsi's MUG. My mom drives a ford and my dad drives a cadillac he got from a family friend. Product placement is something that already happens in real life, you as a person are giving free advertisement for companies when you buy stuff of theirs.
The movie premise was more or less believable. It required only a minor suspension of disbelief. North Korea invading mainland USA requires a whole lot more of that thing.
You may also wish to check out the story of Aldrich Ames. There is an excellent book about the people who caught Ames, and you can watch videos on RUclips with the author.
Grew up in the Midwest watching this movie. It was almost like bible study for me and my cousins. Aardvark is Mexican. Cubans and Mexicans hate each other. They fought wars and its almost like the UK vs France thing. Mexicans are waaay more murcan than Cubans if that makes any sense. Great movie even better review. Legit thought RPGs made the noise they did in this movie IRL for longer than i will ever admit.
man, cubans and mexicans have never fought against each other, if anything, mexican governments have been (for the most part) very tolerant of the Cuban Regime, before the 50s relations were normal, even non-existant. And before that, Cuba and Mexico were both provinces of the same Empire
I saw this for the first and only time in the early 2000's. I went into it expecting good feeling American propaganda, but I was surprised at how dark the film was. It left me feeling empty. So I understood then that it wasn't just simplistic propaganda like I'd been lead to believe. Edit: For a little more context. In the early 2000's I was still very politically naive and was a very stereotypical Patriotic Right Wing Republican or something to that effect, so I was very eager to receive a Right-oriented pro-America message from this film, but it didn't deliver anything like that as I saw it.
C’mon, now, are you saying you didn’t buy the plot of American teenagers holding off a Soviet Army brigade that paratrooped into the Rocky Mountains after completely bypassing our air defense systems? 😅
@laxat7435 I could see it falling into the “so bad it’s good” category, yes. But to me it symbolizes the ‘80’s and all the jingoistic crap like “Rambo” that was produced in that decade
@@gregbors8364 Did you even watch Rob's review? The film starts out the way you describe but it doesn't really end that way. It's way too down beat, grim, and miserable in the latter half. It ropes you in with this childish power fantasy about fighting a resistance war at home but slowly introduces some of the grim reality of war.
Animal Farm WAS propaganda. He sat down and said "How can I write something that will make the Soviet Union look as shit as possible" (paraphrased, he doubtless said it better than I could). That doesn't mean that everything it said wasn't valid.
Awesome I was squirming in my chair during some of The Devils Advocate bits. I was disappointed to learn that Renegade Cut is a youtuber. I thought it might have an obscure directors cut. Overall, not bad review, for a civic nationalist.
Im 90 percent sure he says as much in an episode. Ive seen the entire series but that is a whole lot of content to know for sure. Dean loves 80s and early 90s films he brings up road house and a fake slasher film series in the vein of friday the 13th for sure.
Renegade cut is a mixed bag to be sure, a lot of what he says makes me roll my eyes but he does make decent enough videos that can be worth watching even if for nothing else another perspective on film from someone who you cannot argue takes it seriously.
@@frankmiller4550 Yes! I remember The Rescue now! I saw it when I was a kid then completely forgot about it! Now I have to watch it, even if only for nostalgia.
I don’t think the scene between Jed and Toni being left in is anything romantic at all but It is a solemn moment between two war molded soldiers who know what it is inevitably coming, death. Knowing that at a moment’s notice that could be any of their fates. I think Jed, as the “fatherly/leader figure” is just allowing his brother-in-arms “child/subordinate” to pass with some level of comfort and compassion. A graceful departure to a chaotic life.
Wow I never knew people/critics had such a stigma with this movie. I’ve always loved this movie and I don’t even consider myself loyal to either political party in America. I just think it’s a very interesting concept and a very historical movie of our time. The idea of a full scale invasion during the Cold War was very real. Especially since nuclear war was less likely due to MAD(Mutually assured destruction). And it’s a great representation of “What if these events in our history happened a little differently” and with the actors, decent action, and great drama. I definitely understand the plot holes and political criticism with the movie but at the end of the day it’s a movie. It’s just meant to be a representation of a terrible but very real situation and what could happen.
the drinking of the blood was/is a passage that the Natives used to make new warriors basically respect the laws of nature. if you couldn't do it you weren't mature enough to become a warrior: concurring an internal fear.
I’ve never heard that. I have heard that the drinking of blood and the eating of fresh liver was a way to get the glucose contained therein to replace what was lost during the hunt. May be a backward explanation, but I like it.
I've fired a gun (9mm) and I live in the UK. In fact, I fired it at a shooting range near the Dock road in Liverpool, no less. This was, of course, before Dunblane and Hungerford.
John Goodman as Walter in 'The Big Lebowski' is the perfect impersonation(With some tongue in cheek of course) of John Milius. I personally think he's one of the greatest story tellers of all time. He was ridiculously misunderstood. I love what he's done. I think Oliver Stone is far more biased, but because he's on the Left, Hollywood acceptance is allowed. It's a shame. On another note, this is a phenomenal video Rob. Incredibly in-depth and unbiased. You aren't reaching, not that I think you do anyways, but this is full of TRUTHS. Sources shown in full many times. Well done. Keep these coming!
Oliver Stone has done some good films, and he wrote Scarface which has some un-PC elements. Go check out his film Talk Radio, the main character of the movie is a sort of precursor to Joe Rogan and the likes.
@@jocaerbannog9052 , I think Oliver Stone is talented, I just feel he's given a pass on politics in his films because generally they are very "Left-leaning." I've seen 'Talk Radio' and while I enjoyed it, I also think it was more of an attack on the Right-Wing Talk Radio market that emerged heavily during the Reagan Era. Even 'Scarface' had it's left-wing elements. I'm not saying Stone is PC, he's certainly not afraid of speaking his mind. I just don't like that Milius was more or less shunned by critics for what they called Right-Wing filmmaking, some even going so far as to call him Pro-Fascist. Kubrick dealt with that a little bit on 'A Clockwork Orange' just for going against the grain of popular opinion. Whereas Kubrick was a Realest, I think Milius shared a lot of the same ideas, he was just a big personality. As Rob mentioned, he really was just sort of trolling critics, rightfully so IMO. Even his friends like Spielberg, Lucas and FFC kind of alienated him, taking jabs at him from time to time. It's a shame because as I said, I think he's one of the greatest storytellers ever. His work always had meaning. The violence wasn't unnecessary to the story he was telling. I guess I unfairly called out Stone, but only because he's basically on the other side of the political spectrum(Yet, I think even he understood Milius, as they collaborated on Conan The Barbarian.) My issue is more with Hollywood and the Media itself. I'm very much an Independent. I don't buy into sides, I just dont care for the shenanigans of Hollywood Liberals who "decide whats right or wrong" etc. I'm ok with diverse filmmaking. I grew up and live in a City of 100,000 people where I'm the minority as a White Man. I actually love it because of how diverse it is. I just hate that every time a film comes out nowadays, it's message is banged over our head. We have Superhero Films with obvious agendas and they get a pass, yet Scorsese and Tarantino are hit with "Toxic Masculinity" accusations because they have a different story to tell. Anything that's within reason is fine with me, no matter the politics. Just as long as Hollywood isn't deciding what's "Ok."
Milius' work was always consistent in its anti-authoritarian themes. The same critics that loved the military-industrial critiques and anti-war messages of Apocalypse Now hated the same anti-military industrial and anti-war messages of Red Dawn. The genius of Milius was in his presentation of militarism, ranging from the US as the perpetrator (Apocalypse Now) versus making the United States the victim (Red Dawn). In what ways were the Wolverines essentially different from the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army? In Apocalypse Now we see a conflict from the eyes of the aggressor; in Red Dawn we see it through the eyes of the oppressed. But: same message. Politically, I've found that ideologues are pro their brand of authoritarianism, and anti-authoritarian to their competing brand. Apocalypse Now resonated with the perceived ideologies of the critics, so they were generally favorable (however, if they truly understood it, those on the limousine left would be a bit more critical due to its Hobbessian/Freudian implications of AN); yet those same critics misrecognized identical themes in Red Dawn. Honestly, with most of the "classic" critics, ranging from music critics like Christgau, to Siskel and Ebert, and particularly Vincent Canby, I just want to say: "OK BOOMER*" *Note: I recognize that Canby was born in 1924, but his critiques reek of upper-class boomerism like no other.
Good summary. One little point. Interesting that the US is seen as the aggressor in Vietnam (and i agree they were in a lot of ways, the Tonkin gulf lie was a disgrace), but the Viet Cong were also murderous communist lunatics, attacking the South. The Wolverines attacked no one.
@@collativelearning Vietnam is complicated. As a region that was occupied by colonial France, then (briefly) Germany, and then France attempting to re-establish control with the US getting quagmired in it... It is difficult to consider North Vietnam or the Viet Cong to necessarily be aggressors. I highly, highly recommend Ken Burns' documentary on the Vietnam War as it includes declassified documents and conversations from numerous US Presidents, Robert MacNamara, etc... Excellent documentary. Note: Viet Cong were largely anti-occupation guerrilla forces in the south; North Vietnamese Army were pro-communist military forces. As I said, Vietnam was complicated. Also consider that, had the French and later US not been occupying Vietnam, there would have been nobody for the Viet Cong to attack. This being said, I'm not a fan of either side of the Vietnam War. It was a mess akin to the Israeli-Palestinian fiasco where there is nothing good in sight.
@@collativelearning So the US was merely possibly the aggressor but the Viet Cong were 'murderous communist lunatics'. Did the Viet Cong ever use massive scale chemical weapons against completely innocent villagers and then use films like Red Dawn to cover that up? No. But the US did. Your bias and ignorance is so obvious, and so very, very boring.
@@spyculture Sigh. Please tell me everything you know about Ngo Dinh Diem.... Then we can talk about "atrocities" and "complexity." I mean, did you watch the video? Rob condemns US militarism and imperialism in this very video. C'mon, man.
You don't have to be right or left leaning to appreciate Red Dawn. It's just a cool movie. I watched it with my buddies at Beverly Theater when I was 16 and we loved it. This is a master class in how to review a film.
Re: Hoarding The problem isn't people abandoning their "principles" it's basic game theory. Not hoarding seems like it would do good, but that's only true if other people don't hoard. With literally hundreds of thousands of potential hoarders all of whom know that if they don't hoard, the others could, it makes sense to hoard. It's a "Tragedy of the commons.". It's made worse by laws that prevent "Price gouging" which discourages hoarding by making it expensive and less likely for others to hoard.
it is interesting to note that an avid supporter and quasi-producer of the movie was Alexander Haig, former US Army general, supreme allied commander europe and secretary of state who sat on the board of MGM by the time, he supplied the political background for the movie and ramped up the budget, which even got Milius worried it would turn into an over patriotic flick
The 84 version was fantastic.....the remake should have been called.......Red Dog Shit.All remakes suck and never capture what was intended.I rented the original in VHS....and when i was chaging from VHS to DVD.....i made sure to include this gem.One of my favorites.
I am 48 years old and had the EXACT same experience with this movie as you: Loved it as a young teen when it was released, saw it again maybe 10 years ago and thought it "propaganda", and now see it for exactly what it is. Just a really good war movie with a unique premise. Thanks for this great critique, sir!
@@SavageDawgJoshua WHAT DO YOU MEAN "UM.....WHAT" YOU JERK?! WAS THIS NOW, A SERIOUS ASSESSMENT, ON YOUR BEHALF, REGARDING THIS OLD TIME CLASSIC?!.....WHA'....?! DO YOU HONESTLY, WANTS US, TO CLAP OUR HANDS FOR YOU AFTER THIS VOMIT OF YOURS?!....WE WON'T!!!
@@theonemesis5217 I'm not a doctor, but it sounds like you really need some help, sir. Anger management... therapy...smoke some weed, I dunno. I only expressed my opinion, not the gospel concerning this movie. There's really no need to yell at me for it. But then, I reckon whatever you need to do to feel safe and significant inside your own bubble; if that means blow out at random people online for their opinions, you be you, sir. Have a blessed day.
Nice try but Red Dawn is not a great or even very good film. The acting is wooden, the plot is predictable, and the direction is uninspired to say the least. Its an Ok fantasy war movie and a product of its time.
I always thought that Russian guy who reads the sign in the mountains was trying to impress the other guys. He was deliberately making up what he thought sounded like an impressive story, because he knew the other guys would not be able to read it and so would have no idea he was lying. In essence, I thought he was showing off his supposed skill in reading English.
Also, the unbelievable success the group had versus a professional military force didn't bother me because the basic idea of the movie is completely unbelievable. An invasion of the US? Haha, right! The Soviets wish they could have done such a thing. If you accept that it could happen, so as to enjoy the movie which is what I did, then you can easily accept that these teens could form a guerrilla force and use successful hit and run tactics.
You would have been the ideal film studies professor had you chosen the path. Sadly mostly review through a purely leftist lens as that is what academia is today.
I love your interpretation of this, you’re the most eloquent film analyst on RUclips, keep on fighting the good fight, logic over stupidity everyday ❤️
I’d wager that there are plenty of folks in Ukraine right now who’d think Red Dawn is the last thing from implausible. Perhaps an invasion of the U.S. is far-fetched, but the USSR, and of course Russia, have invaded plenty of places. Including literally right now, to include a foiled “decapitation attack” on the Zelensky administration in Kiev. Red Dawn is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s not Pulp Fiction, Citizen Kane, or Shakespeare, but it is a wonderful story with a wonderful cast directed by a man whos career was harmed by these accusations of being right-wing in Hollywood. Frankly, Red Dawn is largely anti-war in that it paints an invasion as something truly terrifying even while it may call for resistance. The explicitly anti-war elements, personified in the character of the Air Force Colonel, were cut in editing choices not made by Milius: Tanner was a pacifist who had to go against his values to defend his home. The invasion was even shown to damage the invaders with Bella deciding that he could no longer consider himself on the side of righteousness, choosing both to retire from military service and to allow Jed and Matt to pass him by: Bella saw that Jed and Matt were fighting for reasons he respected. So yeah - while Red Dawn may have been unrealistic, it fired the imaginations of kids of the 80’s without too much jingoism. The kids fight for themselves, their families, and their communities. They aren’t fighting for the USA as such.
@@rydplrs71 - I don’t understand this sort of “yeah, but the US!” argument. It doesn’t justify a thing - yes, the US has made some better and worse decisions. We “invaded” occupied France, for one that’s better, and we invaded Iraq for some pretty bad reasons the second time. But unlike in Russia, it’s not against the law for me to say the US invaded Iraq or to call it a war. If you’re willing to condemn invasions by the US, how does that support invasions by Russia? If you’re clear-eyed about invasions made for bad reasons, be they WMD’s or “denazification,” this current one should be just as unacceptable. Saying “but the us did it” does nothing but make a hypocrite of anyone who supports Putin’s decision.
Thank you very much for this review. Because of simpletons like Renegade Cut I have denied myself this gem. This was an incredibly fun watch and too smart for these critics.
"That hate is going to burn you up kid. Yeah, but it keeps me warm at night." Movie made an impact on me when I was a kid. Need to re watch it.
Andreas that line alone should have made everyone realize this isn’t pro-war propaganda.
Best line in the movie.
Andreas one of my faves as a kid but it’s pretty dark...like a lot of 80s kids movies
Watch it right, pal: just look out the window.
In this film, the Soviets and Cubans invade and conquer the USA, with no nuclear response from the USA, by apparently defeating the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Reserves. However, they are routed by a bunch of teenagers out west. I found this somewhat hard to believe, because I am not a f----ing moron!
Milius is a genius. Not only did he add realism & patriotism to Red Dawn, he's also responsible for the most interesting lines of Apocalypse Now and the brilliant USS Indianapolis dialogue from Jaws. And the fact that Walter Sobcack in the Big Lebowski is based after him makes all of his works stand out even better.
Not to mention Conan
Not to mention The Wind and the Lion and Dirty Harry including the iconic "Do you feel lucky today?" monologue.
His filography reads like my fave movie list.
In this film, the Soviets and Cubans invade and conquer the USA, with no nuclear response from the USA, by apparently defeating the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Reserves. However, they are routed by a bunch of teenagers out west. I found this somewhat hard to believe, because I am not a f----ing moron!
So you're a fascist, huh?
not to mention the big wednesday epics
It's a shame critiques like this can't be monetized on youtube. This video is nearly 2 hours long, meaning it took dozens of hours to produce and edit.
And we always watch them all the way through. 🙋♂️
“A member of an elite paramilitary organization: "Eagle Scouts." Love that line.
As an eagle scout I put that on my resume when I applie to BSA camps.
Don´t tell my government this. But in Sweden we are much more armed than people think. And gunownership is really fairly common. Some things are like psudo open secretes. Things that a lot of people know, but nobody talks about.
The sports and hunting. People know that hunting rifle is quite common. And its kind of complicated to get a hunting license. Getting a sport license is... not like a walk in the park, but quite a bit easier. People tend to just forget this category exist.
In the 50-tys shooting ranges was set up all over the country to make children train shooting at a early age. The open secrete... they are still there.. and they are still in use.
I moved for work. So i live in a Town i didn´t grew up in. A friend of me asked if i wanted go shooting, and well of cause i wanted. Here is the fun part. The city shooting range (there are usually two in every town, in central, one in the woods) in this town is in the school. And i mean, literally inside the school building. In the cellar right below the biology class.
jr High Teens go down there in Gym class practicing. School shooting every day
Scout Movement (As Baden-Powell started it) is paramilitary organization. It does sound ridiculous, but objectively it is true statement.
As an Eagle Scout if the Russians or Chinese invaded I would go full Red Dawn on them if I had the chance.
@@JBBrickman
Don’t worry, your chance is coming.
Patrick Swayze was at his best in this film. Emotive, afraid, yet determined at the same time. Very good performance!
They did such a good job of making replica tanks that the CIA actually had two guys follow them a bit and ask where they got the tank. The ZSU was a great knock off as well. The helicopters were definitely not HINDs but they looked the part.
I love this move now and forever. Hard not to choke up a bit when the Partisan Rock narration..
And I would have told them to fuck off as the CIA are forbidden from acting on US soil.
@@1701spacecadet as if that ever stopped them.
Good attention to detail on the Soviet guns, too. Especially since there weren't any examples available at the time.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 they used Egyptian Maadi rifles for AKs and Valmets for RPKs so they didn't have to do much heavy lifting on those. The prop department did a really good job with the heavy machine guns, grenades and AA/RPG launchers.
Those helicopters look bloody awesome.
"Matt, RPG!" was one of my friends and I favorite line from any movie. Around the time my mom bought me a toy gun.... AK-47. She said they were all the same, but with this movie I was able to jump around as one of the freedom fighters with my stolen AK. Awesome movie.
Always wanted an RPG.
Funnily enough, Aphex Twin owns a tank.
@@jocaerbannog9052 Well he is the GOAT, or he was when he was releasing music
Here's something I should also point out.
In your devils advocate critique at the beginning, it includes the line "How would these children even know how to use an RPG"
What whoever wrote that doesn't seem to know or perhaps conveniently left out (I'm assuming this is one of the reviews you picked to prove the point) is that the RPG-7 is not an unpopular weapon amongst african child soldiers.
Lots of weapons of this period were designed to be idiot-proof on the basis that in a total war such as that one would take place between the Soviets and the USA, you would need to conscript a fuck ton of people and teach them how to use your weapons really quickly.
Funnily enough, the remake sees some of the kids using FN Minimis (SAWs) which are belt fed and do not fit this idiot-proof doctrine, they're not that intuitive.
Vvvthhhhhffffff
For those who are getting upset at the supposedly "anti-American" take on the film offered early in the vid ... I state very clearly in the narration (and with onscreen captions) that I'm presenting that viewpoint from a Devil's Advocate position to save the comment section filing up with such rhetoric. I then spend the rest of the vid annihilating that interpretation of the film and giving it the praise it deserves. And yes, the current Ukraine situ is shedding a new light on this film. At the same time, if you want to make sense of the entire cold war situ (which never really ended, it just got turned down a couple of gears for a decade or two) then I highly, highly, highly recommend ... Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove.
Also ... All episodes of Criminally Underrated Movies ...
Ep 1 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture ruclips.net/video/yO-QdAFBaZ0/видео.html
Ep 2 - Psycho 2 ruclips.net/video/kydlEbyV3vE/видео.html
Ep 3 - Heaven Help Us / The Catholic Boys ruclips.net/video/C2-O2RdQz94/видео.html
Ep 4 - Red Dawn ruclips.net/video/5IjwZGT4V9U/видео.html
Ep 5 - The Black Hole ruclips.net/video/LdhcX9YonMI/видео.html
Ep 6 - A.I. Artificial Intelligence ruclips.net/video/hD66njCw_bE/видео.html
never feel you have to defend your opinion on America. the United States is the very definition of a contradiction.
Can’t wait for total bong island sharia bong boy. 20k rake and grooming a year? How many bongs getting killed? N riots in bong land? Do nothing? Let slags vote for more N’s? Haha pidor
Sadly people can't read or listen it seems. Btw this was an absolute masterpiece of a YT video - absolutely loved it!
I had a class @ university on "apocalypse movies", unfortunately it didn't have this one. A movie you might like to review similar to this : "Panic in Year Zero!" 1962. It was released at the height of the cold war, B+W, Ray Milland, Frankie Avalon. "Somebody dropped a bomb, Dad....Crazy kick?".
We, the Texan delegation, forgive you, Rob. Don’t let it happen again. 😝
Basil Poledorus knocks it out of the park with the Red Dawn score like he did on every film he worked on. Every movie he worked on is like 40% better just from his music.
Genius composer.
“AVENGE ME!!!”
“shhhhh…dad, we’re not supposed to be here…”
“AVENGE ME!”
“dad, wtf?!? you’re going to get us caught…”
“AVENGE MEEEEEE!!!!”
At least here in the US, "Saving Private Ryan" wasn't critiqued for being too right-wing, too pro-gun, too pro-war etc because whether they consider themselves liberal or conservative, a huge majority of Americans dearly love to tell themselves that the US won WW2 and saved the world almost single-handedly. That's simply not true, in fact it's stunningly inaccurate, but we've been taught that relentlessly for generations. And the movie suits that view in a very comforting way. I would love to see the same basic story done by a Russian director, set at the same time but further to the east...
Milius is indeed an interesting character, and his work is interesting because of it. He's wonderfully talented at crafting real zingers, those iconic one-liners you mentioned. He's equally skilled at packing both subtle and ham-fisted references and symbols into his work. But he can also paint in very broad strokes, almost in a cartoonish fashion. His movies can be described as much more like a comic book than a novel, and that's not generally meant as a compliment by his critics.
But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; of course many movies are structured like comic books! After all a storyboard really is just a comic book.
But those who dislike him use that as a (weak, in my opinion) excuse to dismiss everything he did as little more than a childish propaganda poster.
I appreciate you taking the time to describe how he and his work are more complicated than that.
Great work overall, this was compelling and fascinating to watch. Thanks for that!
I don't think the word "hate" was misheard as "heat", Robert twists the "burn you up" metaphor to contrast with the cold of the mountains. He hates the enemy with a burning passion, which is eating at his soul but it's also the driving force that keeps him pushing through the adversity.
I mean to be fair if Soviet Paratroopers gunned down a lot of people at your school wouldn't you hate the Soviets for doing that?
That's what I thought too - it never occurred to me that "hate" had been misheard.
Rob's analysis is longer than the film. Epic stuff. Milius is a boss.
Melius might be under rated
Milius is the MAN.👍
MILIUS!!
Check out the documentary Milius. Great feature doc about the writer filmmaker and artist. Really well done.
Taps (1981) , the hornets nest (1970)
There is a manual on prepping written by a guy who lived in a ruined city during the Bosnian war. He says toilet paper and lighters are the single most valuable items when things devolve down to 'barter economy'. These two items basically replace standard currency
What's the name of it?
@@Michael-bg3cu Perhaps if you Google "One Year in Hell", there should be a PDF file with the original story. There is plenty of commentary to be found at most large content prepper sites.
@Projekt Kobra hey, can’t hurt.🤷♂️👍
And here I was foolishly hoarding bottle caps :)
@@jeffweber8556 +1
You know I think rather than the American Indian comparison, I always presumed it to be putting Americans into the shoes of the soviet war in Afghanistan
Some of the Indian comparisons can be a stretch (Long hair?). Peoples throughout history have found themselves thrust out of a comfortable existence when an invading army rolled in, some taking up arms to fight back. Red Dawn made it more relatable to an American audience that never experienced it. Someone on IMDB thought it was unrealistic the Soviets would fire at high school kids in the classroom; I shared an account of Soviet soldiers executing Estonian schoolchildren in 1941 for raising the Estonian flag in front of their school.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 Really? Soviet soldiers executed Estonian schoolchildren? It''s a fake, or else the modern, SS-loving Estonians would have shouted about it at every corner. I checked the pieces of the exhibition at their Museum of Soviet Occupation. Nothing there either. Should have been the main attraction of their museum, hell, they would have made a couple of monuments devoted to that within the last thirty years.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 I would like a source for that.
I read an article somewhere where Milius said exactly that was his intent, after watching news about the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
He thought Westerners needed to think of that invasion as if it were happening to them.
Milius was a clever fellow.
Lol, two nerds here asking for mUh SoUrCe🤓 have the exact type of usernames you'd expect. Cope and seethe commies.
I was just thinking about how the late Harry Dean Stanton's role as Jed and Matt's father although small is so well acted, believable and most of all memorable. Stanton makes one of the biggest impressions in the film and has one of the best dramatic lines saying "Avenge me" through the fence of the internment camp the invaders setup for war prisoners. This emphasizes their father's underlying desire for his boys to survive, beat the invading forces and maintain some normalcy again.
Harry Dean Stanton was a truly great actor. Never achieved super stardom, but I doubt he wanted to
"...I know - I was a partisan."
And what are you now, Bela?
"Now I'm like you - a policeman."
The actors were awesome...I would not have changed any of the casting...think Ed O'neil was Colonel Bela...
Why, in this day and age, with all we know, is "Anti-Communist" seen as a bad thing.
Ultimate politically incorrect question.
Thank you sir.
Because the mainstream media and the Democrat party in the USA are really communists.
@@alanfaulkner1311 Mr. Faulkner,
I recommend you Helen MacInnes' 1951''Neither Five Nor Three", fortunately reedited in hardcover, October 2013. However try to get the paperback edition from Fawcett Gold Medal, or The Laurel Leaf Student Edition, I've read that the new edition has altered somewhat the English of the original.
Ms MacInnes stands shoulder to shoulder with both
John Le Carre (''The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'')
and
Arthur Koestler (''Darkness At Noon")
But go first to Amazon for the comments.
You will find the same rabid rage already manifested against "Red Dawn".
Only one reviewer got it right.
Needless to say, I totally concur with him,
along the principle of :
"If there is a left, there's bound to be a Right ! Why should the left be the only one that's `right`?''
@@robzilla730 bingo!
I understand "diversity" in movies is a popular topic nowadays. But personally I just want to be immersed in a believable depiction of the setting.
I lived in a rural area out West in the Sierra foothills until recently. There are very few "non white" people in those areas. It's not like living in the South or in a city.
I lived near a town with a population of about 2400 people. I would guess maybe 5% might be classified in a book somewhere as "latino", but they were completely American and native English speakers, not recent immigrants, so they didn't stand out. I think the entire black population was a single family of a few people.
So to me, the skin complexion of the citizens shown in this movie is realistic and makes the town feel more immediately believable than it would be if somebody made the movie today (I haven't seen the 2012 version).
I also enjoyed the depiction of the "rugged individualist" culture and the hunting traditions. I like movies that embrace the values and beliefs of the society being examined, whatever that may be. This allows me to get immersed into that culture and to appreciate the story from that world's perspective.
It is an unfortunate vice of many moviemakers that they can't avoid making "adjustments" or casting sociopolitical judgements from a modern Los Angeles viewpoint.
As a Gen X Patriot, I decree this to be the greatest movie of my lifetime. WOLVERINES!!!! 🇺🇸
Aye!!
Because of this movie all those years ago. I'm 50 years old and about to purchase my first AK 47.
Another interesting bit of trivia about Red Dawn has to do with the great actor and body-builder William Smith who played the Russian Colonel Strelnikov. Smith - who had a reputation as one of the strongest guys in Hollywood and was a prolific character actor - was a USAF veteran and cold warrior, was fluent in Russian, and reportedly participated in some significant national security missions in the Korean War. Smith, who just recently passed away, was one of the all-time great tough guys.
"A little bit of a cult following in recent years". My cousin and I watched it as kids, he's just retired as a Major.
What did he major in?
i cam say the same to starship trooper. a cult following
Owen Bunny It’s because these movies were always on the movie channels. I’d always watch both of them whenever they were on.
@@collativelearning MENSA has entered the chat
I was living in Las Vegas nm when red dawn was made they said it was Colorado that the invasion was happening but it was filmed in nm Patrick Swayze loved the town so much he bought property there I loved the movie I really wish they would still make movies like red dawn with all the political correctness nowadays movies are horrible in the 80s movies were great not like the sjw caca we get now
5 🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠
Facts
My dad bought me the warriors and red dawn when i was like 9
Your dad had good taste
U should thank him. He could have given u Kramer vs Kramer or some other leftie wank.
Based.
I saw this with my 16 year old babysitter on HBO when i was in second grade. We ate popcorn and hugged each other during the scary parts. I had nightmares and fantasies for years.
nightmares about the horrific violence in the film and fantasies about your sexy babysitter, I presume... or was it the other way around?
Yep, Red Dawn is a great movie.
Amen!
*sips*
Thanks for ur playlists friend
Hahaha idk why but this is such a perfect response to a 2 hour critique. Love it
It provoked an inexplicably (???...!!!) rabid reaction rarely seen since Walter Wanger's 1956 ''Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".
Is it because both cut too close to the bone of the matter for comm-fort ?
Born in 74 and people outside of my age group can never understand how great this movie is and how this totally seemed like it coulda really happened when it came out
Lol. No… it didn’t seem like it really coulda happened, even when it came out
The shot at 1:51:34 is in the style of real world combat footage, where the camera is typically pointed at the troops, not at what they're firing at, and from which it's absolutely impossible to get an idea of what's happening. I grew up seeing that angle on the news, it's fairly obvious to me now that you drew my attention to it.
yep, it's what soldiers see during tactical maneuvers. i think, such shot was picked to demonstrate how inexperienced and unsure wolverines were and how they have changed later.
distance is your friend haha and thats why war fighters like to wear go pro to capture brutal combat footage
I'd argue that sense of confusion makes perfect sense in the grand scheme of the scene itself. As stated, the characters did not want this, but here it is. They did not want to have fight, but now they are. And if they let these guys get away, they'll tell the occupying force in town where these kids are, and that's it. They had no choice in that moment, and that's not something anyone really wants to be faced with. When your choices are kill an adversary, or, let them go and potentially tell others who will come capture you, torture you, *rape you*, and then probably kill you? I know maybe one or two people that would choose the latter over the former, but everyone else I know will go "That choice is 'easy'. Kill the baddies".
I remember when it first came out.It felt more like a warning than a movie
It was and still is!
It was but I feel now that many would welcome this and I consider them traitors.
@@jessebrown233 I totally agree with you and that frightens me.My father who is 76 years old said the exact same thing.It seems like they’re engineering a mentality here that would welcome them here as if it were the French grateful to see the allies liberating them from Nazi Germany-Frightening thought
@@angelvalle9963 Except now we are more than likely going to be fighting each other in our own country.
You are so on the nose for being critical of the “left vs right” narrative in contemporary politics. It’s something that has no just affected politics but various other aspects of life as well. It’s definitely a relic of the post Vietnam years and got worse during the post 9/11 years here in America. It’s just tribalism. I hope this contemporary world wakes up to this.
Spinlok you mean all aspects of life
As much as I have lived my life inclined towards liberal thought on social issues and conservative thought on financial and military issues, today’s Democrats have proven themselves to be everything the old time conservatives said they were.
I still don’t care who anyone wants to be or who they love, but the Democrats are criminally insane at this point.
I don't see how this comment doesn't fit right in to such a narrative?
"... reunited in the HORROR movie, Dirty Dancing." i spit up my beer. you sir, possess a positively sublime sense of humor.
"SAC" as referenced in Red Dawn does not refer to Strategic Airlift Capability (the transportation of vital goods during times of war or other emergency) but rather Strategic Air Command, which was the U.S. Airforce system for maintaining nuclear deterrence via bombers (such as the B52) during the Cold War.
Yes, I noticed that too. Strategic Air Command was part of the USAF from 1947-1992.
I did not see Red Dawn until I was already an adult, about 10 years ago.
When I was a teen I had to read "Tomorrow When the War Began" for English class. I like a lot and the author even came to the school to talk about it.
It is about teenagers defending Australia from invasion. The story is from the point of view of a girl's diary. There are 7 books in the series plus 3 books about after the War. There is also a movie and tv series (important to read book first).
The author purposely wrote the book so that no country could be identified as the invader, the book was supposed to be about teenagers reacting to a tough situation.
The movie and TV series portray the invaders as Asian.
I saw that movie...did not know there was a series too, though the end of the movie sure made it clear they intended to continue the franchise...fun movies
I just started high school (in Australia) when this book came out in 1993 but I hadn't heard of it until now.
50 minutes in and still more than an hour to go. That’s a long march. And I love it that way...
Good, was a bit concerned maybe I'd dragged this one out too much.
Collative Learning well, I can only speak for myself. I like long videos. The longer the better. That is if they are good... which is the case with your videos.
Here a recommendation:
Check out the review of the Videogame „Soma“ on the Channel „Mauler“. One of my favourites...
@@rexremedy1733 When comes to long critiques, Mauler is who came to my mind as well. 😁
I've found his channel when 'Last Jedi' came out.
@@collativelearning Long form critiques, as far as I know, have its own niche.
Red Dawn was and still is one of the best movies of the 80’s! Every kid myself and my friends included thought of ourselves as Wolverines. The Cold War still cold and our pretend battles were always US vs USSR and this movie embodied our own wish to be child soldiers fighting for freedom. It plugged right into our daydreams. Yea, if Russia invaded the US me and my friends would be just like the Wolverines.
Be a Wolverine, run to the hills
Just get some guns and Cheerios...
“Rambozo The Clown”
- The Dead Kennedys.
There definitely are many scenes in this movie that stir my emotions in sorrow, some to tears. The concept of losing your loved ones right in front of you or not knowing of their whereabouts amid disaster is something very surreal and makes you closer to them in spirit and resolve. As an active gun owning American, this movie resonates with me quite a bit.
Thank you for bringing up "V"! I was thinking about the intro "This film is dedicated to freedom fighters everywhere, past, present, and future"
Oh yeah, that absolutely fits.
Nice in that this genre is alive and well with the recent film The Tomorrow War shown on Amazon Prime.
V Has Come To.
Red Dawn reminds me of a quote by R Lee Ermy’s character in ‘Siege of Firebase Gloria’. He’s in the midst of an internal monologue about the almost psychotic cruelty of the VC towards POWs and pro western civilians. He pauses and reflects,
“but I guess we’d do the same thing if charlie occupied South Carolina.”
As a veteran and a former police officer, there’s nothing glorious about hurting other people or having your life threatened. You just do what you have to do to survive and try to live with it afterwards. In March of 2022, I just want to move to Alaska and disappear.
Last time I was this early the supermarket didnt resemble Dawn Of The Dead
I might be a whole generation past this film being made but i always liked that Red Dawn Poster.
That Shot of dozens of parachutes dropping from the clouds into a small town is eerliy chilling
Americans aren't gun enthusiasts...we are fun enthusiasts...with guns. great vid.
1:31:00 -- Alexander Nevsky really worth a look, especially its "Battle of the Ice" sequence, which reenacts a medieval battle between the invading Teutonic Knights and the Novgorod Russians. Set to a magnificent Prokofiev score (which has a fair claim as the greatest movie score in history), the sequence was shot on an actual frozen lake, and a number of extras drowned during the filming. A Stalinist movie, yes -- but also a sequence depicting a resistance against a better armed invader...an irony surely not lost on Milius.
That scene was apparently one of Christopher Nolan’s inspirations for Batman Begins.
Saw that movie with a full live orchestra playing the score. Fan-tastic.
Alexander Nevsky is epic, I remember getting the Eisentstein box criterion made in high school and it blew me away that film immediately became a favorite classic film of mine
Watching commits get defeated is always fun.
Of interest to people debating on the Soviets and Nazis comparison, go check out Operation Osoaviakhim. It is basically the Soviets' version of Operation Paperclip after WWII. I once watched a documentary on the Concorde superplane, and one historian described that the hired Nazi scientists tried designing the Soviets' version of the Concorde superplane. I think this aspect was mentioned in Antony Sutton's Best Enemy Money Can Buy.
For people who still say the Soviets weren't antisemitic despite their track record showing Stalin and the likes to have lied about their supposed attitudes to Jewish people, if the Soviets really cared for Jewish people, then they should've put the Nazi scientists on the Nuremberg Trial instead of hiring and hiding them.
And if Kubrick was putting in themes about Nazi reemergence in US government in his movie Dr. Strangelove because Wehrner Von Braun of Operation Paperclip was parodied as Strangelove, then could the same be said with the Soviets' recruitment of Nazi scientists?
I wonder how Soviet science would have developes without their captured Nazi sceintists. Both sides should be ashamed for recruiting them.
@@collativelearning Yeah, I always like it when the UK citizens talk about the shame of others. It reminds me why others call you hypocrite. Von Braun (an SS officer) developed V2 missiles that directly killed many Brits. Were there many protests in the UK prior to or after von Braun managed to accomplish the Moon expedition? Speaking of recruiting the Nazi scientists: look up the photos of the V2 missile standing upright and compare it to the Saturn V. Do the same for the Korolev's Vostok. The overwhelming majority of Nazi scientists fled to the West. The UK used the results of their work too. All of the German scientists returned from the USSR after Stalin's death. Von Braun became a naturalized US citizen, there is a crater on the Moon named after him. A crater named after the guy who helped to kill the UK citizens. Russia should not be ashamed of anything.
@@rafail3, only people without any knowledge and taste, but an head full of CIA-propaganda equate Comrade Stalin to the dirt bag Hitler, especially in the United Slave&Genocide-States of America. The Soviets eliminated the nazis almost alone. 95% of the Wehrmacht's best troops were destroyed before the "holy" D-Day. Building a concentration camp isn't the same as freeing it - and will NEVER be. Thanks to the CCCP! It speaks for itself, that the "nation" that bombs regularly "based" on outrageous lies, waited over a decade in the case of Hitler (who wanted to kill ALL Slavs) and still wants to kill a communists. I would say: Shared hobbies melt together. "Red Dawn" is pure projection.
The soviets not liking the Jews is nothing special,it just so happens that everywhere they go,people don't like them be it in a far-right,far left,capitalistic,monarchal system,must be that infamous irrational anti-semitism hardwired in gentiles,i guess,kinda like those bigots asking for a ceasefire in Gaza,oh well.
Speaking of 1984 movies: Back to the Future!
"Who is President of the United States in 1984?"
"Ronald Reagan."
"The actor?"
In regards to the kids having so-called unrealistic success against the Soviet invaders, I think this can be reasonably explained by the setting of the movie. This isn't a major population center, and as such, far fewer resources would be spent trying to dominate the people in this area. Until the Wolverines' notoriety leads to the deployment of the elite Russian unit tasked with wiping our favorite guerillas out, we're not seeing the Russian's A Team. These non-elite troops are very much B, C or even worse tiers in terms of training. After all, why deploy your best troops where they are not needed? This could even be the equivalent of a punishment posting for "underperforming" units and officers, like Siberia was in the USSR.
Love this film - much darker and brutal than you'd think, though combined with 80's cheese. "AVENGE ME!!"
@Slave of Jesus Ever read Beowulf? "Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning." Real men like Vlad the Impaler literally lived this.
I love this movie and have special memories associated with it. But, yeah, I think that certain dialogue like that "Avenge me!" that are really cringe-worthy. There are three or four such clunky moments in Red Dawn.
@@ulvesparker Agreed, "Avenge me" is cringe. Probably others.
THAT LINE was spoken by the late great Harry Dean Stanton!
“AVENGE ME!!!”
“shhhhh…dad, we’re not supposed to be here…”
“AVENGE ME!”
“dad, wtf?!? you’re going to get us caught…”
“AVENGE MEEEEEE!!!!”
I watched the movie for the first time when it came out on 4K disc, expecting nothing more than a shallow "american kids triumph over inept evil commies" war-as-adventure propaganda movie, which would have been fine. But I didn't expect how dark, raw and depressing the movie is. It's not pro war in the slightest.
Just took a look at Renegade Cut. It's tragic what having an iq of 105 does to a human being.
"how easy it is to distort this movie in a ideological lens"
Isn´t that true for pretty much any movie?
People complain about product placement but I go outside my house, there is a Shell station and a Marathon gas station. Next door is a car dealership with an assortment of cars of various manufactuers. Going down town I can see a Kroger, a Walmart, a BP, a Burger King, a McDonalds, a Wendys, ETC. My family prefers pepsi products but I prefer Coke's Barqs over Pepsi's MUG. My mom drives a ford and my dad drives a cadillac he got from a family friend. Product placement is something that already happens in real life, you as a person are giving free advertisement for companies when you buy stuff of theirs.
"Horror movie, Dirty Dancing" LOL. You make me giggle.
A believable premise is certainly not required for a good movie.
The movie premise was more or less believable. It required only a minor suspension of disbelief. North Korea invading mainland USA requires a whole lot more of that thing.
I always loved this movie! It had some very mature themes for a young kid in the 80's.
Holy cow what a piece of work Robert hanson was, had to stop and read up on him! Thank you for the free quality content and education !
You may also wish to check out the story of Aldrich Ames. There is an excellent book about the people who caught Ames, and you can watch videos on RUclips with the author.
Had a hearty chuckle: "Then who are our buddies?"
"600 million screaming china men"
Carter and Reagan bet on the wrong horse.
Did the USA ship most of its manufacturing to China in the 70s and 80s?
@Senior Shakingmyhead. No, it was the very early 1980s when that started.
They're "screaming "😱 what a stupid line
@@smileybubbles9894Fitting pfp.🤓
Grew up in the Midwest watching this movie. It was almost like bible study for me and my cousins. Aardvark is Mexican. Cubans and Mexicans hate each other. They fought wars and its almost like the UK vs France thing. Mexicans are waaay more murcan than Cubans if that makes any sense. Great movie even better review. Legit thought RPGs made the noise they did in this movie IRL for longer than i will ever admit.
man, cubans and mexicans have never fought against each other, if anything, mexican governments have been (for the most part) very tolerant of the Cuban Regime, before the 50s relations were normal, even non-existant. And before that, Cuba and Mexico were both provinces of the same Empire
I saw this for the first and only time in the early 2000's. I went into it expecting good feeling American propaganda, but I was surprised at how dark the film was. It left me feeling empty. So I understood then that it wasn't just simplistic propaganda like I'd been lead to believe. Edit: For a little more context. In the early 2000's I was still very politically naive and was a very stereotypical Patriotic Right Wing Republican or something to that effect, so I was very eager to receive a Right-oriented pro-America message from this film, but it didn't deliver anything like that as I saw it.
Yeah, when the bullets start whizzing by the ears ideologies are put aside.
C’mon, now, are you saying you didn’t buy the plot of American teenagers holding off a Soviet Army brigade that paratrooped into the Rocky Mountains after completely bypassing our air defense systems? 😅
@laxat7435 I could see it falling into the “so bad it’s good” category, yes. But to me it symbolizes the ‘80’s and all the jingoistic crap like “Rambo” that was produced in that decade
@laxat7435 I don't think you really paid attention to the film.
@@gregbors8364 Did you even watch Rob's review? The film starts out the way you describe but it doesn't really end that way. It's way too down beat, grim, and miserable in the latter half. It ropes you in with this childish power fantasy about fighting a resistance war at home but slowly introduces some of the grim reality of war.
Animal Farm WAS propaganda. He sat down and said "How can I write something that will make the Soviet Union look as shit as possible" (paraphrased, he doubtless said it better than I could). That doesn't mean that everything it said wasn't valid.
Awesome
I was squirming in my chair during some of The Devils Advocate bits. I was disappointed to learn that Renegade Cut is a youtuber. I thought it might have an obscure directors cut. Overall, not bad review, for a civic nationalist.
I'm willing to bet that Dean Winchester loves this movie.
@@roger.e.lareau4556 why's that?
Im 90 percent sure he says as much in an episode. Ive seen the entire series but that is a whole lot of content to know for sure. Dean loves 80s and early 90s films he brings up road house and a fake slasher film series in the vein of friday the 13th for sure.
Renegade cut is a mixed bag to be sure, a lot of what he says makes me roll my eyes but he does make decent enough videos that can be worth watching even if for nothing else another perspective on film from someone who you cannot argue takes it seriously.
1:24:54 "Reunited in the horror movie, Dirty Dancing." lmao
Milius is miraculously still alive. He hasn't worked a lot lately, however, probably due to his poor health.
A believable premise is certainly not
Taps is another brat pack military themed movie I adore.
"It's beautiful, man! Beautiful!"
Two late 80's movies I liked as a kid, starring kids, The Rescue & Russkies. Russkies was less of a military movie than The Rescue.
That was a good one.
@@frankmiller4550 Yes! I remember The Rescue now! I saw it when I was a kid then completely forgot about it! Now I have to watch it, even if only for nostalgia.
you forgot "Toy Soldiers"
I don’t think the scene between Jed and Toni being left in is anything romantic at all but It is a solemn moment between two war molded soldiers who know what it is inevitably coming, death. Knowing that at a moment’s notice that could be any of their fates. I think Jed, as the “fatherly/leader figure” is just allowing his brother-in-arms “child/subordinate” to pass with some level of comfort and compassion. A graceful departure to a chaotic life.
Child soldiers in other countries figure out how to use AK-47s and Russian RPG’s all the time it’s actually not that hard
Remember this 😉 :
ruclips.net/video/9OhIdDNtSv0/видео.html
Never fired a Gun? I’ve heard about people like this
Wow I never knew people/critics had such a stigma with this movie. I’ve always loved this movie and I don’t even consider myself loyal to either political party in America.
I just think it’s a very interesting concept and a very historical movie of our time. The idea of a full scale invasion during the Cold War was very real. Especially since nuclear war was less likely due to MAD(Mutually assured destruction). And it’s a great representation of “What if these events in our history happened a little differently” and with the actors, decent action, and great drama. I definitely understand the plot holes and political criticism with the movie but at the end of the day it’s a movie. It’s just meant to be a representation of a terrible but very real situation and what could happen.
ah yes 2 hours to starve my covid insanity
And another long one coming hopefull next week ;)
Its covisanity! Aaaaaahh... crazy rudimentary rectified rumble rampage run! Crazy! With a C!
the drinking of the blood was/is a passage that the Natives used to make new warriors basically respect the laws of nature. if you couldn't do it you weren't mature enough to become a warrior: concurring an internal fear.
They really butchered that scene in the remake. Not that I would have drank the blood either.
@@orlandopockets6372 you jelly
Did you mean Conquered?
@@justindemoret9481 doh!
I’ve never heard that. I have heard that the drinking of blood and the eating of fresh liver was a way to get the glucose contained therein to replace what was lost during the hunt. May be a backward explanation, but I like it.
I've fired a gun (9mm) and I live in the UK.
In fact, I fired it at a shooting range near the Dock road in Liverpool, no less.
This was, of course, before Dunblane and Hungerford.
John Goodman as Walter in 'The Big Lebowski' is the perfect impersonation(With some tongue in cheek of course) of John Milius. I personally think he's one of the greatest story tellers of all time. He was ridiculously misunderstood. I love what he's done. I think Oliver Stone is far more biased, but because he's on the Left, Hollywood acceptance is allowed. It's a shame.
On another note, this is a phenomenal video Rob. Incredibly in-depth and unbiased. You aren't reaching, not that I think you do anyways, but this is full of TRUTHS. Sources shown in full many times. Well done. Keep these coming!
Much appreciated feedback. Cheers.
Oliver Stone has done some good films, and he wrote Scarface which has some un-PC elements. Go check out his film Talk Radio, the main character of the movie is a sort of precursor to Joe Rogan and the likes.
@@jocaerbannog9052 , I think Oliver Stone is talented, I just feel he's given a pass on politics in his films because generally they are very "Left-leaning." I've seen 'Talk Radio' and while I enjoyed it, I also think it was more of an attack on the Right-Wing Talk Radio market that emerged heavily during the Reagan Era. Even 'Scarface' had it's left-wing elements. I'm not saying Stone is PC, he's certainly not afraid of speaking his mind. I just don't like that Milius was more or less shunned by critics for what they called Right-Wing filmmaking, some even going so far as to call him Pro-Fascist. Kubrick dealt with that a little bit on 'A Clockwork Orange' just for going against the grain of popular opinion. Whereas Kubrick was a Realest, I think Milius shared a lot of the same ideas, he was just a big personality. As Rob mentioned, he really was just sort of trolling critics, rightfully so IMO. Even his friends like Spielberg, Lucas and FFC kind of alienated him, taking jabs at him from time to time. It's a shame because as I said, I think he's one of the greatest storytellers ever. His work always had meaning. The violence wasn't unnecessary to the story he was telling. I guess I unfairly called out Stone, but only because he's basically on the other side of the political spectrum(Yet, I think even he understood Milius, as they collaborated on Conan The Barbarian.) My issue is more with Hollywood and the Media itself. I'm very much an Independent. I don't buy into sides, I just dont care for the shenanigans of Hollywood Liberals who "decide whats right or wrong" etc. I'm ok with diverse filmmaking. I grew up and live in a City of 100,000 people where I'm the minority as a White Man. I actually love it because of how diverse it is. I just hate that every time a film comes out nowadays, it's message is banged over our head. We have Superhero Films with obvious agendas and they get a pass, yet Scorsese and Tarantino are hit with "Toxic Masculinity" accusations because they have a different story to tell. Anything that's within reason is fine with me, no matter the politics. Just as long as Hollywood isn't deciding what's "Ok."
@@mk-ultramags1107 Fair comment, mate :)
The comparison between a mix of communism and capitalism equating to the necessity of having both sexes as a species was truly brilliant.
Milius' work was always consistent in its anti-authoritarian themes. The same critics that loved the military-industrial critiques and anti-war messages of Apocalypse Now hated the same anti-military industrial and anti-war messages of Red Dawn. The genius of Milius was in his presentation of militarism, ranging from the US as the perpetrator (Apocalypse Now) versus making the United States the victim (Red Dawn). In what ways were the Wolverines essentially different from the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army? In Apocalypse Now we see a conflict from the eyes of the aggressor; in Red Dawn we see it through the eyes of the oppressed. But: same message.
Politically, I've found that ideologues are pro their brand of authoritarianism, and anti-authoritarian to their competing brand. Apocalypse Now resonated with the perceived ideologies of the critics, so they were generally favorable (however, if they truly understood it, those on the limousine left would be a bit more critical due to its Hobbessian/Freudian implications of AN); yet those same critics misrecognized identical themes in Red Dawn.
Honestly, with most of the "classic" critics, ranging from music critics like Christgau, to Siskel and Ebert, and particularly Vincent Canby, I just want to say: "OK BOOMER*"
*Note: I recognize that Canby was born in 1924, but his critiques reek of upper-class boomerism like no other.
Good summary. One little point. Interesting that the US is seen as the aggressor in Vietnam (and i agree they were in a lot of ways, the Tonkin gulf lie was a disgrace), but the Viet Cong were also murderous communist lunatics, attacking the South. The Wolverines attacked no one.
@@collativelearning Vietnam is complicated. As a region that was occupied by colonial France, then (briefly) Germany, and then France attempting to re-establish control with the US getting quagmired in it... It is difficult to consider North Vietnam or the Viet Cong to necessarily be aggressors. I highly, highly recommend Ken Burns' documentary on the Vietnam War as it includes declassified documents and conversations from numerous US Presidents, Robert MacNamara, etc... Excellent documentary.
Note: Viet Cong were largely anti-occupation guerrilla forces in the south; North Vietnamese Army were pro-communist military forces. As I said, Vietnam was complicated. Also consider that, had the French and later US not been occupying Vietnam, there would have been nobody for the Viet Cong to attack. This being said, I'm not a fan of either side of the Vietnam War. It was a mess akin to the Israeli-Palestinian fiasco where there is nothing good in sight.
@@jamesmeeker6933 Thanks :)
@@collativelearning So the US was merely possibly the aggressor but the Viet Cong were 'murderous communist lunatics'. Did the Viet Cong ever use massive scale chemical weapons against completely innocent villagers and then use films like Red Dawn to cover that up?
No. But the US did. Your bias and ignorance is so obvious, and so very, very boring.
@@spyculture Sigh. Please tell me everything you know about Ngo Dinh Diem.... Then we can talk about "atrocities" and "complexity." I mean, did you watch the video? Rob condemns US militarism and imperialism in this very video. C'mon, man.
You don't have to be right or left leaning to appreciate Red Dawn. It's just a cool movie. I watched it with my buddies at Beverly Theater when I was 16 and we loved it.
This is a master class in how to review a film.
Just recently watched red dawn and it’s my favorite movie at the moment
Biggest difference between Nazis and Soviets? Nazis had better dress sense.
I wasn't even aware of this movie but I'm already sucked in at the 49min mark. Thanks for the content.
Re: Hoarding The problem isn't people abandoning their "principles" it's basic game theory. Not hoarding seems like it would do good, but that's only true if other people don't hoard. With literally hundreds of thousands of potential hoarders all of whom know that if they don't hoard, the others could, it makes sense to hoard. It's a "Tragedy of the commons.".
It's made worse by laws that prevent "Price gouging" which discourages hoarding by making it expensive and less likely for others to hoard.
Powers Boothe was the goat. Underrated actor. Unmatched screen presence. RIP
Did you see Extreme Prejudice?
Yeah, he did a smooth noir detective too.
@@mikerodgers7620 nope
He was amazing in deadwood
@@butchmonster8031 good movie with Powers Booth.
it is interesting to note that an avid supporter and quasi-producer of the movie was Alexander Haig, former US Army general, supreme allied commander europe and secretary of state who sat on the board of MGM by the time, he supplied the political background for the movie and ramped up the budget, which even got Milius worried it would turn into an over patriotic flick
The 84 version was fantastic.....the remake should have been called.......Red Dog Shit.All remakes suck and never capture what was intended.I rented the original in VHS....and when i was chaging from VHS to DVD.....i made sure to include this gem.One of my favorites.
Without John Milius no Big Lebowski
I am 48 years old and had the EXACT same experience with this movie as you: Loved it as a young teen when it was released, saw it again maybe 10 years ago and thought it "propaganda", and now see it for exactly what it is. Just a really good war movie with a unique premise. Thanks for this great critique, sir!
THERE GOES ANOTHER IDIOT HERE! IT'S "THUMBS DOWN" FOR YOU TOO, JERK!
@@theonemesis5217 um.... What?
@@SavageDawgJoshua WHAT DO YOU MEAN "UM.....WHAT" YOU JERK?! WAS THIS NOW, A SERIOUS ASSESSMENT, ON YOUR BEHALF, REGARDING THIS OLD TIME CLASSIC?!.....WHA'....?! DO YOU HONESTLY, WANTS US, TO CLAP OUR HANDS FOR YOU AFTER THIS VOMIT OF YOURS?!....WE WON'T!!!
@@theonemesis5217 I'm not a doctor, but it sounds like you really need some help, sir. Anger management... therapy...smoke some weed, I dunno. I only expressed my opinion, not the gospel concerning this movie. There's really no need to yell at me for it. But then, I reckon whatever you need to do to feel safe and significant inside your own bubble; if that means blow out at random people online for their opinions, you be you, sir. Have a blessed day.
How dare Americans fight!!!
We're supposed to just give everything away and PLEAD for mercy...
Thank you for giving us such a long video for free.
Nice try but Red Dawn is not a great or even very good film. The acting is wooden, the plot is predictable, and the direction is uninspired to say the least. Its an Ok fantasy war movie and a product of its time.
I always thought that Russian guy who reads the sign in the mountains was trying to impress the other guys. He was deliberately making up what he thought sounded like an impressive story, because he knew the other guys would not be able to read it and so would have no idea he was lying. In essence, I thought he was showing off his supposed skill in reading English.
Also, the unbelievable success the group had versus a professional military force didn't bother me because the basic idea of the movie is completely unbelievable. An invasion of the US? Haha, right! The Soviets wish they could have done such a thing. If you accept that it could happen, so as to enjoy the movie which is what I did, then you can easily accept that these teens could form a guerrilla force and use successful hit and run tactics.
@@flibber123 agreed
It's not cold war propaganda....it's reality
You would have been the ideal film studies professor had you chosen the path. Sadly mostly review through a purely leftist lens as that is what academia is today.
Consider me a home study film professor :)
I do
I second this comment.
@@collativelearning There's a reason your channel attracts a lot of comments like this. Can you imagine what it might be?
Tom Secker and what reason might that be?
Ask Ukraine, it can happen anywhere.
Thumbs up just for the mention and knowledge of Pol Pot. Why doesn't more people know about this?
46:33 The Man in the High Castle is exactly this, and yet critics hated it as soon as it came out
One of the best movies of the 1980s - And THAT's saying something!
This film feels very different after the invasion of Ukraine.
I love your interpretation of this, you’re the most eloquent film analyst on RUclips, keep on fighting the good fight, logic over stupidity everyday ❤️
I’d wager that there are plenty of folks in Ukraine right now who’d think Red Dawn is the last thing from implausible. Perhaps an invasion of the U.S. is far-fetched, but the USSR, and of course Russia, have invaded plenty of places. Including literally right now, to include a foiled “decapitation attack” on the Zelensky administration in Kiev.
Red Dawn is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s not Pulp Fiction, Citizen Kane, or Shakespeare, but it is a wonderful story with a wonderful cast directed by a man whos career was harmed by these accusations of being right-wing in Hollywood. Frankly, Red Dawn is largely anti-war in that it paints an invasion as something truly terrifying even while it may call for resistance. The explicitly anti-war elements, personified in the character of the Air Force Colonel, were cut in editing choices not made by Milius: Tanner was a pacifist who had to go against his values to defend his home. The invasion was even shown to damage the invaders with Bella deciding that he could no longer consider himself on the side of righteousness, choosing both to retire from military service and to allow Jed and Matt to pass him by: Bella saw that Jed and Matt were fighting for reasons he respected.
So yeah - while Red Dawn may have been unrealistic, it fired the imaginations of kids of the 80’s without too much jingoism. The kids fight for themselves, their families, and their communities. They aren’t fighting for the USA as such.
A lot of people in Ukraine, specifically Donbass, have been hoping for a Red Dawn type invasion for the last eight years.
The us didn’t invade Panama, iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia just to start a list?
@@rydplrs71 - I don’t understand this sort of “yeah, but the US!” argument. It doesn’t justify a thing - yes, the US has made some better and worse decisions. We “invaded” occupied France, for one that’s better, and we invaded Iraq for some pretty bad reasons the second time. But unlike in Russia, it’s not against the law for me to say the US invaded Iraq or to call it a war.
If you’re willing to condemn invasions by the US, how does that support invasions by Russia? If you’re clear-eyed about invasions made for bad reasons, be they WMD’s or “denazification,” this current one should be just as unacceptable. Saying “but the us did it” does nothing but make a hypocrite of anyone who supports Putin’s decision.
Thank you very much for this review. Because of simpletons like Renegade Cut I have denied myself this gem. This was an incredibly fun watch and too smart for these critics.
JOHN FUCKING MILIUS!!!! (‘nuff said)