Red Dawn(s) Again

As a 10-year-old kid in the middle of the Cold War circa 1984, Red Dawn freaked me the crap out. Hollywood’s first wide-release PG-13 movie, Red Dawn earned it’s 13 with enough surprisingly violent and grounded in enough realism to make it both bleak and frightening. Red Dawn also has the honor of being the film that originally coined the now legendary “Wolveriiiiiiiiines!”– a war cry I shout out every time I think about having to enter a Wal-Mart.

While a bit outdated in today’s geopolitical/technological climate, Red Dawn is still an 80′s classic, packing enough of an uncomfortable, existential and brutal punch to the soft parts that I still have a hard time watching it. In fact, I credit Red Dawn with single-handedly turning me into a grumpy, lifelong pessimist.

Thanks a lot.

Now, 25 years later, Red Dawn is being remade. While the details have been in the works for a while and Red Dawn: The Reboot is still in development, you’ll probably be seeing High School insurgents an the foreign invaders who fear them duke it out on screens in 2010. Hint: this time, while Russia is still involved, they’ll be offered up in a supporting role to China.

In the mean time, the script is almost completely finalized and a recent draft (dated March 20) has surfaced at Latino Review, giving a pretty good glimpse of what to expect.  Check it out here.

For a Red Dawn refresher via the original’s trailer, wala: