So we watched some football on Sunday, and they ran the commercial for the remade Red Dawn (in cinemas now!).
I’m with a wise man who long ago said:
By contrast, the long-stalled remake has become a sick joke. To wit: MGM has taken the extraordinary step of digitally scrubbing the film of all references to Red China as the invading villains — substituting dialogue, removing images of Chinese flags and insignia etc. — because “potential distributors are nervous about becoming associated with the finished film, concerned that doing so would harm their ability to do business with the rising Asian superpower.” All without the PRC even uttering a single word of protest.
And who are the new invaders? North Korea. That’s right, the starving-to-death, massively brainwashed “Hermit Kingdom.” I imagine at this very moment, Hollywood script doctors are working on a revised first act in which Kim Jong Il decides it’s a good idea to let hundreds of thousands of his captive countrymen travel to America.
The invasion would last about until the invading armies discovered the American concept of the supermarket, wherein they would all eat themselves sick or into a nap where even 21st century American high school kids could win against them.
The conceit offends me. Apparently, it did not offend enough people to make it the bomb it deserves to be, but those 21st century American moviegoers might lack enough understanding of logistics, current events, and history to think that North Korea might actually pose a threat to the United States outside of maybe Hawaii.
But you know what would make this film a must-see movie for me?
If, instead of reshooting the scenes referring to China, they dubbed over them. Badly.
I would go to see it if every time the characters referred to the origin of the invaders, the actors’ mouths would say “China,” but a deep male voice in the audio track would say “North Korea.” I’d even nominate it for a People’s Choice award, if I’m eligible as a people to do that sort of thing, if the dubbing would include obvious mistakes such as referring to the capital of the invaders’ country incorrectly. The actors’ mouths would say, “Beijing,” but that deep voice (even if it was a woman speaking) would say, “Seoul” or “Manila.”
That, my friends, would be awesome.
