Anyone remember Red Dawn, the 1984 teenage saga of a communist invasion of the United States? Apparently, we can look forward to a remake in early 2012. (But because Mises was right and the Soviets destroyed their economy a while back, the remake has the Chinese as the new Red Menace.)
Meanwhile, Robert Wenzel at EconomicPolicyJournal.com reminds us that Murray Rothbard reviewed the 1984 version:
It gives a sense for the broad range of Rothbard knowledge. He is critiquing a damn movie and details how the movie fails to portray guerrilla war correctly. Read the clip, it explains why guerrilla war is tough. After reading this, it’s not difficult to argue that Rothbard’s review, of what he calls a teen-age saga, suggests that his understanding of guerrilla war goes far beyond that of our most recent commander and chiefs, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
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Nice to have a change of bad guy. I was getting sick of the mullahs and the Iranians. More variety, please, Hollywood!
actually, the bad guys were originally supposed to be the Chinese, but pressure from the studios eyeing profits in the Chinese market made them change it to the North Koreans. They went back to the movie and digitally altered all the Chinese writing to Korean, as well as changing the beginning scroll of the movie to explain how N. Korea conquers the US.
There was a bit of uproar in online community regarding the changes, to say the least.
Nork conquers the US??
“I shall invade you, capitalist running dog lackeys!! With my peasant power!”
The mind boggles.
Aliens who want to kill every last US citizen because of “freedoms” would at least be realistic.
no doubt Hollyweird will make it so that the backstory will be something like “extreme elements of the Korean government have staged a coup and have now set their sights on America” so as not to offend the current North Korean administration.
The chair is against the wall. John has a long mustache.
Tomorrow, When the War Began is essentially a remake of Red Dawn, relocated to Australia and with the Chinese as the bad guys.
Be fair, Red Dawn isn’t that original either. 90% of that movie consist of scenes lifted from “The Moon is Down”, “Die Brücke” and “Battle of Algiers” with all the poignancy and authenticity stripped out and replaced with cheese.
Has anyone read any of the Tomorrow, When the War Began books, What are they like? Wiki says that they’ve won a heap of awards and American librarians consider them among the hundred best books for teenagers.
No, I’ve only seen the movie, but that was well-done. Unfortunately, no topless teenage beauties. Despite that, it can be recommended.
I don’t think “Tomorrow When The War Began” is a reboot of “Red Dawn” at all. Invasion fiction has been common the world over for many decades – it is really a kind of unacknowledged genre. (Wikipedia has an excellent overview article on “Invasion Literature” – see here.
The author of “Tomorrow…” , John Marsden was a school teacher who wanted young people to show more self confidence. He put a lot more emphasis on the psychological and “growing up” aspects of his characters. I believe the producer of ‘Red Dawn’ was a Reaganite conservative and had some ideological motivation. Rothbard was a hardline anti-Reaganite but liked the movie anyway. “Tomorrow” is more psychological than ideological.
My guess is that Rothbard would like the “Tomorrow” series too. Mainly because it is an old school heroic story. Not an anti-hero story. Rothbard was an old school movie guy. “Tomorrow” doesn’t go into the mechanics of guerilla war as well as “Red Dawn” – but it does display a ‘politically incorrect’ skepticism of anti-gun paranoia common amongst liberals and social democrats.
By the way the author of “Tomorrow..” came to the conclusion that private gun ownership was a good idea too. Not a bad development for a writer in a country without a Second Amendment tradition. There is however a long militia tradition in Australian history – especially in the 19th century and early decades of the 20th- that the author may have knowingly or unknowingly drawn on.
The foe in the movie are not the Chinese but an unnamed Asian power. The author wasn’t making any political / ideological conclusions, in the Australian case the prospect of invasion by an unnamed Asian power is really more of a common sense geographic conclusion rather than ideological statement. In the books the Australians (and New Zealanders) are left to their own devices to fight the invader and the US doesn’t intervene at all. In a sense this is the author’s ‘shot across the bow’ of the pro-US empire mantra of Australia’s conservatives (and now increasingly Laborites) who paint the US alliance as a kind of insurance policy. In Marsden’s book it doesn’t suit American politicians to intervene to protect an ally and so they don’t. My guess is Rothbard would see some merit in this too.
Ah. I didn’t even know it was based on a book/series. I just know my sister and I watched the film a few months ago, and we both said “this is Red Dawn” (well, I said “Red Dawn”; she said “that film with Patrick Swayze”)
Search for monsters high & low, all the while the Eskimos continue to covertly implement their plans for world domination. The footsteps to tyranny lead not to Wash. D.C., but the North Pole.
Peter, the unnamed asian power which invades Australia didn’t nuke the place first! Still, this is the way to go- have a near neighbour invade you! A book where Australia invades New Zealand would sell very well in New Zealand, amongst the teens, no doubt.
The Maoris have already invaded Sydney (Bondi), and no one made a film about that.
Only because we haven’t successfully beaten them back in guerilla fighting- yet! Come the Revolution, all that will change!
someone told me the rothbard essay was included as an extra on some version of the DVD.
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