YMMV / Red Dawn (1984)

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• Alternate Aesop Interpretation:
  • This Cracked article, which makes the movie a largely anti-war film.
  • Allegedly the original script was intended as an anti-war film, before it was sold to MGM and adjusted to be more gung-ho.
  • It's also shockingly easy to read the film as Marxist, as the heroes are essentially anti-colonialist revolutionaries, and are explicitly compared to the Vietcong.
• Anvilicious:
  • Communism is bad. Gun control is bad. America is good. Survivalism is good. Any questions?
  • At the same time, as we see from the fate of the citizen with the "pry it from my cold dead fingers" bumper sticker, having a gun, and being willing to use it to fight for America will absolutely get you killed by an enemy army if you don't work as part of a team. Things similarly go very badly for the Wolverines once one of their own is forced to turn traitor.
• Applicability:
  • This film could also be seen as an anti-war movie; it shows the painful effects that war has on innocent civilians, how it makes killers out of children, and it actually does an excellent job of humanizing the regular Joe Soviet soldiers, even in light of some of the things some of them do. On the other hand, while the movie makes it clear that war is Dirty Business, it still depicts it as necessary to fight back.
  • Even John Milius himself has pointed this out. He once said of Red Dawn "I think it shows the utter futility, desperate futility, of war. At the end of the movie, in spite of all that heroism and valor, the reasons and acts of revenge on both sides, and everything else, all that’s left is a plaque, a lonely plaque, on some desolate battlefield that no one ever goes to."
  • The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 has drawn many parallels with the plot of this movie, even causing a 500% surge in popularity in the first week following the initial attack.
• Critic-Proof: Red Dawn was hated by a lot of critics, but that didn't stop it from becoming a box office success.
• Cult Classic: Every 80s anti-communist cliche in one film, which is partly what makes it so enjoyable.
• Discredited Meme: If you grew up after the Cold War, the entire premise seems a bit silly. If you grew up during the Cuban missile crisis, it seems horrifically implausible that anyone would have survived the nuking long enough for the premise to happen. Lastly, any detailed knowledge of the sheer logistics involved in an invasion of territory as big as the United States may very likely break one's Suspension of Disbelief. ^note In Real Life, both the US and the USSR recognized and discounted any large-scale invasion of each other's territory as too impractical to achieve. Even the most plausible "up the middle" wargame scenarios—taking advantage of the least prepared part of the US—could only go so far before logistics started to break down. Director John Milius claims the film was based on studies of actual weak points in America's home defense that could be penetrated by invading forces, though it's unclear whether he was embellishing for Artistic License or whether the studies he claims to have seen may not have given the full story (it was still the Cold War, after all). Also, the movie takes place in an alternate universe where Central America is under Russian control or a Russian ally; it's a lot easier to invade somewhere you have an adjacent land border too. Then again, it was the Cold War, and neither side was likely to admit that they couldn't inflict a nightmare scenario on the other. What seems implausible in hindsight was downright scary in the context of what was known at the time.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The way the film treats war. On the one hand, the combat scenes are absolute, Grade-A 80s action cheese, sharp as cheddar, and feature lots of slam-bang hoo-rah kabooms to get the audience worked up. Later on especially, though, it does move to a more practical War Is Hell footing, as the psychology of constant guerrilla warfare catches up with the Wolverines, they suffer their first casualties, including the Colonel, and particularly once Darrel betrays the group, there's no glory at all, only pain.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Everybody loves Colonel Tanner, the badass American pilot played by a young Powers Boothe.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: So the ending assures us that America did finally win the war. Huzzah! Wait a second... What shape is the world in? A lot of this is Fridge Logic based on hints dropped throughout the movie, but Word of God says it's all intentional.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022 falls into this for many of those experiencing it, from paradrop missions to intentional targeting of schools and hospitals.
  • With that said, the VDV and Spetsnaz were both deployed heavily in the early weeks of Russian invasion of Ukraine, both usually coming into conflict with Ukrainian reservists, police, and armed civilians rather than the military. And unlike the movie, the Russian invaders suffered from logistical issues and incompetence and were largely driven back, providing a ray of hope in the gloomy early weeks of the war. It's almost hard to take these units being presented as threats in Red Dawn seriously anymore.
• He Really Can Act: American actors Ron O'Neal, William Smith and Judd Omen were very believably convincing in their roles as the Dirty Communists, with their lines mostly in the language their characters' heritage were supposed to be and a few in English. Smith's character, due to the actor's military past involving speaking Russian fluently, played his role to the hilt and never spoke a line in English at all in the film. It can be easy to forget that these roles that involves speaking a foreign language in the majority of their screen time were played by 100% American actors.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Eckerts' father's last line is to demand that they "AVENGE ME!" Eighteen years later, his actor would make a memorable cameo talking to a dazed and naked Bruce Banner in The Avengers (2012).
• Life Imitates Art: During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some captured or destroyed Russian tanks were seen with "WOLVERINES!" graffiti on their exteriors. Whether they were done by local troops who were fans of the movies or by the American volunteers serving in Ukraine's foreign legion; it is unclear, but the famous war cry aimed at a fictional Russian invasion has now become reality as well as a legitimate symbol of defiance.
• Memetic Mutation: WOLVERINES!
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • The movie has been praised as a "Conservative Classic" due to its patriotic message and pro-gun stance. However, in reality, it's a very dark story about some terrified kids whose home has been invaded and their entire world has been turned upside down. Remember that they did not go to the mountains to set up a Guerilla base, they were just looking for a safe place to hide from the carnage they witnessed during the invasion. The only reason they become insurgents is due to accidentally being seen by a patrol and having to kill them in self-defense. They're only emboldened to fight after reprisals are made against the townspeople (including Jed and Matt's father). We are treated to a roughly five-minute montage of their successes, but then things quickly go bad and they are killed one by one while also going through other emotional traumas as well. In all reality, Robert, Matt, and Jed's deaths could be seen almost as suicides. Ultimately their actions had little impact on the war effort which is stated in the awkward epilogue to have raged on for years. This movie is hardly in the same category as Top Gun, Iron Eagle and countless other 80's Patriotic Action movies.
• Narm:
  • BOYS! AVENGE ME! AVENGE MEEEE!!
  • Once the Soviets take over Calumet, we see a close up of a paratrooper who bends down to take a pistol from a gunned down civilian as a "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" bumper sticker is seen in the background. This was probably meant to be seen as Bad Ass Boast from someone who was Defiant to the End, instead, it came off as someone who foolishly tried to be a lone hero and got killed for his trouble.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The entire premise. Even more so when you consider this came out in the early 1980s, when fear of a war between the two superpowers soared to an all-time high; the fear projected through this story is very real. Though it's reduced a bit when you realize that the war depicted in the film is completely conventional, and tame compared to what would actually happen...
  • Tanner's revelation that "six hundred million screaming Chinamen", not a billion, remain alive in the fight against the Soviets. Just to put in perspective, their losses alone are almost seven times the total loss of life in all of World War II.
  • Tanner said it had become mostly conventional, but that it started with DC and some other American cities being nuked.
  • The invasion seen in the opening is pretty shocking and grim, with not only the teacher of the class our protagonists are attending getting gunned down without hesitation or mercy but the paratroopers then immediately opening fire on the classroom itself, with one student even taking a bullet to the head in the process.
• Retroactive Recognition: Mickey Morelli was a Nicaraguan captain a year ago.
• Shocking Moments: If the invasion itself isn't this, Tanner's implication that the Soviet Union outright slaughtered four hundred million Chinese with their nuclear weapons is definitely this.
  • The invasion seen in the opening pulls no punches whatsoever when not only is a teacher mercilessly gunned down after attempting to figure out what's happening, but one of his students ends up taking a bullet to the head after the invaders then proceed to immediately open fire on the classroom.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Naturally since this is one of the most iconic 80s movies of all time, there have been quite a few video games that draw inspiration from its story and characters:
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a Real-Time Strategy version of the movie with a lot more Camp intentionally played up a lot and a Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act plot.
  • Freedom Fighters (2003) is Red Dawn in New York City.
  • Similar to Red Alert 2, World in Conflict is also a Red Dawn RTS game.
  • Homefront is the most overt example with not just communist invaders. a Southwestern setting and a band of resistance fighters as the protagonists but John Milius himself as the game's writer. It's also a video game version of the film's 2012 remake.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Several moments, especially when a Wolverine (or other major characters) gets killed (and subsequently buried).
  • Right after the Soviets first shoot up the school, the Eckett brothers, Robert and Arturo "Aardvark" climb onto the truck, only for "Aardvark" and his father to tearfully call for each other as the truck speeds away, and then for "Aardvark" to see his father getting captured by paratroopers.
  • Col. Bella's letters to his wife definitely count. They provide some of the films more poignant scenes and serve to establish that the rank-and-file of the Russians are generally similar to The Wolverines.
  • The film's Bittersweet Ending easily counts, with the United States implied to have won the war and the sacrifices of the Wolverines honored, but most of them along with countless millions across the globe are dead, with the world left in an uncertain state.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film could only have been filmed during the period of staunch anti-Communist rhetoric in the early Reagan administration, between the détente of the 1970s and the final thaw of Soviet-American relations in the late Reagan and Bush Sr.'s administrations.

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