Vincent Newman is one of the producers of the upcoming ”Red Dawn” remake and was good enough to reach out after the L.A. Times story about the switch from Chinese to North Korean invaders exploded online. After a couple of conversations, I can tell you that he and everyone else involved in the film appear to be absolutely committed to the original, especially the central message surrounding the importance of fighting against tyranny and for America and liberty. 

The switch to North Korea for the reasons spelled out in the L.A. Times piece is maddening, but as far as the film itself goes, my main concern isn’t who the invaders are, it’s the themes explored throughout the story. Will we be presented with young people forced to grow up and come to grips with the fact that America is worth fighting and dying for? Will duty, valor, self-sacrifice and manhood drive the narrative? If the answer is yes, the North Korea stuff is academic — just a revealing look at the studio mindset, not the quality of the film.

When I first spoke to Vincent, the idea was that I would write something up afterwards in the form of an interview, but after hearing him out I thought a better idea would be for him to communicate directly with the BH community — and so in the spirit of Big Hollywood, a group site where we encourage artists to come on board and talk about their projects — he generously agreed.

I received this email yesterday afternoon with permission to publish it in full:

John,

There has been a great deal of commentary and speculation as to the nature of the latest round of changes that have been made to our remake of Red Dawn. I’m reaching out to you in hopes of adding some facts that might give greater insight in to what has actually occurred.

As has been rightly pointed out, all of the filmmakers loved the original Red Dawn. Our hope is that the remake can have the same generational effect in the present that the original did, and still does, for so many of us. Therefore, the utmost of care has been applied to all aspects of the production, including the ever-evolving and on-going editing/revision process that occurs on every film.

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The abject failures and endemic corruption of the United Nations are issues that I’ve always tried to bring attention to, especially since there are so many blindly faithful UN promoters in the film industry.  In fact, the 2nd film that I ever made was Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60 with the late Ron Silver, who continues to be a source of inspiration to me and so many others. 

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Today, President Obama arrives at the UN to continue his policy of appeasement in person.  He will become the first president in American history to chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and despite the fact that he had full power over the agenda to be discussed, he decided to take the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs off the table.  (more…)

The tin-pot dictator, Kim Jong-Il (who has turned his entire country into a Communist Gulag) has snatched a couple of American journalists, dragging them across the border from China to be tried on trumped-up spy charges and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor.  Here is how the North Korean news agency reported it: “The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor.” Isn’t that a great line, “Reform through labor…”?   Given that almost everyone in North Korea is already starving, I suspect that Euna Lee and Laura Ling are not likely to survive twelve years of “reforming” big rocks into gravel.

At the same time, dictator Kim Jong-Il rattles his puny saber and threatens that if any of his ships carrying nuclear materials to other rogue nations are stopped on the high seas, he will consider it an “act of war.”  Well, gee… There was a time not too long ago when the kidnapping of American nationals would have, in itself, been considered an “act of war.”  I imagine that had Teddy Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan been at the helm when Kim Jong-Il took two American nationals hostage, the response would be quite different.   More likely it would have gone along the lines of: “You have 24 hours to return our citizens before we start obliterating your military bases – one every hour until the hostages are set free.  If we run out of military bases and you still continue to hold them then, unfortunately, we’ll have to start on your cities.  Have a nice day.”  Then, like any good parent, we would follow through with our pledge. (more…)