History Film / RedDawn1984

''Red Dawn'' is a 1984 war movie written and directed by Creator/JohnMilius. A blatant product of the RedScare, it was met with mixed critical reception at the time of its release, but has since attained cult classic status due to its amusingly unapologetic PatrioticFervor and [[WarIsHell surprisingly grim depiction of war]].

After a failed attempt to rescue their parents from a Soviet internment camp, the group encounters Lt. Colonel Andrew Tanner (Powers Booth), a downed US Air Force pilot, who informs them that the Soviet advance has been halted - barely - but help is unlikely to arrive any time soon. Armed only with hunting gear, scavenged Soviet armaments, and Tanner's military experience, the kids form a guerilla resistance movement known as the Wolverines, named for their school mascot, and begin a long and harrowing campaign of resistance against the communist occupiers...

The classic RedScare film, released in the darkness immediately preceding [[FromBadToWorse glasnost]]. Written and directed by Creator/JohnMilius.

After the opening narration, we cut to a classroom of teenagers in scenic Colorado. Their little piece of the U.S. gets invaded by Soviet and Cuban paratroopers. Six students manage to get away in [[TheHero Jed Eckert]]'s truck and escape to the mountains, where they become guerillas against the new communist regime. They're joined by two girls, Toni and Erica, and later [[TrappedBehindEnemyLines downed pilot]] Lieutenant Colonel Andy Tanner, who teaches them some basic military tactics. Oh, and they have guns.

Also noted for being the first onscreen pairing of Creator/JenniferGrey and Creator/PatrickSwayze (who later costarred in the classic ''Film/DirtyDancing'' to the [[{{Squee}} delight]] of {{fangirl}}s everywhere), the first film to be released with the PG-13 rating, and (for fans of film music in general and Music/BasilPoledouris in particular) the first soundtrack album released by Creator/{{Intrada}}.

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/red_dawn_movie_image_3684.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:330:[-The war to liberate [[UsefulNotes/McDonalds the Mickey D's]] begins...At Dawn.-] ]]

** Even the ending, where it is implied that [[spoiler:the Wolverines are all killed off by the Soviets]].

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: The movie essentially transplanted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to a different setting, placing a group of typical American youth in the roles of the Afghan freedom fighters. Which becomes HarsherInHindsight considering what [[UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden they]] [[WarOnTerror caused]].

* BilingualDialogue: Cuban and Soviet troops speak Spanish and Russian respectively, with subtitles. Played for laughs in one scene when a Soviet soldier playing tourist [[FunWithForeignLanguages pretends to translate]] a forestry sign, saying it commemorates a bloody Indian revolt. What he says is actually a history of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_War Colorado War]]. Apparently he really ''DidTheResearch''.

After the opening narration, we cut to a classroom of teenagers in scenic Colorado. Their little piece of America gets invaded by Soviet and Cuban paratroopers. Six students manage to get away in [[TheHero Jed Eckert]]'s truck and escape to the mountains, where they become guerillas against the new communist regime. They're joined by two girls, Toni and Erica, and later [[TrappedBehindEnemyLines downed pilot]] Lieutenant Colonel Andy Tanner, who teaches them some basic military tactics. Oh, and they have guns.

* BilingualDialogue: Cuban and Soviet troops speak Spanish and Russian respectively, with subtitles. Played for laughs in one scene when a Russian officer playing tourist [[FunWithForeignLanguages pretends to translate]] a forestry sign, saying it commemorates a bloody Indian revolt. What he says is actually a history of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_War Colorado War]]. Apparently he really ''DidTheResearch''.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: The History teacher at the beginning of the movie is the ''very first person'' killed onscreen when he walks up to some [[ItsRainingMen heavily armed paratroopers]] thinking they're American soldiers in training who landed in the wrong place and goes out to greet them. [[spoiler:Aardvark (the sole non-White Wolverine) is the first Wolverine to die]].

** Washington and a half-dozen other places in the US were nuked on the first day, with millions of lives lost. The Russians also decided to eliminate the Red Chinese wild card by ''going to town'' on them with nuclear weapons, incinerating ''four-hundred million'' people right out of the starting gate. American and Chinese counterstrikes are never mentioned in the movie, but somebody ''had'' to have done ''something''. That many detonations will definitely cause a nuclear winter, which sure as hell won't help with the crops. Plus UsefulNotes/{{China}} is now a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and their downwind neighbors have to have felt the effects of the fallout. Also confirmed (and shown to be even worse than you thought) in the ExpandedUniverse.

* HopeSpot: When a group of Russian helicopter gunships attacks the Wolverines, one of the kids manages to [[ImprobableAimingSkills nail one with an RPG]], only for the helicopter to [[NoSell suffer only minor damage.]]

* InsertGrenadeHere: When the group is pinned down by a tank (which doesn't see them) one of the main characters attempts this but gets hurt pretty badly when the Russian tankers reverse this trope with a grenade of their own and is unable to complete the task. [[spoiler:Instead he sets off a smoke grenade so that an American tank can spot the camouflaged Soviet tank and blow it (and him) up.]]

* KickTheDog: The first target of the Russian Army is a school with no strategic military significance. They also needlessly murder non-resisting students and teachers in the process.

** In the first wave, crack Russian ''Spetsnaz'' units parachuted in, disguised as commercial airliners just like they did in the invasion of Afghanistan, in order to seize key passes in the Rocky Mountains. This is what hit Calumet in the opening scene. They coordinated with a handful of tactical nuclear strikes meant to destroy key communication points, including UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, Omaha, and UsefulNotes/KansasCity. Otherwise the Russians want to take the US in one piece so they won't use more nukes, and the US won't either on their own soil, which is why the war has been mostly limited to conventional weapons. Both sides were too afraid to use more nukes.
** The Soviets' used their communist allies in Central America as extra manpower/cannon fodder, much as the Germans used the Romanians as auxiliaries in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. After taking over Mexico, the Cuban and Nicaraguan armies spearheaded an invasion into Texas (supplemented by Russian special forces units). They're aided by Cuban infiltrators who entered the US disguised as illegal aliens, who then raided Strategic Air Command bases when the invasion began. This invasion thrust spread as far west and east as the Rockies and the Mississippi, and as far north as Cheyenne/northern Kansas.
** The main thrust of the Russian army itself came over the Bering Strait, with 60 divisions organized into three main army groups. They pushed through Alaska, cut the oil pipeline, and on into Canada. Their goal was a massive pincer movement with the southern thrust to cut North America in two -- but they were decisively stopped in a massive battle in the Canadian Rockies. After that the battle lines stabilized and the war is at a stalemate.

* NoDelaysForTheWicked: The Russians and their communist allies move incredibly fast in the initial invasion. Airborne troops making it all the way to Colorado in the first wave? Implausible but possible. That doesn't quite explain how Russian armored vehicles are already in town to support the paratroopers and set up roadblocks during the initial assault. Mexico is about 600 miles from the middle of Colorado (a 10 hour drive, assuming no stops). Apparently the Russians were hauling ass north, ran into no resistance and didn't have to stop to refuel to make it up there without being noticed and before the school day ended.

** An evil Russian soldier named [[Film/DoctorZhivago Strelnikov]], for one. His introduction also resembles that of Colonel Matthieu in ''Film/TheBattleOfAlgiers'': first seen in a military parade, then lecturing his staff on counterinsurgency tactics.

* ThirdActStupidity: Near the end of the movie, Jed gets the drop on Colonel Strelnikov by sneaking up behind him. But instead of just shooting him, he first announces his presence with the line, "You lose". This gives Strelnikov enough time to open fire on Jed before he dies, inflicting critical injuries.

** Plus [[TokenMinority Arturo Mondragon]]. Everyone forgets Aardvark!!

* CaliforniaDoubling: The movie was filmed in Las Vegas. New Mexico. A small town where the plains and mountains meet about 100 miles south of the Colorado line. With the exception of a few mentions that they're in Calumet, Colorado, no effort is made at all to hide its actual location. New Mexico license plates are even visible everywhere.

* BrokenBird: It's [[IllKillYou strongly implied]] that one (and probably both) of the girls were raped by Soviet soldiers.

%%* CaliforniaDoubling: The movie was filmed in Las Vegas. New Mexico. A small town where the plains and mountains meet about 100 miles south of the Colorado line. With the exception of a few mentions that they're in Calumet, Colorado, no effort is made at all to hide its actual location. New Mexico license plates are even visible everywhere. Likely a case of unfortunate implications as moving the setting to Colorado likely justified the monochrome casting. In fairness it might also have to do with geographic ignorance where many believe New Mexico is not part of the United States. New Mexico magazine even has a humorous section titled "One of our Fifty is Missing" to show examples of this ignorance.

* NukeEm: Precision nuclear strikes wipe out silos in the Dakotas, plus key communications points like Omaha, UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, and UsefulNotes/KansasCity (no explanation is given for how this happened with the US nuclear deterrent). Further strikes are averted by the Soviets' need to take the United States intact. Other countries though...

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of 80's super-patriotic war movies. For starters the kids who would become the Wolverines never intended to be insurgents. Instead they were just terrified kids desperately trying to find a safe place to hide in the mountains. Their first encounter with Soviet troops is just bad luck by being spotted by a patrol, and that encounter then leads to the horrible reprisal of having several people from their hometown, including the father of two of them, summarily executed. Their only successful attacks are guerrilla style ambushes and once the Soviet military gets serious about finding them it doesn’t take long to wipe them out. Nobody is made of iron, in fact we don’t see anyone actually recovering from an injury. They’re all emotionally traumatized by having their lives turned upside down and from everything they’ve had to go through. In fact Robert, Matt, and Jeff’s deaths could easily be interpreted as suicides. Many things are actually shown from the enemy’s point of view and they’re not all just faceless mooks. And finally the epilogue, which was only put in at the last minute after the studio forced it, indicates that their actions had very little impact on the overall war effort and that their actions are largely forgotten.

%%* BigBadEnsemble: Colonel Ernesto Bella, General Bratchenko, and Colonel Strelnikov. General Bratchenko seems to be the one in charge, Colonel Bella is perhaps TheDragon (and the most sympathetic), and Colonel Strelnikov is the most dangerous.

** The “sweet” part is basically the equivalent of half a teaspoon of sugar to a bag of grapefruits. The awkward studio-forced epilogue only provides two bits of good news; America won the war, and Erica survived. But America was already in a very bad state by the time the movie ended and the narration outright states that the war went on for many more years. It’s likely tens of millions of Americans are dead along with hundreds of millions around the world. The world economy is likely in shambles and will probably take decades to recover. Also due to an implied gang rape Erica was already an emotional wreck before she even appears in the movie. The events we see her go through just make it worse and many more years of war can’t be much help. She hardly sounds upbeat during the narration. We know several characters die. The fates of everyone other than Erica is unknown. That awkward epilogue is the only thing that prevents an outright downer ending.

** The “sweet” part is basically the equivalent of half a teaspoon of sugar to a bag of grapefruits. The awkward studio forced epilogue only provides two bits of good news; America won the war, and Erica survived. But America was already in a very bad state by the time the movie ended and the narration outright states that the war went on for many more years. It’s likely tens of millions of Americans are dead along with hundreds of millions around the world. The world economy is likely in shambles and will probably take decades to recover. Also due to an implied gang rape Erica was already an emotional wreck before she even appears in the movie. The events we see her go through just make it worse and many more years of war can’t be much help. She hardly sounds upbeat during the narration. We know several characters die. The fates of everyone other than Erica is unknown. That awkward epilogue is the only thing that prevents an outright downer ending.

* CrapsackWorld: 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 FridgeLogic based on hints dropped throughout the movie, but WordOfGod says it's all intentional.
** The entire reason the Soviets started the war was because a disastrously bad harvest was sending them into a famine, so they wanted to seize the most productive farmland on Earth: the US and Canadian agricultural heartland. Except that the front lines run right through the fertile regions of both countries. American and Canadian defenders very likely adopted "Asset Denial" (AKA Scorched Earth) tactics as they retreated, ruining the farms and ranches under Soviet occupation. Agriculture is badly disrupted, so America (and all the countries that depend on American agricultural exports) is likely to suffer a famine as well.
*** According to the ExpandedUniverse, the famine ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR.
** Washington and a half-dozen other places in the US were nuked on the first day, with millions of lives lost. The Russians also decided to eliminate the Red Chinese wild card by ''going to town'' on them with nuclear weapons, incinerating ''four-hundred million'' people right out of the starting gate. American and Chinese counterstrikes are never mentioned in the movie, but somebody ''had'' to have done ''something''. That many detonations will definitely cause a nuclear winter, which sure as hell won't help with the crops. Plus UsefulNotes/{{China}} is now a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and their downwind neighbors have to have felt the effects of the fallout.
*** Again confirmed (and shown to be even worse than you thought) in the ExpandedUniverse.
** The US economy is undoubtedly ruined, and the Soviet economy will be pretty much nonexistent. [[NukeEm Never mind China]]. Get ready for the new Great Depression, happening worldwide.

* GreyAndGreyMorality: The Red Army does pretty vile things, like executing civilians, but the Wolverines aren't above executing a defenseless enemy soldier and [[spoiler:one of their own for selling them out]]. Many Russian soldiers, like Colonel Bella, are very human, and collaborators are just people trying to stay alive rather than evil monsters.

** Colonel Ernesto Bella is initially introduced in a way that suggests he's the movie's BigBad. However, not only is he not in charge of the local occupying force, but is shown to be far more reasonable than his Soviet counterparts (he criticizes them for the stupid tactic of shooting civilians after every Wolverine attack, saying that they're only gaining support because of it, which he knows from having been an insurgent in the past). He eventually becomes increasingly disillusioned with the war to the point where after the Eckert Brothers' last stand, he momentarily holds them at gun point before ''letting them go'' and dropping his gun in disgust. In other circumstances, Bella could well have been a classic WorthyOpponent.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Supposedly, a Soviet-Nicaraguan-Cuban-Random Latin American Socialists force driving north through Mexico links up with Soviet paratroopers in eastern Colorado. Other Soviet forces are said to have crossed the Bering Strait, Alaska and Canada, which is only slightly less likely than flying monkeys from Oz.

* AnalogyBackfire: Only if one assumes this was analogous to the USSR invading Afghanistan. Many future Taliban fighters gained experience repelling the Soviets, and would later use those skills attacking civilians. And, ironically, Americans.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: After successfully countering [[spoiler: a Spetsnaz ambush, Robert]] shoots a captured soldier, as well as [[spoiler: [[UnwittingPawn Daryl, after he was forced to swallow a tracking device]] that allowed the Spetsnaz unit track down their camp.]]

* NukeEm: Precision nuclear strikes wipe out silos in the Dakotas, plus key communications points like Omaha, UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, and UsefulNotes/KansasCity (no explanation is given for how this happened with the US nuclear deterrent). Further strikes are averted by the Soviets' need to take the United States intact. Other countries though...

* RedScare: you'd never guess that the Soviet Union was teetering on the verge of collapse while this film was in production

* SceneryDissonance: we are treated to many gorgeous vistas of the New Mexico Rockies and high plains, while the Soviet Union invades. Plus the scene where Toni and Robert are killed by the helicopters is filmed at iconic Ghost Ranch.

* SpotTheImposter: On being asked what's the capital of Texas, Colonel Tanner replies "Austin" and is immediately accused by Toni of being a DirtyCommunist. He replies that [[YouWatchTooMuchX she's seen too many movies]]. It doesn't help that Tanner's answer that Austin was the capital of Texas was correct, while Toni was certain that ''Houston'' was its capital. Likely a ShoutOut to a well-known incident during the Battle of the Bulge.

* NukeEm: Precision nuclear strikes wipe out silos in the Dakotas, plus key communications points like Omaha, UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, and UsefulNotes/KansasCity. (No explanation is given for did or did not happen with the US nuclear deterrent.) Further strikes are averted by the Soviets' need to take the United States intact. Other countries though...

* NoDelaysForTheWicked: The Russians and their communist allies move incredibly fast in the initial invasion. Airborne troops making it all the way to Colorado in the first wave? Implausible but possible. That doesn't quite explain how Russian armored vehicles are already in town to support the paratroopers and set up roadblocks during the initial assault. Mexico is about 600 miles from the middle of Colorado(a 10 hour drive, assuming no stops). Apparently the Russians were hauling ass north, ran into no resistance and didn't have to stop to refuel to make it up there without being noticed and before the school day ended.

* IncrediblyObviousBug: Averted where after the final battle where DirtyCommunists used one to track the Wolverines to their lair by having TheMole swallow the homing device.

* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: Shining example.

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Colonel Ernesto Bella is initially introduced in a way that suggests he's the movie's BigBad. However, not only is he not in charge of the local occupying force, but is shown to be far more reasonable than his Soviet counterparts (he criticizes them for the stupid tactic of shooting civilians after every Wolverine attack, saying that they're only gaining support because of it, which he knows from having been an insurgent in the past). He eventually becomes increasingly disillusioned with the war to the point where after the Eckert Brothers' last stand, he momentarily holds them at gun point before ''letting them go'' and dropping his gun in disgust. In other circumstances, Bella could well have been a classic WorthyOpponent.

* MisplacedRetribution: The Soviets respond to the killing of a Soviet patrol squad, which was done in self defense after a chance encounter, by executing more than a dozen unarmed civilians, including friends and family of the Eckerts and the other teens. When they rename themselves the [[LaResistance Wolverines,]] and conduct a guerilla campaign, the Soviets respond by ordering more and more summary executions of unarmed civilians. [[AttackBackfire This ultimately backfires]] since [[OccupiersOutOfOurCountry the executions only lead to the Wolverines gaining more support from the conquered population,]] and when [[EliteMooks Col. Strelnikov and his Spetznas unit]] is brought in to hunt down the Wolverines, he admonishes Gen. Bratchenko and the men under his command to stop the executions, [[NarratingTheObvious since they only serve to further support for the Wolverines, and it shows that they have no idea how to control the situation.]]