Red Dawn Redux

Last night, I watched both Red Dawn 1.0 and 2.0 as they were back to back on my sat dish.  I just had to watch to compare and contrast.  Oh, and live tweet it.  I had seen the first when it came out in 1984 at the peak of the second Cold War.  2.0 came out this year and I refused to see it--the idea of North Korea invading the US?  Oy.  But I understand that the switch from China as adversary to NK was made because China has a huge box office potential and North Korea's is just a tad smaller.

                                  versus






It was a much closer call than expected. So, we must turn to a systematic comparison of the aspects of the movies:

	Red Dawn 1.0	Red Dawn 2.0	Winner
Premise	Domino Theory Run Amok	Um, huh?	1.0
Pre-History Scroll	Yellow Text	Current history (Obama, Biden, HRClinton) plus	2.0
Intentional Comedy	Not Much	Some	2.0
Unintentional Comedy	Max	Mostly NK Sub for China	1.0
Romance	None, although Lea crushes on Powers Booth	Younger bro obsesses  about gf, Thor almost kisses Tyra	2.0
Right Wing Fantasy	Pry Gun From Cold Dead Hands, Bad Guys Use Registration Lists	US crushed by Electromagnetic Pulse	Tie
Heartland vs Coasts?	Soviets/Cubans invade heartland; US holds coasts	North Koreans take coasts; Free America in the heartland	1.0
Europe	Super-weenies	Absent	1.0
China	Ally!	Absent!	A wash
Nukes	Soviets use them	No one nukes	Um….
Leader	Dalton	Thor	Too close to call
Strategies and Tactics	Innovate	Immitate 1.0	1.0
Biggest Failure	Um, helos?  Ok, just listen	Brother chases lame girl, messes up ambush	Oy
Bad Guys	Differentiated: Semi-sympatheic Cuban vs rest	All Are the Same	1.0
Drinking Deer Blood	Serious	Prank	2.0
Effect of Deer Blood	Howell becomes sociopath	Josh H becomes braver	1.0
Dead Dad	Harry Dean Stanton, quite crazy	The Other from Lost (Brett Cullen)	1.0, No contest
Brothers	True love, uncomplicated	Rivalry then respect	2.0
Brotherly Acting	Awful (Charlie Sheen is awful in this movie)	Awful (Josh Peck is going to be a star?!)	Tie
Lea Thompson	Yes	No	1.0
Badass Females	LT , Jennifer Grey with Big Machine Guns, many times	Adrienne Palicki, Isabel Lucas with RPGs once	1.0
Ending	Only Lea and token boy live, Lea narrates conclusion	Most live, whiny brother makes same speech as Thor to recruit	1.0 (plagiarism is not ok, even for brothers)
Entertainment value (counts 2x)	Nostalgia	Better movie (dialogue, characterization, acting)	2.0

So RD 1.0 wins despite RD 2.0 having more entertainment value.  That makes no sense, but neither did either movie.  It was pretty damn close, but the power of Lea turns the tide.  A friend on facebook asked me which I would recommend, so I would suggest The World's End.

Actually, I would have to say 1.0 because of a few key factors--we get to see some actors when they are very young and yet not Outsiders; the Cold War context makes this heaps of fun; and the unintentional comedy is just incredible.  Oh, and the Cubans come off pretty well.  The ChineseNorth Koreans?  Not so much.