Oh, They'd Invade, Alright

MGM studios, bowing to pressure from...nobody, really, except their own craven fear their inferior product will vacuum their pockets instead of line them, is retooling their remake of the 1984 movie Red Dawn.

When the remake was shot in 2009, the invading army was from China. Well, turns out a lot of people in China go to movies, but they won't go to movies their government doesn't let into the country and MGM is pretty sure the Chinese government will give a thumbs down to a movie that describes them invading the U.S. and picking on Spokane farm kids.

The original Red Dawn had the surprising premise that a half dozen small-town high school kids could hold off and do serious damage to the world's second-place military -- at that time, the Soviet Union -- when it hooked up with Cuban soldiers and invaded Colorado. And yes, it did star Charlie Sheen, but he did not, apparently, dream up the concept. Why do you ask?

Anyway, in the remake -- which is in itself proof that there are no more ideas in Hollywood, just echoes -- the invading force was spearheaded by China, aided by Russian troops. The studio is now digitally altering things to remove references to China, Chinese characters, Chinese military insignia, and so on. Instead, we will be invaded by...North Korea.

Yes, the nation that in nighttime satellite photos does an amazing impression of a barren, unlit desert and is ruled by a guy who had his country's constitution changed to explicitly refer to him as "Supreme Leader" is going to invade the U.S. In what, I have no idea, since the North Korean navy is almost entirely a "green-water navy," meaning it doesn't operate very far from shore. Apparently, the invasion will involve sneaking a fleet past Japan, up the Russian coast. across the Bering Strait and counting on the people of Juneau to sleep in so they don't see it cruising by.

Moreover, although Kim is kinda bonkers, there are probably some smarter folks in charge of some parts of North Korea's military, and they realize that if they turn their soldiers loose in a land with electric lights, food and other luxuries, they'll surrender faster than France: "Yes, I would like to confess that my entire family has committed war crimes and should be sent over here to America immediately so they can begin serving a prison sentence in these harsh conditions in which I am forced to eat three meals a day and in which the natural darkness of night is often obscured by these small glowy things."

This is really no big deal; Red Dawn was half an OK movie grafted onto a silly third act and has more value as a nostalgia exercise than anything else. But this fuss is a textbook example of how folks in the movie-making industry have focused more and more on keeping behinds from leaving the seats than in creating products that those behinds and their attached persons want to go see.

Whiz-bang movies offer a host of special effects through CGI or 3-D or whatever else that people want to see in a theater, sure. How many movies do they want to see there though? Crap like Avatar will lure people in to see what the techno-fuss is about. But people who've seen the Smurfs-on-steroids fly around their magical world once aren't going to be all that excited about, say, a world with purple people instead of blue. Or any other variation on the same tired format, spiced up with a "wow" factor that loses its wow pretty quick.

Are there moviemakers who want to try to make pictures that people want to see, that will build box office? I reckon so. But they're getting crowded more and more to the sides by the moviemakers, studios, PR flacks and execs who won't dare building something new because they're too busy being afraid of what might tear down the little they have left.