You see remakes of movies all the time that completely butcher the originals with the plots, the characters and setting differing radically from the original idea. I realize that they have to make the movie their own, but if that’s the case, then why not make a completely new, different movie?
The Time Warp takes me down the road of remakes this issue and luckily, the remade Red Dawn does not disappoint when compared to the original 1984 version which by the way was the first film to be released under the PG-13 rating.
Surprisingly few things are different between the two. The major noticeable difference is that the original movie had the Russians and Cubans as the enemy invaders. The remake moved with today’s world events and made North Korea the bad guys.
Another difference I saw was that the settings were different. The Patrick Swayze version of the movie was set in Colorado, while the newer version of the movie is set in Washington State. The change doesn’t make much difference in the movies unless you know that the Russian/Cuban element in the original had a strategy that split the U.S. down the middle to try and weaken the country.
Jed Eckert’s character, played by Chris Hemsworth (Thor and The Avengers) in the 2012 version, is a marine who had come back to visit his hometown. The 1984 version portrayed Jed (Swayze) as a high school student.
The older version suffers in the effects department. I would see a bazuka being shot at a car, and I would laugh inside because it would make a loud sound and a cloud a smoke would rise. A grenade lands at a guy’s feet followed by a small pop, and he would fly backward. There wasn’t any explosion, fire, or schrapnel going in every direction. They were doing the best they could with what they had, but I guess better effects is one of the benefits of a modern film age.
Both movies involve boys going up to the mountains where they had been camping, even though 2012 features a cabin where the 1984 one involves camping in the open with no tents or anything.
The newer movie seemed to follow the old really closely in some details. I was surprised to see the 2012 version included a scene where a kid makes his first deer kill and is made to drink the deer’s blood. It was cool to see that the new movie could keep one of the older movie’s unique scenes.
The acting of the main characters in both versions did an adequate job, but some of the minor characters in the 2012 version lacked the skills of the 1984 minor actors. They didn’t seem to fit the part of war-torn teenagers very well, and their acting was shallow. I just don’t think you can beat the older actors. They always seem to be more connected with their parts. The 1984 version includes Jennifer Gray (before the nose job), Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Powers Boothe and Harry Dean Stanton. The new version includes Josh Peck (of TV’s Drake and Josh), Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Conner Cruise (Nicole Kidman/Tom Cruise’s son)
Really there are not many differences between the two movies, and that’s rare. I like to see remakes with better visual effects and as high quality acting as the old ones because it makes the original idea much more realistic to me.
Both movies were a treat to watch. Both had good acting and great fightscenes. The fighting was more realistic in the newer movie, however, and that was what made it more fun to watch. In my opinion, both are pretty equal, but the effects make the 2012 version my favorite out of the two. It was worth the money.
