Wolverines: Reflections on Red Dawn

Back in 1984, one of my favorite movies came out, Red Dawn.  I was immediately wrapped up in the movie and remembered back than how possible it seemed that something like that could happen (sadly, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we really found out how badly the US intelligence oversold us on the Soviet abilities.)

My redhead goddess

This movie still has a major culture impact on me for not only in the re-watching of it, or the gaming probabilities, or even my huge crush on a rather unknown actress at the time, Lea Thompson (she was in only two movies before and I did not see either one of them at the time, and I still have a crush on her now!)  So, I was rather happy to see a book come out that "analyzes some of the themes, historical context, characters and events within the film", Wolverines: Reflections on Red Dawn, by Ryan Lewellin. (Link)  I have not started reading it yet, as I just started reading A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940, by William Trotter in getting ready for my Winter War project, but Wolverines will probably be next on the queue.  

According to the Amazon's description of Wolverines, it contains 23 essays on various aspects of the movie.  Below is the listing of the chapters:

- Introduction
- Making Sense Out of the Backstory
- Putting Red Dawn Into Historical Context
- The Great Dystopia
- The Strenuous Life
- Colonel Bella: Partisan to Policeman
- What Red Dawn Really Says About War
- Red Dawn on Two Domestic Issues
- Nature's Indifference
- Lessons in Self-Sufficiency from The Masons
- Did All That Hate Really Burn Robert Up?
- Morris Market Supply Run: A Survivalist's Dream
- Complacency Kills
- Erica and Toni: The Guerrillas Next Door
- Danny: Somewhere Between "Weiner" and "Warrior"
- Aardvark: American Che Guevara
- The Wolverine as a Mascot
- Reflections of Foreign Policy
- Red Dawn and Black Gold
- No Greater Love...
- On Guerrilla Warfare and Red Dawn: Different Time and Place, Similar Story
- The Execution
- The Chinese Holocaust
- Is Red Dawn Realistic or Not? Tackling the Question
- Bonus: The Iron Heel by Jack London
- Bonus: Tomorrow When The War Began

I really hope this book lives up to my excitement!  I am already thinking of getting on with my 20mm Red Dawn games using TFL's Chain of Command.  I still need to touch up paint my USSR paratroopers, but this is a near possibility to be gamed soon.  

Now, with all of this being said, I have not seen the 2012 remake nor have any desired to do so.  Sorry, but North Koreans?  Really?  Come on, I understand that we don't want to upset the Chinese, but at least I could realistic buy them eventually having the ability to invaded us, but limited to a small area (like Alaska for the oil/gas).  The only reason that I might watch it is for the opening invasion scenes.  Plus, the other reason that I am just not interested in it is from description, most of the ending of the movie is about a suitcase that has an EMP resistant phone in it and the Wolverines have to get it from the North Koreans and back to the US troops so they can use that one phone to lead the offensive against the North Korean occupiers....seriously!?!?

Anyway, here is YouTube clip to get you cry out, "Wolverines!!!"

Cheers,

Joe