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In the late 1970s and mid 1980s the 'Communist threat' was blamed for everything from marijuana to democratic elections and crop circles. Questioning the government's policy on any issue could result in being blacklisted as a Commie and effectively ruin all semblance of life.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in theory it has become more difficult to pacify the public with propaganda and empty rhetoric; the draw of conspiracy theories should have waned and the shadows cast by the McCarthy era should have depleted to the extent where the fear of being accused of being 'Un-American' provokes laughter as oppose to blind acceptance of what the government say and do.
As such 'Red Dawn' is an intriguing piece of propaganda filled fluff. Made at the peak of Reagan's anti-Communist efforts the premise was simple, a bunch of Cuban and other Central American bad guys invade the US; which sounds believable until they start invading Colorado having come through Mexico, with their only opposition being a group of teenage kids who call themselves 'The Wolverines.'
Meanwhile nuclear strikes take out Washington and a handful of other major cities, and then the Soviet Union conquered Canada via Alaska. The film acknowledged the fairly apparent fact that Europe would almost certainly not being involved - "except for Britain who won't last long."
Rather concurringly the plot for 'Red Dawn' was based on CIA and War College studies of US weaknesses at the time, then following the entire cast undergoing a 'realistic' intensive 8 week military training course before starting work on the film only to have the CIA interrogate them due to the replica Russian T-72 tank being too accurate.
As bizarre and farfetched as the CIA's theories sound even at the height of their paranoia and pro-US sentiment they would not have guessed that the mission that ultimately captured Saddam Hussein 20 years after the film was made would be called 'Operation Red Dawn.' Nor that the film would become one of the basis of the beliefs of the citizens' militias and patriot groups about the possibility of a U.N. takeover of the U.S.
The original trailer shows a scene with a tank rolling up to a McDonald's restaurant where enemy soldiers are eating. This scene does not appear in the final cut, and was apparently removed due to a mass murder at a San Ysidro, CA McDonald's just weeks prior to the film's opening. Even without this scene 'Red Dawn' was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as having the most acts of violence of any film up to that time.
The entire of 'Red Dawn' is such unabashed anti-Communist propaganda that is unintentionally hysterically funny, for example Patrick Swayze sleepwalks through his role in the film in a way reminiscent of Corey Feldman's later role as one of the Frog Brother's in 'The Lost Boys' having replaced Commies with blood suckers. Or the fact that the last words of a Russian captured by The Wolverines consists of "Dogface! I show you how Soviet dies."
