Red Dawn Film Analysis

Red Dawn teaser trailer analysis

 

Red Dawn was released in 2012 and was a remake of the 1984 film of the same name and it had subpar ratings compared to its predecessor but the unique selling point has been used before, just like the original and also in “Tomorrow, when the war began”, which was young adults similar to the age of those viewing the film and so the character could connect to the viewers.

The genre of the film is action which is shown through the first several diegetic dialogue heard in the trailer “You’re in the air force right…Marines actually“  Immediately showing that the movie will have some connection to action from directly or indirectly influences, having an intertitle of “Every day we go about our lives” and within twenty five seconds of the teaser trailer, the intertitles together makes “Every day we go about our lives unaware of the forces that threaten our freedom” which suggests that early on in the trailer that the film will main protagonists will become a sort of freedom fighters

I think the target audience for this film is 15-21 as the certificate is 15 but the trailer is PG-13 with the majority of the audience being male as the protagonists are five being male and two are female, the escapism with the age range can relieve stress from school/ college and life. The trailer lasts for two minutes and thirty two seconds and has around a hundred shots with the pace of the editing being slow to begin with, everything peaceful before the action begins and then the cutting between scenes is faster and slicker. The other end of the intertitles is “One group of unlikely heroes will fight for us all” implying that indeed the protagonists will become some sort of rebels, gorillas and freedom fighter, the story revealing that some military force, presumably North Korea has invaded America and now that those young adults will have to fight as from the diegetic dialogue “We inherited our freedom, now it’s up for all of us to fight for it”. “If you are seeing this broadcast, you are no longer in part of the country controlled be the government of the United States” suggests that the armed forced that did take over that certain did it such a fluidity that the characters are required to live out of the country with the long shot of two vehicles entering into a forest with an old wooden cabin. “What are we supposed to do? - I’m going to fight, anyone that wants to join is welcome to “being followed with “We are the wolverines, we’ll create chaos”, shots of explosions and action following straight after the final intertitle of “For us all”.

There is no voice over throughout the entire trailer however the music makes up for it to create the mood as there are sombre string during the beginning quarter of the trailer but bassline throughout, electric guitars starts at the synchronisation of a rocket propelled grenade exploding to create an epic atmosphere along with drum kit and male rock vocals, the trailer is reliant on its special effects as throughout it has a city wide blackout, muzzle flashes from the weaponry, transport planes, paratroopers, massive explosions, firearm fire from said weaponry and all of these create a baseline for a high powered action film.

The ending titles were the actors name in the film consisting of high known actors and several unknown actors, the actual title of the film appearing on the final bullets fired from the tac-9’s of the protagonists, creating an epic sense and feeling for the end product, ending with the dialogue for “For them, this is just some place, for us, this is our home” making the final message of that they will fight for their country from within rather than externally.

With the film coming out came in America for their holiday of Thanksgiving which is a clever marketing idea as the idea of Thanksgiving is that they had been given an extra chance during the pilgrims and so with the dialogue of “We inherited our freedom” creates a solid foundation for the American audience to go see it however in Britain, it came out in the spring rather than autumn and so that might have affected the box office as action blockbusters come out the time of June/ July as that is when most of the masses of a country are free from any type of education