the bigger picture of 'Red Dawn'

The 1984 movie Red Dawn wastes little time in getting into the action, less than 10 minutes in Soviet paratroopers land in a football field in Colorado and once there begin to hit vital targets like Mr. Cheesedale a high school teacher and the high school and it's students in general.

Yes a small town in Colorado would was a major focus of Soviet airborne operations!

Later into the movie when the Wolverine resistance fighters (named after their local football team) rendezvous with a downed F-15 pilot whom tells them a lot of what has happened in the world.

Russian proxy forces from Cuba and Mexico (which had a revolution) with sabotage forces disabled American ICBM sites followed by the Cuban and Nicaraguan armies marching into the midlands, covered by a massive Soviet assault of commuter planes flying right over the Bering Strait towards Colorado.

We (the audience) must take it for granted that the US radar operators can't tell the difference between a flock of pigeons and a full scale aerial assault!

Europe are shown to stay out of the war (since they "never" help America with in it's wars), except England that is, Red China sides with the United States (go figure) which results in (hinted) mass nuclear strikes that killed 400 billion of them.



It's not solid but then again this is a movie and we (the audience) are supposed to see it from the point of view of the teen resistance fighters (the Wolverines).

But would a Soviet and Cuban force really put that much attention to a single town in Colorado, what strategic importance does that have?

I wouldn't mind but the huge force (which consisted of tanks obviously carried in their backpacks) nearly had their operation foiled by a single UH-1 Huey army helicopter which observed and fired on them all afternoon and for half of the night!



Not only that but communism is obviously such a malignant disease that it slowly just absorbs places and people, for example a re-education camp (built in a drive in theater) is built nearly instantly in that town, do the Soviets really dislike what was going on in Calumet, Colorado that much that they sacrifice so many resources only to be defeated by six teenage resistance fighters?

Who are freedom fighters and remain freedom fighters by having a defacto leader!

Director John Milius stated he was inspired by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 and the resistance put up by the Mujahideen (then known by the Reagan Administration as freedom fighters), his inspiration really shows in the movie.



That all being said I doubt any American at the time doubted how real a war like this could have been!