Tybout: World politics bad for film villains

When the new “Red Dawn” hits theaters, its protagonists will likely be as gung-ho and… When the new “Red Dawn” hits theaters, its protagonists will likely be as gung-ho and American as ever. The villains, however, might suffer from identity crises.

As any action movie buff will tell you, the upcoming “Red Dawn” remake has had a long and setback-ridden production. Most notably, China, the film’s designated arch-villain, was recently deemed an invaluable source of movie and entertainment revenue and thus too important to alienate. Accordingly, the Los Angeles Times reported, MGM studios is now pulling an unprecedented last-minute overhaul: The new invaders, they’ve decided, aren’t Chinese — they’re North Korean.

In some ways, this repositioning is practical. The miserly East Asian country has a restrictive economy, posing no threat to film sales, and its leader is so transparently insane he can serve as an antagonist in nearly any context. In fact, North Korea has been and continues to be a favorite Hollywood villain: films like “Die Another Day” (2002) and “Team America: World Police” (2004) delight in vanquishing the nation in a hail of righteous gunfire. (Video games are even more unrepentant about this — see “Mercenaries,” a beloved centerpiece of my adolescence).

There’s just one problem: The “Red Dawn” remake has already been filmed. This means filmmakers will have to doctor their footage to erase as many Chinese insignias as possible, alter dialogue to reflect North Korean instead of Chinese enemies and in general superimpose North Korean characteristics onto Chinese ones. Of course, there’s no way to alter the faces of actors to appear more Korean, but in these situations, Hollywood’s casting system rarely takes into account specific nationality anyway.

This might be premature of me, but I predict the “Red Dawn” remake will be a complete quagmire — and not just because this sort of cinematic plastic surgery will render convoluted visuals. Rather, the film will tank because its villain’s identity is superfluous.

Unfortunately, this is by no means an isolated problem: Across the board, movie villains are becoming less distinct — in the case of “Red Dawn,” they’re anonymous enough to facilitate a post-production identity change — and thus, less compelling.

Before I further bemoan our impoverished bank of nemeses, it’s necessary to reflect on the 20th century’s two most successful movie villains: the Nazis and the Soviets. These were people who indisputably hated our guts and worked tirelessly and mercilessly against our continued prosperity. The Nazis, who repeatedly engaged our troops in combat, were, perhaps, more of an active enemy, but the Russians, an unceasing Cold War opponent, posed a reliable threat of their own. An innumerable number of movies — including the original “Red Dawn” — capitalized on these clear-cut animosities; the “Indiana Jones” series, in fact, employed both these powers as villains.

Now, however, America’s enemies are more fragmented, lacking a unifying nationality, creed or political orientation. Accordingly, filmmakers are forced to settle for religiously zealous Arabs of ambiguous nationality, or — in the case of the new “Red Dawn” — incensed East Asians of interchangeable nationality. (Never mind that half these countries don’t posses the capability to launch an invasion of the U.S.).

Of course, from a humanitarian perspective, our increasingly scant bank of villains is heartening. The world, it seems, has become too civil, and too economically co-dependant, to engender the sort of war of empires that embroiled the first half of the 20th century. Even a second Cold War has, for the time being, remained hypothetical.

Nevertheless, the interests of action movies and the interests of world peace are, as always, in opposition to each other. When countries make good, action movies become less engaging. When new, powerful enemies arise, films like “Red Dawn” attain a new vitality. With all due respect to filmmakers, I’ll settle for world peace.