Apocalypses Now

I love John Milius's work. As a screenwriter, there are few who can get close to him in terms of success rate. As a director, well, he made Patrick Swayze among others look like Tommy Wiseau in Red Dawn, and his terrible record in that position made his last few attempts at it TV movies. I do love him for the same reasons Vince Mancini does: he has a goatee that makes him look like Walter Sobchak and he satirized hippies through creating a rudimentary version of the Apocalypse Now symbol.

But Milius is a huge pessimist. His portrayal of the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now is known for its soldiers distancing themselves from the conflict in front of them via drugs and booze (PURPLE HAZE, MAN, PURPLE HAAAAZE!) and its use of imagery of Greek mythology's underworld, the onus of which could be put on Francis Ford Coppola:

But Milius' writing outside of his work on Rome and a future series about the Pharaohs, the man has a gift for momentary pessimism, by which I mean that he sees the worst thing possible happening very soon. This is probably what makes his movies so popular: he scares the shit out of people with ease because the man can envision the worst possible event to wreck your life. Red Dawn theorized that the declining Soviet Union would try to exploit the American breadbasket in the Midwest and obliterate the coasts. Even his Twilight Zone segment, which he didn't write but did direct, "Opening Day," had a man put into the body of a man he murdered, a day before said murder.

And now you can add videogames to that list. Tomorrow Homefront, a first-person shooter produced by THQ with a storyline straight from Milius, will be released in the US. Let's take a look at the speculative timeline employed:

• 2011: North Korea faces another UN sanction over its latest nuclear test.
• 2012: Kim Jong-Il passes away, he is succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un.
• 2013: Kim Jong-un is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and featured on the cover of Time Magazine for his accomplishment of Korean reunification.
• 2014: American military withdraws from the Korean Peninsula. General Motors declares bankruptcy for the second time.
• 2015: The effects of peak oil are felt as gas prices reach up to 20 dollars a gallon due to a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Russia cuts off all oil trade with Europe. Survivalist literature become bestsellers in America. China's influences diminish.
• 2016: America withdraws its military from Japan and other countries overseas, focusing on its instability back home. Texas splits from the United States, border bloodshed takes place as refugees from other states attempt to enter Texas.
• 2017: Martial law is declared in the United States as its infrastructure crumbles due to financial deficiencies.
• 2018: After the destruction of one its nuclear facilities by Korean special forces, Japan surrenders to the Greater Korean Republic and is capitalized into avassal state.
• 2019: The UN goes out of commission.
• 2020: Canada closes its borders to Americans. The US military takes over the functions of many emergency services, as well as the distribution of basic goods. This causes many Americans to abandon the suburbs in exchange of the military-managed urban centers.
• 2021: Korean forces succeed in annexing many countries in Southeast Asia. A new pandemic known as the Knoxville Cough, type of bird flu, begins to spread in the United States.
• 2022: To prevent the contagion of the Knoxville Cough, Mexico closes its borders to Americans. Hyperinflation pushes the US dollar to the edge of collapse.
• 2023: The Knoxville Cough ravages the American public. The Korean People's Army reaches 20 million total personnel.
• 2024: Using the captured M-V rockets at the Uchinoura Space Center, Kim Jong-un announces a new space satellite program, under the pretense of replacing the decaying GPS system, which America could no longer afford to maintain.
• 2025: A thermonuclear device is detonated by one of the Korean satellites 300 miles above Kansas, blanketing America with an EMP that wipes out its power grid and most of the electronics above ground. The US infrastructure is virtually in ruins. This is followed by the Korean seizure of Hawaii and landings in San Francisco. Korean paratroopers are dropped into central United States. The economic downfall in Europe prevents its nations from intervening.
• 2026: The United States is split into two as the KPA irradiate the entire Mississippi River, as a fortification for their control of the western side.
• 2027: The United States Armed Forces are completely scattered.

Damn, shit is going to go downhill. So is this useful? With many apocalyptic perspectives ringing in from all parts of the political spectrum, maybe this strategy will help for this inevitable invasion. It's also great entertainment, and engenders the same rallying around the flag mentality that leaders love to take advantage of at wartime.

Red Dawn was the quintessential Reagan movie: it instilled fear with its prophecies of a weak USSR invading to avoid implosion, and made Reagan's additions to defense spending seem reasonable. This game may lead to similar attitudes, but defense spending is getting cut in some way this year, as it is taking up such a great deal of our budget and even relative gains from China, who will be increasing their defense budget by 12.7% this coming year, will not close the gap enough to make a difference to the status quo.

There is one bone I would pick with any sort of reality that Milius thinks is created in this timeline: the diplomatic daft of Kim Jong-Un. The younger Kim has already been put into place as the heir, and will soon be visiting China to possibly learn something about diplomacy that his father never could. And an obvious lack of skill with the ladies is helping him get emasculated in front of the South Korean public over the internet is not helping. Hopefully, he'll be better at it than he is at holding binoculars (this photo of course brings back memories of Amir Peretz's failed transition from garbage man/union leader to defense minister). As many reports say he is exactly like daddy, expect this Kim to continue a tradition of megalomania, cult of personality, and health problems that has become a tradition dating back to his father's rule. The status quo seems likely to stay the same, and another John Milius prophecy of doom will go without manifesting itself in our world, but the dude is sure to do damage with the sales.