4 Requirements of North Korean Propaganda Videos
North Korea released a video last week depicting a nuclear assault on Washington, D.C., the quality of which was somewhere between a Final Cut Pro tutorial and a SyFy original movie starring Lorenzo Lamas. This is a pretty typical trend of North Korean propaganda, which in the past has enjoyed some varsity-level moments of unintentional comedy, all of which can be divided into the following four categories:
Spaceships
One recent video shows a guy slipping off into a peaceful murder dream wherein he is flying high above the Earth in an orbiting craft named Kwangmyongsong 21, despite the fact that no one from North Korea has ever seen the inside of a spaceship. Below him, the world is unified as one country. Except for America, which is currently burning in the righteous fires of "go fuck yourself" and consequently wasn't invited.
"Our advanced technology is NOTHING against their stock GIFs of explosions."
Outdated/Stolen Music
The D.C. attack video we mentioned above boasts an impressive soundtrack of an overbearing brass section remixed with an embarrassing mid-'90s techno flair. It kind of sounds like it came from a video game or an episode of Dragon Ball Z, which is entirely possible, because North Korea steals music for their videos all the time.
One film, which showed Obama being set on fire with CGI flames of a quality typically reserved for professional wrestling commercials, featured music from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is a game that was released back when people couldn't wait to see Spider-Man 3. Meanwhile, the interstellar adventure of Kwangmyongsong 21 features "We Are the World," which in itself is a form of terrorism.
Is getting stabbed by box cutters still an option?
Terrible Special Effects
Every propaganda film released by North Korea looks like it was assembled by one of those "Make Your Own Music Video" kiosks in the mall. And not the good mall, either -- the terrible mall where your parents took you to buy school shoes when they were mad at you.
Here we have the Capitol Building getting demolished by a formidable missile, although judging by the effects, it would appear that North Korea has mistaken "nuclear weapon" for "oversized glitter pinata":
An error Harry Truman once tragically reversed.
The guy drifting peacefully off to his spaceship dream is assaulted by his camera lens, which shoots out an inspirational imagination beam that looks like a transition effect from a PowerPoint presentation:
And the technological triumph that is the Kwangmyongsong 21 itself looks like a clip from the opening credits of Reading Rainbow.
We always suspected that LeVar Burton was a communist sympathizer.
Clips from American Video Games
North Korea clearly wasn't satisfied with simply incorporating thrifty special effects and a song about world hunger that nobody has taken seriously in 30 years to tell their baffling story of a man, a spaceship, and the horrible burning death of every American citizen. Lacking the budget to create a powerful image of the fall of the United States for themselves, the propaganda department decided to use a clip that had clearly been lifted from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which is a video game about Americans killing people from the Eastern Hemisphere. If you're asking yourself why no one from the North Korean ministry of propaganda was able to detect the irony here, we invite you to scroll back to the beginning of the article and read it again.
If the North Koreans really wanted to impress us, they should have lifted scenes from a Blizzard cinematic.
Josh wants to be your BFF on Facebook. He also has a column over at Man Cave Daily named This Ain't Amateur Hour, where you learn how to live a successful life.
