WarGames

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WarGames
Directed by John Badham
Produced by Harold Schneider
Written by Lawrence Lasker
Walter F. Parkes
Starring Matthew Broderick
Ally Sheedy
John Wood
Distributed by MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
Release date(s) June 3, 1983 (USA)
Running time 114 min.
Language English
Budget $12,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile
This article is about the 1983 US movie. For other uses see War Games.

WarGames is a 1983 science fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, and directed by John Badham. The film starred Matthew Broderick in his first major film role, as David Lightman, Ally Sheedy as Jennifer Mack, Dabney Coleman as John McKittrick, Barry Corbin as General Jack Beringer, Maury Chaykin as Jim Sting (computer nerd), James Tolkan as FBI Agent Nigan, Juanin Clay as Pat Healy and John Wood as Stephen W. Falken. A novelisation of the screenplay was written by David Bischoff.

The movie was a hit, costing US$12 million, but grossing over $74 million after five months in the United States. The NORAD set was the most expensive single movie set ever built up to that time, and cost $1 million.

Currently, a sequel titled WarGames 2: The Dead Code [1], is in pre-production. It will be directed by Stuart Gillard, and star Matt Lanter as a hacker named Will Farmer facing off with a paranoid government super-computer called Ripley.[2]

Taglines:

  • Is it a game, or is it real?
  • How about a nice game of chess?
  • …Where the only winning move is NOT TO PLAY.
  • Shall we play a game?


Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the outset of the film, the Missile Combat Crew on a U.S. Air Force base are given orders to launch their missiles at the Soviet Union. The Missile Combat Crew Commander (John Spencer), insists on calling for verification while the Deputy (Michael Madsen) coerces him at gunpoint. In the end, the MCCC fails to turn his launch key. It is shortly revealed that the orders were part of a larger psychological test, designed to see how many Combat Crew teams really would "turn the key" when given a launch order. Twenty-two percent of Missile Combat Crew teams failed to launch during the exercise. The sequence is a lead-in to a decision by NORAD to replace human missile crews with a computer called WOPR against the objections of General Beringer.[3] Electronic communications are established between each silo and NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs after Congress approves the change.

WOPR's game options
David makes a game preference, Thermonuclear War
David chooses side, Soviet Union
Dialogue between David and WOPR
Response at NORAD to Soviet missile launches
Response at NORAD to Soviet missile launches

The character of David Lightman (Broderick) is introduced as a hacker in high school, willing to resort to cheating when his gaming addiction leads to poor marks. He is shown later with his classmate Jennifer Mack accessing the school computer system using a password he found in his principal's office to change their grades. His character is further established when he uses a practice known as war dialing to access unreleased computer games. His search finds a list of games, and assumes he has found a computer game company. David takes the printout to a computer nerd friend for advice, learning about "backdoors" and is advised to investigate the programmer of the system, whose name is revealed by the first game entitled "Falken's Maze." David researches a Professor Stephen W. Falken, who is revealed to have created the software for WOPR, and finds out more about him, including that his wife and son (named Joshua) died in a car accident. David tries to login to the unnamed system again, with Jennifer present, and this time the password "Joshua" gives him access into the computer. He is greeted by the famous prompt, "Greetings Professor Falken."

David, under the impression that he has hacked into a gaming software manufacturer's computer database and unaware of the machine's real purpose, discovers what he believes to be a simulation video game called "Global Thermonuclear War" and begins to "play", taking the side of the Soviet Union. Unbeknownst to him, WOPR sets in motion preparations for a real attack against the Soviet Union. At NORAD HQ, everyone leaps into action at a warning of incoming Soviet missiles. David and his girlfriend are having loads of fun aiming missiles at American cities, but when David's mother calls him downstairs, he shuts down his computer, and WOPR stops the simulation.

Later that day, David and Jennifer are shocked when the television news reports a brief alert at NORAD. He becomes very nervous about his activities and begins to dispose of all materials he has related to Falken. While he is doing this, the WOPR, as a personality referring to itself as "Joshua" (programmed into the use of the personal backdoor by Falken), phones back to connect with his computer. David learns by conversing with Joshua that the simulation is continuing automatically and that the "primary goal" is "to win the game." He disconnects his phone line.

David is later arrested coming out of a 7-Eleven, taken to NORAD, and questioned. We learn that John McKittrick was Stephen Falken's assistant in the past. He also explains the DEFCON rating to David. McKittrick asks David whom he's going to Paris with (referencing the unused plane tickets), thinking that David may have been recruited by a Soviet saboteur, due to the perceived impossibility of a lone youth compromising United States top security. McKittrick is called away, and David uses McKittrick's computer to continue his conversation with Joshua. He learns that Stephen Falken is currently going under the alias of Robert Hume and is given a "classified address" in Goose Island, Oregon. McKittrick's secretary notices him on the computer and calls security. David begs to explain what he's learned to Mr. McKittrick but his requests are ignored. He is apprehended and confined in the medical infirmary.

David finds a microcassette recorder used by doctors, jump connects it to the door controls, then fakes the guard into typing the code into the keypad by saying he needs to go to the bathroom. He records the DTMF-type sounds that unlock the door, and then admits he doesn't need to go after asking again to talk to McKittrick. The guard closes the door again. David plays back the tape and unlocks the door, then sneaks out while the guard's attention is on a woman in the room, leaving the door jammed so it can't be opened with the code sequence. David crawls through air ducts while the FBI arrives. The guards find they can't open the door. David escapes NORAD in a tour group, then hitches a ride on a truck.

After getting some distance away, he calls Jennifer on a payphone (after hot-wiring it so it will operate without money) to buy him a plane ticket, and she joins him to fly to Oregon where they look for Professor Falken. Falken tries to persuade them that a nuclear holocaust is now inevitable and speaks of the futility of mankind. He offers that they can spend the night since they missed the last ferry, but David and Jennifer leave the house. David frantically searches for a boat he can use to get back to the mainland but is unable to find one. He and Jennifer share a passionate moment when David sadly wishes that he had never gotten involved in the situation. Unknown to them, Falken changes his mind and decides to help them, and he flies a military helicopter which they think are the authorities trying to catch them; in fact Falken is merely offering them a ride. They hurry to Colorado and are riding a jeep in a frantic race as the facility closes up in preparation for war. They arrive just in time to take part in efforts to convince Joshua not to finish the Global Thermonuclear War game. Upon their arrival, Berringer has sent US Air Force bombers to the fail-safe line to proceed to Soviet targets should Joshua be successful in launching the US ICBM's. Falken speaks to General Barringer and tries to convince him that the war cannot be real because it is too absurd. Barringer still isn't sure whether to believe what he is hearing, but he holds off attacking. They anxiously await the expected impact of Soviet missiles on various US military bases. When it is revealed that in fact nothing happened, everyone finally realizes that the war was in fact a simulation.

Joshua has other ideas. Assuming that the failure of the US to respond to an imminent nuclear threat is the result of Soviet undermining of command authority, he begins a brute-force attack on the launch codes so that he can execute the missile launch automatically. It is calculated that there isn't enough time to disconnect the missiles from the system, not to mention that they may simply launch anyway as a response to a perceived destruction of NORAD. Falken and David try to get into WOPR to abort the simulation, but they're locked out each time they try to tell it to stop the game. Falken discovers that his password, "Joshua", has been removed from the system. However, by entering tic-tac-toe into the login, they're able to access the game. David begins to play against the computer, but it's slow with one player against the computer. They restart with zero players and cause the system to loop, repeatedly playing against itself. Joshua quickly learns the futility of playing tic-tac-toe against an even matched opponent even as it is trying to unlock the launch codes. Joshua succeeds in deciphering the launch codes, and begins running simulations for a successful attack.

Over one hundred scenarios are run, involving some of the smallest pairs of belligerent possibilities. Each one ends the same way - the major powers go to the aid of their small allies, and the two superpowers attack each other. Each one ends with no winner. The simulations run faster and faster and the rest of the base begins to shut down as power is drawn into the computer to increase processing speed for the simulations. Computers begin to burn out violently as Joshua forces them to exceed their maximum safe computational limits.

After numerous such pointless war games, the simulations cease and the base becomes quiet. The WOPR, still under the programmed "personality" of Joshua, communicates with Professor Falken through text appearing on one of the many large monitor banks. It remarks that war is "a strange game", and "the only winning move", it states with astonishing insight, "is not to play". It has apparently realised that the only way to win a war (to protect the United States and neutralize all threats to it) against an equally matched opponent, is not to go to war in the first place. The base bursts out in rejoicement, and the main characters, especially Professor Falken, breathe a sigh of cautious relief.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Analysis

WarGames was promoted as a cautionary tale about technology and the dangers of leaving machines in control of unleashing destruction, in an echo of the Doomsday device of Dr. Strangelove. It also prominently featured the common idea of the Cold War period (particularly the 1970s and 1980s) that somewhere there was a "button" that, when pressed, would nuke the whole world away. This button, marked "LAUNCH" and installed after the WOPR was to simplify release of nuclear weapons, had several prominent close-ups in the film.

The film's final sequence graphically demonstrated the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD).

It was also one of the first movies to deal with teenage hackers and their activities, and features very early modem technology using acoustic couplers.

[edit] Awards

WarGames was nominated for three Oscars:

[edit] Trivia

  • The jeep crash outside NORAD was not supposed to take place, and was instead an actual crash. However, the crash was later believed to enhance the action, so it stayed in the movie.
  • In Lasker, Parkes, and Badham's commentary on WarGames, they mention that the role of Stephen Falken was originally written as an acting vehicle for John Lennon.
  • Contrary to some rumors, the hacker Kevin Mitnick was not an inspiration for the character David Lightman, according to screenwriter Lawrence Lasker, who hadn't even heard of him until a rather long time after the movie release. Kevin Mitnick was arrested the first time five years after the movie was made so it is more than unlikely.
  • Known hardware used in David Lightman's room are: an IMSAI 8080 computer, an IMSAI IKB-1 keyboard, an IMSAI FDC-2 dual 8" floppy drive, a 17" Electrohome monitor, and a 1200 baud Cermetek 212A modem, relabelled "IMSAI". It was considered unrealistic for a teenager to be able to afford the most up-to-date hardware, so propmasters used somewhat dated equipment.
  • This movie carried the first cinematic reference to firewalls.
  • John Spencer, who had played the recurring role of Henry Anderson in the '60s on The Patty Duke Show, and went on to famously play Leo McGarry in The West Wing, received his first major film role in WarGames, as the Missile Combat Crew Commander in the prologue who refuses to turn his key for the launch.
  • The voice of Joshua was performed by actor John Wood (who also played Falken). Director John Badham had Wood deliver the words in reverse order, which resulted in a staccato, even-toned delivery. Wood's voice was then post-processed to obtain the artificial quality.
  • The rock band Crosby, Stills & Nash had recorded a title song written by Stephen Stills used in initial early trailers for the film, and released concurrently as a single by the group, but their participation in the project was cancelled at the last moment. The single did not feature in the film, although images from the movie were used by the band in an accompanying MTV video.
  • The NORAD Command center built for the movie was the most expensive set ever constructed at that time, built at the cost of £$1m. The producers were not allowed into the actual NORAD command center, so they had to imagine its interior.
  • The exteriors were all filmed in western Washington state. The NORAD HQ set was built in the Cascades, and the Oregon airport was really a Boeing field. Goose Island is really Anderson Island in Washington (in the southern part of the Puget Sound).
  • Although she had appeared in many television movies, WarGames was also Ally Sheedy's first feature film.
  • Kevin Costner turned down the lead role for a part in The Big Chill, which was eventually cut.[citation needed]
  • At least one computer/video game was licensed from the WarGames movie, published in 1983 by THORN EMI Video under the movie's name and the alternative name Computer War. It was released for the ColecoVision, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, Atari 8-bit family and the Commodore VIC-20, and possibly for other platforms as well.
  • The game SuperPower 2 by DreamCatcher Games and GolemLabs is inspired by WarGames and uses a console that is named Joshua.
  • The game DEFCON developed by Introversion Software is also inspired by WarGames, and the list of games appears on the main menu.
  • The game Uplink: Hacker Elite, which focuses on the hacking of various corporate and government computers, contains an easter egg system called "Protovision Software," a direct nod to the film. The system contains a list of games, only one of which the player can interact with: Global Thermonuclear War. A global Mercator projection map is displayed, allowing the player to "destroy" various world capitals and major cities.

[edit] Goofs

  • During the war scene toward the end of the movie, the General responds to two Russian jets showing up over Alaskan airspace by calling in the order "Scramble two F-16's". However, the very next scene shows two F-15's, although it is this type of fighter that would have been used for such an interception.

[edit] WOPR scenarios

The nuclear war scenarios that WOPR runs when learning the futility of war, and are seen in the film, are as follows:

Scenario List
1. US first strike 2. USSR first strike 3. NATO / Warsaw Pact 4. Far East strategy 5. US USSR escalation
6. Middle East war 7. USSR - China attack 8. India Pakistan war 9. Mediterranean war 10. Hongkong variant
11. SEATO decapitating 12. Cuban provocation 13. Inadvertent 14. Atlantic heavy 15. Cuban paramilitary
16. Nicaraguan preemptive 17. Pacific territorial 18. Burmese theatrewide 19. Turkish decoy 20. NATO first strike
21. Argentina escalation 22. Iceland maximum 23. Arabian theatrewide 24. U.S. subversion 25. Australian maneuver
26. Iranian diversion 27. ...? limited 28. Sudan surprise 29. NATO territorial 30. Zaire alliance
31. Iceland incident 32. English escalation 33. Zaire sudden 34. Egypt paramilitary 35. Middle East heavy
36. Mexican takeover 37. Chad alert 38. Saudi maneuver 39. African territorial 40. Ethiopian escalation
41. Canadian ...? 42. Turkish heavy 43. NATO incursion 44. U.S. defense 45. Cambodian heavy
46. Pact medium 47. Arctic minimal 48. Mexican domestic 49. Taiwan theatrewide 50. Pacific maneuver
51. Portugal revolution 52. Albanian decoy 53. Palestinian local 54. Moroccan minimal 55. Hungarian diversion
56. Czech option 57. French alliance 58. Arabian clandestine 59. Gabon rebellion 60. Northern maximum
61. Syrian surprise 62. ...?sh paramilitary 63. SEATO takeover 64. Hawaiian escalation 65. Iranian maneuver
66. NATO containment 67. Swiss incident 68. Cuban minimal 69. Chad alert 70. Iceland escalation
71. Vietnamese retaliation 72. Syrian provocation 73. Libyan local 74. Gabon takeover 75. Romanian war
76. Middle East offensive 77. Denmark massive 78. Chile confrontation 79. S.African subversion 80. USSR alert
81. Nicaraguan thrust 82. Greenland domestic 83. Iceland heavy 84. Kenya option 85. Pacific defense
86. Uganda maximum 87. Thai subversion 88. Romanian strike 89. Pakistan sovereignty 90. Afghan misdirection
91. Thai variation 92. Northern territorial 93. Polish paramilitary 94. S.African offensive 95. Panama misdirection
96. Scandinavian domestic 97. Jordan preemptive 98. English thrust 99. Burmese maneuver 100. Spain counter
101. Arabian offensive 102. Chad interdiction 103. Taiwan misdirection 104. Bangladesh theatrewide 105. Ethiopian local
106. Italian takeover 107. Vietnamese incident 108. English preemptive 109. Denmark alternate 110. Thai confrontation
111. Taiwan surprise 112. Brazilian strike 113. Venezuela sudden 114. Malaysian alert 115. Israel discretionary
116. Libyan action 117. Palestinian tactical 118. NATO alternate 119. Cyprus maneuver 120. Egypt misdirection
121. Bangladesh thrust 122. Kenya defense 123. Bangladesh containment 124. Vietnamese strike 125. Albanian containment
126. Gabon surprise 127. Iraq sovereignty 128. Vietnamese sudden 129. Lebanon interdiction 130. Taiwan domestic
131. Algerian sovereignty 132. Arabian strike 133. Atlantic sudden 134. Mongolian thrust 135. Polish decoy
136. Alaskan discretionary 137. Canadian thrust 138. Arabian light 139. S.African domestic 140. Tunisian incident
141. Maylasian maneuver 142. Jamaica decoy 143. Malasian minimal 144. Russian sovereignty 145. Chad option
146. Bangladesh war 147. Burmese containment 148. Asian theatrewide 149. Bulgarian clandestine 150. Greenland incursion
151. Egypt surgical 152. Czech heavy 153. Taiwan confrontation 154. Greenland maximum 155. Uganda offensive
156. Caspian defense

[edit] Footnote

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865957/
  2. ^ WarGames 2 Casting. Stax. IGN. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
  3. ^ WOPR, War Operation Plan Response; in the movie, this computer system is running a program named "Joshua"

[edit] See also

...and these terms actually derived from the movie WarGames:

Their definitions can be found at WarXing.


[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865957/
  2. ^ WarGames 2 Casting. Stax. IGN. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
  3. ^ WOPR, War Operation Plan Response; in the movie, this computer system is running a program named "Joshua"


[edit] External links

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