Epic Win: War Games
Submitted by Ryan J
Shall we play a game?
This ‘83 film starred a very young Matthew Broderick as a computer hacker who accidentally triggers a U.S. military supercomputer to run a nuclear war simulation. And Broderick was only trying to download video games off the internet! War Games not only captured the spirit of the Cold War in a family friendly way, but would predict a future of nerds trying to steal games off the internet. Now let’s hope nobody gets top-secret government software from The Pirate Bay.
Also, I don’t know about you guys, but just from the name: Global Thermonuclear War > Halo.
War Games makes me all waffy. I had such a huge crush on Matthew Broderick back in the day!
THIS MOVIE FTW.
We even watched it in my film class, but some douchebags talked through the whole frikken thing.
Assholes.
It’s hard to say that he is … he XD ! But that looks quite cool, isohunt.com … hmm, torrents …
OMG!!! How I loved this movie. I recently bought the DVD and watched it with my 16 and 14 year old and they LOVED the movie. Just proves that some movies from the 80s (like this one and Breakfast Club) are true “Classics”.
Oddly enough it took 24 years for a game based on it to become a reality.
AKA Defcon.
But I like movies that deal with early computers, mainly the ones from the 80’s/early 90’s. Back when a computer was somewhat of a mystical item that could do anything, and everything. Then again in the late 90’s law enforcement officials convinced a judge that Kevin Mitnick had the ability to “start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone”.
24 years?
So what about the game WarGames released in 1983/1984?
OK: Who–WHO–would give this a thumbs-down?
Whoever you are, you 14 people, I hate you. You’re sick.
it’s up to 25. What wrong with this world???
I LOVE this movie!!!!!!!!!!
I hate to ruin everyone’s day, but they made a sequel. Made for TV. It wasn’t just a bad movie, it was a massacre. REALLY BAD!!!!
I thought the movie was fair. Really made me interested in the fact that they were even going to make a sequel (I heard about it before it came out). What really made it all the better for me was when they brought Joshua back.
@#$% yes. One of the best movies of all times.
The phrase “May we play a game?” still pops up every once in a while in media in regards to AI’s thanks to this movie.
Opps sorry, meant “Shall we play a game”
I ref this movie all the time. There are SO many situations where “A strange game… the only winning move is not to play” is applicable.
How about a nice game of chess?
Wargames was a movie that was way ahead of its time. No one was making films about hacking into computer systems. The only computers used in movies were on space ships. No home computer has ever really been brought to the big screen. Wargames broke from the normal studio sci fi norm of either Earth being visited by aliens (E.T) or battles of Good and Evil in space (Star Wars, Star Trek). With the raise in hacker crime rate now, and seeing how Dependant we’ve become on computers, Wargames was a movie with it the eye on the future. Imaginative story, great cast (who, despite other reviews, do not phone it in) Wargames is a true gem, as it was recently listed by AFI as one of the top 100 sci fi movies of all time. Broderick was perfect as a slacker teen, and Ally Sheedy turns in one of her best performance, making the most of an under developed character. Dabney Coleman showed why he was one of the busiest actors in the 1980’s (though he always better cast as a villain), and Barry Corbin could play almost anything convincingly. while the special effects may be dated by todays standard, Wargames helped shape the way people think and speak. Backdoors, hacking, were not common terms like they are today. Without a doubt, much in agreement with AFI, Wargames remains one of the most important films ever made.
Um… this wasn’t a prediction about nerds stealing games from the internet. We actually *were* stealing games back then, but we had to direct-connect to each other using modems and terminal software. Back then, websites were called Bulletin Board Systems, and were mostly single-connection…
Yeah, I know.. I’m ancient.
You’re not ancient. At least you’d better not be, because *I’M* not ancient, and I remember being all excited when our BBS upgraded and could support a 2400 baud connection… =D
One of my favourites – they also remade a RTS Game called WarGames as well, that had some fun comedy moments, but took more of a “What-if” scenario…
Additionally, “Defcon” from Introversion Software is definately a new-age Win, as it replicates the good old “War Room” kinda take on Nuclear Warfare, as personified within the movie itself…
pirate bay like anyone uses that anymore now that they sold
out and changed to a pay site
That’s ThePirateBay.com
You can still get FREE torrenst from PirateBay.org
Ever played Uplink or Defcon? Uplink contains the Mainframe where the games run and Defcon is simply the “Global Thermonuclear War” game where you have to destroy as much as possible.
On the DVD commentaries, you find out that Barry Corbin’s crack, “He**, I’d pi** on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good!” was an ad lib. They had to cut immediately after he said it and stop working for about 10 minutes while the whole cast and crew had laughing hysterics.
Whoop Whoop!
Skybird – this is Dropkick with a red dash alpha message in two parts. Break! Break!
“SIR, PLACE YOUR HAND ON THE KEY! TURN YOUR KEY SIR!”
One of my favorite scenes in a movie from all time.