WarGames (1983)
 

• Kevin Costner turned down the lead role for a part in   _The Big Chill_ (1983)  which was eventually cut.
• The studio had a Galaga and a Galaxian machine delivered to Matthew Broderick's home, where he practiced for two months to prepare for the arcade scene.
• The TRS-80 Model I used to break into NORAD was programmed to make the correct words appear on the screen, no matter which keys were pressed.
• When David comes home the day after the NORAD computer break-in, the newscaster on the television is talking about a prophylactic recycling center.
• The NORAD command center built for the movie was the most expensive set ever constructed up to that time, built at the cost of one million dollars. The producers were not allowed into the actual NORAD command center, so they had to imagine what it was like.
• The exteriors were all filmed in western Washington state.  The NORAD HQ set was built in the Cascades, the "Oregon" airport was really Boeing Field, "Goose Island" is really Anderson Island, WA (in the southern part of Puget Sound).  The last ferry off the island really is at 6:30, and you really are stuck there if you miss it.
• The NORAD mainframe to which Matthew Broderick's character finds a backdoor was called "W.O.P.R." in the movie. In the late '70s,  NORAD's central processor was named "B.U.R.G.R."

WarGames (1983)
Directed by
John Badham

Writing credits
Lawrence Lasker
Walter F. Parkes

Genre:Sci-Fi / Thriller / War (more)
Tagline: Is it a game, or is it real?

Plot Outline: A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.

Cast overview, first billed only:
Matthew Broderick ....  David Lightman
Dabney Coleman ....  McKittrick
John Wood ....  Stephen Falken
Ally Sheedy ....  Jennifer
Barry Corbin ....  General Beringer
Juanin Clay ....  Pat Healy
Kent Williams .... Cabot
Dennis Lipscomb ....  Watson
Joe Dorsey ....  Conley
Irving Metzman ....  Richter
Michael Ensign ....   Beringer's Aide
William Bogert ....   Mr. Lightman
Susan Davis  ....  Mrs. Lightman
James Tolkan ....  Nigan
David Clover .... Stockman

Also Known As:
War Games (1983) (USA: alternative spelling)
Runtime: USA:114 / Germany:112 / Sweden:113
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color (Metrocolor)
Sound Mix: 70mm 6-Track / Dolby
Certification: USA:PG / UK:PG / Finland:K-12 / France:U / Germany:12 / Sweden:11

_WAR GAMES_- 1983 film about a teenage hacker who gets a hold of the US nuclear defense system. Probably the first film about hackers, and one of the first to even make people aware this was possible. Caused a huge explosion in modem purchases and newbie hackers; a number of influential hackers are embarassed to admit that this film got them to start hacking. Some fairly important hackers took their handles from this film; Professor Falken and the several David Lightmans are an example. It contains some scenes involving phreaking and scanning. Also caused Congress to investigate the possibility of it really happening.

Joshua likes to play chess

this film changed my life. you gotta love that acoustic coupler modem.  being 12 years old, this film pushed me over the border from just playing videogames to exploring the possibilities of computers.  haven't touched games much since then.  the proto hacker movie.  is it a game, or is it real?.  -aj 12/9/99

my only complaint i have is that Joshua is too much like HAL in _2001_ (1968), which i guess would flow and impact well memetically during the cold war eighties - @Om* 1/20/01

track _War Game_ by The Necros off of 7" on Touch & Go

WarGames was 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, and John Wood as Stephen Falken. In the film Broderick, a hacker, manages to gain access to the NORAD military artificial intelligence computer system called WOPR (War Operations Plan and Response) that can control the United States' arsenal of ICBMs.

The teenager, unaware of the machine's real purpose, discovers what he believes to be a simulation game called "Global Thermonuclear War" and begins to "play." Unbeknownst to him, WOPR sets in motion preparations for a real attack against the Soviet Union. With the aid of the machine's creator (Wood), disaster is narrowly averted when the hacker manages to teach WOPR about the futility of war by getting it to play endless drawn games of tic-tac-toe against itself which segue into cycles through all the nuclear war stategies that WOPR has devised. WOPR then learns that "the only winning move is not to play."

It was in part 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 generalized the idea of the Cold War period in the 1970s and 1980s that somewhere there was a "button" that when pressed would nuke the whole world away, and its final sequence graphically demonstrated the concept of mutual assured destruction. Also, it was one of the first movies to deal with teenage hackers and their activities.

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