WarGames

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WarGames

Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Badham
Produced by Leonard Goldberg
Written by Lawrence Lasker
Walter F. Parkes
Starring Matthew Broderick
Dabney Coleman
John Wood
Ally Sheedy
Barry Corbin
Music by Arthur B. Rubinstein
Cinematography William A. Fraker
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
United Artists
Release date(s) June 3, 1983 (1983-06-03)
Running time 114 min.
Country USA
Language English
Budget $12,000,000
Gross revenue $128,178,531
Followed by WarGames: The Dead Code

WarGames is a 1983 drama/thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film starred Matthew Broderick in his second major film role, and featured Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Barry Corbin.

The film follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly hacks into WOPR, a United States military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war. Lightman gets WOPR to run a nuclear war simulation, originally believing it to be a computer game. The simulation causes a national nuclear missile scare and nearly starts World War III.

The movie was a box office success, costing US$12 million but grossing over $74 million after five months in the United States. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards. A sequel, WarGames: The Dead Code, was released direct to DVD on July 29, 2008.

Contents

[edit] Plot

During a secret simulation of a nuclear attack, one of two United States Air Force officers is unwilling to turn a required key to launch a missile strike. The man's refusal to perform his duty convinces systems engineers at NORAD that command of missile silos must be maintained through automation. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer, WOPR, which is programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war.

David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) is a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and computer hacker. After receiving a failing grade in school, he uses his IMSAI microcomputer and modem to hack into the district's computer system using an unsecured password. He then changes his grade, and does the same for his friend and classmate Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy).

He also uses his computer to perform automated searches for systems connected to the public phone system, which he then hacks. After seeing an advertisement for a set of forthcoming computer games, Lightman has his computer dial every number in Sunnyvale, California, in an attempt to find its system. When later reviewing the results, he finds one of the systems has a very "basic" interface, which he finds intriguing. After trying a few commands he succeeds in finding a list of games, starting with simple games but then progressing to titles like Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare and Global Thermonuclear War. More intrigued than ever, Lightman continues to try to hack into the system without success.

Lightman enlists the aid of an older hacker friend, who explains the concept of a backdoor password and suggests tracking down the "Falken" referenced in Falken's Maze, the first game listed. Following this lead, Lightman discovers that Stephen Falken was an early artificial intelligence researcher, and from there tracks down every lead he can find on the man's life. He discovers that Falken had a son, Joshua, and finds that this can be used to gain access to the unidentified system.

Unknown to the teen, the Sunnyvale phone number was cross-connected and is actually connecting him to WOPR in the Cheyenne Mountain military complex. WOPR was originally programmed, in part by Falken, to run simulations on various warfighting scenarios and attempt to find winning strategies. The list of "games" Lightman found were the various scenarios. Lightman glibly starts a game of Global Thermonuclear War, playing as the Soviet Union, selecting Las Vegas and his home town of Seattle as first-strike targets. WOPR starts running a simulation of a missile attack on the NORAD displays, leading them to believe that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound.

Response at NORAD to Soviet missile launches

When they investigate they determine that WOPR is running a simulation, and defuse the situation. The phone line and backdoor password are removed to ensure the event does not reoccur. However, unknown to NORAD, WOPR continues to run the simulation in an attempt to trigger the scenario and win the game. WOPR continuously feeds false data such as bomber incursions and submarines sailing from Soviet bases to the humans at NORAD, goading them into raising the DEFCON level and pushing them toward a retaliation that will start World War III.

News of the events leaks out to television, and Lightman learns the true nature of his actions when a news broadcast makes light of the situation later that day. He is soon tracked down and arrested by the FBI and taken to the Cheyenne Mountain military complex. Upon seeing the alarms on their screens Lightman quickly concludes that WOPR is behind them. He tries to tell this to Dr. John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman), one of the WOPR programmers. McKittrick is unconvinced, and when he leaves to discuss the issue, Lightman tries to stop the simulation from a terminal in his office. Upon being discovered Lightman is taken away and locked up.

Lightman promptly escapes. He makes his way with Jennifer's help to Oregon, where Falken (John Wood) has retired after the deaths of his wife and son, and now lives under a new identity. Lightman and Jennifer find that Falken has become despondent and believes the world is inevitably on a path to nuclear holocaust. The teenagers convince Falken that he should return to NORAD to attempt to stop WOPR (which Lightman calls "Joshua").

Upon arrival Falken is able to convince military officials to cancel the counterstrike. At this point WOPR starts an attempt to launch a counterstike on its own, using a brute force attack to crack the launch code for the U.S. nuclear missiles. Without humans in the silos as a safeguard, WOPR could trigger a mass launch. Attempts to dissuade WOPR prove useless and the computer clearly has no understanding of the difference between its games and real life.

Disaster is narrowly averted when Lightman directs WOPR to play tic-tac-toe against itself, resulting in endless drawn games, to make the computer rapidly learn the concept of futility. WOPR cracks the missile code but before launching, cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding they all end as "WINNER: NONE" due to mutual assured destruction. WOPR observes that "the only winning move is not to play". WOPR then casually offers to play "a nice game of chess," and relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

Martin Brest was originally hired as director but was fired after 12 days of shooting because of an on-set tiff with the producers.[1][2] Brest was replaced with director John Badham. Several of the scenes shot by Brest remained in the final film.

With a cost of $1 million, the NORAD set was the most expensive single movie set ever built up to that time.[3]

[edit] Reception

WarGames was nominated for three Academy AwardsBest Cinematography (William A. Fraker), Sound (Michael J. Kohut, Carlos de Larios, Aaron Rochin, Willie D. Burton) and Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes).

The scenes showing Lightman's computer dialing every number in Sunnyvale led to the term "war dialing", a technique of using a modem to scan a list of telephone numbers to search for unknown computers, and indirectly to the newer term "wardriving."[4]

[edit] Video games

A video game named after the film was released for the ColecoVision in 1983. It played similarly to the NORAD side of the "Global Thermonuclear War" game, where the United States had to be defended from a Soviet strike by placing bases and weapons at strategic points. A real-time strategy game that was very loosely related to the movie was released for the PlayStation and PC called WarGames: Defcon 1 in 1998. The movie also inspired the Introversion game DEFCON.[citation needed]

[edit] 2008 sequel

In November 2006, pre-production began on a sequel, titled WarGames: The Dead Code.[5] It was directed by Stuart Gillard, and starred Matt Lanter as a hacker named Will Farmer facing off with a government supercomputer called R.I.P.L.E.Y.[6] MGM released the sequel directly to DVD on July 29, 2008 along with the 25th Anniversary Edition DVD of WarGames. To promote the sequel, the film returned to selected theaters as a one night-only 25th Anniversary event on July 24, 2008.[7]

[edit] See also

  • Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted an actual nuclear incident in 1983, which turned out to be a false alarm caused by a computer error.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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