War Games
A teenage computer whiz causes an international nuclear crisis when he hacks into the U.S. Defense Department "WOPR" computer system. A finely-wrought, edge-of-the-seat thriller. Academy Award Nominations: 3, including Best (Original) Screenplay, Best Cinematography.
David (Matthew Broderick), a young hacker accidentally logs onto the Department Of Defense's network. Thinking that he's found a very cool new computer game manufacturer, David plays checkers, chess, tick-tack-toe and thermonuclear warfare... and has lots of fun until DOD operatives, realizing that their system has been tampered with, arrest him. But David's problems don't end there because, even though he is no longer on line, the computer continues to play the game. The DOD, however, believes that the computer is tracking Soviet missiles headed for the U.S. In an attempt to prevent disaster, David and his girlfriend, search desperately for the scientist who designed the system. All the while, the computer is searching for missle launch codes so that it can see what happens when WW3 starts for real. In the end, though, the computer thinks that thermonuclear war is a strange game, the only winning move, is not to play...
Director: John Badham
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin, John Wood
Click here for entire list of books & movies with War Games in the title.
Click here for audio clip from movie explaining how wargames computer works (462k wav)
Or click here to again hear Gen. Berenger:Flush the
bombers...get the subs in launch mode...we are at DEFCON ONE.
"WarGames" was inspired by "Colossus, the Forbin Project", which also inspired the basic set-up for Terminator and Terminator 2
"WarGames" was seen on MonsterVision after "Red Dawn", both movies with in-studio guest Colonel Hackworth.
Elvis has left the building, and he took Joe Bob with him.
Scifans movie description above
© 2000 Bill Laidlaw, audio clips are from MovieSounds.com
