10 Things You Didn't Know About WarGames

[JargonThD]

Two things from a USAF veteran who saw the film in the cinema when it was released (3 years after leaving the military). First, arguably the greatest hero in history, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov of SOVIET Air Defense, refused orders to launch nukes as a response to a faulty report of a US first strike attack. And this was in 1983. Eerily (and perhaps meaningfully) similar to the story of Wargames. Second, when watching this in a cinema during its first release, the actual, IRL tensions inside the US were horrific. (I get emotional just remembering this.) We were watching the 'fun, fell-good, action romp' as it got closer and closer to the suspenseful ending. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS! We were on the edge of our seats, to some extent, but in the actual times, we lived in a permanent state of terrified readiness (actually, in dread because readiness could do little in an actual scenario of nuclear war, and many of us knew this). When WOPR says the game was interesting because "The only way to win is not to play, " at least a quarter of the audience of 100 or so people jumped to their feet and shouted with joy and affirmation. We were wound so tight in those days, without always knowing it, that this simple, but momentous line made people jump and cheer at the message. Do not, under any circumstance, play Global Thermonuclear War. I like to think that the film may have contributed to some policy makers of the time, and decision makers in actual missile siloes, backing down from a figurative DEFCON 1. So, yes, it was a nifty little fluffy film which, in all reality, spoke of and to a time when the risk of a devastating WW III was no joke. Thanks for a great reaction, as always, Minty.

[timrprobocom]

My favorite story about War Games has to do with the NORAD Operations Center. When this movie came out, NORAD was just beginning the process of completely overhauling their operations center, but no one really knew what they wanted. The totally fictional operations center in the movie showed them what could be done by a creative team, and it actually influenced the design of the revamped NORAD.

[simonhadley]

I recently rewatched this after thirty years and was amazed at how well it held up, not to mention how eerily prophetic it was.

[pretikewl]

This movie is a main reason I got my education (and later jobs) in the computer field. Very inspirational.

[kennylong]

My secret fan theory is that WarGames and The Terminator are in the same universe. WOPR was the first failed Skynet.

[MrSupro]

When you mentioned Space Lasers I thought of Spies Like Us. Can you please do that one? It holds up surprisingly well.

[DonLekei]

War Games was a pivotal piece of technology cinema. I saw it opening week with some colleagues from the computer company I worked for at the time. It showed that password aging is a severe security risk over 35 years before Microsoft (and earlier NIST and FTC) finally issued advice to avoid using password aging because it can lead to people writing down passwords. Then in the phone booth scene, we were all going... "It's a dial phone booth... find some metal. Yes! The pull-tab!" to a chorus of "Shhhh"s.
The movie inspired "War Dialers" that exposed so many systems that just used unlisted "security through obscurity" numbers with guest logins, and later used to find fax lines to end spam faxes to.

[domomitsune]

WarGames is one of my favorite movies. And the kid going up against a military super computer to decide the fate of the world, was a pretty nifty idea. And how they ultimately trick it into stalemate itself until it decided to give up, was brilliant.

[KabukiKid]

This still stands as one of my favorite 80s movies. One thing that is so impressive about this film is that almost all of the tech stuff and hacking/phreaking you see in the movie was completely legit and realistic for the day. They definitely did their nerdy research for this one. ;-)

[Diggy]

WarGames is one of my favorite tech movies. The hacking scenes are the most practical and believable for its time. Rather than just having a teenager type in random code on his computer, they have the hero using passwords carelessly laid out, and dialing up numbers to software companies. This movie had such an impact on me, when I got my first Chromebook about 5 years ago, I slapped a WarGames sticker on the back of it.

One fact I'm surprised that you didn't mention was that the Galaga game that Matthew Broderick was playing was gifted to him to practice on for the movie. So yeah, Matthew Broderick had a Galaga machine in his house thanks to WarGames.😊

[Choralone]

Wargames has always been one of my favorite movies! Even when I was too young to fully understand it back in the 80s. It's a movie that I still go back and watch a couple of times a year.

I knew about the 2008 sequel and even watched it. It's basically a made-for-TV movie in quality. Not completely terrible but doesn't hold a candle to the original!

[Mad-Bassist]

Greatest line ever: "I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good."

Saw it in the theater around age 15--classic!

[MatthewHarrold]

I'm 52, saw it in a Hoyts cinema in grade 7 the same year my dad purchased a Commodore 64, acoustic coupler modem, dot matrix printer, and an amber screen (like a green screen, only orange). We were already "logging in" to the local university computer and Gopher looked exactly like the War Games interaction (without the voice). It felt real, almost as if I could hack into government computers and start Robodebt Wars. $0.02

[lloydmilton]

My wife and I still watch this movie every few years and continue to enjoy it. I absolutely loved the Wargames Defcon 1 game on the PS1. A friend and I used to play it every time he came over trying to beat each of the different scenarios and getting through to the end.

[jeffreycohn]

My dad’s oldest childhood friend was William “Billy” Bogart, who played Matthew Broderick’s dad. He was a well known Broadway actor, and one of the earliest spokesmen for IBMs very first personal computer in the very early 1980s. They grew up across the street from each other on Cedar Lane in Woodmere, Long Island. Billy’s wife Erin was one of the very first Muppeteers with Jim Henson on Sesame St and the Muppet Show. Billy died fairly recently, about 5 years ago.

[trevorbrown]

This was a huge sleeper hit in the summer of 1983. I remember it happened to coincide with the first generation of affordable home computers that kids ( of which I was one) could get their hands on. I also recall Octopussy was it's big rival release that summer and both films were released by United Artists. Scary to think this was 40 years ago now.

What you missed mentioning was that Matthew Broderick's father died towards the end of filming, . John Badham and the cast were very sympathetic towards him however he bravely soldiered on in order to get his scenes finished.

[futuree.d.o.podcast]

I met the WOPR (prop) in LA on a live sound gig years ago. It was covered in dust all by itself in the corner of an empty warehouse in east LA. It was one of the most random and coolest things I'd ever seen. I was laterally star struck by a prop. It was in one of those industrial areas that had been converted to artist flats. There was a big warehouse separated from the flats, which contained the iconic WOPR. It was just this big empty dusty space. One of the tenants was kind enough to show me this hidden treasure...enticing me with something like, "you wanna see something cool?" ...Its condition was not the best of shape, but still going strong. This was 15 years ago. I wonder where or who is taking care of the WOPR now...but in retrospect, I wonder, what the hell was it doing there...like shouldn't it be in a museum?

[LearnAboutFlow]

"Shall we play a game?" was a HUGE meme/catchphrase of the time and everyone was saying it.

[vincentanzelone]

One of my all time favorite films. I saw this as a kid in theaters and was fascinated by the computer technology. This led me to a very successful 25+ year career in IT.

[JoeyLevenson]

One of my favorite movies as a 80s kid. Ive seen it probably 30+ times.