WarGamesWar looks a lot like a game when viewed on a CRT computer monitor with trajectories and megadeaths instead of points. WarGames is the story of a high school boy named David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), whose passion for computers--at the expense of his scholastics--ends up getting him access to the network for NORAD and their new high-tech defense computer, named with the whimsical acronym of WOPR. While David and his school friend, Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), believe that they are playing a computer game cryptically called "Global Thermonuclear War", they inadvertently end up triggering the already high-strung military, causing the DEFCON value to plummet, heralding World War III.
|
|
From the start, the tone of WarGames is a warning against relying too heavily on computers to do the thinking for people. After an introductory scene depicting a surprise drill for a nuclear attack (including a young Michael Madsen) reveals how a significant margin of qualified soldiers still hesitate to turn their key to launch their missiles, an outspoken systems engineer at NORAD named Dr. John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) convinces agents from the government to replace the "human element" with a computer-run system managed exclusively by NORAD. (What could possibly go wrong?) What is interesting is that, in many ways, WarGames is similar to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, except that instead of global nuclear war resulting from the hands of a lunatic who exploits a glitch in the military bureaucracy, David is an inquisitive kid who doesn't understand the repercussions of his actions, and he exploits the technology not fully understood by those in positions of power. This makes the real terror in WarGames less about an escalation of tensions leading to nuclear war, but that it could be triggered so accidentally, through computers which become increasingly dominant in our lives. To emphasize this, the premise of WarGames--even the title--is really an absurd one, starting with a kid who goofs on on lunch playing Galaga, and in the process of trying to falsify his failing biology grade, single-handedly endangers the world. But as cautionary as the film is about reliance on technology, it also advocates for preparedness and understanding of that technology in lieu of clinging to antiquated methods of conflict resolution. David is virtually a savant at computers, with some convenient skills bordering on MacGuyver-level exploits; given his poor grades at school--based on an arbitrary curriculum--he also makes a case for alternative learning styles. What makes David so effective at undermining (intentionally or otherwise) the efforts of the government officials who try to contain the threat he poses is that while they may have missiles to defend themselves against enemies like the Soviet Union, they don't now know to defend against cutting edge threats (circa 1983) like computer espionage. WarGames acknowledges that younger generations more inured into the advancements pioneered by their predecessors and are often able to incorporate and build on these with greater ease...standing on the shoulders of their fathers. Conversely, David and Jennifer do not understand just what it is they're toying, giggling as they hack into banks and airline accounts by dialing into all the computers in Sunnyvale, California. Their reactions appear wildly inappropriate, but they don't see the army pulling their hair out and getting ulcers as the screens in the war room light up like a game of "Missile Command".
WarGames is a film that becomes more poignant almost a quarter of a century later. Sure, outdated technology like floppy disks, dial up modems, and computers that fill whole rooms will give modern audiences a chuckle, but the threat of a technological incursion and subversion that could lead to catastrophe seems less like science fiction than science fact today. Consider how deeply technology affects our lives--not just our lives, but all humanity on a global scale. And also consider the periodic "leaks" of classified information, "hacked" by whistleblowers, and suddenly the idea of a genius kid getting his hands on some truly sensitive data is not so far-fetched. WarGames is also a kind of proto-hacker movie, introducing audiences to terminology like "back door" and "firewall" before they would become commonplace IT jargon. When the feds discover that David was responsible for the incursion, they immediately presume he is a foreign agent and has external assistance, rather than admit the failings of their own security--a dangerous deflection which is still all too commonplace in 2017. Just as David was sent to the principal's officel for acting up, he ends up in Dr. McKittrick's office later when he is caught, threatened with punishment on a larger scale. To be fair, WarGames is set during the height of the Cold War, and tensions ran hot at the possibility of a direct confrontation between the two biggest superpowers of the day. WarGames addresses the paranoid stalemate often referred to as "mutually assured destruction", and shakes it up--with a reaction like nitro glycerin. The thought behind replacing men with machines to ensure that there is no fallibility when the decision comes to wipe out millions with a remote missile sounds detached--like the suggestion of a sociopath--because fundamentally people feel different about war than a computer could. The computer program running in WOPR is dubbed "Joshua", after the late son of it's creator, Dr. Stephen Falken (John Wood), and it is given a text-to-speech function which utters the famous line inviting David to play a game with it. What Falken did was create a program that was so revolutionary that it would actually learn from its mistakes. It was so human-like that it even managed to adopt the desire to keep playing, even when David tries to halt the countdown to doomsday. The great, ironic conclusion of WarGames, and the virtually transcendent revelation which Joshua/WOPR experiences is one of the great moments in the film, an elegant description of the futility of war, and a maxim about warfare that in the end, there can be no true winner.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever--yet light-hearted--political thriller, which deals with the blossoming field of computers and technology versus the human element when it comes to making military decisions with dramatic implications. Watching WarGames, even today, gives the audience food for thought about our vulnerabilities and our true national interests.
WarGames is a film that becomes more poignant almost a quarter of a century later. Sure, outdated technology like floppy disks, dial up modems, and computers that fill whole rooms will give modern audiences a chuckle, but the threat of a technological incursion and subversion that could lead to catastrophe seems less like science fiction than science fact today. Consider how deeply technology affects our lives--not just our lives, but all humanity on a global scale. And also consider the periodic "leaks" of classified information, "hacked" by whistleblowers, and suddenly the idea of a genius kid getting his hands on some truly sensitive data is not so far-fetched. WarGames is also a kind of proto-hacker movie, introducing audiences to terminology like "back door" and "firewall" before they would become commonplace IT jargon. When the feds discover that David was responsible for the incursion, they immediately presume he is a foreign agent and has external assistance, rather than admit the failings of their own security--a dangerous deflection which is still all too commonplace in 2017. Just as David was sent to the principal's officel for acting up, he ends up in Dr. McKittrick's office later when he is caught, threatened with punishment on a larger scale. To be fair, WarGames is set during the height of the Cold War, and tensions ran hot at the possibility of a direct confrontation between the two biggest superpowers of the day. WarGames addresses the paranoid stalemate often referred to as "mutually assured destruction", and shakes it up--with a reaction like nitro glycerin. The thought behind replacing men with machines to ensure that there is no fallibility when the decision comes to wipe out millions with a remote missile sounds detached--like the suggestion of a sociopath--because fundamentally people feel different about war than a computer could. The computer program running in WOPR is dubbed "Joshua", after the late son of it's creator, Dr. Stephen Falken (John Wood), and it is given a text-to-speech function which utters the famous line inviting David to play a game with it. What Falken did was create a program that was so revolutionary that it would actually learn from its mistakes. It was so human-like that it even managed to adopt the desire to keep playing, even when David tries to halt the countdown to doomsday. The great, ironic conclusion of WarGames, and the virtually transcendent revelation which Joshua/WOPR experiences is one of the great moments in the film, an elegant description of the futility of war, and a maxim about warfare that in the end, there can be no true winner.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever--yet light-hearted--political thriller, which deals with the blossoming field of computers and technology versus the human element when it comes to making military decisions with dramatic implications. Watching WarGames, even today, gives the audience food for thought about our vulnerabilities and our true national interests.