This post contains spoilers. This is not a review but more of a mini-analysis. I assume you’ve seen the movie. This is just my interpretation. You can watch the trailer at the end of this post.
WIth all the talk of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and both America and Russia making competing claims to greatness again, I thought it was time to revisit the 80's classic Wargames. The film is directed by John Badham and stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy and Eddie Deezen. Does it hold up? Technologically it's quite dated. Even the supercomputers look old fashioned. Our phones are many times more powerful than the graphically challenged personal computer that kids were in awe of in the early 80s. Teenagers today would not know about modems that dialed over telephone lines and so must be utterly confused by a modem that literally speaks and listens through a phone's handset. Thematically, it seems spot on for today. It's just that there are now more sophisticated hackers than the high school kid in this film. It also gets rather slow through the second half. Perhaps only a younger me was able to appreciate the adventure aspect of teenagers going against ignorant set-in-their ways adults to solve an international crisis.
The Plot
You've seen this, right? In case you need a refresher, David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) is a high school student who hacks into a computer system to play a game called Thermonuclear War. The computer begins a simulation of worldwide nuclear war that results in the military readying a nuclear response. The computer system is actually in control of the American nuclear weapons system and thinks the game is for real. Having taken control of launches from human beings and handing them to an emotionless computer system, the government is left powerless to prevent full-out nuclear war. They end up teaching the computer tic-tac-toe in which it learns there is no winning scenario. Everyone loses in a nuclear war.
Thoughts on the Film
The film starts with a secret underground Air Force base located under a house. We are introduced to what was then considered a high tech base. It has a look similar to the interior of a spaceship, a look common in a time of fictional space operas and real-life space shuttles. The opening scene demonstrates the difficult authorization procedures required before launching a nuclear missile. Some humanity is displayed by one man who disobeys orders to turn his key and launch the missiles. This was of course a test. Reluctance is natural. That officers are more concerned that a soldier obeys a launch order than they are worried about a nuclear launch made in error. This sets up the main premise, that computers should take the place of humans as computers would not have a conscience that prevents them from talking action. It only takes a teenage hacker to accidentally cause the computer AI to attempt a nuclear strike to win a game.
Movies have taught audiences to fear artificial intelligence, from HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Skynet in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as well as in the terrifying conclusion to A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Similarly, this film presents an early version of an AI that appeals to human emotions with a robotic voice, but is in essence a cold sociopathic killer. Pure reason can lead to fearful conclusions that render humans just a nuisance, eventually obsolete.
For films of this time period, David is an unusual depiction of a computer expert. He is a class clown and fails classes at school. His first demonstration of hacking involves breaking into the school computers to change his grades. It's not any display of hacking ability. He merely steals the password from the principal's desk drawer. This scene is copied in a later movie of his, when his title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off also hacks into a school computer, but this time to change his attendance record.
There is a clear divide between youth and adults in the film. The old are the government officials who are willing to destroy the earth. The young are those who stand to inherit nothing but disaster. The divide extends to their teachers and parents. David and his girlfriend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) refer to a 41-year old as being pretty old. The film is firmly seeking a teenage audience. I loved this as a kid. It's still good, but I'm not relating to the main characters anymore.
There is some talk of a plan to remake the film. Perhaps it makes sense given the present heightened security state we live in. Will people complain that a remake is destroying their childhood? Nobody should be nostalgic for cold war nuclear scares. They already attempted cold war nostalgia with a Red Dawn remake. Perhaps some people loved the superpower rivalry and fantasized about taking up guns to fight off invading communists. But Wargames is in contrast to this in seeking to prevent war rather than trying to win an unwinnable game.The 80s was in many ways a horrible time to grow up in, terrified that at any moment bombs would drop. I remember my 6th grade teacher telling me that the Russians had nukes aimed a couple blocks from our school because that would enable the bomb to take out both Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
Although the film is slightly dated and about a half hour too long, it is worth watching for its depiction of the years near the end of the cold war. Perhaps because this was the time in which I grew up, it has a very specific memory of the fears of world destruction. I was too young to really understand what it meant. I hope we aren't getting back into such a mentality.