‘WarGames’: Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy Inspired a Generation of Computer Geeks With the Cult Classic Movie
Some movies make a mark on an entire generation. These cult classics can have an impact far greater than ever thought possible. Actors Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy did just that when they starred in the 1983 film, WarGames.
‘WarGames’ is an ’80s tech cult classic starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy
Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, and Walon Green (uncredited) wrote WarGames, which premiered in 1983, according to IMDb. John Badham directed the film that also had Broderick and Sheedy in the two starring roles.
In WarGames, David Lightman, played by Broderick, is an intelligent teen who loves playing video games or fiddling around with his computer. Lightman finds another computer that seems to be affiliated with a game company while doing an automated modem search. At first, he doesn’t have the necessary password but is able to figure it out after extensive research. Lightman begins playing the “Global Thermonuclear War” game and sets Seattle, his hometown, and Las Vegas as targets for nuclear missiles.
What Lightman doesn’t know is that he isn’t playing on the computer at some gaming company. He’s actually interacting with the War Operations Plan Response or W.O.P.R. It’s a top-secret system that helps the military decide what to do in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. To the military officials watching Lightman play in their situation room, it appears to be a real first-strike situation.
The military figures out who is playing the “game” and Lightman and his girlfriend, Jennifer, are arrested and brought to the top-secret military facility. Upon his arrival, Lightman realizes that the W.O.P.R. is still playing Global Thermonuclear War, but this time it is for real. Someone must stop it before a real thermonuclear war breaks out between the U.S. and Russia.
‘WarGames’ is almost 40 years old and continues to inspire
According to Wired, Google hosted a 25th-anniversary screening of WarGames in 2008 with Google engineers cheering on Broderick’s character as he works to save the world from a computer game.
Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, told those in the audience, “Many of us grew up with this movie. It was a key movie of a generation, especially for those of us who got into computing.”
The CyberSecurity Education Guides says, “It’s heady stuff for nerds grubbing down pizza and playing PC games in the basement throughout high school — a path toward power and respect that makes use of their talents and intelligence during a period of their lives when the big guys on the football team are usually getting most of the attention.”
The creators originally titled ‘WarGames’ as ‘The Genius’
The two main screenwriters of WarGames, Parkes and Lasker, started out with a completely different concept for their movie. Their original idea, by the name of The Genius, was going to be “about a dying scientist and the only person in the world who understands him — a rebellious kid who’s too smart for his own good. The idea of featuring computers and computer networks would come later.” The dying scientist was supposed to be someone like Stephen Hawking.
The Futurist and Creative Consultant for the film, Peter Schwartz, worked at the Stanford Research Institute. He introduced Parkes and Lasker to this developing subculture of extremely bright kids who would later become known as hackers. He made the connection between these youth, computers, the military, and gaming.
There were many different iterations of the film but eventually, The Genius morphed into WarGames. WarGames was made for $12 million and went on to make $80 million-plus three Oscar nominations. Cold War-weary moviegoers were relieved and inspired when the W.O.P.R. said, “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
