War Games (1983) Reaction & Review! FIRST TIME WATCHING!!
Shan Watches Movies
Views: 18928
Like: 1585
This was an unapologetic 80s film that I wouldn’t consider a classic quite yet. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie though. The concepts of AI and Machine learning were fascinating to see, the humor was on point and the film didn’t take it self too seriously. John Badham was a somewhat competent director and the acting by Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy was also pretty alright. Although it has its flaws, I still think this was a very good film to watch on a Sunday afternoon and a warm cup of coffee.
Full Length Reactions to ALL the films I’ve watched and Early Access at Patreon:
0:00 Intro
1:21 The Film
19:01 The Review
26:13 Outro
Hey guys, I’m Shaneel (Shan). Welcome to the channel!
My reaction and review to War Games (1983) for the first time. Hope you enjoy the video!
*Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. All rights belong to their respective owners.
21.04.2022
Watch Ally Sheedy in "Short Circuit."
Please please watch please please watch the art of deduction robert j oppenheimer body language after the testing of the atomic bomb #2 its a short video
If you want something bit more serious but still in the same vein, check out Brainstorm – a virtual reality progenitor movie. In the current era when Hollywood is into doing remakes, Brainstorm deserves one (there are reasons I say that if you know some history behind it). Here is the trailer for it:
https://youtu.be/NNiZP2G-nEM
Shan, if you want another good John Badham movie, try “Blue Thunder”(1983).
I don’t see what the big deal is; DEFCON 1 ain’t shit. Now had they reached Threat Level Midnight…
Discount Michael Madsen… LMAO. btw that is actually a young Michael Madsen
I was in junior high school when this movie came out and it was very popular with the computer and tech geek crowd, i'm not sure if this was the one of the first or maybe the first hacker movie but a lot of people tried to hack stuff with their home computers after this movie came out, i still have the ColecoVision game cartridge based on this movie, it played a lot like Missile Command.
For an excellent movie with Matthew Broderick I recommend Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
Plot hole #2. Nobody was trying to stop them. The rush was because the door was closing, something that – supposedly – once initiated couldn't be stopped. After that the NORAD was completely sealed, so if they wanted to get in the had to make it. And most of the guards already moved inside. There's little point in guarding from the outside something that is supposed to take multiple nuclear warheads and not break. What would an attacker do? Trying blasting the door with dynamite?
Plot hole #3. Nothing strange there. Even with modern A.I. a computer can understand only what it's exposed to. WORP was exposed to simulations only.
Machine learning was theorized in the 60's. What was less realistic, it's a voice synthesizer like that, but apparently such devices existed just not as good. Also the dialog was a bit too sophisticated unless it was all premade answers.
The internet was literally just tone pulses over analog phone lines, so it was possible to hack just by generating sounds. It was called phone phreaking, and was the origin of the freelance hacker mythology. Before that, the only non-government people with access were academics.
This movie is absolutely loaded with nostalgia for me! The arcade (Galaga!); "PC" tech of the day; general naivety of the decade; the feeling of latent cold war tension; and just Broderic and Sheedy. I love it.
I love this movie — but I always found it hilarious that there was a tour group sightseeing in the top-secret facility, NORAD…lmao
Love the fact that you understand the technology and the history. You had much more context than most reviewers. I was so excited that you spoke my language. 🤓♥️♥️♥️
We leave the movie, all smiles but let's be real, he is in DEEP SHIT! I wonder how many years in prison he had to serve.
thats was john spencer at the beginign he's best known as white house chief of staff leo mcgarry on the west wing tv show
edited: what you see in the movie is why the us passed a law titled: the computer fraud and abuse act, also machine learning has ALWAYS been used with computers
lol@discount Michael Madsen, I'm sure that would make him laugh…
"It's cold calling" – Also referred to as a War dialer.
When you express surprise over David's easy escape from NORAD, or the ease with which they broke down that chain fence: You need to realize (or at least, imagine) how very different this planet and especially the United States were, pre-9/11. Security measures were often very lax when compared to those which are employed today–mostly because Worst Case Scenarios were often simply note even contemplated.
watch dr strangelove for a truly unique take on the topic of thermonuclear war.
You're one clever dude, Shan. "War Games" one of my faves that makes me feel blessed to be a child of the 80's. I mean, c'mon, Spielberg, Hughes, Lucas, Kubrick, Landis, Zemeckis, nuff said. and, of course, John Badham.
By Dawn’s Early Light…. Powers Boothe, Rebecca DeMornay, James Earl Jones… truly terrifying at its time.
After President Reagan saw this movie, he was genuinely worried and asked how much of a concern computer hacking was to national security. When he was told that it was worse than he thought, he ended up having the Defense Department beef up their computer security measures. We started taking cybersecurity seriously thanks to this movie.
The language used in NORAD is the actual one used back in the day. Also Google the event that happened in Russia when they almost launched. 😳
I don't like this movie: at all.
It's not like it affected my professional life: at all.
Watch 'Threads'. A nice wholesome cold war movie.
I loved this film as a kid. Funny how I ended up working in IT. I once worked for a tech company with an HQ in Seattle. They had a huge Compute/Storage cluster called the WOPR. I got the reference straight away!
I have watched this film several times, but not for many years. It is nice to be reminded of it, although it now comes across as more clichéd and stereotypical / corny now that it is so old. In any case, it is delightful to see Matthew Broderick when he was still very cute & handsome.
This movie rocked my world when I was about 12. It's what convinced me that I wanted to work in the technology industry. I didn't know how or what, but I knew I wanted to be surrounded by computers all day long. Now I'm coming up on my 20 year anniversary at Microsoft.
When this movie came out, it actually had a huge impact on public opinion and raised alarms about the possible effects of allowing machine learning into the picture. Remember we grew up under the terrible threat of global thermonuclear war, and this movie was aimed at teens and young adults. Another big problem at this time was the use of simple machine learning to hack into everything from credit cards to schools to hospitals, and there was a real concern this could affect national security.
Heyup Shan, excellent choice. Today it may appear corney but 40 years ago when I first watched it, I found it quite feasable that this was possible.
What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too… Sting
As a military brat who grew up in the cold war and in the Era specifically this movie really struck a cord. Yes it was unrealistic but tension was high, it gave voice to teenagers fears. Red Dawn similarly was a huge film among military brats. Iron Eagle as well.
21:43 All the guards and all the military and DoD personnel are already inside the mountain because the bunker is about to be closed.
Matthew Broderick is great in the Freshman in you haven't seen it its a great watch. Introversion actually made a copy of Gobal Thermonuclear War called DEFCON its on Steam.
That is Michael Madsen
18:18 "The only winning move is not to play." When movies also had message to tell.
A childhood VHS rental classic. Please do Blue Thunder . Another great John Badham film.
12:35 'feeding it different sounds' is how you used to hack over the phone, it was an analog system so if you could mimic the correct sound it would take that input as if it were the data it was supposed to receive, if that makes sense. They used to call it Phreaking.
%93 on RoTTen Tomatoes so 🤪
07.49: The hottest schoolgirl ever!!!
This was a movie aimed at 15 to 17 year olds who hung out in Video Arcades. my era. so I don't think you can expect it to be without flaws or to take it too seriously with that in mind.
Gotta remember this was a movie for teens, and teens in the early 80s. Also back then home computers were in less than 10% (?) of the homes. So many of us had no idea what they could and couldn’t do. Not really fair to try and compare to today. IMHO
This movie looses its punch it had back in 1983 when people were at their highest levels of fear. "The Day After" and several other nuclear war films were released not long before this came out which heightened everyone's fear of nukes already. Plus, computers were just coming out to the public and added a fear of the unknown into the mix.
Most security systems come out of the gate with significant flaws…that are usually discovered by bright teenagers. Good companies try to find and hire those kids before their release date; bad companies don't. And yes – things like this were a LOT easier before digital-everything.
I was in high school at the time this movie was made (hail Galaga!) and this movie was made to make a very distinct point in the political context of the times. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was years away. Glasnost (openness) as a political philosophy in the USSR was not even conceived of. Russian occupation of Afghanistan was still ongoing (oh irony). The US under Reagan was revamping and deploying new ICBM systems and promoting the strategic defense initiative. There were national labor strikes in Poland that were causing tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries. Massive protests in western Europe (Germany in particular) about the US deploying new medium range nuclear weapons systems in NATO countries to put more of the USSR in range of potential nuclear attack. MADD was the acronym of the day and this was all being shown as part of the national news each day/week. The cloud of potential nuclear conflict was very perceptible. A double feature of Dr. Strangelove and WarGames would be a good bookend pairing on highlighting the futility and potential danger of nuclear war, with The Day After thrown in the mix as well. There are still enough deployed nuclear weapons in the US, Russia, China, and other countries to destroy the world as we know it.
I was the Location Manager on WarGames and watched your reaction with great interest because I am aware that it is a dated film. I agree with most of your comments, though…I don't know of any other film that predicted the future as well. Thanks, Robert Decker
In the 80’s my niece changed one of her grades using the school computer. Got caught of course. Almost expelled. I don’t recall what her punishment was but she never did anything like that again. Went on to join the Air Force.
I've always loved this movie. I was only 7 when it came out but the movie has a strong hold on my childhood and has remained a cherished film through adulthood.
Regarding the scene when they broke back into Norad, they were locking up the mountain and I don't really expect them to leave people outside with Nukes highly likely about to land nearby. And I'm prior military, so that's probable…but unlikely during known training drills.
12:35 maybe not on a security door but it was like this for phones back then, you could litterally "sing" the number tonalities to call someone.
13:18 oh… me too, me too