This week I’m hacking through some more (mostly) useless trivia – this time about WarGames. My favorite nugget… I’ll tell you how they recorded the computer voice for Joshua. So, shall we play a game?
16.08.2021
520 Comments
My foster mother wouldn't let me watch the day after movie on TV, but she let me watch this movie in the theater?????????????
In the telephone booth scene Broderick says he is in Colorado when talking to sheedy… he was actually right outside Darrington Washington and the MT in the background is called Whitehorse. Darrington is located about 75 minutes outside Seattle.
Fun fact: I wrote the actor Irving Metzman who plays Richter in the film to ask for his autograph in hopes of completing my Wargames collection and he mailed me his ID badge that he wore in the movie. As an IT guy I think of this as a sort of relic.
Yeah, I find it VERY hard to believe that it never occurred to a single person within the entire military that the events in this movie were possible….until the movie came out.
In the War Room one of the displays on a giant monitor is a map of the United States divided up into regions. That map is accurate, showing the various NORAD regions that divided areas of responsibility for the air defense of the United States.
It’s very topical given the current situation with the cyber security breaches in the USA. Sounds like somebody’s up for being charged with the intrusion
Did you know that in the movie War Games where he gets busted in front of 7-11 was in Big Bear Lake CA along with a few other scenes I was 14 and watched them film the 7-11 scene
I saw this in 83 at the Movie City 5 in Woodbridge NJ. The theater was packed and I was stuck in the far right seat in the first row. I watched this movie at least 3 times since, without a sore neck.
This movie shaped me. I grew up in the 80's with a vic-20, TRS 80, coco2 and more. I had 300 baud modems with acoustic couplers. I was phreaking and bbs'ing from years 8 to 15. Amazing time. When you could open a computer and understand how it worked. When you didn't need a phd to read a data sheet. When you could memorize all the instructions of a processor. Before software and games became expendable. Miss those days.
The first I ever hear of back doors was in this movie, but not the last. My brother told me about a back door for Galahad, which can allow the game to last much longer. The game is seen in the movie. This was all in the 80s when there were not many computer owners, and hackers had a lot of undetected fun. My brother was in high school when he taught himself how to repair arcade games. Techs were scarce, and hard to get to small towns in rural areas. My brother did repairs at the local arcade in return for unlimited free play.
Huge impact on me when I was 13. I wrote my own wardialer for the Apple II. Later expanded it to hack Sprint and MCI codes so I could call long distance to all the BBS at MIT and Berkeley. I became a computer engineer in large part because of this movie.
I believe the most important concept witch the movie are based you just left out ! The "Machine Learning" concept where proposed in academic environment in the mid 1970, and in the time where the movie where made there are not any real world implementation of it ( the first was the "Deep Blue" made by IBM to win over Anatoly Carpov, the best chess master in the world ) but today this concept are ubiquitous …
As a young computer programmer of Basic and Assembly on hobby/home computers of the time, this film changed people's, especially parents', views of our hobby and efforts.
I've always loved this movie Matthew Broderick plays such an intrigue role when i watch this movie it just gives a good feeling about our military that everything is gona be alright here's 2 high school kids that just wanted their grades changed and end up getting caught up in this conspiracy and they thought world war 3 was about to take place or maybe didn't know for sure but had found out that he did something majority wrong in the system all he wanted to do was play a game
There's an episode of the 1960s sci fi TV show "The Invaders" called Condition Red where the aliens have switched computer tapes in NORAD to disguise a fleet of alien saucers mounting an attack. I think the producer of this movie must have seen it.
No credit for the 25th anniversary special features where ALL of this info came from, almost verbatim 😐 I highly recommend those if you loved this movie. lots of good info w/out all the ass-kissing of modern Extras — evolution of the script and some great interviews with cast and crew
In a interview Barry Corbin tells the origin of the "Sparkplug" line, growing up in Texas as a kid and as dare from his friend he pissed on a sparkplug on a running Tractor!!
Can we talk about how great Barry Corbin was in this movie? I always loved his character in the Command & Conquer series (Which was also a general) and it was entirely why I watched this movie.
This movie is the whole reason I chose the US Air Force and Command & Control Battle Management Systems Operator as a career field. In fact, I spent 3 years at NORAD. All of us Gen-Xer Airman used to joke how much we wished our command center looked like the set of WarGames. To this day I still think General Beringer was badass.
The government of the United States, in its passage of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act through Reagan's paranoia, ultimately used this movie as a pretext to murder Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz was a hero who was murdered by the state, and his murder was the result of a paranoid delusion that the state had with anyone who does something they don't like on a computer.
Not so sure about the accuracy of the statement regarding Corbin's character being based on Hartinger. It has been well voiced in the USAF community and especially within SAC that it was based on General Curtis LeMay. His conduct, directness, brashness, no bs talking (or taking) personality and mannerisms was a dead ringer for how Berringer was played. LeMay was a legend throughout the Cold War era for this, and as he was considered the grand-daddy of SAC (under which all ICBM operations and NORAD was controlled) and under his leadership much of these sorts of defense systems were created or modernized – it is much more plausible that this is the case. There was an interview with Corbin at some point in which he even mentioned LeMay being the influence for the character.
I was the Location Manager on "WarGames" and you got a couple facts wrong as well as some omissions. The mouth of the tunnel and the jeep crash were filmed near a small town called Cement, in the Cascades north of Seattle. Yes, the tunnel interior is Griffith Park. The jeep crash was a real accident with the stunt doubles actually getting hurt, but not badly. The chainlink fence they tried to crash through caught under the wheels and flipped the jeep over. The fence should have been rigged by special effects and wasn't. Yes, they chose to keep it in. This was shot while Martin Brest was Director. As with many productions, there was often chaos and poor planning. John Wood was chosen well into pre-production in 1982 after considering many, many actors. The movie was brilliantly cast by Martin Brest, not John Badham. Martin Brest had several extravagant ideas he insisted upon… and there are a number of scenes and shots he made that are in the film…not just the ones you mentioned. Martin "demanded" the interior set of Norad be huge with different levels, catwalks offices, etcetera. The story I heard, was that when Martin and the writers toured Norad, they were going to the real Norad Command center until Martin said something about the storyline that prompted the Military to cancel the tour. Nevertheless, Martin wanted the huge set. Leonard Goldberg, the executive producer was increasingly fed up with demands by Martin and the money being spent on things like the Norad set. Though Martin Brest's filming was going well, I remember that he was falling behind….which is costly and unforgivable to many Producers. As you stated, after two weeks, he was fired and Badham was hired. In my opinion, Goldberg must have wanted to fire Brest earlier but it took some time to line up Badham, who was finishing "Blue Thunder". It is true that the original writers did profound research and came up with ingenious ideas…nevertheless, they were fired at one point and other writers were brought in to change aspects of the script. One of the writers brought in was Walon Green. Eventually, I believe the original writers were brought back. Though Badham's tenure as Director was smoother and he was liked by everyone…it was many of Brest's ideas and concepts that helped make the movie what it is. I do not believe the darker tone of Brest's concepts would have been detrimental to the final film…very hard to say. One of the more difficult choices Brest had to make, was whether the voice of the computer would be heard. Though computers may have had voices, they were not interactive, as I remember it. There was much consternation as to whether this would be believable..but it was decided to add it to the film. My memory is that it was not in the script and the computer's dialogue would have appeared on the computer screen. Obviously, this was a pivotal decision. Before Brest was fired, Goldberg brought in a known Production Manager, Harold Schneider, who had a reputation for firing people and drastic cost cutting. His term on the crew was unpleasant and was probably supposed to be. Goldberg did not have much confidence the film would be successful…mind you Broderick and Sheedy were essentially unknown. Both were very friendly and likable. One other note, there is a scene where Sheedy gives Broderick a ride on her scooter. The schedule had to be changed due to Sheedy crashing the moped….not seriously, but causing a delay in production. Also, originally, in the script, a private jet was to take Broderick and Sheedy to Falcon and was going to land on a two-lane road in the mountains but was cut. Martin Brest and Lisa Weinstein, found the script, originally called "The Genius" and developed it with the writers. They deserve some credit for what the final film is. My name is Robert Decker and I can be contacted through the Location Managers Guild International.
The band papa roach, in their video for “Getting Away With Murder” they have a scene where a stock trading room devolves into a version of reenacting the nuclear war montage from WarGames and it’s honestly a pretty cool use of the imagery.
I saw this movie as a kid in the 90's, from then on I knew I wanted to work with computers, I look at libraries and elsewhere to learn as much as possible, and years later got an engineering degree.
My foster mother wouldn't let me watch the day after movie on TV, but she let me watch this movie in the theater?????????????
I would imagined how cool the song would be if they allowed it in the movie.
In the telephone booth scene Broderick says he is in Colorado when talking to sheedy… he was actually right outside Darrington Washington and the MT in the background is called Whitehorse. Darrington is located about 75 minutes outside Seattle.
Cool movie, cool video!
Fun fact: I wrote the actor Irving Metzman who plays Richter in the film to ask for his autograph in hopes of completing my Wargames collection and he mailed me his ID badge that he wore in the movie. As an IT guy I think of this as a sort of relic.
Falken's actor also played Joshua–holy crap, I never noticed that until you pointed it out! Now I feel dumb for missing it : )
Yeah, I find it VERY hard to believe that it never occurred to a single person within the entire military that the events in this movie were possible….until the movie came out.
I'm calling BULL-SH|T on that one.
This is so great, how on earth do you not have more subscribers
In the War Room one of the displays on a giant monitor is a map of the United States divided up into regions. That map is accurate, showing the various NORAD regions that divided areas of responsibility for the air defense of the United States.
It’s very topical given the current situation with the cyber security breaches in the USA. Sounds like somebody’s up for being charged with the intrusion
I still think the ending should have been totally different. Nuclear holocaust. Then he would have to live with that locked up
that's awesome I had no idea that it triggered legislation basically
Ahhhhhh, a lost classic. 🥰🥰🥰
3:37 . . . !!!!!SNEAKERS!!!!! I LOVE THAT ONE!
Did you know that in the movie War Games where he gets busted in front of 7-11 was in Big Bear Lake CA along with a few other scenes I was 14 and watched them film the 7-11 scene
I saw this in 83 at the Movie City 5 in Woodbridge NJ. The theater was packed and I was stuck in the far right seat in the first row. I watched this movie at least 3 times since, without a sore neck.
Matthew Braddock
In 1983 was cute
With Great Looking hair
I was in love w Matthew Broderick when I was a kid because of this awesome movie. Now my daughter is too lol
0:46 I didn't know Mrs. Doubtfire was in on the deal
This movie shaped me. I grew up in the 80's with a vic-20, TRS 80, coco2 and more. I had 300 baud modems with acoustic couplers. I was phreaking and bbs'ing from years 8 to 15. Amazing time. When you could open a computer and understand how it worked. When you didn't need a phd to read a data sheet. When you could memorize all the instructions of a processor. Before software and games became expendable. Miss those days.
Still the bestest hacker movie there is. Most realistic and accurate tech n tricks.
The first I ever hear of back doors was in this movie, but not the last. My brother told me about a back door for Galahad, which can allow the game to last much longer. The game is seen in the movie. This was all in the 80s when there were not many computer owners, and hackers had a lot of undetected fun.
My brother was in high school when he taught himself how to repair arcade games. Techs were scarce, and hard to get to small towns in rural areas. My brother did repairs at the local arcade in return for unlimited free play.
I believe "war dialling" was actually "War Games dialling", named after the film rather than a standard hacker term.
Huge impact on me when I was 13. I wrote my own wardialer for the Apple II. Later expanded it to hack Sprint and MCI codes so I could call long distance to all the BBS at MIT and Berkeley. I became a computer engineer in large part because of this movie.
Awesome movie, great upload 🙂 This explains why I heard a bit of Falken in Joshua.
I believe the most important concept witch the movie are based you just left out ! The "Machine Learning" concept where proposed in academic environment in the mid 1970, and in the time where the movie where made there are not any real world implementation of it ( the first was the "Deep Blue" made by IBM to win over Anatoly Carpov, the best chess master in the world ) but today this concept are ubiquitous …
As a young computer programmer of Basic and Assembly on hobby/home computers of the time, this film changed people's, especially parents', views of our hobby and efforts.
I've always loved this movie Matthew Broderick plays such an intrigue role when i watch this movie it just gives a good feeling about our military that everything is gona be alright here's 2 high school kids that just wanted their grades changed and end up getting caught up in this conspiracy and they thought world war 3 was about to take place or maybe didn't know for sure but had found out that he did something majority wrong in the system all he wanted to do was play a game
There's an episode of the 1960s sci fi TV show "The Invaders" called Condition Red where the aliens have switched computer tapes in NORAD to disguise a fleet of alien saucers mounting an attack. I think the producer of this movie must have seen it.
You forgot the corn scene
They got nothing wrong……
No credit for the 25th anniversary special features where ALL of this info came from, almost verbatim 😐 I highly recommend those if you loved this movie. lots of good info w/out all the ass-kissing of modern Extras — evolution of the script and some great interviews with cast and crew
He said Backdoor
4:30 Additionally: Hawk is translated to "Falke" in German, so that's a nice touch.
In a interview Barry Corbin tells the origin of the "Sparkplug" line, growing up in Texas as a kid and as dare from his friend he pissed on a sparkplug on a running Tractor!!
Can we talk about how great Barry Corbin was in this movie? I always loved his character in the Command & Conquer series (Which was also a general) and it was entirely why I watched this movie.
There's also Doug Lenat's learning program Eurisko around the same time … https://www.wired.com/2016/03/doug-lenat-artificial-intelligence-common-sense-engine/amp
If your brain can be read then is there any electrical circuit that is hacked proof?
This movie is the whole reason I chose the US Air Force and Command & Control Battle Management Systems Operator as a career field. In fact, I spent 3 years at NORAD. All of us Gen-Xer Airman used to joke how much we wished our command center looked like the set of WarGames. To this day I still think General Beringer was badass.
Listen carefully. Path: Follow path. Gate: Open gate / Through gate / Close gate. Last ferry 6:30 so Run Run Run.
Ally Sheedy is the most attractive human who ever lived. Prove me wrong.
The government of the United States, in its passage of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act through Reagan's paranoia, ultimately used this movie as a pretext to murder Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz was a hero who was murdered by the state, and his murder was the result of a paranoid delusion that the state had with anyone who does something they don't like on a computer.
Not so sure about the accuracy of the statement regarding Corbin's character being based on Hartinger. It has been well voiced in the USAF community and especially within SAC that it was based on General Curtis LeMay. His conduct, directness, brashness, no bs talking (or taking) personality and mannerisms was a dead ringer for how Berringer was played. LeMay was a legend throughout the Cold War era for this, and as he was considered the grand-daddy of SAC (under which all ICBM operations and NORAD was controlled) and under his leadership much of these sorts of defense systems were created or modernized – it is much more plausible that this is the case. There was an interview with Corbin at some point in which he even mentioned LeMay being the influence for the character.
1980's my cat Tiddles could hack into a computer from that time period.
I was the Location Manager on "WarGames" and you got a couple facts wrong as well as some omissions. The mouth of the tunnel and the jeep crash were filmed near a small town called Cement, in the Cascades north of Seattle. Yes, the tunnel interior is Griffith Park. The jeep crash was a real accident with the stunt doubles actually getting hurt, but not badly. The chainlink fence they tried to crash through caught under the wheels and flipped the jeep over. The fence should have been rigged by special effects and wasn't. Yes, they chose to keep it in. This was shot while Martin Brest was Director. As with many productions, there was often chaos and poor planning. John Wood was chosen well into pre-production in 1982 after considering many, many actors. The movie was brilliantly cast by Martin Brest, not John Badham. Martin Brest had several extravagant ideas he insisted upon… and there are a number of scenes and shots he made that are in the film…not just the ones you mentioned. Martin "demanded" the interior set of Norad be huge with different levels, catwalks offices, etcetera. The story I heard, was that when Martin and the writers toured Norad, they were going to the real Norad Command center until Martin said something about the storyline that prompted the Military to cancel the tour. Nevertheless, Martin wanted the huge set. Leonard Goldberg, the executive producer was increasingly fed up with demands by Martin and the money being spent on things like the Norad set. Though Martin Brest's filming was going well, I remember that he was falling behind….which is costly and unforgivable to many Producers. As you stated, after two weeks, he was fired and Badham was hired. In my opinion, Goldberg must have wanted to fire Brest earlier but it took some time to line up Badham, who was finishing "Blue Thunder". It is true that the original writers did profound research and came up with ingenious ideas…nevertheless, they were fired at one point and other writers were brought in to change aspects of the script. One of the writers brought in was Walon Green. Eventually, I believe the original writers were brought back. Though Badham's tenure as Director was smoother and he was liked by everyone…it was many of Brest's ideas and concepts that helped make the movie what it is. I do not believe the darker tone of Brest's concepts would have been detrimental to the final film…very hard to say. One of the more difficult choices Brest had to make, was whether the voice of the computer would be heard. Though computers may have had voices, they were not interactive, as I remember it.
There was much consternation as to whether this would be believable..but it was decided to add it to the film. My memory is that it was not in the script and the computer's dialogue would have appeared on the computer screen. Obviously, this was a pivotal decision. Before Brest was fired, Goldberg brought in a known Production Manager, Harold Schneider, who had a reputation for firing people and drastic cost cutting. His term on the crew was unpleasant and was probably supposed to be. Goldberg did not have much confidence the film would be successful…mind you Broderick and Sheedy were essentially unknown. Both were very friendly and likable. One other note, there is a scene where Sheedy gives Broderick a ride on her scooter. The schedule had to be changed due to Sheedy crashing the moped….not seriously, but causing a delay in production. Also, originally, in the script, a private jet was to take Broderick and Sheedy to Falcon and was going to land on a two-lane road in the mountains but was cut. Martin Brest and Lisa Weinstein, found the script, originally called "The Genius" and developed it with the writers.
They deserve some credit for what the final film is. My name is Robert Decker and I can be contacted through the Location Managers Guild International.
Bet a lot of kids tried to hack a payphone the way it was done in the movie.
The band papa roach, in their video for “Getting Away With Murder” they have a scene where a stock trading room devolves into a version of reenacting the nuclear war montage from WarGames and it’s honestly a pretty cool use of the imagery.
Fantastic movie. It's free on youtube. Go watch it!
I saw this movie as a kid in the 90's, from then on I knew I wanted to work with computers, I look at libraries and elsewhere to learn as much as possible, and years later got an engineering degree.
One of my favorite games “DEFCON” was inspired by this movie.