NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Wargames

WarGames is a 1983 suspense film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. With Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin as General Jack Beringer, the film starred Matthew Broderick in his second major film role. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (533x738, 39 KB) This image is of a film poster, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the film or the studio which produced the film in question. ... John Badham (born August 25, 1939, UK) is a film director. ... Martin Brest (August 8, 1951) is an American filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, film editor, and actor. ... Writer and producer who entered American film in 1983. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is a Tony Award-winning American film and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as the title character in Ferris Buellers Day Off. ... Alexandra Elizabeth Ally Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American screen and stage actress, possibly best known for her roles in the Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club and St. ... John Wood (born 1930) is an English actor. ... Arthur B. Rubinstein (born March 31, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York) is a composer and behind in particular several TV series soundtracks, but also occasional film scores, possibly most notably work such as Video Fever and Edge of the World in the film WarGames. ... William A. Fraker (born on September 29, 1923 in Los Angeles, California), is a cinematographer, film director, and producer. ... For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... is the 154th day of the year (155th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... War games may refer to: WarGames, a 1983 film directed by John Badham WarGames (game), a Colecovision video game War Game (book and film), Childrens book and animated short film The War Game, a 1965 BBC film for television The War Games, a Doctor Who serial War Games, a... // February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Lets Spend the Night Together opens in New York North Americas Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Tootsie Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy Superman III Flashdance Staying Alive Octopussy Mr. ... Look up Suspense in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... Writer and producer who entered American film in 1983. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... John Badham (born August 25, 1939, UK) is a film director. ... Alexandra Elizabeth Ally Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American screen and stage actress, possibly best known for her roles in the Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club and St. ... Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. ... Leonard Barrie Barry Corbin (born October 16, 1940) is an American character actor with over 100 credits in film and television and several in computer games. ... Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is a Tony Award-winning American film and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as the title character in Ferris Buellers Day Off. ...

The movie was a box office success, costing US$12 million but grossing over $74 million after five months in the United States. With a cost of $1 million, the NORAD set was the most expensive single movie set ever built up to that time^[2] (the set of the volcano lair in You Only Live Twice cost just over $1 million^[3], but both these figures are approximate). USD redirects here. ... NORAD Headquarters Building. ... In drama, the set (or setting) is the location of a storys action. ... For the Ian Fleming novel, see You Only Live Twice. ...

In November 2006, the pre-production of a sequel, titled WarGames 2: The Dead Code,^[4] began. It will be directed by Stuart Gillard, and star Matt Lanter as a hacker named Will Farmer facing off with a government supercomputer called Ripley.^[5] Matthew Mackendree Lanter (born April 1, 1983) is an American actor, best known for his role as Horace Calloway in the ABC television drama Commander in Chief. ...

Plot

The film is set late in the Cold War period, opening on a U.S. Air Force ICBM launch control center where its crew receives orders to launch nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union; when the crew commander (played by John Spencer) refuses to launch their missiles, this is revealed to be part of a larger psychological experiment by the military, testing whether U.S. missile crews would do the same in the event of a real nuclear attack. It is mentioned that twenty-two percent of crews tested failed to launch their missiles, prompting NORAD to install an automated computer system, the "War Operation Plan Response" or WOPR, to oversee launching of U.S. nuclear missiles. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... Seal of the Air Force. ... A Minuteman III missile soars after a test launch. ... For other persons named John Spencer, see John Spencer (disambiguation). ... NORAD is short for: North American Aerospace Defense Command Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... WOPR (pronounced Whopper) is a fictional military computer featured in the feature movie WarGames. ... A Minuteman III missile soars after a test launch. ...

The film's protagonist, David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), is introduced as a high school computer hacker, whose gaming addiction leads to low school performance, which he covers up by illicitly accessing the school's computer database and manually adjusting his reported grades. To impress a girl he has a crush on, Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), he changes one of her grades as well, but she has him restore it. While performing an automated telephone search in an attempt to locate and hack into a computer game company, David uncovers a connection to the WOPR, although without a password, he is unable to gain access to anything more than a list of games. He assumes that this is the game company's computer, and starts digging for the password. Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is a Tony Award-winning American film and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as the title character in Ferris Buellers Day Off. ... This article is about computer hacking. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into computer addiction. ... Alexandra Elizabeth Ally Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American screen and stage actress, possibly best known for her roles in the Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club and St. ...

After consulting with a friend at a computer shop and being advised of backdoor passwords, David researches the system's programmer, Stephen W. Falken, learning that the scientist designed computer systems for the military. After studying the late Falken's biography, David is able to successfully log in to the WOPR system using the name of Falken's son, "Joshua" who died at a young age. David instructs the system to execute a game called "Global Thermonuclear War", chooses to play the side of the Soviet Union, and aims virtual missiles at American cities, unaware that the WOPR's simulations of the attack have prompted a DEFCON 3 alert at NORAD HQ. A backdoor in a computer system (or cryptosystem or algorithm) is a method of bypassing normal authentication or securing remote access to a computer, while attempting to remain hidden from casual inspection. ... This article is about nuclear war as a form of actual warfare, including history. ... The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is a measure of the activation and readiness level of the United States Armed Forces. ...

When David learns about a brief alert at NORAD HQ through local news, he assumes he will be held responsible and begins disposing of the study materials he collected about Falken; the WOPR (now addressing itself as "Joshua") phones back, informing David that the "game" is still in progress and it is still trying to "win". David is soon arrested, taken to Cheyenne Mountain, introduced to John McKittrick (once an assistant to Professor Falken), and questioned, as the military believes he may have been recruited by the Soviet KGB. When David is later discovered using McKittrick's terminal to have a conversation with "Joshua" he is accused of espionage and confined to the base's medical infirmary -- although David is able to concoct a means of escape and blends in with a tourist group leaving the facility. From Joshua, he learned that Professor Falken is alive and living under an assumed name in Goose Island, Oregon. Image File history File links Wargames_Computer_Screenshot. ... Image File history File links Wargames_Computer_Screenshot_2. ... Image File history File links Wargames_Computer_Screenshot_3. ... Cheyenne Mountain is a mountain located on the southwest side of Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and is home to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station[1] and its Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, formerly known as the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC). ... This article is about the KGB of the Soviet Union. ... Spy and Secret agent redirect here. ... For the town in the Republic of Ireland, see Hospital, County Limerick. ...

After putting some distance between himself and Cheyenne Mountain, David phones Jennifer and they rendezvous near Goose Island to locate Falken. Though initially rebuffed, they talk with him about "Joshua". Falken reveals that the WOPR "never learned the most important lesson of all -- futility" (citing the game of Tic-tac-toe as an example), and that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union may be inevitable. The cynical professor eventually decides to help stop the "game", and travels back to NORAD HQ with David and Jennifer even as Air Force personnel, reacting to the supposed Soviet activity, are locking down the base in preparation for World War III. Falken tries to convince General Beringer (never a big supporter of the WOPR) that the Soviet "activity," including nuclear missile launches, is only a computer simulation. Deciding against an immediate counterstrike, the general brings online three northern Air Force bases that are first in line for destruction. Cheyenne Mountain is a mountain located on the southwest side of Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and is home to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station[1] and its Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, formerly known as the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC). ... Tic-tac-toe, also called noughts and crosses and many other names, is a paper and pencil game between two players, O and X, who alternate in marking the spaces in a 3×3 board. ... â€œThe U.S. Air Forceâ€ redirects here. ...

As the countdown reaches zero, the display board shows detonations in Alaska, Maine and North Dakota. NORAD asks, "Are you still on?" and an uncomfortable silence follows, while more impacts are registered. The question is asked again, and replies come back. There's been no nuclear strike, and the order is given to stand down the missiles and recall the bombers, which had been readied to attack the Soviet Union.

They quickly discover, however, that their own security has locked them out of the missile control systems and, assuming their failure to launch their missiles as a Soviet undermining of command authority, is executing a brute-force attack on the missile launch code to perform a nuclear counterstrike itself. NORAD staff calculate that it would take longer to disconnect the U.S. missiles than it would for the WOPR to determine the missiles' launch code, and that attempting to shut off the WOPR directly would cause the now-computer-controlled U.S. missile silos to assume a destruction of NORAD HQ and launch automatically. Falken and David discover that they are unable to log back in to the system (the 'backdoor' password was removed), but they are able to play a game of tic-tac-toe against the machine, and then instruct the WOPR to play tic-tac-toe against itself. The WOPR enters a loop even as it finishes deciphering the missile launch codes, as each game of tic-tac-toe ends in a tie, "Winner: None". In cryptanalysis, a brute force attack on a cipher is a brute-force search of the key space; that is, testing all possible keys, in an attempt to recover the plaintext used to produce a particular ciphertext. ... Tic-tac-toe, also called noughts and crosses and many other names, is a paper and pencil game between two players, O and X, who alternate in marking the spaces in a 3×3 board. ...

With the missile launch codes discovered, WOPR displays a U.S. first strike of missiles, but one that is so quick that it's clearly a simulation. As losses are computed for both U.S. and Soviet sides, the computer reaches the same conclusion it did for the tic-tac-toe games, "Winner: None". It then calculates alternate scenarios leading to nuclear missile strikes, entering another loop as each scenario plays out the same -- all ending in nuclear strikes, destruction of both sides, and no 'winner'. After calculating hundreds of scenarios at an increasingly rapid pace, the WOPR ceases simulations, displaying a message on screen as it labels the simulations as "a strange game" where "the only winning move ... is not to play". The base crew rejoices as the WOPR suggests "a nice game of chess" to play instead. At movie's end, General Berringer gives the order, "Take us to DefCon 5." Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. ...

Cultural background

WarGames was a "What if?" story that wove together at least four different ideas drawn from contemporary events in the early 1980s, although some events may have been more coincidental than inspirational^{[citation needed]}. In 1980, there had been two incidents where a computer at NORAD had triggered false alarms of a missile attack. The early 1980s were the height of the Golden age of arcade games. By 1983, teenage hackers, such as the 414s in Milwaukee, were using modems to break into computer systems across America, and were attracting the interest of mainstream media. Finally, fears of nuclear war and an exchange of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with the Soviet Union were especially high (The Day After was broadcast later in the year). Image File history File links Ambox_emblem_question. ... NORAD is short for: North American Aerospace Defense Command Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Golden Age of Arcade Games was a peak era of arcade game popularity and innovation, lasting from January 18, 1982 to January 5, 1986. ... This article is about computer hacking. ... The 414s gained fame in the early 1980s as a group of friends and computer hackers who broke into dozens of high-profile computer systems, including ones at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Security Pacific Bank [1]. They were eventually identified as six teenagers, taking their... Nuclear War is a card game designed by Douglas Malewicki, and originally published in 1966. ... This article is about the 1983 TV movie about nuclear war. ...

WarGames was released on the American scene during the time of the personal computer explosion. Early personal computers were being used by young programmers and gamers across the country. The movie proved popular because many kids saw themselves in the character of David Lightman (or his would-be girlfriend). The film showed the possibilities of computers as home entertainment. The movie motivated some young programmers to write simulations in BASIC that simulated the WarGames movie. "Greetings Professor Falken," spoken in the vocoder "voice" of Joshua/WOPR was a catch-phrase for fans of the film. This article is about the programming language. ... A vocoder (name derived from voice encoder, formerly also called voder) is a speech analyzer and synthesizer. ...

Cast

The popular '80s video game, Galaga, is used in the movie several times. In fact, when the tour group is being shown around Crystal Palace and the lady is asked to push the "red" button by the tour leader, the sound bite that accompanies the "welcome" message displayed on the big screen is a sound bite from the arcade game Galaga. Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is a Tony Award-winning American film and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as the title character in Ferris Buellers Day Off. ... Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. ... John Wood (born 1930) is an English actor. ... Alexandra Elizabeth Ally Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American screen and stage actress, possibly best known for her roles in the Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club and St. ... Leonard Barrie Barry Corbin (born October 16, 1940) is an American character actor with over 100 credits in film and television and several in computer games. ... Juanin Clay (born November 26, 1949 in Los Angeles, California; died March 12, 1995 in Los Angeles) was an American actress who appeared in the 1983 movie WarGames. ... Kent Williams is an American actor and voice actor. ... Dennis Lipscomb is an American actor of both leading and supporting roles. ... Joe Dorsey (born 1925) is an American character actor. ... }} Michael Ensign (born February 13, 1944) is a British-American actor. ... William Bogert (born January 24, 1936 in New York, New York) is an American character actor best known for his semi-regular role of Brandon Brindle on Small Wonder from 1985 to 1989. ... James Tolkan (born June 20, 1931 in Calumet, Michigan) is an American character actor. ... For other persons named John Spencer, see John Spencer (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Michael Madsen (disambiguation). ... Jason Bernard (b. ... Jesse D. Goins is an African-American character actor who has starred in film and on television. ... Maury Chaykin (born July 27, 1949) is a Canadian/American actor. ... Eddie Deezen (born March 6, 1958 in Cumberland, Maryland) is an American character actor, primarily cast in stereotypical nerd roles. ... Art LaFleur (born on September 9, 1943 in Gary, Indiana) is an American character actor. ... Frances E. Nealy (October 14, 1918 - May 23, 1997) was an American actress. ... Computer and video games redirects here. ... Galaga is a fixed shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1981 (and also licensed to Midway). ... NORAD Headquarters Building. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ...

Awards

WarGames was nominated for three Oscars: Image File history File links Wargames_View_at_NORAD.png Summary View at NORAD after David decides to nuke few US cities playing as the russians in a game Licensing This image is a screenshot from a copyrighted film, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the studio which produced... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ...

Charles Rosher the first recipient in 1928 The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is awarded each year to a cinematographer for his work in one particular motion picture. ... William A. Fraker (born on September 29, 1923 in Los Angeles, California), is a cinematographer, film director, and producer. ... The Academy Award for Sound Mixing is an Academy Award that recognizes the finest or most aesthetic sound mixing or recording, and is generally awarded to the production sound mixers and re-recording mixers of the winning film. ... Willie D. Burton is an African-American sound editor. ... // The Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. ... Writer and producer who entered American film in 1983. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

References

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) [1] is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Contents

Plot

Cultural background

Cast

Awards

References

See also

External links

Contents

Plot GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Cultural background

Cast

Awards

References

See also

External links

Plot