WarGames (1983)

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Rating: PG
Director: John Badham
Writers: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, Walon Green
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood
Release Date: June 3, 1983 (United States)
Run time: 1 hour, 54 minutes

THE PLOT:

via wiki:

During a surprise nuclear attack drill, many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing controllers prove unwilling to turn the keys required to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince John McKittrick and other NORAD systems engineers that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer known as WOPR (War Operation Plan Response, pronounced “whopper“), programmed to continuously run war simulations and learn over time.

David Lightman, a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and hacker, uses his IMSAI 8080 computer to access the school district’s computer system and change his grades. He does the same for his friend and classmate Jennifer Mack. Later, while war dialing numbers in Sunnyvale, California, to find a computer game company, he connects with a system that does not identify itself. Asking for games, he finds a list including chess, checkers, backgammon, and poker along with titles such as “Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare” and “Global Thermonuclear War”, but cannot proceed further. Two hacker friends explain the concept of a backdoor password and suggest tracking down the Falken referenced in “Falken’s Maze”, the first game listed. David discovers that Stephen Falken was an early artificial-intelligence researcher, and guesses correctly that the name of Falken’s deceased son (Joshua) is the password.

Unaware that the Sunnyvale phone number connects to WOPR at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, David initiates a game of Global Thermonuclear War, playing as the Soviet Union while targeting American cities. The computer starts a simulation that briefly convinces NORAD military personnel that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound. While they defuse the situation, WOPR nonetheless continues the simulation to trigger the scenario and win the game, as it does not understand the difference between reality and simulation. It continuously feeds false data such as Soviet bomber incursions and submarine deployments to NORAD, pushing them to increase the DEFCON level toward a retaliation that will start World War III.

David learns the true nature of his actions from a news broadcast, and FBI special agents arrest him and take him to NORAD. He realizes that WOPR is behind the NORAD alerts, but he fails to convince McKittrick (who believes David is working for the Soviets) and is charged with espionage. David escapes NORAD by joining a tourist group and, with Jennifer’s help, travels to the Oregon island where Falken lives under the alias “Robert Hume”. David and Jennifer find that Falken has become despondent, believing that nuclear war is inevitable and as futile as a game of tic-tac-toe between two experienced players. The teenagers convince Falken that he should return to NORAD to stop WOPR.

WOPR stages a massive Soviet first strike with hundreds of missiles, submarines, and bombers. Believing the attack to be genuine, NORAD prepares to retaliate. Falken, David, and Jennifer convince military officials to delay the second strike and ride out the supposed attack until actual weapons impacts are confirmed. When the targeted American bases report back unharmed, NORAD prepares to cancel the retaliatory second strike. WOPR tries to launch the missiles itself using a brute-force attack to obtain the launch codes. Without humans in the control centers as a safeguard using the two-man rule, the computer will trigger a mass launch. All attempts to log in and order WOPR to cancel the countdown fail. Disconnecting the computer is discussed and dismissed, as a fail-deadly mechanism will launch all weapons if the computer is disabled.

Falken and David direct the computer to play tic-tac-toe against itself. This results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn the concept of futility and no-win scenarios. WOPR obtains the launch codes, but before launching, it cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding that they all result in draws as well. Having discovered the concept of mutual assured destruction (“WINNER: NONE”), the computer tells Falken it has concluded that nuclear war is “a strange game” in which “the only winning move is not to play.” WOPR relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles and offers to play “a nice game of chess”.

My Review

WarGames is an excellent science fiction film from 1983 that helps us to imagine a scenario wherein an artificial intelligence is capable of starting a thermonuclear war. The movie is fundamentally an argument against nuclear weapons build-up, comparing the idea of fighting a war wherein those weapons are used to a futile game of tic-tac-toe, wherein the game always ends in a draw.

By the early ’80s, in the midst of the Cold War, the idea of “mutually assured destruction” was understood by the humans with decision-making power in the United States and in the Soviet Union. However, by the early ’80s, a new threat to that stalemate appeared on the horizon: Artificial Intelligence. As technology pushed forward, a dangerous thought began to occur to our decision-makers and to the artists who tell our stories. What would happen if the machines turned against us? In the case as laid out by WarGames, the AI Joshua is not malicious. It just believes itself to be playing a game, and does not understand the potential consequences of its own actions. We see in other period films, probably mot notably, The Terminator, a malicious AI. Either way though, the innate fear is the loss of control to something which does not value our own existence in the same way that we do.

Forty years later, we are now facing those threats in the news cycle. Recently, OpenAI fired its co-founder and CEO, Sam Altman, after the discovery of an advancement in the technology that board members believed posed a threat to humanity. Nuclear technology was developed and then proliferated over a concern that failure to do so would leave humanity vulnerable against an enemy without a conscience. AI technology is being developed for many of the same reasons. One wonders, though, whether it’s possible to achieve a state of “mutually assured destruction” in the realm of this technology. If not, then how can we proceed? Do we have an alternative except to proceed?

Less ominously than the annihilation of humanity, an undercurrent in the film is a long-standing one in the area of computer technology. The older generation fears the younger generation being better at the technology than they are. Matthew Broderick’s character single-handedly breaks into a top secret NORAD computer and unwittingly almost ends civilization. He is able to do this because he intuitively understands technology in a way that his much older authority figures do not. We are now on our second or third generation of this reality as a species. It’s almost a mark of reaching middle age that one’s kids become better with tech than they are. That’s a scary thing to deal with in a world wherein unknown dangers lurk in that technology. It’s also a perpetual temptation for the young who do not fully understand yet those dangers they have not faced.

Themes aside, I really enjoyed the movie. Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy are great. The story is quickly-paced with no lags. The technology, though extremely dated in appearance, filled me with a lot of positive nostalgia. The emotional undercurrent brought about by the history of Dr. Falkner and his deceased son, resonated despite not being a story focus.

My only real gripe with the movie is how easily and quickly a pair of teenagers were able to travel long distances. None of it was impossible, but it felt very improbable. I think dragging the timeline out for the story might have helped with that, to some degree, but to be honest, it wasn’t such a problem that it really distracted me a lot.

I recommend giving WarGames a rewatch if you haven’t seen it before, or if you haven’t seen it in a while. It’s really well done, very entertaining and it’s strangely timely four decades after its release.

Have you seen WarGames before? What did you think?