# Wargames (1980's movie) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 23, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540 "2013-04-23T21:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/81 "2013-04-25T14:36:57Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Two things I know about this movie, as I was around when it first came out, and had a very small part in its production. > \ > > Second (this is first hand), I was given the Original Soundtrack Album before the flick was released to work on for copyright purposes. There were at least two tunes on it that did not appear in the final movie cut. One was a techno-pop song about dinosaurs, with lyrics. I found out later that that the Falken part had been written to show him a little too crazy, and it was trimmed to make the plot move along quicker. At least one tune was cut at the same time and the vocal part about dinos was used only as a short instrumental cut. Was this the music they played on the beach, with the petry – ptreda – flying dinosaurs? I think it’s a lovely moment in the film. Perhaps this will be like the _Wizard of Oz_ where they rediscovered the Jitterbug song that was cut, and re-release a “directors-cut” edition. Seems like enough of us are talking about it so many years later. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/82 "2013-04-25T14:50:40Z")
I love this film. One of my favorites of that era. It does hold up…I’ve owned on DVD for a few years and have watched it several times since the 80s. And 8 inch floppies…gotta love that! ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/83 "2013-04-25T14:57:35Z")
About the computer driven vehicles - it’s an interesting psychological discussion more than anything. Google’s automated cars have driven 300,000 miles without an accident, and they’re still in their infancy. There will be no doubt that if everyone went to automated cars (once the technology is mature, and can handle driving in poor conditions or poor visibility with the same level of skill they do in good weather) that the number of traffic accidents and fatalities would drop tremendously. Instead of losing 30,000 people a year, we may lose 2,000 people a year. If everyone always drove automatically, we may lose 10 people a year. Yet, because a computer failure could mean a deadly accident, people would be far more likely to reject these cars simply because they are not in control of their car crash…somehow a computer glitch causing an accident seems far worse than a negligent driver causing an accident, even though the chances of the glitch might be one in every 20,000,000 miles driven, while the chance of an accident due to human error might be one in every 50,000 miles driven. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/84 "2013-04-25T16:33:50Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I think WOPRs line is, “The only way to win is not to play.” > [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > The only winning move is not to play. That’s right. thanks! ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/85 "2013-04-25T16:35:17Z")
> [@Jman](#): > > About the computer driven vehicles - it’s an interesting psychological discussion more than anything. Google’s automated cars have driven 300,000 miles without an accident, and they’re still in their infancy. There will be no doubt that if everyone went to automated cars (once the technology is mature, and can handle driving in poor conditions or poor visibility with the same level of skill they do in good weather) that the number of traffic accidents and fatalities would drop tremendously. Instead of losing 30,000 people a year, we may lose 2,000 people a year. If everyone always drove automatically, we may lose 10 people a year. > > Yet, because a computer failure could mean a deadly accident, people would be far more likely to reject these cars simply because they are not in control of their car crash…somehow a computer glitch causing an accident seems far worse than a negligent driver causing an accident, even though the chances of the glitch might be one in every 20,000,000 miles driven, while the chance of an accident due to human error might be one in every 50,000 miles driven. Heh. I absolutely am willing to admit that there is a psychological factor involved. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/86 "2013-04-25T16:50:18Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > My favorite line > > I CAN’T SWIM. OK Wonder Woman! My favorite was when David sits down to play Tic Tac Toe in the War room and one military guy helpfully advises “Put X in the center square!” ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/87 "2013-04-25T18:11:05Z")
> [@bdgr](#): > > First of all, you couldn’t generally do a war dialer with a cradle type modem that he uses. It could possibly dial the number, but it couldn’t hang up. (and I never heard it called a war dialer until after the movie). Why couldn’t the computer send a 2600 Hz tone to hang up? ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/88 "2013-04-25T18:19:04Z")
My favorite line was always: “Are either of you paleontologists? I’m in desperate need of a paleontologist.” That gave me Falken’s whole character and personality in one line. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/89 "2013-04-25T18:37:19Z")
> [@Satchmo](#): > > My favorite line was always: > “Are either of you paleontologists? I’m in desperate need of a paleontologist.” > > That gave me Falken’s whole character and personality in one line. “John! Good to see you! I see the wife still picks your ties.” The more I remember this movie, the more great lines I remember. “Mr. Potato Head! MISTER POTATO HEAD! Back doors are not secret!” “Lightman, can you tell me who was the first to suggest reproduction without sex?” “Um…your wife?” “I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good. Let the boy in there, Major.” ---
**Author:** ![Osiris\_the\_1st](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Osiris\_the\_1st](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osiris_the_1st)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/90 "2013-04-25T19:59:18Z")
I also watched this recently and thought it held up surprisingly well. The movie is also mentioned in the recent book Ready Player One as being incorporated as part of a game. > [@tsm](#): > > David has a voice box on his home computer. He shows it to Jennifer when he asks her “Do you want to hear it talk?” It’s a pretty big inconsistency that Dabney Coleman’s office at NORAD would have the same voice synthesizer. Yeah, I know it’s just to make “Joshua” familiar to the audience, but still. As to the speach synthsizer I really assumed that “Joshua’s” voice at the end was really just in David’s head. We get to hear it for the same reason David said everything that he typed out loud. We get to hear the verbal exchange and we’re not just reading text on a screen. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/91 "2013-04-25T20:29:06Z")
Fascinating perspective bdgr. Have you ever written an article or whatnot about all this? It’d make a great read. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/92 "2013-04-25T22:10:46Z")
Guess who is watching this movie tonight on Netflix. sparky!, that’s who. I actually only saw this once a few years ago (and I was born in '75). I really liked it then and look forward to getting my 80s fix tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Ennui](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ennui/32/3396_2.png) [@Ennui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennui)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/93 "2013-04-25T22:46:37Z")
I haven’t seen the movie in years but reading this thread makes me want to. I’m trying to remember the line but there was a scene where David is walking through his living room and if you listen carefully there’s a TV newscaster saying something about a fire in a “prophylactic recycling center.” I love stupid stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/94 "2013-04-25T22:52:18Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > “Lightman, can you tell me who was the first to suggest reproduction without sex?” > “Um…your wife?” That joke predates _WarGames_ by a considerable margin, though. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/95 "2013-04-25T23:34:48Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Two things I know about this movie, as I was around when it first came out, and had a very small part in its production. > > First (this is not first hand), since actors are not typists, a special keyboard was rigged so that _any_ key pressed triggered the display of the next character in a prepared sequence. Therefore, the sound of the keys matched the display and the actors could be sloppy about what keys they actually pressed as long as they didn’t press too few or too many. This also prevented erasures and backups. > > Second (this is first hand), I was given the Original Soundtrack Album before the flick was released to work on for copyright purposes. There were at least two tunes on it that did not appear in the final movie cut. One was a techno-pop song about dinosaurs, with lyrics. I found out later that that the Falken part had been written to show him a little too crazy, and it was trimmed to make the plot move along quicker. At least one tune was cut at the same time and the vocal part about dinos was used only as a short instrumental cut. Neat about the keyboard thing. I read somewhere that while developing it director John Badham wanted Falken to be played by ex-Beatle **John Lennon!** > [@bdgr](#): > > The speech synthesizer certainly was available, but it wasn’t something a computer you just hacked into would be expected to support. That’s not true. The kid’s local speech synthesizer in his room would have just been driven by the text appearing on his screen (Broderick says as much). Like I said earlier though, the voice they used was much too advanced sounding for the time, it would have been decidedly more Stephen Hawking-ish (I’m sure that it wasn’t real, it was an actor’s voice electronically modified). And, like I said, it would have been \*highly \*unlikely for that exact same voice to have been heard on the NORAD system (it was just for the drama of the film). > [@Zebra](#): > > My favorite line > > I CAN’T SWIM. OK Wonder Woman! > > Here he’s be escaping the Feds and doing many amazing things but he has to admit that he can’t swim. Given I was like 17 when I saw it my immediate thought was that with the prospect of seeing undies-only clad (or less!!) Ally Sheedy, I’d have learned how to swim right then & there or drown trying!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/96 "2013-04-26T01:22:43Z")
> [@tsm](#): > > That’s a good point. Now I wonder why McKittrick has a voice synthesizer on his office computer at all. Um, it was the '80s and it was cool? > [@bdgr](#): > > The speech synthesizer certainly was available, but it wasn’t something a computer you just hacked into would be expected to support. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > That’s not true. The kid’s local speech synthesizer in his room would have just been driven by the text appearing on his screen (Broderick says as much). Yeah, most synths of the time read straight ASCII. His terminal probably used fancier control codes. > [@](#): > > Given I was like 17 when I saw it my immediate thought was that with the prospect of seeing undies-only clad (or less!!) Ally Sheedy, I’d have learned how to swim right then & there or drown trying!! 😃 I was 29 and thought I was a perv thinking the same thing. It turns out she was 21 and I was perfectly not pervy. Whew! ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/97 "2013-04-26T01:48:07Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > Was this the music they played on the beach, with the petry – ptreda – flying dinosaurs? I think it’s a lovely moment in the film. Perhaps this will be like the _Wizard of Oz_ where they rediscovered the Jitterbug song that was cut, and re-release a “directors-cut” edition. Seems like enough of us are talking about it so many years later. I think so, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen the movie or heard the music. I just remember the dinosaur segment as having more songs, longer ones, and ones with lyrics, most of which were cut from the preliminary edit. It’s possible that copies of the original soundtrack were released with those still present; my copy was a pre-release version. Not all soundtracks match the movie as sometimes edits are fast and furious close to official release time. I recall getting a pre-release pressing of Close Encounters, and being quite surprised that the final song was Disney’s “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which caused all of us in my shop to say WTF several times over. Apparently we weren’t the only ones to think that, as the final movie stripped it out completely. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/98 "2013-04-26T13:22:37Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I was 29 and thought I was a perv thinking the same thing. It turns out she was 21 and I was perfectly not pervy. Whew! Hate to break it to you but do the math. You are an old man now. And therefore automatically pervy 🙂 Hope you enjoyed those few perv free years back in the day… Oh, the WOPR. Gotta love that “name” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/99 "2013-04-26T14:45:22Z")
About a week ago, Amazon’s free app of the day for Android/Kindle Fire was “[WarGames: WOPR](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.berad.wargames&feature=nav_result)”, an officially-licensed game. Very little to do with the movie, but it’s still a fun little time-waster, and pretty challenging at some stages. It’s addicting; I’ve been playing it all week. It’s not free any more, but regular price is only a dollar. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540/100 "2013-04-26T14:45:55Z")
Assuming that “21” was at least 21 and a half, and “29” was on the low end of that year, or assuming favorable rounding, then the math works out OK for **dropzone**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wargames-1980s-movie/656540.md?page=6)