WarGames (1983) | First Time Watching | Reaction and Commentary

[@VerowakReacts]

This movie influenced so many things, even laws about hacking! What other movies have had a big impact on society? Patreon (full length & polls): www.patreon.com/ Request a movie for me to watch: www.reactr.tv/verowak Become a channel member for Early Access: kzbin.infojoin Subscribe to the channel: kzbin.info

[@rowenatulley852]

One movie that I WISH would have more impact is I, Robot. With AI being all the rage these days, the movie offers a sobering reminder of what could happen if AI becomes sentient . . .

[@BKPrice]

Back to the Future 2. The Cubs won the series just one year after that movie predicted.

[@promiscuous675]

@@BKPrice Also people have been trying to create the hoverboards depicted in that movie since it came out.

[@promiscuous675]

"Jaws" (1975) led to the worldwide destruction of shark populations.

[@JDMSE3P]

After the movie “Top Gun” came out there was a huge spike in enrollment into the military. I wanted to become a fighter pilot but unfortunately was near sighted and need to wear glasses. You need perfect vision to be a fighter pilot.

[@GlassJAw413]

The tech stuff is pretty much spot on. The writers of the movie were into the hacking and phreaking scene in the 70's that many tech guys were into at the time. The writers later wrote a kind of tech spy comedy called Sneakers that stars Robert Redford that has become a cult classic.

[@rc31802]

@@GlassJAw413 love Sneakers!

[@uncoolmartin460]

was gonna mention Sneakers my self but I'll put my vote here instead. Great film.

[@lodrbyroni]

@@uncoolmartin460 Every time I hear Geese I think of a cocktail party.

[@davidcorriveau8615]

Sneakers has a heck of a cast....

[@Vegasbill80]

"The only winning move is not to play." The best line

[@Streunekater]

... if only world leaders would understand this.

[@stell4you]

@@Streunekater They know that. They just need to secure.

[@KenjaTimu]

Sounds like a lot of mobile games.

[@LibrarianMichael]

One of the most iconic lines in movie history.

[@theninjararar]

"your Wife"

[@PhilipGipson-m9q]

"WarGames" is a movie way ahead of its time despite coming from the early 1980s. Your reaction/commentary on it has been completely spot on, Verowak.

[@mckrackin5324]

That's exactly how dial up internet worked. Every computer and FAX machine had it's own phone number and your computer would quite literally dial up the phone number of the machine it wanted to interact with. We actually had phone modems that we would set our phone receiver in to call up another computer. Eventually the modems were built into the computers so we didn't need to cradle our phones. Payphones were also easy to hack. A simple tone would unlock them. It's why each number on a phone made a different tone. Combinations of tones is how they worked. Rotary dial phones counted the clicks. The further you turned the dial, the more clicks it made on it's way back. So a 9 on the dial made 9 clicks and 8 made 8 etc etc etc. It seems odd being 20 years older than the internet. Ah, simpler times. lol

[@Parallax-3D]

That’s NOT the “Internet.” That’s directly connecting to another computer. The Internet existed at this point, but it was limited to government and a few large colleges.

[@larrybremer4930]

Those click and bang phone exchanges were a sight to behold. I cannot imagine what it took to maintain all those units (literally one per phone number). I am still old enough to remember when modems had a setting for doing the clicks or tones to dial a number but not old enough to have ever used a handset cradle (audio coupler), which had a horrible throughput.

[@digitalalchemy6414]

all the programs that resulted from this movie... war dialers.... and programs like Ma Bell that could duplicate the tones operators used but users didn't have access to on their phones.

[@flibber123]

I appreciate that the machine learning program wasn't trying to take over the world, it wasn't evil, it didn't even really have any idea what it was doing. It was just playing a game that it was designed to play. It makes the story more chilling. An evil computer program is not as scary as the idea that an otherwise harmless learning program could end human civilization in an unexpected and mindless way.

[@VerowakReacts]

It is! It's not evil, just doing what it was taught to do 😂

[@somersetcace1]

And it should be more chilling imo, because that's the far more realistic threat. Not that AI becomes sentient and decides to eliminate humanity, but that humans use it in a way that eliminates humanity.

[@JasonKingKong]

Some consider the movie to be antagonistless.

[@domramsey]

The free phone calls from pay phones hack ("phreaking") was very real. In fact, selling boxes to do it is pretty much how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple.

[@idea2go]

👆

[@joeblankenship377]

Yeah, they did it in Hackers too.

[@charliemac64]

My favorite line from this movie is, (paraphrasing, of course) "After careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that your system SUCKS." 😂😂😂 The actor that played the main general, Maurice Minnifield, went on to play pretty much the same role in the 90's TV series "Northern Exposure." He was a grizzled-ass ol' army general. That was a very quirky show back in the day. If you dig quirky stuff, that would be it. About a NY city doctor who signed up to practice in Alaska in exchange for tuition money. Classic fish out of water tale, but with a decidedly quirky cast of characters.

[@VerowakReacts]

The system does have its flaws 🤣

[@promiscuous675]

Colonel Minnifield, was a Korean war fighter pilot and P.O.W., and later joined the Mercury Programme becoming an astronaut. He was a foil for for the N.Y.C. doctor, but not an ass.

[@tracithomas6543]

The actor, Barry Corbin, played General Beringer in this. As stated, he also costarred in Northern Exposure, as well as having a small role in the 1984 Cold War classic Red Dawn.

[@carlanderson7618]

Northern Exposure was a great show except for the last season which is the case with so many TV shows. Had a great cast of many interesting characters. Nobody was "normal."

[@PhillyMJS]

This movie shaped my life. I turned 10 the summer it came out, and immediately became obsessed with computers and nuclear war. Now I’m 30+ years into an infotech career, and visit Cold War sites on my vacations. PS - The same guys who wrote this also wrote Sneakers, which sprang from things they learned while doing research for War Games.

[@VerowakReacts]

I love hearing about this! How a movie shaped your life, it's just amazing how much films can affect us!

[@xx_theartfuldodger_xx1105]

Same for me. System Admin and Information Security currently

[@LibrarianMichael]

Sneakers is another great movie.

[@uncoolmartin460]

@@VerowakReacts please put sneakers into one of your polls, I'd love to see what you think of it. Such good fun... "I'm driving" iykyk.

[@Fulschermd]

Same here.. Endpoint and security management. I once contemplated getting the launch code as a tattoo.. 😂🤓

[@shingentheruler]

Thank you for this reaction, I watch many similar channels but this reaction here is what I enjoy most. The ability to re-experience the joy of a movie I’ve seen many times over honestly makes me smile. And for that I Thank you. Look forward to seeing more. 🤘

[@VerowakReacts]

I'm glad I helped make you smile!!! It's such a joy to see movies like this

[@crossbones13]

33:59 "What if the dude, like, preemptively launches?" I wouldn't worry about that. He's thinking about baseball the entire time...

[@jamespfp]

2:44 -- The way that the tension ramps up early in this prologue scene explains why there is a sign outside this control room discouraging personnel from urinating outside. The pressure of the job environment and the level of Top Secret responsibility means that no-one wants to waste time walking hundreds of yards to the nearest washroom.

[@jtommygun]

Wow, that make sense now.

[@hgman3920]

This, along with Dr. Strangelove, is a Cold War classic. It perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the era

[@Mikesupr1]

And Fail Safe (1964)

[@KariLepola]

Verowak, the reason for having two keys is that no man alone....may arm the missiles😥! So shooting the other launch guy in the missile silo won't work. You have to turn the keys simultaneously. That 20% of the missile crews would not turn the key if they thought it was for real, was seen as a problem in the US army. (Hey, maybe they didn't want the world to end. Or something) The cold war and still actually existing threat of nuclear war kind of proves that humanity is off it's rocker.😬 You might want to see The Hunt For Red October and K-19 The Widowmaker movies too.

[@stufonaut]

Imagine being a computer and military obsessed kid during the mid 80s watching this... it blew my mind back then. One of my all time favourite movies, fills me with so much nostalgia! Loved watching along with you.

[@VerowakReacts]

It must have been amazing to see this back then! Such an amazing concept

[@stufonaut]

@VerowakReacts Was watched on VHS at a friend's birthday party in rural Scotland. We followed it up with another 80s cold war classic 'Red Dawn' then ran around the local woods playing soldiers until an actual helicopter flying low over the area (we were near a military base) terrified us all back inside haha!

[@s1lm4r1l6]

Supposedly President Ronald Reagan saw the film, loved it and then enquired to his aides "Something like that couldn't actually happen right?" After a lot of investigating they realized that aspects of the film were entirely accurate, which is how that legislation went through Congress. The Madness of King George also has John Wood (Falken) in one of the principal roles. Another brilliant film with Helen Mirren and Ian Holm.

[@VerowakReacts]

It's just amazing how a movie has affected actual laws. This is the first I hear of "The Madness of King George", but more Ian Holm and Helen Mirren is never a bad thing!

[@s1lm4r1l6]

@@VerowakReacts Its an interesting film to watch as an American/ Canadian, especially as George III is typically painted as a cruel tyrant, which was not the case.

[@robertshields4160]

Another good movie is 'Ladyhawke' (1985). It has Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mathew Broderick as well as John Wood (Falken)

[@ericschnellman962]

Yes, some commercial computers had a back-door password. When this movie came out, I knew one backdoor password for a common computer system and it worked that easily.

[@ardvark8699]

ADMIN

[@btrenninger1]

An earlier (and grimmer) movie with this same theme is Colossus: The Forbin Project from 1970.

[@troysilvester5791]

A good follow up for this would be Sneakers. Great cast and dial up computers!

[@bertpunkaficionado8357]

Hello Verowak, love your reactions. A little trivia about nuclear war in regards to the year 1983 (simplified): • WarGames (released on June-3), a movie about a computer playing a war game that almost becomes real. Other people included trivia, so I won’t repeat. • Stanislav Petrov (not acting like a machine on Sept-26), a duty officer at a Soviet early-warning system command center who deemed a series of alerts to be false alarms. His common sense prevented any chance of a retaliatory strike and a probable spiral into apocalypse. This occurred 3 weeks after the USSR shot down a Korean Airliner that flew into Soviet airspace due to a navigational error, 269 crew and passengers killed… a very very very hot topic at the time. • Able Archer 83 (conducted Nov-7 thru 11), a yearly NATO military exercise where new elements were introduced without warning the Soviet Union. They took it as a legitimate prelude to war, acted, we reacted, they stepped it up, and then Lt General Leonard H Perroots decided to not act like a machine and stepped back to allow things to cool down. This is one of the closest times we ever came to nuclear war. • The Day After (aired Nov-20), a TV movie about heightened hostility in Eastern Europe with the Soviet Union as viewed by regular people in “middle of nowhere” Kansas and Missouri. They try to live their lives as the news gets worse. This movie terrified me as a kid more than The Shining or The Exorcist because it is horrifyingly all too real, and kept me haunted well after the closing credits. President Reagan wrote in his diary about his early screening “very effective and left me greatly depressed”. His own memoirs note the film in regard to signing a treaty with Soviet Premier Gorbachev. A TV movie.

[@dougearnest7590]

"The Day After" was an incredible let-down for everyone. There was an incredible amount of hype before it aired. They even said they would have counselors available to take calls from viewers to help them deal with the psychological effects the movie would have on them. To the best of my knowledge, nobody called. Maybe they should have waited till the 2020's.

[@leslieturner8276]

I would add that on the 23rd of September 1984, the BBC broadcast "Threads" an apocalyptic war drama, which was a joint UK/Australian production. It's a dramatic account of nuclear war and its effects in Britain, specifically on the city of Sheffield. Even though it had a very much smaller budget than "The Day After," it was absolutely far more horrific. It depicted the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of nuclear war years after the nuclear exchange. It was the first film to show the effects of a "nuclear winter." The night after the broadcast became known as "The night the country didn't sleep," after I watched it, when I went to bed I just kept thinking about it, trying to hold back the tears, it was a few hours before I got any sleep. I bought the Blu-ray of it and haven't watched it yet. BBC recently broadcast it again on the 40th anniversary, so I thought ok, time to watch it again, got as far as when the attack took place, then I couldn't continue. I suspect that many people will watch it once and will never ever want to view it again.

[@iKvetch558]

Quick thing for folks who are not aware...NORAD under Cheyenne Mountain is only the place where air defense of North America happened back then...they had no control over the launching of missiles. It was SAC that had control of the bombers and ICBMs, and control of all that was from the Strategic Air Command operations center in Nebraska or from SAC's airborne command posts. The Navy had launch control of the SLBMs on the subs.

[@mikeljenks]

Cheyenne Mountain later became home to the StarGate Program.

[@3DJapan]

Also where they keep the Stargate.

[@chefskiss6179]

I was in high school and loved this flick when it came out; we all had a crush on Ally Sheedy. Thanks to you and yer patreon members for choosing it. When they say reality is sometime worse than what is shown in movies... decades later, it was divulged what the President's personal code was (in the 80's) to arm the nuclear weapons at his disposal... it was ten zero's. Something like that.

[@theonides]

The guy who removed to launch the missiles early in the movie, who ended up playing the chief of staff on the West Wing.

[@dougearnest7590]

12:40 - activating parenting mode - "If only you put this much work into school" - New level achieved.

[@VerowakReacts]

🤣😨

[@MathMan271]

yes! one of my favs can't wait! edit: 25:32 yes it did used to work (complete the ground circuit), which is why they started making them one solid unit

[@MathMan271]

also just wanted to add, yes, it was possible to dial another computer/server. in fact, well, that's just what we did because there wasn't an internet yet (at least as we know it today with isp's). my first "online game" was a text based (that's right, no pictures) M.U.D. i would use the modem on my computer to call/connect to their server. aaaand thats just how it was til the early 90's

[@Smokie_666]

@@MathMan271 I remember playing M.U.D.s back in the day. Whether it was myself or a couple of us gamers sitting around the computer, our imaginations were just blazing away. Many of us never thought it would get any better than that.

[@halfloft]

This movie was more serious when we were living right in the middle of the cold war. Every Friday in school we said the pledge of allegiance and then practice closing the green radiation curtains and getting under the desk. This movie was a big step in ending the cold war.

[@Bleckman666]

Bonus uselesss trivia: The voice on the doctor's recording on the tape recorder at NORAD is actually that of director Peter Hyams, (Like the voice on the answering machine in "Terminator" is that of James Cameron)

[@scottluvisi9941]

Old military information. The Air Force had 3 major command structures in that time. When the general says "Get me SAC on the line", He is referring to the Strategic Air Command. The other 2 were TAC, Tactical Air Command and MAC, Mobility Air Command.

[@peterkoester7358]

@@scottluvisi9941 At the time there was also the nuclear triad designed to assure that if attacked, the US could still retaliate. We saw the silo-based missiles and they mentioned the strategic bombers - both under the authority of the Air Force. The silo locations were relatively known by the Warsaw Pact and would have been the primary targets. Bombers were harder to destroy once in the air but their bases were known and likewise been a primary target. The third leg of the triad were the nuclear-powered ballistic submarines which could hide anywhere around the world and be difficult to impossible to destroy before they launched. It was always assumed even if the first two legs were destroyed in a first strike, the SSBNs would retaliate.

[@Yezhanium]

- What city should we strike first? - Las Vegas! *_War, war never changes..._*

[@notjustforhackers4252]

Apart from obviously WOPR and real working 'AI' all of the technology on display is accurate for the time period, that is how it worked. The most unbelievable thing is that the UNIX system in David's bedroom would have cost, at the time, the same as the house he's living in. The phone "hack" by David is one of the first ever known hacks and is very famous. Great film, absolute classic. I used to watch it on BETAMAX while waiting to load a game from a tape deck on my Oric 1 as a kid, yes it could take that long!

[@VerowakReacts]

I didn't even think of the cost of David's set up, but it makes sense it would be expensive! This is all technology that I've never heard of (in the movie and your last sentence lol!), it's fascinating

[@Will-nn6ux]

The producers said in the commentary track that they had chosen computer hardware that was a bit out of date (business users were moving to the IBM PC around that time, for example) and that a high schooler could conceivably have found in office building dumpsters or in surplus sales pretty cheaply.

[@domramsey]

Yeah, the learning AI with a human personality was really the only unbelievable thing about this movie for me, and I remember at the time it spoiled it a bit for me. Of course it would all be entirely possible now, but hopefully we have stronger encryption algorithms!

[@notjustforhackers4252]

@@Will-nn6ux Or, in the movie, could have been a hand me down from the tech guys he visits. While hardware was still very expensive the major cost was the UNIX licensing. Version 6 which is shown in the film was still used in the early 80's and cost, then, about $20.000, about $110.000 in today's money for a supported system..... and you thought Windows was expensive!

[@zonez1590]

Wild to think passwords were not a default option! Like you said it cool that this movie helped change and educate people on this type of topic.

[@VerowakReacts]

I never would have thought there wouldn't be passwords!

[@cog4life]

It truly did awaken many people back in my day. 😊

[@stephenkoehler4051]

For nearly two decades, the launch code for nuclear weapons in the US was 00000000. It was changed in 1977. However, there are several layers of confirmation before actual launch is initiated. Many of the systems still use the 1980s tech simply because it's hacker resistant and isolated. It's only fairly recently in the past few years that upgrades have been started. The Missile systems for the Minuteman still use the same large format floppy disks shown in the movie

[@TheDaringPastry1313]

At the time when this came out, the NORAD set was the most expensive set ever costing about 1 million dollars. The jeep accident where they flipped was real and they kept it in the film.

[@imuawarriors]

I saw this movie in the theaters, and the whole crowd roared with happiness at the end....

[@LlamaDungeon]

Wardialing (the process of calling all numbers looking for different responses) is/was a real thing. (Etymologically speaking, we coined the term for the process after this film.)

[@lodrbyroni]

Old school Brute force hacking.

[@richiecabral3602]

A favorite of mine from my childhood! I can remember when my family got our first VCR. Yeah, I'm that old. We only had a couple of tapes that we borrowed from a friend, and never returned. Sometimes the pay channels, that my parents would never pay for, would have free previews for like a weekend, to try and attract new subscribers, so you could watch for free, and people would just record the movies as they were being shown. My uncle used to have a whole library of movies like this. The tapes we borrowed were like this, and it's all we had besides rentals. So, as a result, I watched this and "Police Academy", over and over again so many times! Mathew Broderick was big back then, until he got to the age when he wasn't as young and cute looking anymore, and it just got weird, so he was out of the limelight, I think doing Broadway, and he married Sarah Jessica Parker and started a family, then her career was on fire, etc. He had some classic 80s movies though. I'd check out "Biloxi Blues", which was one of Neil Simon's. If you don't know Neil Simon, he was a famous playwright and screenwriter, who had started out as a comedy writer in early TV, alongside Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and that whole circle, who ended up writing a lot of Broadway plays, that later became movies or TV shows that he would write the adaptations of. A lot of classic stuff. One play, turned movie, of his was "Brighton Beach Memoirs", that was largely autobiographical to his own experiences as a teenage boy growing up in Brooklyn, New York around the beginning of WW2. Then, basically it's sequel, though it's not necessary to see one to understand the other, was "Biloxi Blues", where Mathew Broderick plays him a few years later, as he joins the military to fight in the war. Great movie, that's probably been kind of forgotten now, but very funny!

[@johnhudson9167]

Most of my passwords for a long time were variants of Joshua. This film was one of the reasons I had a long career in computing after watching it when it came out when I was 7.

[@Parallax-3D]

I still sometimes use the final launch code as a password. CPE1704TKS

[@GD-tt6hl]

J05hua huh? Hax!

[@kentonkruger8333]

My buddy did the changing of the grades thing for himself and for me the year this came out, though it was far simpler. All the computers in the school (a whole 4 of them) were in the same room. One time when left unsupervised he simply went in the desk drawer, grabbed the floppy disk they were on, pulled them up and changed them.

[@cog4life]

4:39 Dabney Coleman was so great in this.

[@zmarko]

As a kid/teen in the 80s, nuclear war was a real threat, and movies like this and The Day After were impactful to many people, because they made you think. This movie is much less serious than The Day After, but it still provoked thought. This movie is a great film, and IMO, is still important, even today.

[@stephenkoehler4051]

I lived in Missouri just south of the Minutemen Missile field for Whiteman AFB. In the 1970s there was a documentary on NBC Television that showed the results of Nuclear War. According to the documentary, the 150 missiles in their silos would have received each two 20 megaton nuclear warheads. That's 300 nukes folks. Needless to say, western Missouri would have been a radioactive wasteland. The ABC movie The Day After singled out this area for it's dramatization. What was really freaky was watching the character actor Steve Gutenberg played. His name in the movie was Stephen and was from Joplin, Mo which matched my name and hometown. Freaked me out! The Missouri Minuteman Missile field has since been decommissioned with most of the silos being dug up with only a single one at Whiteman being preserved as a museum.

[@Fulschermd]

A made for HBO movie in the late 80s called ‘By Dawn’s Early Light’ starred James Earl Jones, Rebecca DeMornay, and Powers Booth.. chilling stuff to think about.

[@darrylcarden1851]

Yes, some of the earliest modems for home computers just used the handset of your desk phone sitting in a cradle. If someone picked up another phone somewhere else in the house to try and make a call you would usually get disconnected.

[@dr.burtgummerfan439]

I used to have a copy of "The Computer Phone Book" from back in the 80s. It was a thick book with the dial-up numbers and information on available websites and bulletin boards.

[@rustybroomhandle]

There is a lesser known 1986 film with John Lithgow called The Manhattan Project which also has similar themes and feeds off the same cold war nuclear paranoia. Not as great or memorable as this film, but worth a watch anyway.

[@iKvetch558]

That is a really good movie that not enough people even know about, and certainly there need to be more reactions to it. Great suggestion. 💯👍

[@VerowakReacts]

I've definitely heard of The Manhattan Project, just not the film 😂

[@cboscari]

That's a good list. "Wargames" stands out because it was a fairly accurate depiction of what (ahem) "my friends" were doing when we were teens in the early 80's and didn't know any better. I believe it was the first time I heard the word "firewall" used in a film about hacking. Most of the tech has changed (like phone phreaking, getting free phone calls is much more difficult) but the basic ideas are the same. IP addresses have replaced phone lines, etc. EDIT: Oh, the arcade in the beginning was right next to my high school. Went there every day. I miss you 20 Grand Palace. :(

[@beansfriend7033]

My favorite bit of trivia: the director of this film, John Badham, is the brother of Mary Badham, who played the girl Scout in _To Kill a Mockingbird._

[@VerowakReacts]

Fun fact, I just watched To Kill A Mockingbird this week! Haha so I know who that actress is

[@beansfriend7033]

@@VerowakReacts great timing! And great movies!

[@SkipRogerson]

Two huge silly plot holes, in my opinion. THE FIRST ONE 1) 13:30 DAVID: "The system actually learned how to learn.. It could teach itself." That was an old video he was watching, so the system was learning for years. 2) 5:12 "24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it plays an endless series of war games". And remember, it actually learned how to learn and could teach itself, years ago. And remember, near the end of the movie, Joshua/WOPR runs through simulations of global thermonuclear war at a rate of several per minute. 3) 18:15 DAVID: "What is the primary goal?" WOPR: "You should know professor. ... TO WIN THE GAME". That indicates Joshua/WOPR carries out its war games to a conclusion, to see who wins. 4) 21:57 WOPR: "Would you like to see some projected kill ratios?" Joshua/WOPR then shows numbers, such as 69% of US houses destroyed, and 72 million US citizens killed. Again, indicating that the simulations are carried out to the end, to see who won. 5) 29:00 FALKEN: "Except I never could get Joshua [WOPR] to learn the most important lesson. ... Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up. ... But back at the war room, they believe you can win a nuclear war. That there can be acceptable loses." So Dr. Falken believed you cannot win a nuclear war. And he tried but could not get Joshua/WOPR to learn futility: to just give up ... because there is no way to win a nuclear war. THE PROBLEMS But during all of that, despite running all of those thousands (if not millions) of simulations out to a conclusion, the computer did not realize that thermonuclear war has no winner? And Dr. Falken tried to teach Joshua to just give up on nuclear war because it is futile to think you can win one, but Falken - a genius - never thought to have Joshua/WOPR play a game that has no winner with best play (Tic-Tac-Toe) so it could learn that some games have no winner when both sides do their best? ------------------------------ THE SECOND ONE 1) 35:00 FALKEN: "Joshua is trying to find the right code so he can launch the missiles himself." Then we are told a few times when Joshua figures an additional number of the 10-digit code. That's not how codes to access a system work. They are all or nothing. Think about someone trying to figure out your password, which is WitchCraft. If someone types in WhatIsUp, the system does not reply that the W in the first position is correct. It's not like you can lock in that W and then move on to trying to figure out other individual letters, locking in each letter of the password one at a time when you happened to get the right letter in the right place. Even if someone tried WitchHunt all the information they would receive back was that the password failed: all or nothing. It would be silly for a system to reply back, "The password is wrong, but the first 5 letters are correct". That would be helping people figure out codes/password - that would greatly assist hackers to get in, making codes/passwords basically meaningless.

[@joeblankenship377]

One of my favorites as a kid. Every time it came on TV, I’d watch it til the end. And it still holds up pretty well-reactors always get into it. Plus, Ally Sheedy is super cute.

[@VerowakReacts]

It holds up really well, yes! It's funny and smart

[@mikevandenboom5958]

Gotcha is another fun 80's movie that I suspect many people don't know about or have forgotten. I remember it being the 2nd feature at the drive-in and it was better than the feature film.

[@jamespfp]

0:20 -- I think what's impressive about the Poll and this result is that WarGames is the oldest by year it was released. I would also note, though, that "12 Monkeys" was inspired by an earlier French short film called "La Jetee" which was released 3 decades before the reboot.

[@idea2go]

All those little hacks he did with phones, computers, recorders, arcades, tech/nerd culture, etc were all real for the time, even the mission impossible stuff. This movie was a legend among tech nerds! The scene in the computer center with Marvin and the other guy was charicatured but pretty real too!

[@fnizzelwhoop]

Beyond the obvious fiction, this movie is far more accurate that I think most people realize. It fact, for a lot of tech nerds from that era like myself, this game is pure nostalgia. The modem he uses is in fact the same basic technology as you used for "dial-up Internet", but instead of calling an ISP to access Internet, you called a specific system. (Only one user at a time, unless they had multiple inbound lines). Anywho, we used to do all these things.. Set up automated dialers to find computers to connect to, figured out how to avoid huge phone bills (not always successfully), found ways to change our grades in our schools' new-fangled computerized grading system. Good times -- laid the foundation for everything I do today. Oh, as a minor note: The reason it didn't ask for a password when they used the "backdoor" was that that was kind of the point of backdoors; it should be something that "no one would guess", and it should be very easy to remember. I will say that while backdoors definitely are a thing, the movie does portray it as far more normalized than I think they were in practice.

[@TheRedStateBlue]

My dad was one of those guys at the beginning of the movie in the silo control room with the red ascot with the SAC patch on it when he was a young lieutenant. as far as I know, he never had to pull a .38 special on anyone. After his hitch doing that, he went to fighter school and flew F-111s in europe during the cold war. finished his career as a JAG officer while going to law school.

[@JeffDabeerz]

I grew up in the middle of the missile field commanded from the Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota. It was kinda cool to think of all the nukes under our feet lol

[@FXGreggan.]

Excellent movie choice, not many youths react to this movie :) And to answer your question in the end - yes it's quite realistic (how computers back then worked with dialing in like that), used to do exactly the same thing back in the 80's, everything from war-dialing every number in an area code to making free payphone calls)... found lots of fun and basically unprotected systems - never got to play thermonuclear war though :)

[@VerowakReacts]

I'm just riding the high that I've been considered a youth! 🤩🤩

[@jeffmansfield914]

@@VerowakReacts Out of curiosity, just how “youthful” are you Ms. Wak? Obviously, it’s totally fine if you’d rather not divulge such information, being a proper lady and all. I do also beg your pardon for the forwardness of my inquiry.

[@peterkoester7358]

It is assumed regarding the opening scene that, since it is established to be a drill, the silo operators would have been monitored and told to stand-down prior to the trigger being pulled. Not sure how the Air Force conducted drills like this (I was a Navy guy and not directly responsible for nuclear weapons) but we always had drill monitors that would call off the drill if things in any way became dangerous or life-threatening.

[@scottmoquin]

This is one of the best movies of all time.

[@VerowakReacts]

It's so smart!

[@zombiemom7378]

Now you need to watch Ladyhawke! (If you havent seen it yet.) Another early Matthew Broderick movie. It also has the actor who plays Professor Falken in this one. Plus Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. I have a feeling you would love it.

[@janiilola5810]

I'm old enough that I saw this in the theatre when it came out. I was 11 at the time. As a young kid who was very interested of computer stuff, the gadgetry shown in this movie blew my mind. I absolutely loved this movie then and still do. I'm glad you did as well!

[@VerowakReacts]

Did the movie increase your interest in computer stuff? I feel like it's the perfect movie to drum up interest in computers!

[@MikinessAnalog]

The creators of the film actually had the gall to ask NORAD to video record a portion of the film in the real war room. The US military wisely shut any notion of doing so down, so the producers built the most expensive movie set at the time based on what NORAD's war room might look like.

[@arandomnamegoeshere]

So much history in this flick. Back in the day, having a computer in your room like this was weird. There was a small subculture of such weirdos. ;) Hackers and phreakers - individuals who found exploring technical systems interesting was such a small subculture. Not many outside that subculture understood it. And at one point, these skillsets didn't have a criminal / monetary component to them. Everything would soon change. The movie was just a harbinger of the times. Sequential dialing was commonly known as "demon dialing." If you swept a known MODEM pool, sometimes one could pick up a session that wasn't properly logged out and hijack it. After WarGames, the technique was more commonly called "wardialing." When one drove around to find and map WiFi access points, it was called "wardriving" (or "warbiking", etc.). When one discreetly marks glyphs to denote open access points in an area - "warchalking." Much changed in the following years. But many its a classic for a reason.

[@mikefixx7177]

That was Matthew Broderick, also was great in Biloxi Blues and Deck the Halls. Deck the Halls was a Christmas comedy you would love

[@VerowakReacts]

It's the first movie that I see him in. I think I've heard of him as an adult, but have no idea what other movies he's in lol

[@jeffmansfield914]

@VerowakReacts His grandest role, of course, is as the titular Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Definitely a must-watch!

[@richlisola1]

Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick pure chemistry-But damn his New York makes him being from Seattle seem implausibly.

[@RMBittner]

You absolutely could set up a program to dial a series of numbers automatically, as long as you had the acoustic coupler for your phone. (David had a pretty expensive setup for the time…and for a high schooler. His desktop at the time would have cost several thousand dollars.)

[@s4ndmanthorsminion637]

This movie is Iconic, i remember playing hoockie with a buddy, went to see this movie in the Theaters. Also fun fact the phone hack actually worked, that summer we used that trick and hacked many a public phones and called out buddies . i miss the 80s.

[@orangeandblackattack]

When a movie causes the President to call a special meeting to address the real people and computers, you've impacted the world more than 99% of all movies.

[@tsrgoinc]

I was 12 when I saw this film, when it came out, and loved it and became fascinated with computers. I’ve now worked in IT for nearly 30 years! 🤣

[@desiv1170]

[@brandonparisien2381]

"Woukd you like to play a game?" ..I get that reference! ;)

[@kuidaorekitchen5850]

One of my favorite movies! I say, “do you want to play a game” in this movie voice, all the time!

[@VerowakReacts]

I first heard "Do you want to play a game" in Saw, so I have a slightly different expectation from that line 🤣

[@Dayboot33]

​@@VerowakReactsI'm surprised no one in those movies tried asking Jigsaw if he wouldn't prefer a nice game of chess.

[@MrMice...]

Mandela effect...it's "shall we play a game" 🤓 14:40

[@quicktastic]

Being of that age, I love the whole aesthetic of this movie and brings such nice nostalgia. I was not a 'computer geek' at that time, but had friends that were and I recall them logging to different things via modem in rooms very much adorned like David's room. It was usually to communicate with others though. You could tell even then that interconnected computers was going to be a thing, just not sure, obviously, how it was going to play out.

[@insane0042]

Just some interesting notes. Defcon 5 is actually when missiles are launched. Defcon 1 is actually at peace. Also the screens at NORAD was made up, because the real stuff was classified so they had no idea what it looked like. Apparently the movie version was much larger and much more impressive.

[@3DJapan]

10:00 This was referred to as wardialing. I had a program that would do it as well as other phone hacking (phreaking) stuff.

[@fightingidiocy7724]

i LOVE this movie. i love it. saw it over and over and over and over and over. and over. and over. and over. cause you know it was only a buck!

[@charlesmaurer6214]

BTW I live near Charleston, WV that used to be target 3 after DC and NYC by the USSR. The Kanawha Valley is known as the Chemical Valley and nearby Clendenin was the home of Union Carbide then shifted to S. Charleston prior to Dow buying them out. Carbide is the item mixed with water to make gas for the old mine lamps. Also that gas is used in welding and Carbide is used in tools for hard cutting points. The S. Charleston Plant in the 80's made over half all the batteries made in the USA with nearly 20 brands (now overseas). Dupont also has a major plant just upstream from Charleston that discovered from a waste product the antifreeze we use in our cars. Salt, Coal, Water, Oil and Gas all available close by is the reason for the development here. Malden salt is high priced mined salt that once was considered the best salt in the world. By the 90's however our industry declined and with the Carbide disaster in India we are no longer in the top 10. Some related industries also located here for other resources (Like a Paint Plant over a Lead deposit before it was banned but still operating) During WWII much of the explosives used also were made here and the South Charleston Plant for that now includes a Stamping plant and a UPS hub. One town next on the river is Nitro for the same reason and St. Albans has a park where they made weapons and a Missile on display outside by the river.

[@wbj2000]

Not to age myself, but this movie came out when personal computers were still fairly new and unfamiliar to most people. I had the first computer of my friends and many people did not really understand computers and thought they should be used to store recipes. 😜 This movie introduced the concept of artificial intelligence to many people, which was total science fiction at the time. There was no internet in the 80's, but you could connect to other computers using a phone line and a modem. After President Regan saw this movie he confirmed with his advisors than the actual defense system was not vulnerable to computer malfunction or outside computer attack. This movie also introduced hacking to people, who were unaware of computer security. Many businesses had none back then. When I saw this movie as a kid I was thrilled and led me towards studying computers. I am assuming the two guys in the silo bunker were given guns with blanks, so they could not kill each other.

[@TerryNationB7]

U.S. President Ronald Reagan screened WarGames at Camp David the weekend it was released, and it freaked him out. Reagan brought it up a few days later at a White House meeting that included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and asked, “Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?” The answer came back a week later: “Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think.” That led not only to a significant revamp of how computer security was handled at the Defense Department, but also passage of an anti-hacking law that would eventually evolve into our current Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Clips of WarGames were shown during the congressional hearings where lawmakers debated the need for hacking legislation. I like to watch WarGames in a double-bill with Project X (1987), another Matthew Broderick movie that could be seen as a loose continuation of the story,

[@iKvetch558]

Wow...Project X...the two of us might be the only ones who know about that one...at least it seems that way. Good suggestion...definitely a movie that more folks should react to.

[@akinpaws]

​@@iKvetch558 Vote #3 for Project X here. 🙋

[@Smokie_666]

@@iKvetch558 I remember Project X very well also.

[@iKvetch558]

@@Smokie_666 Yay...now there are three of us. 😜

[@jimhsfbay]

I started buttering hot corn with bread because of this movie. Works great!

[@zeusfl72-m3o]

This is a really good movie. I am so glad I got to watch it again with you. It is soooo good, and the way it is all laid out, and plays out, and of course the final line from WOPR "The only winning move is not to play". Thanks Verowak, always great to watch with you, and see your great smile! take care

[@DAVID-yv6dc]

Thank you for taking me back in time - a pure pleasure

[@VerowakReacts]

My pleasure!! 😊

[@user-tb2jy9lu3d]

25:30 That used to work on pay phones for a while.

[@LordVolkov]

Try Cloak & Dagger, also with Dabney Coleman, for another 80s cold war kid's classic.

[@cog4life]

39:13 yes, people were able to do that. But more security measures were put in place.

[@JustSomeRandomMusicFan]

WarGames totally nails the vibe (and accuracy) of the late stages of the Cold War and that technological period between phreaking and the rise of ARPANET (pre public internet). Yeah, it's a goofy romp with campy characterization for cinematic audiences, but the spiritual heart at the core of the film is spot-on, and doesn't get enough credit in retrospect. The same can (and should) be said about Swordfish. Hackers... eh, not so much. lol

[@handfuloftrains4781]

I graduated high school in 1983 and the school didn't have a single computer yet, so those aspects of this film were rather futuristic to me. But the threat of nuclear war was all too real. A great film that I still find very exciting to watch. Thanks! "That girl's standing over there listening and you're telling him about our back doors?"

[@van_goghx]

This movie kind of kicked off Gen-X kid/teen movies (although we weren’t known as “Gen-X” just yet). Glad you liked it as much as we did when it came out! 😊

[@MichaelJShaffer]

I had the old 80s video game and played it incessantly. I got it the Christmas after seeing this film.

[@diamondem]

I once got in trouble in high school for an acquaintance who cracked an admin password and was using it to mess with people. The only way to get the computer to work again was to log in to that admin account and then log out. Found out about it months later that the police were involved and they were going to expel all of us to make an example out of us at which point I didn't even remember it happened. Thankfully only got a week suspension, while the guy that cracked the password got expelled, but they really don't play about cybersecurity lol. If this movie took place today they'd probably all be in jail just for changing grades, not even mentioning hacking into NORAD.

[@VerowakReacts]

That must have been pretty scary once the police got involved 😨

[@diamondem]

@@VerowakReacts Oh yea, especially when it was months later and I didn't even remember it happening. My mom thankfully stuck up for me and it just wound up being an early summer break lol.

[@gmunden1]

The men in the room at the beginning were involved in strategic exercise mission. The rules state that not following NORAD military protocol requires the use of armed force if the mission were real. It was a security and psychological test to make sure that the procedures are followed.

[@cmoswinnipeg8644]

Saw it in the theatre when it came out (1983 and at the height of the Cold War). Audience applauded loudly at the end.

[@SixFootTurkey_]

There is another 80's movie called The Manhattan Project which is similar but does its own thing and really shines in parts

[@Smokie_666]

That's a fantastic movie, another "possible enough to make you think" story.

[@neilfleming2787]

the whole basis of the war simulations was based on 'Missile Command' all the missile graphics were based on that arcade game

[@bigbow62]

" I didn't think it had anything to do with war " What's the nane of the movie ? "War Games" 😂😂😂😂😂 Good one, and just a suggestion before you say.... How come their doing that, and can that happen, and why did they do that... all of those things 20-30 times..... please wait 10-15 seconds, and everything should be answered or will be soon. ✌️😎 Other than all of that great reaction like always, I think it's time for a few classic movies.... Bringing up Baby (1938*) Cary Grant Katherine Hepburn Excellent story with non-stop laughs ......and you will never guess who or what Baby is 😉 * Yes, an old black and white movie but with an amazing story & tons of laughs. Thank you for the reaction & movie. 😎👍

[@MRxMADHATTER]

The way the nuclear missile system works is pretty much the way shown at the beginning. Each silo complex has a control room where a launch order can be received. It's deep underground. If they receive an order the order is verified like you saw and two people have to turn their keys simultaneously. Where they differ from reality is the launch control room is actually connected to all the silos in all the complexes. That way even if one or more control room fails to turn the keys, there will still be a launch. Also turning the keys doesn't mean that all the missiles will launch. Turning the keys activates a computer program that launches the missiles in a predetermined order. Some missiles will be launched and some may be held in reserve for a second strike or perhaps in some other order in accordance with an attack plan. You can visit one of these launch control rooms in Tucson, AZ at a museum which is part of the Pima air museum.

[@thomasoa]

I'm still amazed that we were so locked into the fear of the end of the world at the time, we were making frothy teen adventures about it. I remember waking from dreams of nuclear war growing up.

[@VerowakReacts]

Those sound like horrible dreams

[@thomasoa]

@ Some were terrifying, others were just weird. I remember one where we knew it was coming and everybody was deciding what they wanted to do in their last days, and it ended with me on a plane to Australia? Awake, I've never felt the urge to go there, so I was perplexed by that. I,maybe thought in the dream that Australia would be least affected, but it didn't feel like that - it felt related to being in nature. I remember that one precisely because it made so little sense, and how little looming nuclear war played into the plot.

[@phila3884]

Some missing context- we have humans manning nuclear missile sites all over the US. They carry out the orders of the President, pretty much manually as depicted in the *exercise* at the start of the movie. The movie assumes a little knowledge of this part of the US defenses.

[@rc31802]

Dual up internet was exactly this. Security measures in place although in 83 I'm not sure how many people thought of it because computers like this were so new. The internet has been around a lot longer than most people realize.

[@digitalalchemy6414]

Its funny that any kid growing up in that time would know exactly whats going on in that missile silo at the begging but today... not so much.

[@AlBQuirky]

I graduated High School in 1981. Before this was "The Captain Crunch" hacker, who stiffed AT&T out of some money with long distance phone calls. This movie took that hacking to the next level. I'm glad you enjoyed this and yes, in a "high trust society", passwords were not required. Online anonymity has trashed that trust.

[@RMBittner]

If I’m remembering correctly, Steve Wozniak developed a “box” that would allow you to make long-distance calls for free. It was an early moneymaker for him. (Again, assuming I’m not misremembering…) Of course, Wozniak went on to found a computer company with his friend Steve Jobs.

[@philshorten3221]

@vegasbill80 quoted the line "the only way to win is to not play" Quick someone tell O3 and the other AI's..... I don't know if they got that memo😂😂😂

[@methos101]

One of my favorite 80’s movies. I love it. I need to re watch it again. Thank you Verawak 😎👍.

[@VerowakReacts]

My pleasure!! I'm really glad I watched it

[@methos101]

@ You’re welcome ☺️

[@DannyWalker1963]

The 80's had some great movies for all ages.. I hope you react to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"!

[@gregorygant4242]

Joshua was the password itself to get into the system .

[@roberteckman8102]

Yes, you could definitely dial into other computers with your computer, or answer computer calls back then. I ran a BBS for years as a hobby where I had a dedicated phone line just for the computer (before the Internet as we know it today). It was so fun, and this movie was my inspiration as a kid into developing a career with computers.