7th Design: WarGames

It has been a long time since I have seen a movie from the 80’s. I had forgotten how corny they can be, not that it is a bad thing, and it is just that they are not as common as they used to be. I really liked the film; it made me laugh with all the ridiculous situations and all the liberties it takes when David hacks into stuff and gets out of situations at the nick of time. For the most part, it showcases what was a very serious topic (the Cold War) as a parody of itself, with chubby militarymen, threats about launching nukes at the slightest provocation and a paranoid government that would even suspect a 16 year old of Soviet espionage just because he has low grades but he is smart. There are, however, some plot points that I just could not get out of my head while watching the movie.

First of all, I do not think that Joshua’s nature when David plays a game with him is justified or fully explained. At the beginning, one of the main WOPR engineers tells the spokesperson from the government that the computer is always playing simulations of the nuclear war. However, when the young and brave teenager plays against him, it suddenly plays for real? It doesn’t seem that plausible. Also, any self-respecting computer scientist specialized in game theory would try to put his own program against himself. Falken didn’t, therefore, he is not a self-respecting computer scientist specialized in game theory. My point is, the solution to Joshua’s lack of knowledge problem seems like it could have been solved pretty easily with a little more testing. 

In case you haven’t noticed, I love to nitpick movies. It’s a lot of fun, at least for me. Once again, I don’t consider WarGames a bad movie. I can see why Ernest Cline would mention it and use it so prominently in his book. It really seems a like a fantasy straight out of a teenager who loves computers.