WarGames: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"{{smallcaps|Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?}}"''|'''JOSHUA'''}}

 

 

[[The Government]] does figure out that someone has hacked into their supercomputer before they release any missiles. They have no problem figuring out who the hacker in question is, and forcibly capture him for questioning. It takes a while for David to explain that he didn't want to cause a ''real'' thermonuclear war -- he was just trying to impress his girlfriend. It didn't help that he booked himself and his girlfriend on a flight to Paris before he started this game (he was showing off that he could do it; booking tickets ''online'' was novel back in the '80s).

** General Beringer is right every single time: he thinks it's a bad idea to automate the missile launching, he listens to Falken and doesn't launch the missiles, and he allows David to proceed and attempt to teach JOSHUA futility. McKittrick, on the other hand, ends up being a total asshat.

** Jerry, the guy at the start of the film who refuses to launch the missiles, is basically an American [[wikipedia:Stanislav Petrov|Stanislav Petrov]]. That's a not inconsiderable aversion.

* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]: Actually averted. It's less that JOSHUA is bad and [[Ludd Was Right]], which is the Aesop behind that trope, and more that someone cocked up programming this specific AI and someone was unlucky enough to trigger the bug by accident. If the AI were as intelligent as most examples, the plot of the movie would not have happened.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: {{spoiler|By having the DEFCON level lower, JOSHUA could then launch the nukes in real life.}}

* [[The Eighties]]: The hair, clothes, soundtrack and technology. More importantly and harder to define is the tone -- this movie wouldn't be the same if made at any other time.

* [[Elaborate Underground Base]]: Where NORAD and JOSHUA are kept <ref>The real NORAD generals said they would be jealous to have a base as big as in the film, in reality it is tiny.</ref>

* [[Eureka Moment]]: "GAMES!"

* [[Everything Is Online]]: [[Justified]], since David only discovered JOSHUA by "[[Trope Namer|war-dialing]]" random numbers looking for one with a modem on the other end, and it's explained in-dialogue that the only reason WOPR had a modem connection to the outside world was due to a grave switching error at the phone company. After David's initial hack alerts the Air Force to this problem they remove it, requiring David to use internal NORAD terminals to communicate with WOPR for the remainder of the movie.

* [[Know When to Fold'Em]]: "The only winning move is not to play".

* [[Knight in Sour Armour]]: Falken

* [[Logic Bomb]]: Kinda. One interpretation of the climactic scene is that JOSHUA is convinced not to start WWIII by the realisation that the Min-Max outcome isn't good.

* [[Love Makes You Crazy]]

* [[Two Keyed Lock]]: "TURN YOUR KEY, SIR!". A scene highlighting the stress silo officers are under and the commitment to follow orders. It is a stark choice: turn the key or die.

* [[Unbuilt Trope]]: Every hacking-related trope today owes its existence to this movie.

* [[You Had Us Worried There]]: {{spoiler|The long delay before the apparently nuked bases confirm that they are OK. While their continued survival would let them know that they hadn't taken a ''direct'' hit, presumably the base control officers were waiting for reports from topside that no nuclear missiles had landed ''near'' them before calling the all-clear. Be a tad embarrassing if they called away 'Everything's fine' when a Soviet ICBM had had a navigation error and hit five miles away, only to have to call NORAD back a minute later and say 'Um, about that...'}}

** {{spoiler|Though that's probably why they called 3 separate bases. Base 1, do you read? <static> Base 2, do you read? <static> Base 3, do you read? Yeah we're still here...a little crispy, and probably not operational, but alive. Mostly.}}

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Doctor Falken}} stays behind to upload the JOSHUA AI into RIPLEY knowing he won't make it out in time to escape the missile she's sent.

* [[He's Dead, Jim]]: The glasses are knocked off an agent's jogging partner when {{spoiler|RIPLEY uses vehicular homicide to}} wipe out perceived opposition.

* [[Hollywood Hacking]]: Including the talking while typing.

* [[Idiot Ball]]: Will's best friend Dennis, upon realizing he and Will have ended up on the wrong end of DHS. They deliberately leave a jacket with a [[Cell Phone]] in it. He dives for it and uses it to text Will, thus ''giving the DHS just what they need to track Will's phone''.

* [[Schmuck Bait]]: RIPLEY has a sexy female voice and her avatar online is a hot winking woman who repeats "Play with me, baby, play with me." This is how RIPLEY lures in potential terrorists.

* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: RIPLEY has one that turns up when she feels threatened.

** More accurately it is ''Stargate Worlds'', a now cancelled MMORPG/Third-Person Shooter. Dennis is seen playing game in his and Will's introduction.

* [[Soft Glass]]: "This is two inch thick, steel reinforced..." BLAM! One gunshot shatters it.