United Artists released WarGames to theaters on June 3, 1983. John Badham directed the film starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and John Wood.
WarGames Movie Summary
When the U.S.A.F. issues a number of surprise drills to test its controllers on their ability to launch nuclear strikes, they learn a certain percentage will never turn the key to attack. This enables NORAD’s John McKittrick to convince the government to automate the process, and take the human element out of killing. The government agrees this is a good idea, and grants NORAD’s supercomputer, WOPR, full nuclear control.
Meanwhile, out in Seattle, high school student, David Lightman, is a bludgeoning hacker able to illegally change his and his little friend, Jennifer Mack’s, grades on his school’s mainframe. At dinner one night, David looks through a magazine, and sees an ad for Protovision’s upcoming games. Wanting to play them now, David sets out to hack his way into the company’s server.
The company is located in Sunnyvale, California, and David programs his computer to dial random numbers in the city to find Protovision’s system. He lands upon one that doesn’t identify itself, but he can’t log in to its server. Thinking that he found Protovision, David has it list its games, which it does. Most titles are of the boring variety, but one in particular, Global Thermonuclear War, catches his interest. Unable to guess the password to the server, David goes to two other hacker friends for advice. They tell him to look for a backdoor password using the game, Falken’s Maze, as his first clue.
David skips school all week to do research that might lead him to the password. He discovers a man named Stephen Falken, who was an artificial intelligence researcher, and David digs into his background. One day, when David’s little friend, Jennifer, is over, he has an epiphany. Falken had a son named Joshua who died as a child. David tries Joshua’s name as the password, and it works. Unfortunately, David doesn’t log into Protovision’s system. He logs into the military’s WOPR supercomputer at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.
David begins his game of Global Thermonuclear War with Joshua; playing as the Soviet Union. When the computer starts the simulation, all of NORAD goes off because it thinks the Soviets have launched an actual strike against the United States. David has to end the game quickly to take out the trash, and NORAD stands down.
However, Joshua continues to play the game, and it plays to win. What happens when your supercomputer doesn’t understand the difference between simulation and reality? You get one WOPR of a mess. NORAD continues to see the simulation play out on its screens, but they don’t know it’s a simulation. This causes them to drop the nation’s DEFCON level, and once it hits DEFCON 1, it’s World War III.
Back at home, David sees a news broadcast, about the computer attack, and figures his game was the source for it. The FBI soon comes to town, reads David his rights, and they arrest him. The FBI takes David to NORAD where they deny him the rights they read to him in seattle, and continually question him. David figures out WOPR is Joshua, and that it is playing the game, but he is unable to convince McKittrick this is what is going on. Instead, the FBI slaps espionage charges on him.
While there, David also discovers that Falken is still alive, and living on an island in Oregon. Figuring Falken can fix the mess, David blends in with a group of visiting tourists, and escapes the complex. He then calls Jennifer to ask her to purchase a ticket to Oregon. When he arrives in Oregon, David finds Jennifer has driven three hours to the airport to m...