There is an article in WIRED stating Reagan liked the movie....so did NORAD.
Posted on 07/18/2008 11:13:37 AM PDT by qam1
Think of some of the movies you really want a chance to see on the big screen. The Wizard of Oz? Lawrence of Arabia? Star Wars? Would you ever, ever put War Games, the 1983 Matthew Broderick thriller, on that list? No, me neither.
But, lucky us, we will have the chance to see War Games in theaters this summer—on July 24, the movie will screen for one night only in select theaters across the country, thanks to NCM Fathom, a company that specializes in special theater events. It’s the 25th anniversary of the movie, and the Fathom website boasts that never-before-seen interviews will be part of the July 24 screening, along with—brace yourselves—exclusive footage from the sequel. War Games: The Dead Code appears to be one of those direct-to-video sequels starring a bunch of people you’ve never heard of, so I guess we can at least be thankful they’re not remaking the original. Yet.
Honestly, I like the idea of bringing back a classic movie and turning it into a one-night-only event. Not that War Games is what I immediately think of when I think “classics,” but it’s a fun movie with a lot of nostalgia power behind it that could bring 80s kids to the theaters in droves. Here in New York, outdoor screenings of movies like Back to the Future and Goonies draw huge crowds, but of course, those are free. So dig up your Matthew Broderick pinups, cue up the old Macintosh Lisa computer, and get ready to cause havoc with some of the most primitive computer technology ever seen in the movies.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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The title is “WarGames.”
The Soviet loving dupes were used by Andropov to scream and howl against the Gipper’s placement of nuclear missiles into Western Europe, where they could hit Soviet targets.
The left made movies like this back then openly implying that the dangerous US would cause or even wanted, a nuclear war. They never did admit they were wrong, and now they bring back their flawed thinking as nostalgia.
Last Friday it was Red Dawn, this Friday WarGames.
I do a really funny impression of the computer from that movie, but it doesn’t translate well non-verbally.
“Would you like to play a game?”
See, not funny. In person, a non-stop laugh riot.
You look into things too much. War Games ruled. And Ally Sheedy is hot.
Sorry Katey, it wasn’t a Mac Lisa, it was a IMSAI 8080.
Computer hackers were dangerous!
Wardialing was dangerous!
But America was the Home of the WOPR!
She didnt say it was in the movie. I have been debating going to this event....I still remember seeing the movie in the theatre in HS. (Where we had TRS 80s)
In 1979 a programmer ran a test program simulating a Soviet Nuclear Attack and forgot to take the computer off-line leaving NORAD to believe we were under attack. the threat was so real that we launch bombers and the "Dooms Day" plane took off before NORAD figured out it was not real. After that date, NORAD built a separate facility with identical computers that were not linked to the rest of the defense network to run test and war games on.
November 9, 1979: Computer Exercise Tape
At 8:50 a.m. on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD HQ, SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in a full scale attack on the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes were launched, including the President's National Emergency Airborne Command Post, though without the President! The President had not been informed, perhaps because he could not be found. ( To be fair, it was Carter and the Military figured 'why bother')
No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet intentions or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. This seems to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of the "Hot Line" was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was threatening at that moment.
With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on the satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles. In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated.
The reason for the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the computer system. U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ at the time and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A question was asked in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted an investigation, and an off-site testing facility was constructed so that test tapes did not in the future have to be run on a system that could be in military operation
I’d love to see old movies on the big screen again as they were intended. The problem is that the care and attention cinematographers/directors invest in images all but disappear when their work is projected at the local multiplex. Prints tend to be crappy and poorly projected. Also, I swear most multiplex theater projection systems are not throwing out enough candlepower for the distance...but maybe I’m wrong.
There is an article in WIRED stating Reagan liked the movie....so did NORAD.
She was a cutie.
WarGames was stupid. I’d rather see “The Right Stuff” which can out at the same time.
well, they arent showing a print...it is a digital screening, which means the images are coming via broadband. Not sure what kind of master they have....maybe they are using the WOPR to send it.
It is $10 + $1 surcharge in Burbank
WarGames 25th Anniversary
7/24/2008
Fathom and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios are proud to present WarGames back on the big screen after 25 years. Don’t miss this one-night-only event in select movie theatres nationwide on Thursday, July 24th at 7:30PM (local).
The event will include never-before-seen interviews with cast and crew on how the movie was ahead of its time and its relevance today. Additionally, only at this one night event, get a sneak peek at the making of the sequel – WarGames: The Dead Code.
Movie synopsis: Computer hacker David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) can bypass the most advanced security systems, break the most intricate secret codes and master even the most difficult computer games. But when he unwittingly taps into the Defense Department’s war computer, he initiates a confrontation of global proportions World War III! Together with his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy) and a wizardly computer genius (Tony Award® winner John Wood), David must race against time to outwit his opponent... and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
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Coll! I don’t think Dabney Coleman has been up on the big screen for decades!
I meant, “Cool!” not “Coll!” I guess my enthusiasm for all things Dabney Coleman got the best of me.
That movie made at home hacking popular.
Too bad she's so old now.
“The Day After.” The movie that warned us that after a thermonuclear war, everyone will look like Senator Alan Cranston (according to a National Review quip).
That's what I have now. Upgrading to a 300 bps acoustical modem next week!
It was part of a larger group of films about the then fast growing PC craze and how ‘computers can do anything man!’(Tron, Superman 3, Electric Dreams). The screenwirters later created ‘Project X’, another Matthew Broderick film about a goverment/military project gone wrong.
It’s also part of director John Badham’s ‘When Technology Attacks’ Trilogy (the others being Blue Thunder and Short Circuit).
>>Lawrence of Arabia?
Actually, this was remastered, restored, along with half an hour cut from the original commerical version and released limitedly in full 70MM glory around 1989.
Magnifico!
And Ally Sheedy is hot.”
was....
I can remember taking my girlfriend to see Wargames at a theater in a Chicago suburb.
As the movie let out, a loud thunderstorm over Lake Michigan was raging.
Lots of distant booming and backlit clouds.
A very cool special effects add on, courtesy of mother Nature.
You are speaking only for yourself, aren’t you?
I’m pretty sure it was Dabney Coleman, not Ally Sheedy in War Games. Ally was pretty hot though. And funny as hell playing that freak in The Breakfast Club.
Ok, so she hasn't had all the plastic surgery like fellow brat-packer Demi Moore, but she's still pretty good looking.
There were the “government gone evil” plots, but there was also a trend to inject video games into all kinds of SF movies. Whether they be Tron or A View To A Kill (Bond).
What did I learn watching ABC’s broadcast of The Day After? That there will be far fewer commercial interruptions after the bomb drops.
Now that’s a movie I would like to see again. DARPANET meets KREMLINNET.
And with war breaking out in Europe, they have a Brigadier General on Looking Glass. Yeah, right.
The good news about Fathom events is they aren’t running off of prints. Fathom pushes these things from their harddrive (or where ever they’re running it) to the satellite feed which then gets picked up by the theaters. They might not have the brightness up far enough but the process up to that point is out of the local theater’s hands. It’s a neat system, though so far it’s only been used for some fairly lame stuff like a Celine Dion concert, a U2 concert, and WarGames.
The Soviet loving dupes were used by Andropov to scream and howl against the Gipper’s placement of nuclear missiles into Western Europe, where they could hit Soviet targets.The left made movies like this back then openly implying that the dangerous US would cause or even wanted, a nuclear war. They never did admit they were wrong, and now they bring back their flawed thinking as nostalgia.
Ironically it was in this period of Soviet history, that THEY almost launched a Mutually Assured Destruction attack on the United States of America and our allies. The cause? A faulty "response" signal received on Russia's side. The man receiving the signal to launch dismissed it saying that there was nothing in the political climate to suggest that we had just launched an all out attack on Russia. He was repremanded and much later he was celebrated for not killing us all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov (September 26, 1983)
And I know that wiki isn't great for all details or biases, this at least gives people a name with which to start more in depth studies if they want.
If this is digital projection, then it may not have the bulb problems of a conventional projector. Someone else mentioned seeing Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen in it’s late 1980s reissue. It was a condition of the screening agreement that the projector be properly calibrated and tested; bulb brightness was a part of that.
Netflix has it.
That’s not a recent photo of her. It looks like it was taken in the ‘90s.
This looks like the sports betting bookies' room at Casesar's Palace in Vegas now...
“No bucks, no Buck Rogers!”
Teacher: "Can anyone tell me who came up with the idea of reproduction without sex."
Kid: "Your wife?"
I love “The Right Stuff” although (of course) it could not measure up to Tom Wolfe’s book. Great to see Gordon Cooper (RIP) get the attention he deserved, although my fave scenes were at the beginning about Yeager.
Interesting. Never did see that.
(And Jason Robards was in that one, too?)
Badham, of course, directed one of my top ten "desert island" films:
Love the Right Stuff. Inspired me to read Tom Wolfe. In a strange display of my own personal weirdness I didn’t get around to actually READING Right Stuff until a good 20 years after seeing the movie. Read all of Wolfe’s other stuff, picked up new books the minute they came out, just never got around to reading the book that spawned the movie that made me a fan of his. Until I spotted it in a used book store one day and realized that silliness.
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