War Games (25th Anniversary Edition)
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Actor: Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Matthew BroderickBrand: Sony
Cinematographer: William A. Fraker
Composer: Arthur B. Rubinstein
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-07-29
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of War Games (25th Anniversary Edition)
DVD Review: The only prevention to war is peace
Summary: 5 Stars
Remember Ronald Reagan, the actor-president, the acting president, the president-actor, we will never know. Was he serious about his empire of evil or was he joking one of these good words produced by black humor, or at least very dark grey humor? No one will even know, because Reagan himself did probably not know. The film is a direct reflection on that period from that period. If we entrust our own security to machines what would happen? Machines have no sense of life and death and for them everything is nothing but an exercise, a game, a playground dare or challenge or discussion because they have no ethical sense at all. The film, or rather this question is at the basis of the Terminator series too. Machines, if we let them develop too much, will take over and destroy or try to destroy the human species that would stand in their way. We also remember it is the fundamental element of the Dune series and that the survival of the human species was due to the Butlerian revolution that banned all intelligent machines and made it a crime to develop such machines. What is the originality of this film then that goes back to the command-line computers that no one knows how to use any more. That was the good old time before the invention of the GUI (Graphical User's Interface). That was a beautiful time when computers were an elite tool and when the Internet was still nothing but an intranet of the military establishment. That was then a field of mystery that we were just discovering and it took little imagination to understand that it could only be child play to penetrate such a system because it was only based on declarative identities and passwords and human beings are very simple-minded as for passwords since they want THE password they will never forget, as if it were possible. So it is simple to think of birth dates, death dates of close relatives, names of one's children, etc. That's exactly what a 17 year old teenager does: he penetrates the computer that governs the whole defense of the USA in case of a thermo-nuclear war and finds out that the computer considers it is a game, a game he is willing to play but he plays it for real and he can absolutely fool all commanding levels of the security system because they trust the machines and do not even ask their own eyes to check what is happening. The worst point about this film is that security rules make the commanding chain decide at one point to lock the system so that no change can be introduced that could change the management of the situation, or the orders given to the military by anyone in the chain of command. But the film remains entertaining and yet very moralistic indeed. So the game cannot be stopped but the military commander can be persuaded that it is a game played by the machine, but, and then it becomes rather sickening, the machine can by-pass that human chain of command and give the orders itself. At this moment there is no way to escape the apocalypse, except by playing another game the machine accepts as the key to make it think, if it can think, in the right direction. So why not try tic-tac-toe, a game that cannot be won at all. And that leads the dear machine of ours to the conclusion that, after examining all scenarios, a thermo nuclear war cannot be won except by not engaging in one. And we can only wonder why human beings are dumb enough to start wars all the time if there is no winner in present day war. McCain who knew how to win a war lost the election that should have been his major battle. Bush who was not prepared for a war, got into one desperately and stubbornly, and even into two for good measure. If he had been prepared he definitely would not even have hesitated with Iran or North Korea and maybe two or three more. Is a machine more intelligent than the human species? Probably. At least this film is trying to tell us so.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Description of War Games (25th Anniversary Edition)
Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) star in this compelling drama filled with action, suspense and high-tech adventures! Featuring superb performances by Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin, WarGames is "brilliant...funny...and provocative" (New York)a fast-paced cyber-thriller. Computer hacker David Lightman (Broderick) can bypass the most advanced security systems, break the most intricate secret codes and mastereven the most difficult computer games. But when he unwittingly taps into the Defense Department's war computer, he initiates a confrontation of global proportionsWorld War III! Together with his girlfriend (Sheedy) and a wizardly computer genius (Tony AwardÂ(r) winner John Wood), David must race against time to outwit his opponent...and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.Bestsellers in DVD
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