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The end of WarGames

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Bubbler, Jun 2, 2012.

  1. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    WarGames is cool movie. A fascinating relic of its era when we were all scared to death that we'd be blown up in a minute by a massive nuclear war. (Justifiably, as it turned out, as the Soviets very nearly did launch an accidental nuclear weapon around the time WarGames was out in '83.)

    But the end of the movie leaves a lot of loose ends untied.

    A recap: Matthew Broderick hacks into the Strategic Air Command's computer to play some cool-ass sims and accidentally sets in motion an actual nuclear war. Included was the brainiac decision to nuke his hometown.

    The super-computer charged with making nuclear-level decisions, the WOPR, tries to launch a real war after the SAC general refuses to do so, only to be side-tracked when Broderick re-hacks the computer and makes it play tic-tac-toe. The computer learns the futility of global thermonuclear war via the futility of tic-tac-toe. It doesn't launch its weapons, it wants to play chess.

    Yay! The world didn't blow up! Everybody gets laid! Roll credits!

    Dabney Coleman's character, who designed the WOPR system, even rubs Broderick's head in the aftermath in a begrudging gesture of mutual respect and show of appreciation for saving all of our asses.

    Wait, no, fuck that.

    Are they all missing something here? Asshead nearly blew us all up because he wanted to play a fucking video game. I know this was long before the days of super-elaborate role-playing games that would have fed his geek jones, but he nearly deep-fried the Earth over this shit. That's not cool.

    He busted into a government computer, busted out of NORAD and set the record for the most trouble caused in Colorado until that asshole with the balloon from a few years ago.

    As a taxpayer and someone who is generally against getting vaporized in a nuclear conflict, I'm pretty fucking pissed about this shit.

    Know this. He wouldn't be going back to Seattle to bang Ally Sheedy between Gorf sessions as he bullshits her into thinking he's learning to swim to remain in her pants.

    There's a couple ways this could go.

    A) He never leaves NORAD alive. He's a dead man for a number of reasons. He embarrassed the military by busting into its computer, he caused a ceaseless amount of chaos that cost us a fortune in money and international prestige, public knowledge of his act would undermine the government, and he could be used by the Soviets if they set him free.

    Pistol to temple, pull trigger.

    Sheedy is also liquidated.

    B) He sits in a SuperMax for the rest of his days without trial.

    I mean ... he's got to go. He fucked up bad.
     
  2. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    I always got the impression that he gets hired by the DoD to shore up their computer defenses.
    "Turn Your Key Sir!" - one of the great movie opening scenes. RIP John Spencer.
     
  3. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    He just knew how to bust in. He didn't know shit about programming them.

    Maybe he's used to hack Soviet computers?

    Nah. Blow his fucking brains out.
     
  4. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

  5. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
    "Mr. Potato Head! Mr. Potato Head! - Backdoors are NOT Secrets!"
     
  6. rmanfredi

    rmanfredi Active Member

    Was that nerdy guy the nerdy guy in EVERY movie made in the late 1970s through mid 1980s? How was he not in "Revenge of the Nerds"?!?
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    The other guy was Maury Chaiken, probably better remembered as the Union officer who offed himself as Costner heads to the frontier in Dances with Wolves or his turn as the Harvey Weinstein character in Entourage.
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Maury Chaykin is the bomb. Add in his tour de force role in the made-for-TV-movie about the female hockey goalie, his role in a wheelchair in perhaps the greatest 80s movie there is, Turk 182, and the fact that he was actually in Meatballs III, and you have hands down the greatest Canadian actor of our generation.
     
  9. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    I'm a big mystery fan, so I enjoyed Chaikin's turn as Nero Wolfe a few years back. He was also in the first Banderas Zorro movie as well as Entrapment. RIP to a great character actor.
     
  10. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    It needed some Ally Sheedy nudity.
     
  11. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    I remember Chaykin most from his turn as the guy with too much self-respect to eat instant grits in My Cousin Vinny:

    [​IMG]

    But to answer the thread's original question, Broderick's character would have been either immediately executed/imprisoned or forcibly employed in counter-intelligence. He certainly wouldn't have been set free to frolic lakeside with Ally Sheedy.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  12. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    He was the bomb. He died in 2010.

    The hockey movie you're referring to is called "Hockey Night", starring Megan Follows. I gotta admit, as a young teen, I thought she was kinda cute.
     
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