Talk:WarGames

Drug references

I watched it again recently, and I suddenly noticed there are a lot of drug references in the film. I wonder does anyone know what the reasons are it cannot be coincidence considering the number of times it occurs. Even in the opening dialogue in the first few minutes of the film, the two airmen at the silo talk about marijuana consumption. And when David is in the infirmary and discovers the tape recorder, the last recording is presumably a doctor discussing marijuana and PCP use. This seems to be a hidden subtext in the film. 90.255.234.173 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:55, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

The 1980s was the era of D.A.R.E. and "Just Say No." Political efforts against drugs were in full swing at the time in America. Forklift17 (talk) 00:11, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Influence?

An interesting panel on Youtube made two points about this movie's influence. One, that NORAD remodelled its command center after the movie came out to more closely resemble what was seen in the movie, and two, that Ronald Reagan quoted the line "the only winning move is not to play" in one of his speeches. Can't find any published references to it though. Serendi^podous 23:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting certainly. There might be published references to it out there, somewhere. From the page you linked:

On Friday, May 30th Craig Silverstein hosted a panel and an exclusive screening at Google of the 1983 suspense film, WarGames, in honor of the 25th Anniversary DVD. The panelists included Walter Parkes (Academy Award Nominated Writer, Producer), Lawrence Lasker, (Academy Award Nominated Writer, Producer) and Peter Schwartz (Cofounder and Chairman, Global Business Network). The panelists gave Googlers a behind the scenes peek into the making of this film and its resulting legacy.

The video is uploaded by Google, on their official channel; copyvio wouldn't apply if linking to it. It should be possible to use it to develop the article in some way. --92.6.211.228 (talk) 19:07, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Found a source referring to it already in the article, in the Development section. Wired article. --92.6.211.228 (talk) 19:40, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to Merge. Per WP: MERGE, this discussion should have been closed way back on October 17, 2012, at which point support for the merge was unanimous. For some reason none of the three editors who had then voted for the merge, not even the original nominator, did so, and since then opinions on the issue have become mixed. However, the only editor to provide an "Oppose" rationale was Jimerb; his reasons were countered by McGeddon, and no counterargument to McGeddon's reasoning has since been provided. Also, sourcing for the article has not improved in the ten months since the nomination, so the case for merging remains valid.NukeofEarl (talk) 14:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

---

Right now, there is a seperate article for WOPR, which seems rather unecessary. The computer does not really have any notability outside of the film (or any real reliable sources to demonstrate that it does), and the majority of the article is either just plot information that is already covered here, or unsourced and unnotable trivia, making it a pretty pointless split from the film's article. Pretty much the only information there that is actually useful, sourced information is the section on the creation of the prop itself, which can be merged nicely into the Development section of this article. So, I am proposing that information be merged to the main WarGames article. Rorshacma (talk) 17:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support per nom. I see no reason for a separate article. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 19:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Reasons for merging are self-evident. Ylee (talk) 19:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. IMHO WOPR was an icon of the 80s for movie enthusiasts like me.   M aurice   Carbonaro  12:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I agree a separate article is not necessary for WOPR. Charger2 (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. WOPR has a life outside of Wargames making appearances in commericals and TV shows as outlined in the article. This is similar to the DeLorean time machine from the movie Back to the Future which has correctly earned a separate article. People who see no reason to keep it separate should provide additional rationale as they should vet/oppose the stated reasons why it should be kept split. They are not self evident. Jimerb (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Jimerb reasons + article size. ▪◦▪≡SiREX≡^Talk 02:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Sirex98 and Jimerb. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 03:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nom. The WOPR has nowhere near the depth of the DeLorean time machine article; at best it's a sentence about the name "WOPR", one paragraph about the computer's role in the film, one paragraph about how it was designed, and one paragraph about how it's appeared in pop culture since. The WOPR "Prop" section would add a lot to this article's "Development", and the pop culture list of WOPR appearances could be trimmed down to "WOPR appeared in an AT&T commercial and some very minor parodies" and merged into "Influence" (providing a more accurate view of the film's cultural legacy, which is currently only lists tech jargon). Adding two paragraphs and a sentence about the name doesn't seem like a significant "article size" concern. --McGeddon (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
• Comment finding more sources would help - in particular indi secondary sources Widefox; talk 17:17, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

North American video game crash of 1983

North American video game crash of 1983 is linked in the see-also with the rationale that "the "context" is "1983" and "videogame"". This seems a little tenuous. Is there any more to the connection other than they both happened in the same year and had something to do with videogames? Lots of other videogame things happened in 1983, and a couple of actual wars broke out that year, but if they don't have anything to do with the WarGames movie, it's misleading the reader to suggest that a link might exist. --McGeddon (talk) 12:22, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

This makes me seriously think that McGeddon (talk) was probably a teenager in 1983 because I remember very well the sort of panic this movie spreaded (at least in Italy where I was living at the moment with a NATO base of Cruise nuclear missiles close to me). Hopefully this will not offend him. McGeddon, I have the "impression" that your main edits concern "videogames" but not "movie" articles. Please try to be a little bit more constructive with people that have more edits than you in movie articles: I have NEVER hear of a WP:OR for just adding a single link to another article in 10 years I have been on Wikipedia. And, if you manage, see if you can try to avoid looking like you are wp:wikihounding my recent edits. If we are going to have more "problems" about my recent edit in the "WarGame" movie or about my edits in general I will ask for WP:30. Have a nice day. Thanks.   M aurice   Carbonaro  12:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Incredulity and personal commentary aside, can you explain what you think this film or its broader Cold War themes have to do with a 1983 recession in the videogame industry? --McGeddon (talk) 12:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I see no connection or relevance between the two articles. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 13:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed with the above. There is no connection between this film and that topic. Ylee (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Firewall origin claim

The article currently states "The movie was notable for coining the term firewall in reference to computer network security." with the [citation needed] remark. In the movie the dialogue is at about 1 hour and 39 minutes in: "Can we invade the deep logic?" - McKittrick, "We keep hitting a damn firewall" - Richter. An [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/wargames-script.html online transcript] can be found, but it is not wholly accurate.

I tried to do a quick search for other claims to the term firewall in relation to computers in general, and most claim "90's" or "late 80's" (in reference to the 20th century). While Wikipedia itself cannot be considered a source, the article on [Firewall (Computing)] states "The first paper published on firewall technology was in 1988", the paper referenced claims "Firewalls have existed since about 1987, and several surveys and histories have already been written.".

While I doubt the writers coined the term, the movie (1983) certainly predates those claims by a healthy margin, and an earlier claim is proving elusive. Perhaps the paper referred to as the first written on firewalls, by Dodong Sean James and Elohra (no title mentioned), could shed some light on it, but I can't find this paper. Kmqz (talk) 00:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL --Jpswade (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

References

Setting? Seattle? Sunnyvale? Colorado? Oregon?

I was very confused by Sheedy's character saying Colorado was a 3hr drive from where she lives, which seems to be Seattle? I thought at least IMDB would have trivia about the confused setting of this movie. There's a lot off screen travel that happens in the course of what seems to be 1 day or so. Any theories or thoughts or clarity? I can see NORAD is in Colorado state. Did she come after he touched down in Oregon? --72.173.4.14 (talk) 14:48, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Both Jennifer Mack and David Lightman live in Seattle. After Lightman hacks into NORAD's line in Sunnyvale, thinking he's got ProtoVision, he's picked up and possibly flown to NORAD. He escapes, hacks a payphone, is picked up by a truck, and meets Jennifer (in Colorado somewhere?), whom he called to get some plane ticket money. They both fly (near) to Goose Bay Oregon, where they meet Stephen Falken (Robert Hume). They then all go by helicopter back to NORAD. Is that correct? Does it help? Should any of it be in the article? Dhtwiki (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC) (edited 21:43, 1 March 2021 (UTC))

Well I thought the film was very hand wavy about this and I might misremembering, but it's the "and meets Jennifer (in Colorado somewhere?)" part that really takes the cake. She says it's a 3hr drive, so I assume the only way to make sense of that is she drove (does she have a driver's license?) from Seattle to the town in Oregon, since there's no 3hr drive from Seattle to Colorado happening, but it seems like the way it's cut that the impression may be she drove to Colorado. I thought while watching the film there must be a city called Colorado in Washington state. I actually live on the outskirts of a small city called Colorado in Arkansas that's called Lorado instead. But I couldn't come up with a better explanation upon rewinding at the time and just moved on with my viewing --72.173.4.14 (talk) 20:52, 2 March 2021 (UTC)