50 Fun Facts About War Games

Who stars as teenage hacker David Lightman in the 1983 film WarGames?

The character was modelled on David Scott Lewis, a real hacking enthusiast the writers had met.

Who directed WarGames after the first director was fired three weeks into production?

He said the two young leads arrived "stiff as boards" and made them race him around the sound stage; he lost and had to sing "The Happy Wanderer" to the crew.

Which director, later of Beverly Hills Cop, was fired from WarGames early in shooting?

He had spent a year and a half on the film; several of the scenes he shot remain in the finished picture.

Who portrays Jennifer Mack, David's classmate, in WarGames?

It was released two years before The Breakfast Club made her a full Brat Pack member.

Who portrays NORAD systems chief Dr. John McKittrick?

McKittrick is the man who argues that missile launches should be automated after too many crews refuse to turn their keys.

Which English actor portrays reclusive scientist Stephen Falken and also voices WOPR?

The character was inspired by and named after Stephen Hawking; a former Beatle had been interested in the part before his murder.

Which former Beatle wanted the role of Falken while the WarGames script was in development?

He was murdered in New York in December 1980 while the writers were still working on the story.

Barry Corbin's General Beringer was based on which real USAF general the writers met at the base?

Hartinger was then commander-in-chief of the real NORAD.

What does the acronym WOPR stand for in WarGames?

The director coined it to sound like the Whopper hamburger, thinking NORAD's real Single Integrated Operational Plan sounded boring.

An early draft's version of the computer was a space-based defensive laser nicknamed what?

OLI stood for Omnipresent Laser Interceptor; the idea was dropped as too speculative.

The writers' first 1979 script, before hacking entered the story, was called what?

It was about a dying scientist and the rebellious kid who alone understands him, inspired by a TV special featuring Stephen Hawking.

What machine does David use to change his grades and dial into WOPR?

Ironically the WOPR prop itself was run by a crew member hidden inside typing on an Apple II.

In which California town is David dialling every phone number when he stumbles onto WOPR?

He is hunting for a computer-game company; the technique the scene shows became known as "wardialing".

What is the backdoor password that gets David into WOPR?

It is the name of Falken's dead son; two hacker friends had explained the concept of a backdoor to David.

Which game does David pick from the list, setting off the crisis?

He plays as the USSR and targets American cities; the list also offered chess, checkers, backgammon and poker.

WOPR sits inside which real military installation in Colorado?

The film's NORAD set, with its super-bright video wall, was more impressive than the real facility at the time.

After escaping NORAD, David and Jennifer find Falken living under an assumed name where?

He has decided nuclear war is as inevitable and futile as a game between two experts.

How does David slip out of NORAD after being detained?

He had been held on suspicion of espionage after failing to convince McKittrick that WOPR, not the Soviets, was behind the alerts.

Which three American bases report back unharmed, proving the Soviet strike is fake?

NORAD had been persuaded to ride out the supposed strike until real impacts were confirmed.

Why can't NORAD simply unplug WOPR when it starts trying to launch on its own?

The computer is brute-forcing the launch codes, and with no humans left in the control centres there is no two-man safeguard.

Which game do Falken and David make WOPR face itself at, to teach it futility?

After a long string of draws it runs every nuclear scenario, finds them all draws too, and reports "WINNER: NONE".

WOPR concludes that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which the only winning move is what?

It then relinquishes control and asks, "How about a nice game of chess?"

WarGames grossed about $125M worldwide against a budget of roughly how much?

It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1983 in the U.S. and Canada.

WarGames received three Oscar nominations. Which of these was one of them?

The others were cinematography and sound; it won the BAFTA for Best Sound.

Which critic gave WarGames four out of four stars and called it "an amazingly entertaining thriller"?

Leonard Maltin was cooler, dubbing it "Fail Safe for the Pac-Man Generation".

Which president watched WarGames, asked the Joint Chiefs whether it could happen, and ordered a security review?

He was a family friend of co-writer Lawrence Lasker; within a week the Joint Chiefs replied that the premise was technically possible.

The film helped prompt NSDD-145 (1984), the first presidential directive on what?

It also helped bring about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, the first federal law against hacking.

Which term for scanning phone numbers with a modem, and its later Wi-Fi cousin, did WarGames inspire?

It was previously called demon dialing; "wardriving" for hunting wireless networks followed indirectly.

Which Milwaukee hacker group's 1983 Los Alamos break-in was dubbed 'the WarGames case'?

Bulletin-board operators also reported a jump in traffic in 1984, which one sysop put down to the film introducing people to modems.

The 2008 direct-to-DVD sequel WarGames: The Dead Code pits a hacker against a supercomputer called what?

Matt Lanter starred; the original returned to cinemas for one night to mark its 25th anniversary.

The 1983 WarGames video game was first released on which console?

It puts you on the defending side of the film's war game; ports for Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 followed in 1984.

Which 2006 Introversion strategy game was inspired by WarGames?

A tile-matching mobile game, WarGames: WOPR, followed in 2012, and a six-episode interactive series in 2018.

Which Her Story designer creatively led the 2018 interactive WarGames series?

It was made with Interlude, which rebranded as Eko before the six episodes came out.

Who composed the WarGames score?

The original Polydor album mixed songs and dialogue; the full score finally came out from Intrada in 2008.

The animations on the NORAD screens were made on which company's hardware and vector displays?

Each frame took about a minute to produce and 50,000 feet of negative were shot over seven months, then projected live from behind the screens.

What happened to the WOPR prop after filming?

A replica was built for a 2006 AT&T commercial.

Which Soviet officer judged the 1983 launch warning a glitch, months after WarGames opened?

Five apparent U.S. launches seemed an illogical first strike to him; the satellite system had malfunctioned.

The Soviet satellite network behind the September 1983 false alarm was code-named what?

It reported one U.S. missile, then four more; ground radar never confirmed anything.

Which November 1983 NATO exercise convinced some Soviet leaders a first strike was coming?

New coded communications, radio silences and heads of government taking part made it look too real; Soviet aircraft in East Germany were loaded with nuclear weapons.

The 1983 NATO scare exercise was coordinated from SHAPE headquarters in which country?

It simulated escalation all the way to a coordinated nuclear attack; U.S. General Leonard Perroots' decision not to respond to the Soviet alert is credited with ending the danger.

Kriegsspiel, the first wargame adopted by a real army for training, was developed by which country?

After the Franco-Prussian War, other armies rushed to copy it; the word simply means "wargame" in German.

In Kriegsspiel, who moves the blocks on the map after reading each team's written orders?

The umpire keeps the rules flexible and manages hidden information, which is what set it apart from chess-like predecessors.

The 1812 prototype that Reisswitz Sr. presented to the king had a battlefield made of what?

His earlier experiments used a table of damp sand sculpted into hills; the tiles came with a cabinet of drawers holding all the pieces.

Millennium Challenge 2002, the most expensive U.S. war game ever, cost about how much?

It involved 13,000 troops, two years of planning, and a mix of live exercises and computer simulation, set in the year 2007.

In Millennium Challenge 2002, how many Blue warships did Paul Van Riper's Red force sink in one salvo?

He had used motorcycle couriers and light signals to dodge electronic surveillance; the exercise was restarted with the fleet "refloated" and Red heavily scripted.

In which city is David Lightman a high-school student in WarGames?

The real model for David was David Scott Lewis, a hacking enthusiast the screenwriters met during development.

Which physicist inspired and gave his first name to the reclusive scientist Dr. Falken?

John Lennon wanted the part but was murdered while the script was in development; John Wood eventually played Falken.

Which RAND expert told the writers a secure military computer might still allow remote access?

Peter Schwartz of the Stanford Research Institute had first connected the writers' idea to the emerging hacker subculture.

Which author of Psycho reviewed WarGames for Starlog in 1983, calling it 'an outstanding film'?

He nonetheless objected to the idea that there was anything heroic about a young man using his skills for 'immoral and amoral ends'.

On what date did MGM/UA release WarGames in the United States, after its Cannes premiere?

The film was screened out of competition at Cannes and went on to gross $125 million worldwide on a $12 million budget.