Keep an eye out soon for Wait Until Dark, Death Becomes Her, The Talented Mr Ripley, and Sunshine! Early access available now on patreon.com/casualnerdreactions for all four of those with four more incoming next week.

@Ceractucus

2 жыл бұрын

Wait Until Dark! No way. I am so excited to see someone react to that! Thank you!!!

@adrubal

2 жыл бұрын

"Wait until Dark" has one of the best jumpscares in movie history ! And "Death Becomes Her" is one of my favorites, very campy and a lot of fun ! Great movies to react to !

@MrRuss50

2 жыл бұрын

Real Genius is another 80s film im betting you'd enjoy

@madhatman9166

2 жыл бұрын

I suggest the movie Slingblade its an older movie but pretty good.

@timhaas6021

Жыл бұрын

You're right, I don't break bread with pinko scum and people who exhibit a conspicuous pattern of authoritarian behavior. Good call, mate.

In the 80s the threat of nuclear war and the emergence of computers made this all to real!

@PygmalionFaciebat

2 жыл бұрын

The threat for a nuclear war is still there. See Putin.

@redmaynard

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, I was 12 when this came out and I was terrified!

Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood star, screened WarGames at Camp David the weekend it was released, and it freaked him out. As Slate’s Fred Kaplan described in his book Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, Reagan brought it up a few day later at a White House meeting that included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and asked, “Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?” The answer came back a week later: “Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think.” That led not only to a significant revamp of how computer security was handled at the Defense Department, but also passage of an anti-hacking law that would eventually evolve into our current Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Clips of WarGames were shown during the congressional hearings where lawmakers debated the need for hacking legislation.

@mrviggomartin

2 жыл бұрын

Cool thanx for info👍

@GrisouIII

2 жыл бұрын

Wow

@fenix6297

2 жыл бұрын

What terrifies me is how often we have almost ended up in nuclear - just from human error. A Soviet sub almost launched a nuclear tipped warhead during the Cuban Missile Crisis and I believe I read once that one of the ground crews in Cuba also attempted a launch, but the launcher failed. Either one may have resulted in a total response.

@tempsitch5632

2 жыл бұрын

And is that where he got his name of Star Wars for his space/cold war programs.

@arandomnamegoeshere

2 жыл бұрын

It also led to this mythic belief that a person (Mitnick) could whistle in to a phone and launch WWIII. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act wasn't... effective.

Less than three months after this movie came out, a mid-level Soviet aparatchik named Stanislav Petrov recevied a call that five US ICBMs were en route to the Soviet Union and would strike in a matter of hours. It was Petrov's call to send the message to his superiors and begin a nuclear war. But he found it ridiculous that the US would just send five missiles, and concluded it had to be a glitch. He was right. Historians have called him the most powerful man who ever lived.

@alen7480

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, I was trying to find his name. I read about this a while ago but couldn't remember his name.

@bekindandrewind1422

11 ай бұрын

The man who saved the world by doing nothing...

@tenchraven

5 ай бұрын

@@bekindandrewind1422 He did something. He decided to risk being shot on the spot by the political officer, and argued against the end of the world.

@bekindandrewind1422

5 ай бұрын

@@tenchraven - Truly one of the greatest heroes Earth has ever known..

The movie that lifted hacker and computer security awareness into the public eye. All my servers are still named after people and places in this movie.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

I had fun one day typing out all the different simulation strategies WOPR came up with!

@Tr0nzoid

Жыл бұрын

@@vickenator, did you type those scenarios out back when the movie was new? I used to try to pause and remember them all but now, of course, they are listed online.

@vickenator

Жыл бұрын

@@Tr0nzoid Goodness no! I paused and typed them out from onscreen years ago back before I thought to search online for 'em!

I was in my teens when this movie came out and we all grew up knowing that war with the Soviet Union could begin at any moment was very real. Considering where we are today, computers might learn but we don't.

@Serai3

2 жыл бұрын

The fact that we don't learn means the computers literally can't. As Seth Brundle said, computers are stupid; they only know what you tell them. They make the same mistakes made by the humans who program them. Look at the scandals around face-recognition and voice-recognition technology. We're never going to get rid of the human factor.

Holy crow, just noticed this! That fella with the gun in scene one: very young Michael Madsen of Kill Bill, Heat, Reservoir Dogs, and piles of other movies.

@paulhewes7333

2 жыл бұрын

The other soldier who refused to launch was John Spencer, who played Leo on “The West Wing” for 6.5 seasons (he died of a heart attack before season 7 was finished)

@Serai3

2 жыл бұрын

@@paulhewes7333 The programmer David goes to talk to is Maury Chaykin, a great character actor.

@AlanCanon2222

2 жыл бұрын

It's funny, I recently had people point that out, and thought, "Whoa, the WarGames commander guy did other movies too?" I'd never spotted him in anything else.

@sha11235

2 жыл бұрын

@@Serai3 There were a lot of up and comers in this film. Eddie Deezen was Malvin, Jason Bernard is one of the officers at NORAD, Alan Blumenfeld was Mr. Liggett, etc.

@sha11235

2 жыл бұрын

Also in the film was James Tolkan, yes, Strickland from Back to the Future.

I showed WarGames for the first time to my 14 year old stepson about five years ago, and he ate it up (he is very computery, as I am). I asked him if the obsolete hardware depicted in the film hampered his appreciation of it, and he instantly rose to the movie's defense: "Oh, no, it's a classic!" know there are some people who consider the movie dated, but why not? It's about a very specific (and very real) period of our history, and slots in nicely alongside earlier accidental nuclear war films like Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove. I was 14, going on 15, when WarGames hit theaters, and about five years into a computer career that started with writing BASIC programs for the school system's mainframe computer, dialing in from the school using a teletype, and acoustic coupled modem much like the one David uses in his bedroom. I still remember the phone number. The thing was, computers were just starting to enter the lives of children, with video games like the Atari console and home computers becoming affordable to a greater and greater segment of the world's population. Not everyone had experienced a dial up computer connection when the movie hit theaters, but lots of people had: it was a great leap forward like the smart phone revolution 15-odd years ago. Primitive, to be sure, but it was the spark that paid for the R&D to give us the stupid-powerful computers we all enjoy today at almost no cost. I think your drawing a lesson about confirmation bias and political echo chambers is an apt one, and it's interesting that the comment comes from someone who (I presume) is of a later time than the Cold War environment of 1983, where I think for most people the primary takeway was the film's surface message of the futility of nuclear war. The fact that the film's depiction of accidental nuclear war is a far more distant threat now than in 1983 perhaps allows the film's secondary themes to rise in visibility (as the echo chamber is now more of a problem than it ever was in 1983, when most people had never heard of the Internet, and the Web didn't exist.) Then again, the world of 2022 is starting to resemble that of 1983 in some pretty alarming ways. Believe me, it's not a feeling my Generation X wish on any who have come after us. May rationality help us all. :(

@Tr0nzoid

2 жыл бұрын

A lot of people who call a movie "dated" don't seem to understand what the term means. It's like they expect everything to be modern or they just can't follow a story or comprehend a movie's lasting appeal because it comes from beyond a month ago. When people call a movie "dated," it is never a valid criticism.

@highheartwellness

Жыл бұрын

Yes, I remember taking a Compu-tech class with BASIC around the time this movie came out

The opening of this film scared the heck out of me years ago when first watched it, Mathew Broderick at one time was most sought after actor in Hollywood. His portrayal of Ferris Bueller is legendary.

Movies in the 80s tended to treat computers as though they were magic, and hacking movies treated hackers like some kind of wizards. The WOPR itself is kind of silly, but I always liked that this movie focused on some of the fundamental aspects of hacking, like social engineering. David doesn't get the school's password through some phony sequence filled with bad early CGI and other overblown crap, he just snoops around the office and finds where they've lazily written it down. When he tries to find another password, he researches Falken, then uses his late son's name. And it works! No one should use their children's names, pet's names, or their birthdays for passwords, especially not to create a backdoor into a government computer! But that's a prime example of the social aspect of hacking. Finally, when he needs the code for the door, he pretends to have to go to the bathroom and records the keypad tones. It almost hearkens back to some of the earliest hacking... done with a telephone and a whistle that came as a prize in Captain Crunch! It's not all about keyboards and cool graphics, and it's funny that a movie from 1983 got that part so right, when movies in the 90s and early 2000s (and even today) drowned their credibility in cheesy effects sequences. Another movie that focuses on some of these social hacking techniques is 1992's Sneakers.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

I need to add Sneakers to my watchlist, but yeah, the social engineering in this flick was top notch. Even Jennifer was able to help by focusing on Falken's tragic family loss; David wouldn't have gotten that clue if she hadn't paid attention to it.

@autohmae

2 жыл бұрын

The hacks were actually real for the time, not just the social engineering. The machine learning is real, but much to early of course. We often say in technology the military might be 10 years ahead from the state of the art in the rest of society. The machine learning part... was many many years ahead. These days you could build your own WOPR now, not even that expensive. The size of the machine would probably be smaller too.

@shadowphoenix1696

6 ай бұрын

​@@autohmaethis is late but anyways. Norad was unrealistic for its time. The film made it out that they had all the latest and greatest computer stuff and outfitted in a fancy way. But it reality was Norad just had one massive computer from the 60s and a big black screen with white texts on it.

5:57 -- This was a process called "war-dialing". Telling your computer to go number by number until it found another computer. Used to do that myself, found quite a few things I probably shouldn't have found.--- Nowdays it's used for making "robo-calls". Number by number leaving spam on the answering machine or voice mail.

@flpndrox

2 жыл бұрын

I think they named it war dialing after the movie, but it was done even back then.

@davidr1050

2 жыл бұрын

@@flpndrox -- yep. Today we have "war-driving" where people creep along looking for open or unsecured WiFi.

This movie has one of the best Humanist lines in Hollywood history, joining a very short list. "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play" - War Games "If a Terminator can learn the value of Human life... maybe we can too" - Terminator 2 "If I can change, and you can change, EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!" - Rocky IV What other good ones do you know?

@goglux2

Жыл бұрын

“If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark that is all you will ever see.” -Uncle Iroh

@x_mau9355

10 ай бұрын

Victoria Nuland left the chat.

@tempsitch5632

8 ай бұрын

“You are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don’t act like one.”

The full line was.... You're listening to a machine. Do yourself a favor and don't act like one! Great line!!!

As a kid of the 80's I have a real soft spot for this film. Can believe its nearly 40 yrs old😮

At the time WarGames was released, Matthew was on Broadway doing Brighton Beach Memoirs. This was one of his earliest films.

For the War Room projections - "each frame took approximately one minute to produce, and 50,000 feet of negatives were produced over seven months. The animations were projected "live" onto the screens from behind using 16-mm film, so they were visible to the actors and no post-production work was needed."

this hit theaters at the height of the cold war, and with the birth of computers. It scared the hell out of you if you took a moment to think how it could even remotely happen for real.

@100domathon

Жыл бұрын

Wasn't the height of the Cold War the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962?

@christhompson6010

Жыл бұрын

@@100domathon that was the time we almost went to war but that sparked the anxiety that we would eventually have a world war 3 . that anxiety climaxed in the early 80,s

I had a friend growing up whose dad had a basement full of older tech. A lot of the stuff in War Games looks really familiar.

@NeuroticNomadic

2 жыл бұрын

Funny thing is, when this movie was new - most of the things in David's bedroom were already old/obsolete tech,.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

@@NeuroticNomadic Makes me wonder where he got a lot of it, because that stuff was expensive. Maybe hand-me-down's from his buddies at the university?

@NeuroticNomadic

2 жыл бұрын

@@vickenator I grew up in the shadow of a lot of tech companies and got a lot of old stuff from dumpster diving. My dad worked for Collins Radio (nee Rockwell International) and my mom worked for Texas Instruments. I learned how read schematics and how to use a soldering iron to replace swollen capacitors, etc. at an early age. In my head canon, this is how David got his old stuff, too.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

@@NeuroticNomadic Ah yeah, good call, I forgot about dumpster diving. I got a lot of old stuff from working in IT as well, back in the '90s and '00s.

@torikazuki8701

Жыл бұрын

@@NeuroticNomadic Yes, I had a good friend who's Dad was a high-level Exec & their company always had to have 'Bleeding Edge' tech for their IT dept. In early 1994 I got an 'old' (it really wasn't all that old) Everex File Server from them. It had an Intel 486/DX2-66mhz CPU, 8MB of RAM and craziest of all, *2* 1GB Hard Drives! The fact this PC was free allowed me to spend all my money on getting the best GPU I could. I was very lucky to have it. However, The Brass Ring DID have a catch- the Hard Drives were SCSI drives. Extremely fast for the era, but anyone who was familiar with them knew they were never designed to work with the IBM PC architecture. Getting them to work properly was a software configuration nightmare. When you compounded that with me wanting to use it as a gaming PC? Ugh. I never really enjoyed the PC because I spent vastly more time getting it to work than playing on it. Ah Well. At least all that futzing gave me the knowledge needed to get a job in the industry.

War Games is the quintessential 80s film. Love it!

For those who weren't around, this movie is a goldmine for the 80's games of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon; there are a ton of actors who've done prolific work in the 80's both on the big and small screens littered throughout the film. And for more recent people, in Captain America 2: the Winter Soldier, when Black Widow and Steve find Zola, the line there is a direct reference to this movie. Looking back, this is an incredible capsule of the era, from the fear of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), to the concerns about unthinking machines replacing considerate people. When I was a kid, the opening where they mentioned 22% of the missile defense people refused to do their job seemed like a dereliction of duty. Now as an adult, I'm sad that 78% didn't think about it.

Loved the commentary at the end! I get it that many people like to see a movie for mindless entertainment, but me, there's nothing better than a film experience that provokes thought and challenges us to think about how we see ourselves. It doesn't matter whether the filmmaker intended it or not, but art isn't about the sender -it's about the receiver.

"The only winning move is not to play." Amen Joshua, AMEN!

Great reaction to a great movie! As someone with a PhD in AI, I think the movie is very much about the balance between blindly listening to machines, vs retaining your own humanity. That's a concern that started in the 80's but will continue to be with us, manifesting in different forms, for a long time as machines continue to become more intelligent and take up a bigger part of our lives. Of course, the wider message of avoiding unwinnable entanglements is always relevant too! PS Love the movies you choose and the optimistic, thoughtfully independent takes you have on them. Cheers from a recent subscriber.

I saw this theatrically as a 15 year old during the Cold War and even though I loved it, it kind of freaked me out.🤣 Another great movie from this director is Blue Thunder which stars Roy Scheider and came out at the same time as this movie, in fact I saw both as a double bill at the drive in.👍

This was very much a movie of it’s time, and I’m not just talking about the primitive computer technology. It was a time capsule illustrating the height of the Cold War and the anxiety over the buildup of nuclear weapons worldwide. This was meant to be a representation of the concept of M.A.D. - Mutually Assured Destruction. The idea that nuclear war is a foolish and unthinkable idea. If one side launches, the other inevitably retaliates and no one survives. The ironic thing is, nothing has changed. Right now, Vladimir Putin is threatening to launch nukes, completely oblivious to the fact that if he does, the whole world is f*cked, not just Russia’s enemies. Only a madman would carry out what Putin is threatening. Only time will tell if he is unstable and detached from reality enough to actually follow through on his threats. Sorry to be such a bummer, but I’m just the kind of person who worries about these kinds of things…😓

@ThreadBomb

2 жыл бұрын

I think Putin's threats are mostly for home consumption. He knows the West won't make any direct moves against him, but he wants to look like a strong man intimidating the enemy by flexing his muscles.

@DylansPen

2 жыл бұрын

Putin is fully aware of what nuclear war means, it would mean the end of Russia and the end of countless cities in other countries as well as 500Million to 1Billion dead. He's showing signs that he has serious health issues the last few weeks and he is likely in the last months of his life, or the last year or so, and doesn't believe in any kind of deity or afterlife and maybe just wants to see the rest of the world burn. He may be like Hitler and his cohorts who were in a death cult from the beginning. They all decided and pledged they'd either succeed or kill themselves but not until taking as many other people with them as they could. We may well be at the moment such a person in modern times has access to a huge nuclear arsenal and will do the same thing. The only thing in his way would be leaders of the Russian military putting a stop to it and getting rid of him.

@scottstevens7639

2 жыл бұрын

@@DylansPen thanks for brightening my day…

@scottstevens7639

2 жыл бұрын

@@ThreadBomb you’ll forgive my pessimism, but after seeing the mass destruction and wholesale slaughter of the population of Ukraine at Putin’s behest I have doubts about his sanity and ability to show restraint.

@gibbletronic5139

2 жыл бұрын

@@scottstevens7639 Putin is copying Trump's"madman" style diplomatic strategy, and using it against Biden and the west. If you bother to look into it, you will find good reasons which will make you feel a whole lot better.

I think part of the reason this film still works pretty well is that the characters feel so real. I want that RC pterodactyl glider!

The plot of this movie is very very loosely related to a real incident from 1979, the writers of the movie had contact with a RAND computer security expert, and supposedly heard elements of the story that way. In November of 1979, a training tape was accidentally accessed by the computers at NORAD, and a training simulation of a Soviet attack was displayed as if it was a real event, and not just the wrong tape on the computer data bank. Quite a few actions on the standard chain of nuclear alert were taken before the tape issue was discovered, including the launch of 10 fighter planes and the National Emergency Airborne Command Post.

@matta5498

Жыл бұрын

Yes, Carter was asleep and 5 minutes before impact they decided to wake him. Can you imagine how long Biden takes to wake up and get his mind functional?

@iKvetch558

Жыл бұрын

@@matta5498 In the training tape incident of November 1979, while the NEACAP plane was launched, the President was not on board. It was National Security Advisor Brzezinski that got the calls from the military about the warnings of the attack, and while he waited for confirmation before calling the President the attack was called into question and shown to be a false alarm. As I understand it, in this particular case, Carter was not awakened and learned of the incident through his regular briefings during the work day that followed the incident. But your point about Biden is definitely quite valid.✌

David's character is very much an example of a highly intelligent or genius level intellect that is bored off his ass in school, makes jokes, gets in trouble and doesn't get good grades. The type that doesn't do daily assignments and can't handle, what to them is busy work, but get A's on reports and major papers that reflect their interests or they can really sink their intellectual teeth into. Another couple of films dealing with the cold war and specifically nuclear ordinance from the 80's to check out, Amazing Grace and Chuck, The Manhattan Project and The Hunt for Red October!

Mathew Broderick's computer is a rare IMSAI 8080. It was a popular "kit computer," requiring assembly and programming. It didn't come with a keyboard and you would program it using switches or it could be modified to accept an IBM I/O typewriter. You can find then for sale occasionally for around $2000.00 which, when adjusted for inflation, is about what they cost brand new. The voice synthesizer was a bit far fetched even though such technology is common place today, back then a voice synthesizer would be a very complex system to set up and require a lot of programming. At that point in time you could create a voice but it required you to write in code for each syllable spoken. I know because it was part of an exam I had to take at an electronics and computer programming school I went to in the 80s. We were given a sentence that we then had to go over to the computer and write the code to get it to say it correctly. I remember my instructor took off points because the computer said, "Thermistor-REEsistor" instead of "thermistor resistor" and I was like, "Seriously?" He did let me re-do it but I told him that's how I say it. That's my accent. He didnt care.

@DB-zp9un

11 күн бұрын

You can buy current versions that will run the software.. Pretty sure they are based on just a microcontroller now, but they can be used the same way. WIth all the switches and stuff

Wow, the guy playing Jim Sting is the same actor who played the witness, Mr. "I take pride in my grits" Tipton, in My Cousin Vinney. I've never seen this movie. Another great reaction to another great film, Chris!!

@Tr0nzoid

2 жыл бұрын

He also had a significant part in "Dances With Wolves." Kevin Costner told him "I want to see the frontier before it's gone."

Great reaction. This movie was one of the most influential films of my teenage years as I was 14 when it came out and was fully aware of the real danger of the Cold War. I video interviewed an exchange student.from West Germany that same year for a class project and got a real understanding of what someone thought about the idea of living at the forefront of a possible nuclear conflict with an at least 6-1 deficit in armored tank divisions facing each other with the only way to stop a Soviet Invasion was to fire tactical nuclear missiles which could only escalate to total nuclear war. A very sobering realization that has cooled but with a madman like former FSB officer Putin in charge of Russia still a distinct possibility. Another film about how nuclear war could accidentally happen that would be a good watch is Stanley Kubrick's 1962 "Doctor Strangelove" starting Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens and James Earl Jones.

I've so enjoyed rewatching a movie from my youth. I most especially enjoyed the post move talk on lessons learned from the movie. Thank you.

The son of a friend of mine is very into computers and also watched this recently. He was fascinated by how well the premise holds up and is frighteningly believable even now. It was also funny that when Melvin suggests going through Falken's Maze you looked like you were taking notes. You don't seem like the type to almost start a nuclear war, though.

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

I think this was the first film I took notes on haha. Who knows what I was writing.

"Listening to a machine." -- Is a form of "social hacking".. A long time ago, I realized that there are people who will do whatever the machine tells them to do.. You just have to figure out how to craft a situation or event where someone will just "listen to the machine" and do what it tells them.. Very little difference than finding someone who is either a rebel / independent thinker or a "by the book" employee depending on what it is you need..

You really have a great niche in the "reaction youtuber" community. You get a lot of lessons from these movies and you appreciate the emotional content, the art and fun of the movie. Its a genuine pleasure to enjoy these movies with you - you go a lot deeper than most of the others.

@CasualNerdReactions

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! That’s the most enjoyable for me when something deeper stands out.

Sitting behind Alley Sheedy on a vibrating moped... Me thinks Matty may have needed a moment before standing up after that take. Oh and that Jeep flip was a real accident on set, it was not intended.

Excellent reaction, one of the best very early films to show how dangerous cyberwarfare could be. Also McKittrick did know Falken was alive, when he's walking and talking with David he distractedly says present-tense "Falken's a great man, but a little flaky..."

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, none of them were surprised Falken was still alive. But if you're working at NORAD you know how to keep your mouth shut.

That was so much fun to re-watch with you!!! The first half of the movie I particularly like. And man oh man - Dabney Coleman was in EVERYTHING in the 80s, always in a similar role, and I just always took him for granted. Watching him in this reaction video, I was struck by what a great actor he was. Just saw him in another reaction video (9 To 5), and was thinking the same thing. He's great in "Tootsie"! That's a great movie for you to check out! Great comedy, great cast! Don't believe that's been done yet, either, that's definitely one of the great 80s comedies. In fact, I may watch it myself right now! lol./Really enjoyed this reaction (as always!)

What I think is funny about this movie is that it glosses over what would have happened to Matthew Broderick's character after the end of the move. Regardless of his intentions, irrespective of his help fix the mess he made, he is still guilty of a major crime - hacking into a highly classified defense system. The sequel would begin with him getting out of prison and then being recruited by DOD to build system security.

@athos1974

2 жыл бұрын

The Comprehensive Crime Control Act was passed in 1984, making it illegal to hack into another computer system. Prior to 1984, as this movie takes place in 1983, there was no laws on the books preventing hacking or making it illegal. Hard to believe, but he would not have gotten into any legal trouble for his hacking from his home computer. Politicians were pretty naive back then about how computers worked.

@xcellent-records

2 жыл бұрын

I thought is was more funny that there were guided tours being given at a top secret base where the US nuclear missile command was located.

@Tr0nzoid

2 жыл бұрын

That is usually how it goes in "happy endings," until a sequel. What happens with Elliot and his family after "E.T."? All of the top military and administrative guys like McKittrick and Berringer might have been re-assigned or retired. The men in the silos would get back to work and their chairs re-installed.

@darkglass1

2 жыл бұрын

@@xcellent-records actually, I’ve been to the mountain back then and that was a real thing.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

Yep, I figure he'll be set for life in a career with the DOD or other governmental org doing what he does best -- in an area where they can keep tabs on him!

Two movies that freaked me out as a kid in the 80s - this one and Testament (1983).

@jeffreyfuka2594

2 жыл бұрын

Yes and still freaks me out to this day. There is no sense of hope in this story , Just survival .

@Citizero

2 жыл бұрын

The idea of the Nothing in The Never Ending Story freaked me out.

@GrisouIII

2 жыл бұрын

@@Citizero yes!

@xcellent-records

2 жыл бұрын

My family did not get a computer until 1990, because my dad saw the movie "Electric Dreams" (1984) and WarGames

@dr.burtgummerfan439

2 жыл бұрын

Testament is a GREAT movie. Just rewatched it a few weeks ago, along with The Day After. What with our impending doom coming up any day now...

Me and my buddies loved this when it was released. Some teens/early 20s had computers, some did not, they were coming in and all the craze. There was also a popular arcade game we all played called Missile Strike. This film well grabbed the mood and feel of the time. Enjoyed your reaction and comments, as always.

@matta5498

Жыл бұрын

Did you mean Missile Command?

It would have been even more serious if the original director Martin Brest hadn't been fired two weeks into production. His replacement, John Badham actually lightened the tone of the early scenes of them hacking and made it more of an adventure.

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

That’s so interesting. Amazing the difference a director makes.

@LarryFleetwood8675

2 жыл бұрын

Curiosuly enough, Brest would later make the fun action romps Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Midnight Run (1988).

The early 80s was one of the worst parts of the cold war, a lot of movies were made about nuclear war at the time as well, this one is rather light weight, "The Day After" was pretty heavy, but then you got "Threads", a very accurate portrayal of a nuclear war, and its aftermath.

@brendaedwards6741

2 жыл бұрын

I was just about to make a very similar comment, Rebecca. I remember 'Threads' being shown to 6th Formers (16-18 year olds) at school (the rest of us were too young), and seeing them coming out crying and very pale. it was terrifying to see! But then it was a scary time to live in.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

Threads is one of my favorite apocalyptic films, but it's also one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. The Day After was decent but nowhere near as powerful. Threads stuck with me years after watching it.

23:13 twice in my life i've been able to legitimately use this quote.... right place, right time. there's a certain kind of zen moment when that happens.

I still love this movie and have watched it hundreds of times since high school. It's interesting seeing a reaction to it these days with how far we've come technologically. Great reaction you're a wonderful person 😊✌

I am old and I saw this movie at a drive in theater. I loved it and still do. I just watched it with my college aged son and he loved it too. It still looks great, especially the NORAD facility which I think I remember hearing was way more sophisticated looking than the actual place. I have had a great career as a software engineer and this movie was instrumental in getting me interested in computers when I was 11. I got my Commodore VIC-20 that year for Christmas. The line that made the adults giggle (and now me) is when Jennifer finds out Falken is dead and says "he wasn't that old." David says, "he was 41" and she replies, "oh that's old." 🤣

I've watched a number of reaction videos to this movie. (I've become addicted to watching familiar movies thru other people's eyes - it's quite enlightening). This is by far my favorite War Games reaction. I don't know if it's just because your take was so much like mine, or whether it was because you got all the references & little toss away jokes.... even though this film was far before your time & seems so ancient now. (Payphones, library card catalogs, 8" floppy disks etc). You GOT it and took away the timeless message from this rather dated movie. Thanks for posting this. BTW - If you liked this film, you may also enjoy "Sneakers" ....a similar feeling film - with equally big ideas - written by the same writing team.

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much. I’m glad you enjoyed it! Sneakers could be fun, definitely will keep it in mind.

I got into a discussion about the "pre-internet" world and I recommended this movie, because really the internet was extremely limited but it did exist. I had a modem in 1984 and would head out to Bulletin Board Systems to get information about new games and such. As for training you absolutely want to do that training so much people can react instantly. Realism is important. “In the heat of the battle you don’t remember very much. You don’t think very fast. You act by instinct, which is really training. So you’ve got to be trained for battle so that you will react exactly the way you did in training”. Admiral Arleigh Burke, USN

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

I loved BBSes in the '90s. I would spend hours dialing into various ones, playing door games, chatting with the sysops. Those were fun times.

@autohmae

2 жыл бұрын

@@vickenator Some BBSs are online again, you don't need a modem, but they have telnet access on a DNS-name or IP

Good choice of film, I watched this at the pictures over here in the UK, really enjoyed it and the atmosphere. It's funny to think that the missile silos are now deserted and stripped of the hardware. Oh and seeing the 5 1\4 floppy disks and modem again.... Ah the "good" old days with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment. :) Nice to see you getting caught up in the movie. Thumbs up !

Excellent review Chris, thank you for this. Great 80s classic that had some dangerous truths if humanity isn't careful how we develop our computer age. Another fun classic from this same time period is ...SPACE CAMP. I'd love if you reviewed that one to. A group of kids join space camp at the cape and learn astronauts training. They're invited to ride out a standard launch pad test in the space shuttle. Things go out of sync and the shuttle is accidentally launched into space with the group of kids aboard. It's a fun movie with a good learning phase built in.

@ChronosTachyon

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, Space Camp! I remember loving it as a kid but it's mostly forgotten these days.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

I need to add that one to my watchlist. I'm a child of the '80s and somehow completely missed that one.

Another good Matthew Broderick movie with a similar theme is *Project X* from 1987 (which *nobody* reacts to).

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

Oh wow, never heard of it I’ll have to look it up.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

Project X is absolutely devastating. Also stars a young Helen Hunt who was excellent in the role.

14:41 -- The year is 1986, the place, Long Island NY. Radio DJ Howard Stern calls his wife on the air to see how she's doing.... Remembering THIS scene in the movie.. That evening, I pick up my phone and play the tones to it.. -- yes... I called Howard Stern at home.

First watched this movie as a kid, we were living at Loring Air Force Base. The theater went nuts at the end.

This movie came out when I was 9. I loved it. Seeing that card catalog in the library really brought me back.

Broderick and Faulkner were together in Ladyhawke as well. Totally worth checking out if you like fantasy.

@vickenator

2 жыл бұрын

Oh god. How did I never catch that John Wood was also the bishop in Ladyhawke!

Well, if you’re a Ready Player One fan, then you must be planning to watch “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension.”

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

😅 maybe eventually, but not at the moment.

I'm so happy you did this movie, always a favourite with me despite it's occasional cheesy moments, understandable considering the year it was made. But it hits harder today, especially with recent events with Russia and it's recent nuclear sabre rattling. It has once again become real, and something we thought we had gotten past long ago.

"I see your wife still picks your ties." Mirror of Ed Harris in 'Apollo 13', Mission Controller whose wife picks his vests.

The hilarious part is that when the US SIOP (the strategic plans for various nuclear strike options) were revised and a new 8 digit security code was required for all Minuteman III missile commanders (the Titan IIs were decommissioned in 1987 - see “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser, and the Atlas was decommissioned years earlier) to launch the missiles, the USAF, resisting what they felt was a hindrance to their ability to launch at a moment’s notice, made all Minuteman launch codes “00000000”. That eight zeroes code remained in effect until 2000.

The major issue with the ending is that you can win at tic tac toe by NOT placing the X in the center square. Thinking 'outside the box' so to speak. But overall this movie is a great watch for 80's cold war movie.

Practically every line from that general is solid gold. Me and my brothers absolute all time favourite is that line about "Piss on the spark plug" :)

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

That line definitely sticks out! 🤣

This was interesting to watch, as someone who grew up in the '80s and watched this before we ever had our first Apple //e system with floppy disks and my first 1200 baud modem a few years later. Some of your reactions in 2022 seem like normal thought processes now that everybody's attuned to, which is good to see. But the interesting thing is that a lot of that was spearheaded by this film and how it exposed everyday people to concepts like hacking and social engineering, and the critical nature of human intervention in computerized systems (like why passenger jets aren't just flown 100% on autopilot without any human intervention whatsoever). The average person in 1983 wasn't aware of hacking, programming was just starting to be introduced in schools, and personal computers were super expensive. I have no idea how Lightman was able to afford the rig he had in his room since he didn't have a job or any source of income as a high school student! Anyway, this is one of my favorites as a relatively old fogey who went into IT in the '90s. It has been a wild ride.

Interesting goof: they scramble "two F-16s" from Alaska, but the footage is of two F-15s. :)

Get out of echo-chambers - so true. This film is very rewatchable, so many interesting lessons and ideas.

This is one of those movies that everyone just remembers the last 20 minutes.

Another great Matthew Broderick film is Lady Hawkeye. Also stars Rutger Hauer from Blue Runner fame and the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer.

This movie is such a classic and one of my all-time favourites. I can't say the same about the 2008 sequel "WarGames: The Dead Code". It's such a rehash of the original movie that it's basically the same exact movie... just set 20 years apart.

I was a teen in the 80s and movies like this freaked me the eff out in their 'realness' - now it's clear it's just a story - difficult to realise there were incidents that could have led to nuclear war tho. Reliance on tech and AI is going to have social consequences. Plain and simple - great react video.

This is an important movie for people to reapproach and wrap their heads around in 2022 so they understand the consequences of some of their grand ambitions. Nothing matters in international relations more than keeping those dreaded arcing lines cross the digital sky, and we probably are in greater day to day peril of that right now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. EDIT: The scene of riding out the (suspected) attack is just gutwrenching and intense.

All the actors in this film are top class, their mannerisms and style are perfect, especially the general and the maths lady - where she takes his gum and has it her self. Suppose all people here in this situation are going to be slightly eccentric.

Fun fact: the W.O.P.R interface (at 15:49) was run on an Apple II by a guy sitting inside the physical W.O.P.R prop!

At the time of this movie, the Internet was still in it's infancy and the idea of the David character being able to access his grades outside of the school wasn't possible, yet.

@chrisscheidt9643

2 жыл бұрын

Not entirely true. Wih dialup and modem you could cnnect directly to a computer hooked to a phone line. Most were known as BBS's. Bulletin Board Systems

Because of this movie, Mom would not let me have a modem on my big bad Commodore VIC-20.

The girl in this movie is the girl in the Breakfast Club (Allison)

My favorite line from the movie: "I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good".

@CasualNerdReactions

Жыл бұрын

Haha mine too!! One of the few I remember months later.

In my opinion, still the best "hacker movie" made to date.

@misterkite

2 жыл бұрын

Close... the best hacker movie is still Sneakers from 1992.

@WhiskyCanuck

2 жыл бұрын

@@misterkite It is very good, but I'd say that was more of a heist movie than a hacker movie.

Did you read Ready Player One Or just see the movie? This is how he clears the 1st gate by being Matthew Broderick in Wargames and acting out the whole movie.

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

I listened to the audio book (twice). A rare example, for me anyway, where both the book and movie work very well despite their many many differences.

Great commentary about echo chambers, you would be a good teacher or professor. Also you didn’t believe they would leave the kid alone with the PC, but in the 80’s the idea of hacking was so new at the civilian level - even PCs themselves were relatively new. So more accurate than it looks today.

I recommend this for anyone wanting to understand computers before the Internet.

@ThreadBomb

2 жыл бұрын

There was a great book called The Hacker's Dictionary, all about the culture and details of computers up to the mid 80s. Lots of fun computing trivia and anecdotes, plus the origins of acronyms like AFK and BRB (some of which originated with telegraph operators).

The Air Force never allowed firearms inside their missile silos. How did they get their crews to "kill all those people"? It's psychology: They routinely ran drills. The actuation step that launched the missile for real came from higher headquarters and, I think, the President was part of that. The crew wouldn't know until the rocket engines ignited. Still, the drama of a launch officer freaking out and the other officer pointing a gun at him and saying, "You better do it!" is irresistible to Hollywood. The computer angle is interesting, though. Computers were the latest thing and no one knew anything about cyber security in the Eighties except the ol' password.

I remember the opening scene making a big impression on me as a kid. Such a dark way to start a "kids movie". 14:53 The hero climbing through the duct reminds me of The Andromeda Strain, which was the first movie ever based on a Michael Crichton novel. It's a great psychological thriller about scientists dealing with a disease from outer space. Regarding the mechanisation of human interaction you were talking about, I read an article about this just today, which talked about how dealing with people through computers is sapping our empathy and reducing our ability to form real relationships. And I think this set-up is making it very easy for us to become fanatics, people obsessed with being right, who aren't able to and don't want to understand other points of view, who see people who disagree with us as less than human. I think this rise of fanaticism is why so much online interaction is so divisive and destructive. We have to stop being fanatics, and the only way to stop is to be aware of what we are becoming. But I'm afraid more and more people now prefer self-righteousness to humility.

@CasualNerdReactions

2 жыл бұрын

So interesting and likely true. I was just commenting on a different upcoming reaction (Rope) about our tendency to distance ourselves from others humanity so we can treat them more cruelly than we would otherwise.

@iKvetch558

2 жыл бұрын

@@CasualNerdReactions Just a quick note of caution...if you react to The Andromeda Strain, be careful to watch the 1971 film, and not any other (lesser) adaptation. At least that is my opinion. ✌

One of my favorite movies growing up. My brother and I would always quote the Mr. Potato Head line.

Deep cut Chris; nice. I love Ally Sheedy & this was a break thru role for Matthew Broderick. Directed by veteran John Badham (who also directed SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER - talk about range and you need to see that too) as well as in the same year he did BLUE THUNDER a crackerjack similar themed action thriller with Roy Scheider (check that one too!)

@Serai3

2 жыл бұрын

It was Matthew's first film. He hit it right out of the park.

During 'Avengers: Endgame', when a group goes to Tony's cabin to seek his help, he turns them down, then solves the puzzle and returns to HQ. That is all a Mirror of David and Jennifer finding Falken in his Lakehouse, first rejected, then he finds them and they save the day!

I still remember seeing War Games in the theater, yeah old fart I'm haha. Lot of big stars in this movie there are like the 2 missile key guards from the beginning to his teacher & his girlfriend. Every scene has 80's & 90's Stars on screen that you have No clue.

Beautiful (and profound) post-movie remarks, by the way, really liked the way you tied it into the present.

7:34 ---So much that we take for granted today, didn't exist anywhere but in movies.. We don't think about video on our computer screens today, but back then it was nothing short of a miracle.. Speech processing was so janky and slow back then. And everything had to be schpelld inn ah way that the kom pugh tor could pro noun cet .... ;)

@ThreadBomb

2 жыл бұрын

I remember reading about the production of the movie. They did a lot of research to get the military procedures right, but when the guys from the real NORAD saw the set they got kind of envious of all the big color screens (which of course were rear projection film screens, each with its own projector).

@davidr1050

2 жыл бұрын

@@ThreadBomb -- pretty much the one thing the movie NAILED was the big blast door at NORAD. (Cept it swings the other way in real life.) -- The consoles at the real complex bared little resemblance to what we see in the film. (at least at the time.) -- Also, closing up the mountain or sealing the complex wouldn't have left anyone outside the bunker door. So the shots with personnel outside as the door is closing up isn't quite right either..

You're right about the fine casting in this one.

Of course at 1:45, the irony of shooting the other officer; you can't launch the ICBM. There's no way you can put one hand on each key and turn them both at the same time. Both stations are too far out of arm's length to reach, unless you had say an 8 ft span. John Spencer (also was in The West Wing TV series; RIP), Michael Madsen (Resevoir Dogs; where he cuts the one guy's ear off) and Art Lafleur (the front desk guy with the glasses; RIP).

A baby Michael Madsen in that opening sequence in the silo with the gun. :-)

0:52 -- Places like that exist far more than anyone realizes.. Although it's not as simple as walking through the living room.. Usually it's a full blown house and the "secret" entrance is located in the basement.

@Tr0nzoid

2 жыл бұрын

Heck, a lot of average workplaces like warehouses and offices have that kind of security now.

It took me a while to realize that Mr. Strickland was in this too.

You can make someone my age (mid-50's) twitch by saying, "Shall we play a game", to them! Lol. I worked at a very small company once that named their computer HAL-WOPR. I thought that was tempting fate and wondered if the owners had any idea of the references. 🤣

Another brilliant reaction Chris! Thoughtful as always! 😊

Nice overview. Great honest and open ending commentary.

"Turn your key, Chris."

in the 90's I used Pencil as all my passwords

other movies with similar subject matter that you might like to react to...."Space Camp" "Short Circuit" "Stealth" "Electric Dreams" "Eagle Eye" "The Net"

Did you recognize a VERY young Michael Madsen? He was the soldier in the silo who pointed the gun at the other man.

One funny and Amazing thing with this movie. It's from 83 and shows us how bad things can go,when we put 100'% in machines. Yet today we are hooked up to machines all the time.And trust our lifes with em