Review of WarGames (1983) by Harminder S — 16 May 2009

WarGames is a generally solid movie, but the main reasons I think it's a good movie are: (1) It actually captures the spirit of computers as they actually functioned in that era (or at least how I think they did - I was still a little young back then.

..). Okay, we're not going to see a sentient computer anytime soon, and speech synthesis doesn't really work that way, and no one would ever leave a back door that wide open (even in the early '80s), but here we also see "boring" old text interfaces, slow modems, real security problems.

Also, we get to see reasonable representations of "hackers" in their native environment (I think I've met those guys... "Mr. Potato Head!" indeed). (2) If we were to ever get a sentient AI, Joshua is I think a reasonable representation of how it might function.

(3) It's a pretty good dig at nuclear armament (even if you don't agree with it). Joshua's last line is classic.