The United State's Department of Homeland Security is led to believe an American teen hacker playing a terrorist-attack simulator game online is a real terrorist out to destroy the U.S.
A computer hacker is abducted into the digital world and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is with the help of a heroic security program.
Director:
Steven Lisberger
Stars:
Jeff Bridges,
Bruce Boxleitner,
David Warner
Video game expert Alex Rogan finds himself transported to another planet after conquering The Last Starfighter video game only to find out it was just a test. He was recruited to join the team of best starfighters to defend their world from the attack.
The thief Gaston escapes dungeon of medieval Aquila thru the latrine. Soldiers are about to kill him when Navarre saves him. Navarre, traveling with his spirited hawk, plans to kill the bishop of Aquila with help from Gaston.
Director:
Richard Donner
Stars:
Matthew Broderick,
Rutger Hauer,
Michelle Pfeiffer
An Air Force pilot joins a top secret military experiment involving chimps, but begins to suspect there might be something more to the mysterious "Project X".
A young computer whiz kid accidentally connects into a top secret super-computer which has complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It challenges him to a game between America and Russia, and he innocently starts the countdown to World War 3. Can he convince the computer he wanted to play a game and not the real thing ?Written by
Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>
The NORAD command center built for the movie was the most expensive set ever constructed up to that time, built at the cost of one million dollars. The producers were not allowed into the actual NORAD command center, so they had to imagine what it was like. In the DVD commentary, director John Badham notes that the actual NORAD command center isn't nearly as elaborate as the one in the movie; he refers to the movie set as "NORAD's wet dream of itself." See more »
Goofs
When David first places the phone receiver on the modem he puts it on with the cord to the front; all other times he puts it on with the cord to the back. At all times he activates it by the button on the front. See more »
In the premiere telecast version of the film, in the scene where the female airmen is counting down to Impact, there is more background music that plays than in the theatrical version and home video releases containing English language versions. However, the extra background music plays in foreign versions of the movie. Also, the extra BGM has not played in subsequent TV airings since that first telecast, as far as I am aware. See more »
War Games
(uncredited)
Written by Stephen Stills
Performed by Crosby Stills & Nash (as Crosby, Stills & Nash)
[Promotional song used in theatrical trailer and MTV video] See more »
Watching this movie 25 years on, it still works. Obviously the onward march of technology has rendered several of the central plot devices redundant (although, to be honest, most modern techno-thriller entries are far less plausible) but the sheer tension of the story grabs you almost from the off and never lets go - there aren't many genre movies that got an Oscar-nomination for screenplay, which amply demonstrates its quality.
And the last ten minutes or so are still jaw-dropping. That spectacular (if implausible) NORAD set is as astounding as ever, and the last line still deserves it's place in the pantheon.
Laugh at the antiquated tech by all means, but be impressed by the effort taken to make it feel believable (cf. the sequence where Broderick's character gets the password for the school computer.) Hacker movies have rarely come this close to being real - and, as someone who had been there and done that at about that time, it was scarily right.
In no way is this one of the greatest movies ever made. But there's no question that it achieves the rare quality of transcending it's genre.
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Watching this movie 25 years on, it still works. Obviously the onward march of technology has rendered several of the central plot devices redundant (although, to be honest, most modern techno-thriller entries are far less plausible) but the sheer tension of the story grabs you almost from the off and never lets go - there aren't many genre movies that got an Oscar-nomination for screenplay, which amply demonstrates its quality.
And the last ten minutes or so are still jaw-dropping. That spectacular (if implausible) NORAD set is as astounding as ever, and the last line still deserves it's place in the pantheon.
Laugh at the antiquated tech by all means, but be impressed by the effort taken to make it feel believable (cf. the sequence where Broderick's character gets the password for the school computer.) Hacker movies have rarely come this close to being real - and, as someone who had been there and done that at about that time, it was scarily right.
In no way is this one of the greatest movies ever made. But there's no question that it achieves the rare quality of transcending it's genre.