Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Matthew Broderick is probably best known for portraying Ferris Bueller, and rightfully so. While in 1986 Ferris Bueller Effective Date a coming-of-age story about a failed high school hacker who uses technology to play hooky and have the best day of his life while on the run from the Dean of Students, Broderick portrays the same type of character archetype in 1983’s. Military Games (streaming on Max), a techno-thriller that still holds up today.
Ferris Before Ferris
War Games, now streaming on Max, introduced Broderick’s David Lightman after establishing its technical background. During the film’s opening sequence, it is made clear that the Missile Wing controllers work for the United States Air Force. they remain hesitant to launch missile strikes in both simulated and realistic doomsday scenarios. Aware of the skepticism of his men, John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) decides it is best to automate the entire process.
Control over NORAD is transferred to a supercomputer known as the War Operation Plan Response (WOPR), a cold-hearted machine that will not hesitate to launch a missile strike at a moment’s notice. After all, we are in the midst of a massive arms race between the US and Russia at the end of the Cold War, so this is serious business.
Hooky Woopsie And The Threat Of World War III
You may be wondering where the Ferris Bueller connection is, but it came to me after the broadcast Military Games to Max, and I promise I’m not making things up.
David Lightman, as Ferris in the 1986 film, likes to mess with computers and logs into his school’s website to change his grades, as well as the grades of his love interest, Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy). Innocently enough, David is motivated to up his hacking game after learning about a video game company called Protovision because he wants to see if he can get access to any unreleased games currently in development. Things get complicated when David inadvertently hacks WOPR, and encourages it to play what he thinks is a game called “Global Heat War.”
As luck would have it, David turns on WOPR, and agents working for NORAD get wind of the breach, accusing David of domestic terrorism. If what’s playing on the WOPR screen is accurate, David may have set the machine in motion to start World War III, and NORAD is bringing him questions. While War Games for Max begins as a teenage comedy drama, the stakes are raised dramatically as David tries to clear his name and save the world from nuclear annihilation.
Equal Parts Fun and Humor
Military Games it mostly plays straight as a techno-thriller, but lacks a sense of humor. Matthew Broderick treads the line between a lovable goofball who gets in over his head and a young technologist who uses his skills to keep his country safe from an imminent nuclear war. As David MacGyvers his way through a military-industrial complex, he does so with a smile as if to let the audience know he’s very important. Military Games may seem based on its description of Max, it is still the most exciting work of speculative fiction at the time.
As of this writing, you can breathe War games to Max before digging out your VHS copy Ferris Bueller Day making a double feature with it. Whatever you do, you may just turn to crime, or you may find activation codes that are better left hidden from the public eye.
Source link
