WarGames - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of WarGames or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to WarGames

[caroline]

ProtoVision being located in Sunnyvale California may be a tribute to Atari, which installed the first PONG arcade game in Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale in August 1972.

[javier]

Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes made friends with many hackers and security experts while doing research for the film. They later wrote Sneakers (1992), another film featuring hackers and security experts.

[fred]

Ally Sheedy auditioned for the role of Jennifer for four months before being cast.

[sylvia]

Graphics on the large NORAD war room screens were rendered in advance by an HP 9845C desktop computer running BASIC. In 1982, the 9845C was comprised of a base with built-in keyboard and a 14" color monitor. It cost of about $90,000 in 2019 dollars, and weighed about 100 pounds. The graphics resolution was not high enough to project onto a large screen or be filmed directly, so a high-resolution monochromatic display was connected. The images were filmed from the display, one frame at a time, one color at a time, using filters for red, green, and blue. The process took about 1 minute per frame of film.

[carla]

The phone number that David used to call the NORAD WOPR computer was 399-2364.

[morris]

The writers' main inspiration for the character Professor Stephen Falken was Cambridge Professor Stephen Hawking. He was originally approached to appear in the movie, but declined because he didn't want the producers exploiting his disability.

[miriam]

The film was shot in Washington State. The NORAD HQ set was built in the Cascades. The Oregon airport was really Boeing Field, and Goose Island is really Anderson Island in the southern part of Puget Sound.

[caroline]

Sheedy and Badham would work together again in Maid to Order in 1987; also in Short Circuit in 1986.

[frances]

The computer seen in the black and white film of Falken is made up from components of an IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central, built in 1954 to protect the United States from Soviet bomber attack. It was the largest, heaviest computer system ever built, weighing 6,000 tons and taking up an entire floor of a bomb-proof blockhouse. Components of decommissioned systems were sold for scrap, and bought by film and television production companies who wanted futuristic-looking computers. The components used in this film were previously used in films including The Time Tunnel (1966) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

[terry]

Broderick and Sheedy would both go on to star in big John Hughes movies; Sheedy in The Breakfast Club (1985), and Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).

[caroline]

The keypad lock tones heard when the guard unlocks the infirmary door are the tones used by touch-tone telephones. The tones heard correspond to dialing 222333 on a touch-tone phone.

[stephanie]

The computer playing Global Thermonuclear War with David Lightman is called the WOPR, which is an acronym for War Operation Plan Response.

[edgar]

In the Director's commentary, one of the writers says that the writers got the DEFCON numbers wrong. He was referring to the lighted signs that have the vertical arrangement of numbers, in which the number 5 is at the top and the number 1 is at the bottom.

[liam]

At the beginning of the film, the camera shows the missiles about to launch with a list of coordinates, presumably the targets. They are: -W130.97 N48.72 -W142.13 N54.88 -W125.77 N27.91 -W147.36 N45.64 -W131.21 N49.11 All Pacific Ocean coordinates off the North East potion of the US and Canada land mass.

[ray]

In the original script, NORAD ends up giving David a part-time job, and he works as McKittrick's assistant, just as McKittrick said he started out as Falken's assistant.

[addison]

The largest hacker convention in the world is called "DEF CON," an homage to the film. It's been going on since 1992.

[sophie]

The 20 Grand Palace arcade in the film was a real video arcade just north of Los Angeles.

[nora]

Matthew Broderick's father, actor James Broderick, died just a few days before production on this film wrapped in November 1982.

[jesse]

As in Matthew Broderick's movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), both mothers are real estate agents.