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"Shall We Play A Game... Again?" KING OF KONG's Seth Gordon To Reboot WARGAMES!
Nordling here.
Although it's still a fun film, the years have not been kind to WARGAMES. That's the danger of making film stories around computers - they date quickly. WARGAMES' "Joshua" computer probably has less power in it than today's iPhone. But the premise - high school kid accidentally brings the country to the brink of nuclear war - is still a good one, and with today's technology and cyberterrorism rearing its ugly head, I'd bet that a good filmmaker could take that premise and run with it. All these computer movies will be dated anyway once we enter the Singularity. These movies will seem downright adorable.
For now, though, we're getting the old reboot, and the director will be Seth Gordon, of next week's HORRIBLE BOSSES, but more importantly, of THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS. That's a good choice - you can't get much geekier than the arcade gaming community, so this is a world that Gordon would understand. I'd imagine that any reboot would deal with today's tech, and it would be interesting to see how Gordon will balance the tech with the story and not make it seem too out there for audiences. If he kept the film strictly based in reality, with AI, hacking, and government technology, I bet a WARGAMES reboot could actually be downright scary. I remember the premise back in the 1980s was fairly terrifying to us Cold War kids - Gordon's job would be to make it even more so today.
In the meantime, I leave you with Brian Kuh of Gordon's KING OF KONG - just because it's damn funny:
Nordling, out.
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Jun 24, 2011 12:08:05 PM CDT
King of Kong was great. But this is an unnecessary remake
by theendispie
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It's a fucking remake.
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Jun 24, 2011 12:16:20 PM CDT
Nah, Anonymous and Lulz will be in the Hackers remake
by iamtommywiseau
Obviously.
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Jun 24, 2011 12:16:32 PM CDT
Loved the scene with the remote control Pteradactyl
by surfaces_are_supposed_to_be_flat
and apart from that thought, I bet that Shia Le Beouf will be cast in Broderick's role.
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Screw WARGAMES I want to see the 'true story' of aicn getting hacked (by Russian gangsters? wasn't that who Harry blamed).
Site has been borderline broken ever since.
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I doubt I could turn the key.
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No it isn't. Its as relevant today as when it was made, and works just as well. Just because Nordling can't get his nose out of his Iphone long enough to actually watch the thing, is irrelevant.
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Shia would prob be too expensive for this guy, you could probably get Michael Cera on the other hand for minimum wage after he tanked SCOTT PILGRIM.
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FALKEN'S MAZE
BLACKJACK
GIN RUMMY
HEARTS
BRIDGE
CHECKERS
CHESS
POKER
FIGHTER COMBAT
GUERRILLA ENGAGEMENT
DESERT WARFARE
AIR-TO-GROUND ACTIONS
THEATERWIDE TACTICAL WARFARE
THEATERWIDE BIOTOXIC AND CHEMICAL WARFARE
GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR
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Let get an update on that.
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the remake will end with the computer stuck playing Farmville.
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Jun 24, 2011 12:56:01 PM CDT
Will He Keep The Prophylactic Recycling Center Reference?
by jamesonian
That's one of my favorite easter eggs in all of film.
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This didn't come from ProtoVision.
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Jun 24, 2011 1:01:56 PM CDT
Curious that we no longer consider Nuke War scary...
by impossibledreamers
Oh, yeah its that whole 80's Reagan vs. the Ruskies thing that made it scary.
Well, they can't make the enemies Russian or Chinese (thank you Red Dawn wussie execs) - so who would be the virtual opponents in the scenarios? -
Jun 24, 2011 1:02:42 PM CDT
Number of theatergoers watching this remake: zero
by grammaton cleric binks
Let it watch itself.
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Back doors are not secrets!
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Jun 24, 2011 1:10:19 PM CDT
cause the sequel that came out a few years ago did SO well..
by the_choppah
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I tought it was, it was basically the same shit they could even use it as a template of a new wargames, the computer has to be a sentient being...
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Jun 24, 2011 1:31:24 PM CDT
Going to be tough to beat sweaty jogging Ally Sheedy
by domi'sinnerchild
I do have faith in Hollywood coming up with somebody to replace her however. The movie, not so much.
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Jun 24, 2011 1:33:16 PM CDT
Only as long as someone jacks a phone booth with a soda can tab.
by dwide shrewd
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It was a billing, tracking and invoicing system, and everybody became accustomed to saying: -Did you put that in Joshua?- or -Print that out of Joshua.-
And the system itself was in use for 17 years. May still occasionally get some use, I don't, haven't been at that company for a decade.
That being said: -All these computer movies will be dated anyway once we enter the Singularity.-
So what? I'm looking forward to the singularity, but War Games aged very well for a computer heavy movie (and, as a geek, programming at home, at the time the movie was released, you know--it was kind of inauthentic at the time--but still a good time at the movies).
Still a good film. I look forward to a clever reboot. It can certainly be done. But the number of schools using a computer for managing grades at the school, at that time, could have been counted on one hand. And it probably wouldn't have been some middle-class slacker's high school.
A reboot could be good. But whose going to be Matthew Broderick and Ali Sheedy in this reconstruction? Hard to believe they can be replaced. -
Come on, be serious.
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Well someone had to say it.
This is one of my all-time favorite films.
I have actually sat in the President's chair in a very similar war room in the bowels of a midwestern airbase. It isn't nearly as impressive as the one in the film, but it did get used in September 2001.
Tours are no longer available for obvious reasons.
A remake will never do this movie justice, but I am not exacty impartial when it comes to the glory that is WarGames.
WWJD = What Would Joshua Do?
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Jun 24, 2011 1:48:10 PM CDT
So who would be the virtual opponents in the scenarios?
by kevinwillis.net
That part is old school. Have the automation of missile launches put in the 90s. Have Joshua be a product of late 1980s development. The enemy is still the Russians and possibly the Red Chinese. Old technology slated to have been replaced for years, the just haven't gotten the budget approval, and there's nobody there that even really knows how 'all that old crap' works. Then dude is wardriving around the neighborhood and pops into a direct wireless node that's not supposed to be hooked up any more, and triggers the old program.
And then Joshua is forced to play Donkey Kong until he realizes that it's futile, because it just starts over at the beginning, every time. The only way to win Donkey Kong, Joshua learns, is not to play. -
The remake will probably be of at least the same quality of Sciffy's "Swamp Shark", which premieres this weekend.
No early review, Nordling? -
When was the last time we got to see a truly original movie?
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Dude was about the shoot the other dude. Before running that -simulation-, did they make sure that all the guys had blanks in their guns? Because that could have been a real mess.
That would be a whole 'nuther movie. Guys get shot during the test, and then there's a coverup, and then there's a big courtroom trial with John Travolta, Denzel Washington, and Tom Cruise. -
One of the missile launches. And that missile is headed towards Hackensack, NJ.
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Funny that this is one time I think a well thought out sequel would be better.
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..like they fucked Conan, Footloose etc..I am going to start a Global Thermonuclear War on Hollywood.
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I still quote that Mr Potato Head line to this day. "That girl's standing right over there listening and you're telling him about our back doors??!!"
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oh! wait, wrong movie. Anyhow, leave 80's movies alone, wHollyweird shitbags! Though I would like a sequel to Dragonslayer.
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Jun 24, 2011 2:08:30 PM CDT
Peter Falks is dead. Put that obit up ahead of
by grammaton cleric binks
drunk killers.
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Jun 24, 2011 2:16:18 PM CDT
flynn-lives, I agree. That Conan trailer looks like crap
by grammaton cleric binks
Arnold today could kick his ass.
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Jun 24, 2011 2:17:47 PM CDT
They should do a hybrid remake of WARGAMES and PROJECT X.
by thatchicken
Chimps start a nuclear war, wipe out people.
Oh wait, that's the plot of RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES RISES: THE RISING, isn't it? -
Of all the oh-so-many films that shouldn't be remade, this has to be high up on the list.
Effectively, War Games was the prequel to Terminator: the defence of the US is handed over to a computer that begins to develop independence from its masters and they lose control.
Then there was Eagle Eye, Stealth, and a whole raft of other films based on the premise that man is no longer top predator.
The problem with a remake of War Games is that it was a film of its time, when the USA's defence priorities were focussed on an attack from a nuclear-armed country. It doesn't work when you're mainly concerned with a handful of suicide bombers upset that you've invaded their countries to steal their oil. -
Jun 24, 2011 2:19:25 PM CDT
Hell, I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good!
by alice cooper stalker
One of my favorite lines...
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the problem is telling a great story first and foremost...which is why the original still works LONG after the nuke/ruskie/regan era has calmed the fuck down...you can make anything work in today's war like climate, that's not a problem, the problem is does "Horrible Bosses" suck or not?
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a documentary is not a movie...King of Kong was great, but how does he handle a fictional narrative with actual peformers?
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Jun 24, 2011 2:29:03 PM CDT
WARGAMES' "Joshua" computer probably has less power in it than today's iPhone.
by frozenhero1
An iPhone would compute circles around 'Joshua'.
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The original has gotten lost within it's own obsolescence. I think an update, as long as it is done right, could be a lot of fun. However, as time goes by, it would fall prey to the same thing. Time would pass it by. That would not stop me from wanting to see it.
I say go for it, but NO 3D!!! -
Jun 24, 2011 3:00:05 PM CDT
I'd much rather see a Colussus: The Forbin Project remake
by grammaton cleric binks
Actually, that's almost what I, Robot was.
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And the Arnold movies are a disgrace to Howard's work
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Leave the good ones, like Wargames, alone to stand as a time capsule of sorts. Go and bother Hotdog: the Movie or Malibu Bikini Company or any of those USA Up All Night mainstays. Hell, go and remake Police Academy... all nine hundred of them.
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and we all know that it is going to end up crap like most of the remakes,especially when it is hacking and computers in the modern era....
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If WarGames were set in some imaginary near future world extrapolated using what people in the early 1980's thought the future would be like, then yes it would be dated. Thing is that WarGames was set in the early 80's using pretty much the type of technology that the military and government had available at the time, so it is not dated. Sure the technology seems quaint to the iPhone and android phone obsessed people of the fucked up present day reality we live in, but WarGames is not dated. *
Now something like the original TRON, sure. Even though I liked TRON Legacy, the sequel lacks a lot of the charm I love about TRON's old school arcade game atmosphere.
Same with The Terminator. None of the sequels except for T2 came close to capturing the darkness and atmosphere of the first film. Just look at the future war sequences. Hollywood just can't get that part right nowadays. So while The Terminator is dated, it is also still 100x better than T3 or Salvation because it had a more compelling fictional world and narrative drive to hang the story on.
How about Alien and Aliens. Those are dated because they use CRT monitors on the spaceships and in the terraforming colony. Bullshit. The Matrix films will be dated by their LCD panels on the ships and in Zion once we move to a new type of display technology (holographic maybe?). Doesn't mean the film needs to be torn down as a quaint and dated relic of an era to make fun of now.
Shit, with this logic we need a reboot of Apollo 13 and every WWII movie ever made. The tech is just so old timey dammit!!!!!!!
* Actually, part of the fun of going back and watching WarGames, The Terminator, and TRON is because of the fact they both take place in the 1980's when computers were still able to have a technomagical aura about them. That is part of what made the seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer such a force in terms of grabbing people who were fascinated with what "could be" in relation to the idea of computing applications in their view of the future at that time. -
That's what we really need, REALLY lazy productions where not only do they remake, but they don't even update it. A least the cold war stuff would work.
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Jun 24, 2011 3:32:12 PM CDT
A "spiritual successor" to WarGames might be interesting though
by lv_426
It could be set far in the future and take place on a galactic scale. Instead of nukes the threat would be planet killing antimatter bombs launched against planets from completely unmanned AI controlled starships. *
Hell, give the future world a sorta 80's neon/TRON/Syd Meade design style and it could be a ton of fun and a nod towards that cool but old school design mentality. Maybe the hacker type character in this version is also an expert at a space combat sim game and he has to take control of drone space fighters to destroy the antimatter bomb wielding starship(s)?
* This element would also add a nice little nod/homage to Dark Star. -
so we have some sort of brand name recognition carryover.
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I think an interesting and highly compelling modern day cyberwarfare film could be done, but not by trying to shove it into a WarGames remake.
Shit, the whole nuclear warfare element of WarGames wouldn't even carry the same psychological threat level for the audience that it had in the early 80's. So just that alone means that a WarGames remake would be weak if done these days. -
which nobody seems to have taken notice of so far.
So the US military agrees with the proposal of that mustache scientist to remove the human factor from the launch sequence,by connecting all the nuclear silos with a central super-computer which will control everything.
The goal of the military is to launch those nukes in a case of an attack in their usa soil,no matter what the circumstances and the obstacles.
This is what they want,this is what the project that the scientist proposed is going to achieve.
And in the whole movie until its final ending,this is what exactly happens.The super-computer is determined to launch those missiles as it was ordered to do and it stops to nothing,it even tries manages to defeat the efforts to stop the launch sequence.
So why the fuck is the General mad at the mustache scientist and tells him that his project is a failure? Is this not what the Military wanted? to launch the missiles in a case of an attack,in any way possible? Is this not what the computer proved successfully? that it capable to execute its orders for a nuclear attack no matter what.
And why the fuck wasnt the General mad at the scientist who created the super-computer?
He was the one who secretly left open a backdoor to the computer and said nothing about this to nobody,he was the one who didnt give a fuck about the destuction of the world,he was the one indirectly responsible for the whole mess and the misuse of the computer.
If anything else he should have been accused of national treason.He and the horse-fucker hacker kid. -
That was Michael Madsen (KB1&2, Reservoir Dogs, etc, etc) threatening to shoot John Spencer (The Rock, etc), by the way (two guys in the nuke bunker in the beginning).
I remember all of the gear Broderick used in the movie being sold in the classified ads in the newspapers years ago..analog cradle modem probably1200 baud, 8" dual floppy drives, I believe an 8088 processor likely loaded with gw basic, cp/m, or maybe even unix...ahh, geektech nostalgia!
The computer used in the film was actually programmed to show the letters you saw on the monitor regardless of what keys Broderick typed (small behind the scenes fact). The voice I believe was a real person recorded and then run through a synthesizer oscillator (voicebox in the movie was fake).
And leave WOPR/Joshua alone! Just because most iphone users wouldn't even know what the word "mainframe" means doesn't mean that the iPhone has any degree of artificial or quasi-artificial intelligence like Joshua.
The Iphone doesn't have the capacity to learn like Joshua did in the movie. The Iphone would play tic-tac-toe by itself like a ass scratching, drooling idiot, until its battery died, never learning shit in the process.
Joshua learned that sometimes the winning move is not to play. Can the iPhone say the same? About anything? No?
Didn't think so! Joshua wins! Natch!
(now, if you mentioned BigBlue, etc, that's an entirely different story!) -
see the original ran on 128kb of memory, this time it will be using 16gb of crucial ram. Totally different story, and it will be a female voice that talks all sexy like
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I still dig it and the scene where they're all waiting for the missiles to impact in the control room is great. The thump sound of the impacts creates an "oh shit" reaction. Good stuff
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Back when Wargames came out computers in the home and for other tasks was still in its infancy. Not that many folks had seen a computer let alone had one of decent power and that could hook up with a modem etc.
Sure we had our little 8 bit boxes but not setups as expansive as used in Wargames (not that the setup he had was actually that new at the time) and the idea of hacking etc. were quite new to many.
Unless they totally change the core concept of the movie its all rather too familiar for todays audience.
I still enjoy the original movie.
You pig-eyed sack of sh*t! -
Jun 24, 2011 4:23:43 PM CDT
Bring back Broderick and Sheedy, as the parents of the kid
by mr._bergstrom
And make it a sequel, not a reboot. It's not like either of them are busy these days, and their presence would add continuity/nostalgia. Plus a cameo from Dabney Coleman.
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Jun 24, 2011 4:25:02 PM CDT
Ohhhhh Great! Another "Reboot" of a classic 80ies film!!
by arcangel2020
Could Hollywood PLEASE stopping fucking with and totally screwing with my favorite 80ies films I enjoyed as a kid/teenager?!?!
For the love of GOD!
You studio fucks have no imagination? Is it because of all the blow, meth and hookers/mistresses and just plain lack of imagination, will power to come up with anything or allow cutting edge Scriptwriters, Producres/Directors to bring thier vision to life...or is it all of the above....that you sit in your plush offices on the Studio Lots and actually greenlight this sort of thing?!?
How about you Hollywood fucktards actually do something orginal and NOT re-do "WarGames"? I am sure that with all of the recent hacking jobs that have taken place over the years and especially with what's happened with sites like the Sonyplay Station and other big name sites getting hit and with Global and Global Cyberterrorism happening, clearly a much better film could be made?
Did you NOT learn your lesson with that shitty remake of "The Karate Kid" that started Will & Jada Smith's unredeeming, snivelling little welp with no talent at acting, Jaden Smith did with Jackie Chan...set in of all places China and nothing to do with Karate whatsoever!!
Did you not "get it" when the so-called "sequel" to Wargames was a direct to video release that NO ONE cared about...just like all the shitty sequels of "Lost Boys"!!
Way to go you coked up, methhead, hooker addicted, money grubbing Hollywood Execs!!
Ok, now it's time to calm down, have a cookie, a Guiness Beer and a quality Cigar :) -
Jun 24, 2011 4:37:20 PM CDT
Bring Broderick back as Computer Security Expert
by alice cooper stalker
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Now set the remake as a period piece in the eighties, you might have something. But that would require writing and shit.
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I mean shit even when i first say it in the 90's and had my little 2400 Baud modem wargames was outdates. I mean he puts the phone on the modem come on SO old skool.
This could be good and it mihgt be bad. If it go's the TRON rout it could be awsome.
In response to his Matrix analogy, yes they have to be remade. Infact no more disscussion here, just have the washoski siblings go back and re-write until they come up with somthing better and cooler then reloaded or rev's -
Jun 24, 2011 5:50:16 PM CDT
It's relevant since the US, USSR and China still have missiles and bombers aimed at one another...
by matineer
unfortunately.
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Jun 24, 2011 6:14:50 PM CDT
Sheedy would have totally gone for my Izod shirt, back in the day
by dr gregory house
Little friend.
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The movie played on cold war paranoia, is a movie like Platoon dated? Didn't the studios learn from reboots like Arthur that they should leave well enough alone....
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It was a hybrid of Wargames and Valve's game 'Portal'....the Eagle Eye system = GLaDOS!
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for those of you who are techno-illiterate, that's the test to differentiate between an A.I. and a human, and no A.I. has ever won it. They just don't do semantics. I hope they steal some of the 3d prototyping stuff from 'Virtuosity' 1996. The biggest problem will be the suspension of disbelief for an audience that can't be convinced to turn off their f*cking IPhones during the movie. But I suspect this reboot will be 3d. That might help a little.
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Man the Cheyenne Mountain war room still looks badass today and foreshadowed LCD display technology. Outstanding production design.
Back in 7th grade, we computer geeks would have given our left nuts to have a nuke war sim that good. Although there is a fun game whose design was inspired by this, it doesn't have the level of detail the film simulated. :
http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/
iRumor has it that the Pentagon had to "sex up" the actual war room because of this movie to impress members of Congress :-P
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WHY GOD?!! Why fuck this up!? I love Wargames...
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more computing power than Joshua.
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Jun 24, 2011 9:17:27 PM CDT
The perceived threat of nuclear weapons is indeed lower these days
by autodidact
Meanwhile, the threat of a nuclear explosion taking place in any western city is much higher than it was at any time except maybe the early 80s... I'm just old enough to remember that time, and I had a sister who was a teenager at the time who used to fuel my nightmares with stories about what will happen if the bombs drop.
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Enough with the 80's remakes!
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in my opinion. But then, I'm an old fart who had almost the exact same computer setup that he did (minus the voice synth). Hope they keep the same music--it was perfect.
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Which I loved as a kid, too...but I remember even back then, recognizing some phrases or lines from "E.T." in it, thinking it was lazy writing or something. God, I sound like Harry...
Leave WarGames alone.
Remake the atrocious "The All-Nighter" with Susanna Hoffs....remember THAT gem? Thinking the chick from the Bangles would get naked in a teen comedy but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO....
Remake it with Katy Perry... you're welcome. Fuck the Lannisters. -
It was acceptable in the 80s.
But the concept of a kid triggering a nuclear war with his hacking skills is truly moronic.
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who built a real nuclear bomb for some Science Contest.He stole the plutonium from his father's military lab by replacing it with shampoo.
The military finds out what happened and tries to find the kid with the bomb.
At the end of the movie,somehow the bomb activates and the kid with his father try to disarm it before it explodes.ofc they succeed and the movie ends.
Does anyone know the title of that flick.i think it was a b-movie,not a big studio production. -
God I miss the Cold War.
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..not a remake, but same Hero, new actor, shameful treatment. And yes Howard will turn around in his grave once more.
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...grossed $359,126,022 worldwide, and that piece of shit is enough to make these execs think remaking any and every 80's movie is more interesting than to take chances on new writing and acting talents, or original ideas, just because all they want is to show revenues at the end of the year and keep their precious job and continue with the coke, the hookers and the mundane cocktails. The worse part is that as long as people will go in masses to see KKid reboot, there is no reason for the execs not to do so.
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Jun 25, 2011 3:10:33 AM CDT
I see WARGAMES as a period piece. Anmd as such, it's still a very entertaining movie.
by asimovlives
Back in the day, a kid really need to be spectaculary bright to be a computer wiz. Adn the mvoie is quite very clear about all the computer tech that at the time i was completly oblivious about. And me at 12 understood the whole thing perfectly. The movie has a great clarity of narrative. And though there was some flights of fancy andsome fantasy mixed in, for the most part the movie is if not realistic at least very plausible and believable.
As for this remake... i wait for the end results, but i'm not optimistic. -
I read somewhere that the man who rests at Spielberg's side and kept Dreamworks from making Lost in Translation, Titanic, Avatar, all comic book movies (meaning do deals with Marvel) is the same guy who wrote Wargames - AND ONLY WARGAMES. He penned this thing back in the 80's and somehow became Steven's right ear, recommending shit and keeping good projects away,.
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and most of it was used correctly.
Hollywood today doesn't even understand what a fucking firewall is.
This will be retarded. -
Jun 25, 2011 4:45:27 AM CDT
We eventually become an Interpersonal Internet "Interperse" for short
by thejudger
We will move away from laptops and desktops and phones. We will become the Internet. machines with in us will monitor and transmit everything we experience to other people. All the way down to emotional broadcasting using internal nano bots to record, broadcast, and stimulate/simulate the emotional events the user creates and receives. We will be 1 to 1 one day.
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excellent. but you cant accept that now can you,you nostalgia fanboys?
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...a Will Smith produced vehicle for his pretentious abnoxious son.The plot is a pure copy/paste of the original key scenes, takes forever to kick in beetween the neverending tourism scenes paid for by CFG, a Chinese Government run company.
No fanboy nostalgia here, just good taste... and this one tastes like shit. -
that's why it is called a REMAKE ffs.
the funny thing is that if the producers tried to change a lot from the original,then the crybabies would yell at them for ignoring what made the original great.
and as the tourism scenes comment,not only the Chinese government did a very clever bussiness move to have them inserted in the movie,but it does help artistically the movie too.
unless you also think that the Scottish landscape scenes in Highlander were also "neverending tourism scenes"?
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I thought there was talk a few years back about a remake?
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...is not to 're-play.'
Can't even begin to imagine how obnoxious this'll be. Too bad you (probably) burned up your 'Shia' cards already on this type of film, Hollywood. But I'm sure there's some charisma-free bitchboy or quasi-nerd that'll really do justice to Broderick. And I'll bet this will be a great opportunity for Selena Gomez to really 'stretch' her chops and talk in an iTunes featurette about how 'rad' she thinks Ally Sheedly [sic] is!
This topic dragged me out of months and months of AICN silence to post. That says more than any mini-rant I could partake in. -
...like remaking 80's films like this.
another dumb hollywood remake, clueless because it doesnt understand the original, you cant update the cold war scenario
and you cant update the idea of people being against having computers control everything even really important things like nukes, because, err actually they already do.
heck even a kid hacking into the military from a bedroom computer is old hat thesedays, what are they going to do when they visit cheyenne, use a stargate !!!
sheesh why cant Hollywood come up with some original ideas for a change.
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Jun 25, 2011 3:49:27 PM CDT
Does anyone mind if i hijack this thread for a quick second to ask a totally unimportant and non-relevant but sort of related question?
by ragingfluff
John Wood, who played Falken, was also the nasty Bishop in Ladyhawke (directed by Richard Donner). Donner also directed 'Conspiracy Theory', which features, in my opinion, a ridiculous scene in a rep theater in NY showing "Ladyhawke" to a PACKED house.
Did anyone else find that scene just ludicrous, the idea of two hundred people lining up to pay to see "Ladyhawke" 12 years after it was first in cinemas, or is it just me?
By the way, just so we're clear, I like 'Ladyhawke'
Okay, normal service can now resume -
Jun 25, 2011 4:59:40 PM CDT
Steven Speilberg will be adapting the upcoming novel "ROBOPOCALYPSE" to the big screen in 2013
by shavedleatherpig
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Jun 25, 2011 7:18:22 PM CDT
But if the camera's shaking how we will read the text on the screen
by melonman
Silly me - kids can't read anymore
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I'm really annoyed when people say something is "dated" as if that's necessarily a bad thing. Yes WarGames is very very 1983 and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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You're right... And with IPV6 I believe there are enough IPs to give each cell in every human body an IP address.
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... the climax is something NOT happening.
Everyone stands around waiting, and then... nothing happens! Oh, the thrill!
So I never liked WarGames, even as a kid. -
Why not just mention Matt Broderick instead of John Wood? Matt was in Ladyhawke. Kindof starred in the thing.
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Jun 25, 2011 10:56:19 PM CDT
Hollyweird won't be happy until they remake every movie, and then remake the remakes.
by ironeagle74
Jesus Christ, what happened to original ideas?
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Jun 25, 2011 10:59:03 PM CDT
"The Manhatten Project" - it was his mother's boyfriend's lab, not his father.
by ironeagle74
Played by the great John Lithgow. A very young Cynthia Nixon(Sex and the City) was in the movie too.
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Jun 26, 2011 1:24:10 AM CDT
Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy should play the parents of the main character...
by vroom socko
in a film version of Cory Doctorow's LITTLE BROTHER. A remake of WarGames, on the other hand, is doomed to fail.
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Jun 26, 2011 2:13:52 AM CDT
One of the "cool" reasons I keep coming back to AICN is the rampant ageism
by i_max_u_mini
I admit to being guilty of said crime in the past, but when you look at it generational, it all makes sense.
My grandparents were able to see classic films of the '20s and '30s as they were first released.
My parents went on a date to an Elvis Presley show at the county fair months before he hit the big time.
I was able to watch every single Bond film released (except Dr. No) on the opening night. I caught Dr. No a couple of weeks in - but there was no big hurry. The film would show at the Capitol Theater or the State Theater for weeks on end.
But I've also been there for all big releases and a large sampling of indy films in the time since I first saw Pinocchio at the age of 9 with my next door neighbor, a 12-year old German kid who lost his mother and ended up living with his American father and step-mother.
At any rate, when I hear people complaining about their childhood films from the '80s being remade, I have to laugh.
For example, the first big screen western I ever recall seeing was Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo". Since then, I watched Hawks remake Rio Bravo - TWICE! "El Dorado" and "Rio Lobo".
I've also seen both John Carpenter homages with "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Ghost of Mars."
I know there have been at least two or three other remakes I can't recall.
There are always cycles - how else do you explain Burt Reynold's dominance of the '70s?
Movies will always be remade. Mainly because most of the "original" ideas the studio heads give a green light to are going to be either marginal or suck big time.
Just chill out and laugh when your kids have to endure the HBO remake of Harry Potter. Seven 12 to 13 episode seasons. -
It's because no one in Hollywood has a library card. Most remakes seem to be either based on old television shows or movies.
The works of Robert Heinlein alone could keep producers busy for years. -
Your comments reminded me one of the worst examples of re-making something that did not look dated into something that did. 2001: A Space Odyssey's extraordinary, science-based design still looks timeless, more like an alternate possible future (or past?) than a 1960s fantasy. 2010, on the other hand, is stuck in the 1980s. For all the effort they put into recreating the Discovery sets, the use of CRT screens instead of the original rear-projection was a big oops. The rear-projection turned out to anticipate the look of LCDs while the newer film's CRTs turned out to be obsolete by the real 2010.
WarGames' NORAD command center was better-looking than the real thing, though no doubt a jealous military tried to justify upgrading to be just as cool. -
As a tv miniseries?
-
Jun 26, 2011 3:20:13 PM CDT
Who needs this when we have Wargames 2: The Dead Code
by thebomankicksassandtakesblame
The rare instance where the sequel is better than the original.
I jest of course -
But back then, computer security was practically non existent. Plugging a physical phone into a modem and accessing some government server was plausible. Think of it like the movie "Thief", do you think the very same tactics James Caan used to rob a bank in the middle of the night would work today?
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War Games is not dated. In fact it's aged quite well in that it's a great story told well and still enjoyable today. You really know a story is great when you are aware of its plot holes (War Games has tons) and you ignore them.
Older films can be dated by their special effects or their editing style but it's not fair or accurate I think to say something is dated because of a plot element.
You can roll your eyes at the computer elements of War Games and still enjoy that film.
Would you say the years have been unkind to Saturday Night Fever because of the hair and clothes? No, it's a central part of the tale.
So it is with War Games. It's a period piece (Cold War, birth of personal computers) whose story is timeless.
If this film is dated then so is every crime/mystery film that doesn't use DNA evidence. OMG, they're taking fingerprints, this film is so dated!!!
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