It took me a long time to realize this fully, but General Beringer is a great character. He's prepared to destroy the Soviets, which is exactly what his job requires of him -- he shouldn't be in that position if he isn't. But he's not a demagogue, and he's not beyond listening to reason. He wants nuclear weapons in the hands of people rather than machines, and his concern on this turns out to be well-founded. When he declares Defcon One, he looks genuinely anxious and appropriately solemn, like he wants to lose his shit emotionally but knows he can't because he's in charge. When Falken explains convincingly why the supposed Soviet attack can't be real because it doesn't make any sense, Beringer listens and ultimately agrees -- knowing that, as the person who will advise the President and on whose advice the President will issue the fateful order, he's basically the most powerful person on earth at that moment. He alone devises the method by which they'll determine if the attack is real or not (getting the senior controllers at the first three US impact targets on the radio while ordering readiness to launch missiles if they lose radio contact), and when it's clear the attack isn't real, he's overjoyed. Basically, throughout the movie his instincts and decisions are correct on the basis of his job and the information at his disposal.
I like how the General keeps saying he doesn’t trust the decision-making machine, but Falken has to remind him not to be a decision-making machine. And what a great character!
That was the sentence that convinced the General. That feeling of getting suckered into thinking like a machine was right on his face. Beringer's the kinda guy I would have definitely served under with pride.
the enemy would attack without provocation, using so many missiles, bombers, and subs so that we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them? Does any that really make sense? Isn't that exactly would they would do? "have no choice but to totally annihilate them?" Again, isn't that exactly what the USA would do?
I was 14 when this came out in theaters. I'm 51 and I still think it packs a punch. I showed the movie to my 14 year old stepson a few years ago, and he was riveted by it (he is into the history of the microcomputer revolution). I asked him whether the old tech depicted in it got in the way of his enjoyment, and he immediately defended the movie, saying, "No, it's a classic!"
"General, do you really believe that the enemy would attack without provocation, using so many missiles, bombers and subs that we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them?" Brilliantly delivered line, and an incredibly gripping scene.
Scary thought: Something like this really happened in September 1983. A computer error showed a Soviet Missile commander that the US had launched an attack. This was just after the Soviet Air Force shot down a Koren airliner killing several Americans, including a Congressman. Tensions were very high at the time, but instead of launching his missiles at once he waited long enough to realize his computers were giving him a false signal
***** That makes no scenes at all. The doctrine at the time, and still today, is to get the missiles out of their silos and on their way to targets before the silos are hit. The idea is that you want to strike the enemies weapons before they are launched. The accepted doctrine has been that this is impossible. With so many eye's watching both sides it would not be possible for your missiles to reach their targets before the enemy sees them coming and launches their own missiles. Having dummy launch buttons would delay the launch of your missiles by too much time. The missile commander pushes the button, waits, realizes nothing happens, tries again, still nothing. He calls his boss to explain the problem but by the time he calls HIS boss he is vaporized before he can explain. Your side loses the nuclear war because you never launched. The missile commanders MUST have the authority and ability to launch in case of attack. You only have about 20 minutes from the time you see them coming to when they arrive. This is not nearly enough time for the regular chain of command to work, which takes hours. I think what you read was just another urban legend.
***** So that makes it true? People never lie when they right these articles? You need a lesson in skeptical thinking. If it doesn't make scenes it isn't true. The time it would take for the calls to be made to get permission to launch be far greater than the time it would take for the bombs to arrive, especially if the bombs were launched from submarines and the attack was a complete surprise. This fact ALONE casts doubt on the truth of the article, and that's assuming you really did read such an article.
Ah yes, the Able Archer 83 incident. -------Warning: Rant incoming---------- NATO ran a nuclear war game simulation involving most of the NATO command structure. It occurred some time after KAL 007 incident and when most of the Politiburo was filled with "old men" with failing health and losing adequate perception. KGB as well as listening outposts picked up the NATO com traffic, but due to the peculiar structure of the soviet intelligence they were not allowed to make local detailed analysis, so the raw information was forwarded to higher command echelons without proper local interpretations on the nature of the information. So for that, the Soviet High Command never understood that it was a command exercise and believed it was preparation for a First Strike. The incident was further aggravated by the suspicious launch detections on soviet satellite screens. But it was later discovered to be a glitch from the computer that mistakenly interpreted the particular position the sun coming out from behind the earth as launch trails. The officer in charge noticed it since he was already familiar with the unreliable computers, belayed the order to relay the false intel to higher command, and reboot the computer systems. But in a stroke of bureaucratic incompetence, he was relieved of duty and the problems associated with the computer system were not addressed There was a rumor that at one point, another computer had a chip failure that also reported incoming missiles. It was said that the soviets were so close to launching their missiles that the ultimate reason that they never launched it was because someone entered the launch codes incorrectly. Shortly afterward, the incoming threats disappeared, and then diagnostic tests revealed the chip to be the culprit. Yeah, rumor, hoax, myth, whatever it was, that was fucking scary. The entire event ended, when NATO concluded the AA83 exercise, and the Soviets then realized that it was just a simulation. No one in the US or NATO intelligence circle knew about the Soviet actions that were taking place, until a Soviet Double Agent supplied the intel. Reagan realized that by going all "evil empire" on the soviets, the soviets became more paranoid and, when combined with poorly structured intelligence circle, really believed any aggressive posture by NATO is an attack and was risking an all out WWIII. Some people believed this was the moment when Reagan was trying to find if there was anyone in the Kremlin he can actually talk to. He got his wish when he met Gorbachev. But yeah this incident is basically a 1-2 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. ---------Rant over-------------------
Com18Alpha What I'm talking about has nothing at all to do with Able Archer '83. That event took place 2 months AFTER (in November) what I'm talking about. I wonder how many times we came within SECONDS of a nuclear war?
I met Barry Corbin a year ago in Claremore, Oklahoma when he received an award. I spent a couple of hours with him. He is not much different in life as the character he portrayed in War Games. It was an honor to meet him.
_"John, good to see you! I see the wife still picks your ties."_ And recall earlier in the movie, where McKittrick said to Lightman that Falken didn't understand the practical uses of his work? This scene pretty much proves that Falken understood it better than McKittrick, especially when he tells General Beringer that he's "listening to a machine." Technologists must acknowledge that the technology can fail as well as when it can work. It also calls to mind an episode of Star Trek, from Spock of all people, from the episode "The Ultimate Computer." _"Computers make excellent and efficient servants. But I have no wish to serve under them."_ And that's, perhaps, that's the biggest flaw in McKittrick's evaluation of the WOPR's worth: he has placed it above that of the people who use it.
McKittrick was dangerously close to convincing himself that he created WOPR. I like to think that after this crisis he got sent out to pasture and they let Falken oversee WOPR's decommissioning before going back to retirement. With maybe David getting a little job helping with network security in Peterson AFB
Totally agree. I didn't realise it when I first saw the film when it was released. But looking back now as an older and wiser person, it was the point in the film that both man and machine realised that nuclear war could not be won and did not make sense.
Yes, it was a pivotal movement, but not the key point or lesson of the movie. As this wasn't the end of the movie, Joshua (the AI) still wanted to fire nukes back at the Russians. So the key point was teaching the AI that in a mutually assured destruction scenario no one wins.
This really happened to both, Americans *AND* Soviets. The Soviet colonel in charge during a critical moment refused to retaliate because he believed USA would not launch five missiles but at the very least hundreds. Americans did not fall for the false alarm either but wrote off the erroneous computer program after several false alerts.
also in 1995 with Boris Yeltsin.. Finish scienstist launched a weather rocket .. russian alert stations detected it and command tought it was a first nuclear warhead to be detonated very high above Moscow so the EMP would dissable radars and sensors and as many systems as posible to seriously blind them and limit any posible retaliation... and then the attack would follow .. the catch was that if they wanted to act it needed to be before the warhead detonated above them.. fortunatelly cooler heads prevaled again funny fact: the rocket launch had been properly notified to russian air space control.. someone there fucked up monumentally not informing the missile command
Ronald Reagan watched this movie and asked the SecDef(?) to investigate whether this scenario was possible. A week later he came back and said something like "its worse than that." Leading to a LOT of work to increase human decision points in the loop.
Growing up, I thought that he was smiling all the time, too. But, later on, I realized that he just has one of those faces that makes it LOOK like he's smiling all the time.
This movie had a huge impact the time it released in the early 80,s because of the fear of a nuclear war. Millennial's look at this and laugh but seeing this in the theaters scared the hell out of a lot of people.
Except for one thing. The hacking scenes are not very realistic. Such as getting help and listing the games contained in the WOPR from a login screen. In reality that would not happen.
For me, the opening sequence in the LCC (Launch control capsule) with the two missileers and the last 10 minutes in NORAD make up the totality of the film. Oh! And John Wood's excellent "Nature knows when to give up" speech along with David's retort.
Even if he's wrong, nothing he does will stop the missiles en-route and US has enough second strike capability to still annihilate the Soviets even after a first strike lands.
This actually happened in real life about the time this movie was made...in reverse. The Soviets thought we were prepping for war. Their systems detected a limited nuke launch by us...their missle jockey thought "they wouldn't just launch three or four missiles" so he broke from protocol and didn't launch. Turns out that they were just a few weather balloons
Scares me a lot considering something similar to this happened... September 26, 1983: The False Alarm in the Soviet Union. I really thank God he classified them as false.
John Cooper you don't get it huh? The whole movie is about the "what if" and the possibility of the worse(and the only)effect of MAD. The world almost ended in the Cold war but nowadays does the world care? We're slowly killing ourselves better than hat MAD can do to us.
Well yeah, the Neutron bomb is a tactical weapon instead of a strategic weapon like the Atom bomb or H bomb is. In other words, it is used for a small but well defined area... say a 1,000 yard radius. Anything outside of that radius...no damage. Anything inside of it...destroyed. It is a weapon meant to win on the battlefield. It's not been used in warfare yet.
"General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one". That single line makes this movie. And is it just me, or does Melvin sound almost exactly like the nerdy kid in The Polar Express?
The scary thing is whilst this is a film, there was a real incident of a Russian missile commander receiving information of inbound ICBMs on his computer screen indicating the US had launched an attack on the USSR. He decided not to tell his superiors because he reasoned the US would not attack without warning with just a few nuclear weapons and believed it was a fault in the system. This ironically happened in 1983 by Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov
It was based on an actual incident that occurred at NORAD in November 1979, when a training scenario was accidentally loaded into the operations' computer and they thought 2200 Soviet missiles had been launched.
You have it backwards. Petrov deduced that the US would not launch just a few missiles but would initiate with an all-out attack. There's no "warning shot" in nuclear war.
You know he's not a demagogue when he doesn't immediately through Falken out and later turns over the entire computer network so that a kid can play tic-tac-toe. You have to be a pretty smart, confident guy to allow for that kind of input.
amazingman63 Only in a world ruled by stupid mafia thugs. Speaking of which even the mafia knows to avoid bloodshed. Nukes are actually a Mexican standoff on a global scale. This is why nobody is insane enough to try and attack first. Ironically they guarantee peace. Why? Because everybody is extra careful and think several steps ahead to prevent anything from spiraling out of control. Anyways, stupid thugs lack the ability to see the long-term consequences of their stupid actions and this is why they are petty criminals living on borrowed time. People in charge of nuclear weapons aren't petty criminals who have seen Scarface a hundred times.
I'd love to hear Reagan respond to this film.Too bad in his diary he didn't write about seeing this film, although I'm sure he did. Update: Checking information on this film, I see he did see it at Camp David.
I am sorry to say this but can you imagine what David's reasoning for missing school will be when he returns, the teacher asks him for a excuse his response probably would've been. "I nearly started WW 3."
On the commentary track for the DVD, the director says the line "General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one." was really the crux of whole movie. I totally agree.
If you listen to the count down it goes from “1 minute to impact” to “1 minute 10 seconds to impact” and then back to “1 minute to impact” Someone forgot to check the details on that in the editing room.
This movie is so old, it was before the direct line to the president was upgraded to DEFCON red. Great memories, one of the earliest movies I saw as a kid
I like how those characters have visitor I.D. badges. They drove a jeep through a gate, ran at top speed and then...had to sign in and get visitor badges. So much for being in a hurry.
In this reality "skynet" was averted because the coder of the AI was not a boastful overconfident jackass. he understood the thinking of his AI and thus understood the problem at hand. skynet's coders are "we have a problem, let's google it." "i dont know why this code does not work; let me google it." "this code works, and i dont know why, so let it be."
Also what the President says to Keith David on the phone in Armageddon when the secondary protocol is about to take place and he says to the president ”Sir, maybe we should” and then the President hangs up.
Totally inaccurate. SAC and NORAD could have confirmed a launch by early radar warning (PAVE PAWS). Second, the National command authority can only authorize a release, by the two man rule of the President and Sec of Defense in agreement. A much better portrayal is the climax of The Sum of all Fears.
@ferbth2gadgetguy, I don't understand your statement. The Cold War lasted until shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This movie is based off going to war with the Soviet Union. In terms of the PAVE PAWS, the first two went operational in 1980, two years prior to the movie, with two more going active after the movie time-line. Now, my statement is...that if the WOPPR was hooked into the system, it could have put false readings into the radar results... In terms of the SEC DEF, he could have been with the President, we have no info on that.
Please try to pay closer attention. In this movie BMEWS (the ballistic missile early warning system) was what was tracking the missiles over the poles. Remember the guy saying “confidence is high”? That was the guy confirming the BMEWS radar tracks. Pave paws mostly watches the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Bering sea and was still being deployed in 1982. BMEWS watches over the pole. It was very accurate, right down to them wondering why the DSP sats didn’t give a launch detection. WOPR could fake BMEWS tracks, but not DSP data.
I was there it was only two ICBMs and WOPA is an AI programme. I got to fly from UK to USA in 3 hour's Lockheed Martin A12 Blackbird because I played games via a modem.
Dr. Falken wasted a good 20-30 seconds before he gave the General his best argument: that the Soviets wouldn't commit suicide by launching an all-out attack, knowing that NATO would respond in kind. He probably could have gotten through to the General faster if he'd said it earlier; giving everyone more precious time to re-think and call off the xounter-attack.
This scene reminds me Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. A scene that the top brasses gathered in NORAD without the POTUS. They believed the Soviet nuclear launches were real, though Big Boss called the Secretary of Defense and explained those data were made up by Hot Coldman, the branch director of CIA in Central America. However, most the people refuse to believe that because they assumed those data were real and voted for retaliation. Therefore, Big Boss have to destroy Peace Walker by sabotage the AI brain on board the PW (like he killed The Boss). Fortunately, the "soul" of The Boss led PW to sink into the bottom of Caribbean Ocean and stopped the false data transmission.
Oh, you're high school students. Well, you're on my land. Now - path, follow path, gate - open gate, through gate, close gate. Last ferry leaves at 6:00 so run, run, run.
It took me a long time to realize this fully, but General Beringer is a great character.
He's prepared to destroy the Soviets, which is exactly what his job requires of him -- he shouldn't be in that position if he isn't. But he's not a demagogue, and he's not beyond listening to reason. He wants nuclear weapons in the hands of people rather than machines, and his concern on this turns out to be well-founded. When he declares Defcon One, he looks genuinely anxious and appropriately solemn, like he wants to lose his shit emotionally but knows he can't because he's in charge.
When Falken explains convincingly why the supposed Soviet attack can't be real because it doesn't make any sense, Beringer listens and ultimately agrees -- knowing that, as the person who will advise the President and on whose advice the President will issue the fateful order, he's basically the most powerful person on earth at that moment. He alone devises the method by which they'll determine if the attack is real or not (getting the senior controllers at the first three US impact targets on the radio while ordering readiness to launch missiles if they lose radio contact), and when it's clear the attack isn't real, he's overjoyed.
Basically, throughout the movie his instincts and decisions are correct on the basis of his job and the information at his disposal.
After he retired, he moved to Alaska and became the mayor of a tiny town. :D
And fought off a Soviet invasion in an alternate timeline.
He was not so great in Stir Crazy as the corrupt incompetent Warsen.
Really well written.
He's general Carvel from the C&C red alert
I like how the General keeps saying he doesn’t trust the decision-making machine, but Falken has to remind him not to be a decision-making machine.
And what a great character!
You betcha!
That was the sentence that convinced the General. That feeling of getting suckered into thinking like a machine was right on his face. Beringer's the kinda guy I would have definitely served under with pride.
He said he’d piss on a spark plug if he thought it would do any good.
Uncle Bob as a General. He was good.
the enemy would attack without provocation, using so many missiles, bombers, and subs so that we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them?
Does any that really make sense? Isn't that exactly would they would do?
"have no choice but to totally annihilate them?" Again, isn't that exactly what the USA would do?
I was 14 when this came out in theaters. I'm 51 and I still think it packs a punch. I showed the movie to my 14 year old stepson a few years ago, and he was riveted by it (he is into the history of the microcomputer revolution). I asked him whether the old tech depicted in it got in the way of his enjoyment, and he immediately defended the movie, saying, "No, it's a classic!"
It’s a fantastic film. Watched it again last night.
"General, do you really believe that the enemy would attack without provocation, using so many missiles, bombers and subs that we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them?" Brilliantly delivered line, and an incredibly gripping scene.
What if nukes are not real?
Scary thought: Something like this really happened in September 1983. A computer error showed a Soviet Missile commander that the US had launched an attack. This was just after the Soviet Air Force shot down a Koren airliner killing several Americans, including a Congressman. Tensions were very high at the time, but instead of launching his missiles at once he waited long enough to realize his computers were giving him a false signal
***** That makes no scenes at all. The doctrine at the time, and still today, is to get the missiles out of their silos and on their way to targets before the silos are hit. The idea is that you want to strike the enemies weapons before they are launched. The accepted doctrine has been that this is impossible. With so many eye's watching both sides it would not be possible for your missiles to reach their targets before the enemy sees them coming and launches their own missiles. Having dummy launch buttons would delay the launch of your missiles by too much time. The missile commander pushes the button, waits, realizes nothing happens, tries again, still nothing. He calls his boss to explain the problem but by the time he calls HIS boss he is vaporized before he can explain. Your side loses the nuclear war because you never launched. The missile commanders MUST have the authority and ability to launch in case of attack. You only have about 20 minutes from the time you see them coming to when they arrive. This is not nearly enough time for the regular chain of command to work, which takes hours.
I think what you read was just another urban legend.
i never heard nathing about that thanks
***** So that makes it true? People never lie when they right these articles? You need a lesson in skeptical thinking. If it doesn't make scenes it isn't true.
The time it would take for the calls to be made to get permission to launch be far greater than the time it would take for the bombs to arrive, especially if the bombs were launched from submarines and the attack was a complete surprise.
This fact ALONE casts doubt on the truth of the article, and that's assuming you really did read such an article.
Ah yes, the Able Archer 83 incident.
-------Warning: Rant incoming----------
NATO ran a nuclear war game simulation involving most of the NATO command structure. It occurred some time after KAL 007 incident and when most of the Politiburo was filled with "old men" with failing health and losing adequate perception. KGB as well as listening outposts picked up the NATO com traffic, but due to the peculiar structure of the soviet intelligence they were not allowed to make local detailed analysis, so the raw information was forwarded to higher command echelons without proper local interpretations on the nature of the information. So for that, the Soviet High Command never understood that it was a command exercise and believed it was preparation for a First Strike.
The incident was further aggravated by the suspicious launch detections on soviet satellite screens. But it was later discovered to be a glitch from the computer that mistakenly interpreted the particular position the sun coming out from behind the earth as launch trails. The officer in charge noticed it since he was already familiar with the unreliable computers, belayed the order to relay the false intel to higher command, and reboot the computer systems. But in a stroke of bureaucratic incompetence, he was relieved of duty and the problems associated with the computer system were not addressed
There was a rumor that at one point, another computer had a chip failure that also reported incoming missiles. It was said that the soviets were so close to launching their missiles that the ultimate reason that they never launched it was because someone entered the launch codes incorrectly. Shortly afterward, the incoming threats disappeared, and then diagnostic tests revealed the chip to be the culprit. Yeah, rumor, hoax, myth, whatever it was, that was fucking scary.
The entire event ended, when NATO concluded the AA83 exercise, and the Soviets then realized that it was just a simulation. No one in the US or NATO intelligence circle knew about the Soviet actions that were taking place, until a Soviet Double Agent supplied the intel. Reagan realized that by going all "evil empire" on the soviets, the soviets became more paranoid and, when combined with poorly structured intelligence circle, really believed any aggressive posture by NATO is an attack and was risking an all out WWIII. Some people believed this was the moment when Reagan was trying to find if there was anyone in the Kremlin he can actually talk to. He got his wish when he met Gorbachev.
But yeah this incident is basically a 1-2 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock.
---------Rant over-------------------
Com18Alpha What I'm talking about has nothing at all to do with Able Archer '83. That event took place 2 months AFTER (in November) what I'm talking about.
I wonder how many times we came within SECONDS of a nuclear war?
I met Barry Corbin a year ago in Claremore, Oklahoma when he received an award. I spent a couple of hours with him. He is not much different in life as the character he portrayed in War Games. It was an honor to meet him.
_"John, good to see you! I see the wife still picks your ties."_
And recall earlier in the movie, where McKittrick said to Lightman that Falken didn't understand the practical uses of his work?
This scene pretty much proves that Falken understood it better than McKittrick, especially when he tells General Beringer that he's "listening to a machine."
Technologists must acknowledge that the technology can fail as well as when it can work.
It also calls to mind an episode of Star Trek, from Spock of all people, from the episode "The Ultimate Computer."
_"Computers make excellent and efficient servants. But I have no wish to serve under them."_
And that's, perhaps, that's the biggest flaw in McKittrick's evaluation of the WOPR's worth: he has placed it above that of the people who use it.
McKittrick was dangerously close to convincing himself that he created WOPR. I like to think that after this crisis he got sent out to pasture and they let Falken oversee WOPR's decommissioning before going back to retirement. With maybe David getting a little job helping with network security in Peterson AFB
The key phrase in this entire movie, the turning point, is when Falken asks, "But does it make any sense?" Pivotal moment.
Totally agree. I didn't realise it when I first saw the film when it was released. But looking back now as an older and wiser person, it was the point in the film that both man and machine realised that nuclear war could not be won and did not make sense.
@@tnetroP Hence Joshua's "It's a strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Yes, it was a pivotal movement, but not the key point or lesson of the movie. As this wasn't the end of the movie, Joshua (the AI) still wanted to fire nukes back at the Russians. So the key point was teaching the AI that in a mutually assured destruction scenario no one wins.
He got him with the line "General, you are listening to a machine"
Pretty insightful considering something like this actually happened to the Soviets in 1983.
This really happened to both, Americans *AND* Soviets. The Soviet colonel in charge during a critical moment refused to retaliate because he believed USA would not launch five missiles but at the very least hundreds. Americans did not fall for the false alarm either but wrote off the erroneous computer program after several false alerts.
also in 1995 with Boris Yeltsin..
Finish scienstist launched a weather rocket .. russian alert stations detected it and command tought it was a first nuclear warhead to be detonated very high above Moscow so the EMP would dissable radars and sensors and as many systems as posible to seriously blind them and limit any posible retaliation... and then the attack would follow .. the catch was that if they wanted to act it needed to be before the warhead detonated above them..
fortunatelly cooler heads prevaled again
funny fact: the rocket launch had been properly notified to russian air space control.. someone there fucked up monumentally not informing the missile command
And Yeltsin was drunk as a skunk at the time (as he often was).
Yeah, the incident at NORAD in 1979 where they thought 2200 Soviet missiles had been launched was the basis of the movie.
@@Willaev There is no way it was 2200 Missiles. USSR never produced ICBM's beyond 400.
2:08 "one minute to impact" *anxiously blinks uncontrollably*
Ronald Reagan watched this movie and asked the SecDef(?) to investigate whether this scenario was possible. A week later he came back and said something like "its worse than that." Leading to a LOT of work to increase human decision points in the loop.
Are you sure you’re not confusing that with “the day after tomorrow”?
@@DG-yo3tk Reagan was 2 months from death when that movie came out, so no.
1:25 Mom what did you do in military? I joined the Air Force and my job was to conduct a countdown over the PA system at the end of the world ☺
"Mr. McKittrick...after very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks." - General Beringer
"Do the world a favor and don't act like one."
why is that piece of shit smiling all the time? does he think wiping out millions of people is some kind of joke?
That line gives me chills
Growing up, I thought that he was smiling all the time, too. But, later on, I realized that he just has one of those faces that makes it LOOK like he's smiling all the time.
So don’t like a bot, I gotcha ya
True.
I love Ally’s facial expressions when the bombs are hitting - the fright, horror and sadness all in one. Tremendous acting.
Still a highly watchable movie. Great stuff.
"Yes Sir, I do too." What do you suppose he does too? I'm betting Regan said, "I hope you're right"
I like turtles.
I always add Reagan’s voice saying, “I hope you’re right General.” before Barringer says, “I do too.”
I was thinking the same thing! "I pray to god... something... you're right" too?
12:46 AM (yep!)
12/27/2019
Merry Christmas!
@James Miller lol. "Yes sir, that's why I'm quite portly"
Reagan: "Btw, I like jellybeans."
General: 2:06
This movie had a huge impact the time it released in the early 80,s because of the fear of a nuclear war. Millennial's look at this and laugh but seeing this in the theaters scared the hell out of a lot of people.
Listen Boomer, I am Gen Z and the idea of nuclear war makes me piss my pants.
LOL seen this a million times I know the outcome but it still gets me on the edge of my seat and my heart racing
It took this long for someone to ask “does it make any sense?” John Wood was perfect in this role. Same for Barry Corbin as the general.
Wars rarely make sense-that’s one reason that they are so terrible.
R.I.P. Dabney. Thank you for blessing us with so many great roles!
Falken: "It's a bluff, John. Call it off."
McKittrick: "No, it's not. It's real."
Falken: (I'm wasting my time talking to you.)
Falken could say this too (at this point): Look, I don‘t have time for a conversation right now !
Gen Beringer was my favorite character badass thru 'n thru....
I would be very reassured if a real life Gen.Berenger was in charge!
ABSOLUTELY!!!
John wood was such a brilliant actor. So communicative
Such a well eritten movie for it's time...and what a time it was!! Go Atari!!!
Except for one thing. The hacking scenes are not very realistic. Such as getting help and listing the games contained in the WOPR from a login screen. In reality that would not happen.
For me, the opening sequence in the LCC (Launch control capsule) with the two missileers and the last 10 minutes in NORAD make up the totality of the film. Oh! And John Wood's excellent "Nature knows when to give up" speech along with David's retort.
GO IMSAI 8080! (That's the computer that David actually used...) "I want to plaaay those games..."
after all these years it hasn't aged a single bit. kudos to all the people involved: actors, screenwriters and all!
"Look, I don't have time for a CONVERSATION right now!" Greatest line ever.
I have always loved the lady who is doing the countdown,,,
1:46 That look he gave him, as if to say: "You'd better be right!"
Even if he's wrong, nothing he does will stop the missiles en-route and US has enough second strike capability to still annihilate the Soviets even after a first strike lands.
This actually happened in real life about the time this movie was made...in reverse. The Soviets thought we were prepping for war. Their systems detected a limited nuke launch by us...their missle jockey thought "they wouldn't just launch three or four missiles" so he broke from protocol and didn't launch. Turns out that they were just a few weather balloons
"I'd piss on a sparkplug if I thought it'd help!"
Scares me a lot considering something similar to this happened...
September 26, 1983: The False Alarm in the Soviet Union. I really thank God he classified them as false.
November 1979, at NORAD.
Accurate uniforms....nicely done. 'Course, I wore one myself. Seeing that A1C brought back memories (I think her hair's in regs, as well.)
This movie is about the ridiculousness of a nuclear war. The music stops if this happens.
John Cooper you don't get it huh?
The whole movie is about the "what if" and the possibility of the worse(and the only)effect of MAD.
The world almost ended in the Cold war but nowadays does the world care? We're slowly killing ourselves better than hat MAD can do to us.
You don't believe a Nuclear war can be won?
A. Whiteman No .
You have not heard about the Neutron bomb.
Well yeah, the Neutron bomb is a tactical weapon instead of a strategic weapon like the Atom bomb or H bomb is. In other words, it is used for a small but well defined area... say a 1,000 yard radius. Anything outside of that radius...no damage. Anything inside of it...destroyed. It is a weapon meant to win on the battlefield. It's not been used in warfare yet.
Barry Corbin is a legend.
Nobody in their right mind would launch all those missiles for no reason
Skynet would. :)
A terrorist state like Iran would. Terrorists have proven that they believe they have nothing to lose.
Nobody in their right mind... which is what makes Kim so scary... he definitely isn't all there.
I loved this movie when I was a kid!
"General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one". That single line makes this movie. And is it just me, or does Melvin sound almost exactly like the nerdy kid in The Polar Express?
Melvin is the same person as the one in Polar Express.
1:24 SO THAT is the person with the ROBOT voice!
Ive watched so many movies and I never knew it was her!
Whoever put that short tie on the actor playing the general should get retroactively fired. Just saying.
Air force uniform item. You'd have to blame the pentagon
The person responsible for sacking the costumer, has just been sacked.
The scary thing is whilst this is a film, there was a real incident of a Russian missile commander receiving information of inbound ICBMs on his computer screen indicating the US had launched an attack on the USSR. He decided not to tell his superiors because he reasoned the US would not attack without warning with just a few nuclear weapons and believed it was a fault in the system. This ironically happened in 1983 by Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov
It was based on an actual incident that occurred at NORAD in November 1979, when a training scenario was accidentally loaded into the operations' computer and they thought 2200 Soviet missiles had been launched.
Willaev "This is not a training exercise."
You have it backwards. Petrov deduced that the US would not launch just a few missiles but would initiate with an all-out attack. There's no "warning shot" in nuclear war.
You know he's not a demagogue when he doesn't immediately through Falken out and later turns over the entire computer network so that a kid can play tic-tac-toe. You have to be a pretty smart, confident guy to allow for that kind of input.
That isn’t exactly how it went…
Beringer. Greatest movie general. Ever.
Nukes are the ultimate "if i cant own the world then neither can anyone else" weapon
amazingman63 We'll all glow together.
amazingman63 Only in a world ruled by stupid mafia thugs. Speaking of which even the mafia knows to avoid bloodshed. Nukes are actually a Mexican standoff on a global scale. This is why nobody is insane enough to try and attack first. Ironically they guarantee peace. Why? Because everybody is extra careful and think several steps ahead to prevent anything from spiraling out of control. Anyways, stupid thugs lack the ability to see the long-term consequences of their stupid actions and this is why they are petty criminals living on borrowed time. People in charge of nuclear weapons aren't petty criminals who have seen Scarface a hundred times.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima says hellow
@@Kr0nicDragon Yeah genius...they didn't have the nukes on their side did they?
I'd love to hear Reagan respond to this film.Too bad in his diary he didn't write about seeing this film, although I'm sure he did. Update: Checking information on this film, I see he did see it at Camp David.
He was very affected by “The Day After” (1983)
The great John Wood, such an underrated actor.
I am sorry to say this but can you imagine what David's reasoning for missing school will be when he returns, the teacher asks him for a excuse his response probably would've been. "I nearly started WW 3."
On the commentary track for the DVD, the director says the line "General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one." was really the crux of whole movie. I totally agree.
If you listen to the count down it goes from “1 minute to impact” to “1 minute 10 seconds to impact” and then back to “1 minute to impact”
Someone forgot to check the details on that in the editing room.
The countdown is correct on the dvd version.
I miss the movies from the 80s. So full of imagination and adventure.
MAD.
Mutually Assured Destruction.
RIP Dabney Coleman and John Wood
1:54 That was a long 10 seconds!
12:45:00 AM (yep!)
12/27/2019
Merry Christmas!
This movie is so old, it was before the direct line to the president was upgraded to DEFCON red.
Great memories, one of the earliest movies I saw as a kid
computers....hallucanate ....YES. only if programed?
Greetings Professor Falken
Google the story of Stanislav Petrov in 1983 and you'll see how this all nearly happened in 1983 for real. Petrov saved the world.
The officer with the perfect voice to do a countdown cracks me up. It's almost as if the air force hired her for that reason alone
NEW ERA
If you want to read up on what happens when it is the real thing, look up Operation Giant Lance by Nixon...
It's RobbieAngelRobot 0:16 ! ! See that's what happens lost
consciousness
I like how those characters have visitor I.D. badges. They drove a jeep through a gate, ran at top speed and then...had to sign in and get visitor badges.
So much for being in a hurry.
The key argument he confined Barringer was the notion that he is listening to a machine.
R.I.P. Dabney Coleman!
It helps that it was established early on that the General didn't trust the technology to begin with.
Greetings Professor Falken.
In this reality "skynet" was averted because the coder of the AI was not a boastful overconfident jackass. he understood the thinking of his AI and thus understood the problem at hand.
skynet's coders are "we have a problem, let's google it." "i dont know why this code does not work; let me google it." "this code works, and i dont know why, so let it be."
"We're still here."
After very careful consideration, he came to the conclusion that Kittrick's computer system sucks. 👍😎
It was one thing to watch this scene as a kid, a totally different experience as an adult.
Would be interesting to know what the President said on the telephone...
President: I'm shitting my pants right now.
General: Yes Sir, I do to.
Also what the President says to Keith David on the phone in Armageddon when the secondary protocol is about to take place and he says to the president ”Sir, maybe we should” and then the President hangs up.
Totally inaccurate. SAC and NORAD could have confirmed a launch by early radar warning (PAVE PAWS). Second, the National command authority can only authorize a release, by the two man rule of the President and Sec of Defense in agreement. A much better portrayal is the climax of The Sum of all Fears.
rbryant100 I'm not the sharpest pencil in the pencil case but you do remember that this was in the cold war right?
@ferbth2gadgetguy, I don't understand your statement. The Cold War lasted until shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This movie is based off going to war with the Soviet Union. In terms of the PAVE PAWS, the first two went operational in 1980, two years prior to the movie, with two more going active after the movie time-line. Now, my statement is...that if the WOPPR was hooked into the system, it could have put false readings into the radar results... In terms of the SEC DEF, he could have been with the President, we have no info on that.
Please try to pay closer attention. In this movie BMEWS (the ballistic missile early warning system) was what was tracking the missiles over the poles. Remember the guy saying “confidence is high”? That was the guy confirming the BMEWS radar tracks. Pave paws mostly watches the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Bering sea and was still being deployed in 1982. BMEWS watches over the pole. It was very accurate, right down to them wondering why the DSP sats didn’t give a launch detection. WOPR could fake BMEWS tracks, but not DSP data.
I like how ally sheedy can play sort of a dumpy geek,
and then in the next movie be a total hottie.
But does that make any sense!? Does what make any sense!? That! Look I don't have time for a conversation right now!!! Me: Killed It!
You picked a hell of a day for a visit lol
“Yes Sir, I do too.”
I love how you can immediately tell what the president said, with only three words.
@nicksterj “I got some jellybeans. You like jellybeans?”
"Well, duh, we never thought of that."
There is so much truth hidden in this film.
I was there it was only two ICBMs and WOPA is an AI programme. I got to fly from UK to USA in 3 hour's Lockheed Martin A12 Blackbird because I played games via a modem.
Dr. Falken wasted a good 20-30 seconds before he gave the General his best argument: that the Soviets wouldn't commit suicide by launching an all-out attack, knowing that NATO would respond in kind. He probably could have gotten through to the General faster if he'd said it earlier; giving everyone more precious time to re-think and call off the xounter-attack.
it's a bluff - call it off
1 minute to impact...
Don't!
I can only imagine John Lennon playing Steven Falcon!
The first attempt from skynet
This scene reminds me Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. A scene that the top brasses gathered in NORAD without the POTUS. They believed the Soviet nuclear launches were real, though Big Boss called the Secretary of Defense and explained those data were made up by Hot Coldman, the branch director of CIA in Central America. However, most the people refuse to believe that because they assumed those data were real and voted for retaliation. Therefore, Big Boss have to destroy Peace Walker by sabotage the AI brain on board the PW (like he killed The Boss). Fortunately, the "soul" of The Boss led PW to sink into the bottom of Caribbean Ocean and stopped the false data transmission.
Dude on the left at the end has a requisition that needs signed and it's past due!
Wow how can he not see that
Acojonante como está película predijo los delirios de la IA...
is it me or was General Beringer in red alert counterstrike and red alert 2?
Imagine what chatgpt could do?
Ah yes the 80s and 90s when a bunch of teenagers could get access to the most secret and protected military facilitites.
Wargame (2)020: Theatrewide Biotoxin and Chemical Warfare?
He is fired
Control, Alt, delete, restart! :-)
EXCELLENT film.
Didn't this same actor talk about "bluffing" in Jumping Jack Flash?
Yep. That's Falken.
Faulkan never did find a paleantologist.
Oh, you're high school students. Well, you're on my land. Now - path, follow path, gate - open gate, through gate, close gate. Last ferry leaves at 6:00 so run, run, run.