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Broderick changes school information from his home computer just as he does in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Both mothers were also real estate agents. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

WarGames (1983) - 30 mistakes

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Genres: Drama, Thriller

Mistakes

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Factual error: When they launch the F-16s the picture shown is of an F-15.

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Continuity: During David Lightman's escape from the infirmary, notice the hands of the guard officer - he's wearing his gloves, and the next instant they have disappeared, and reappear in the next scene.

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Revealing: In the scene where David starts the game with Joshua, it asks him what side he wants to be (1 for the U.S. and 2 for USSR). Look carefully at the closeup of the computer screen - his choice, 2, appears long before David actually presses the key.

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Audio problem: When Jennifer gives David a ride home near the beginning of the film, as David gets on her bike, she looks round and tells him to "Hop on" without moving her lips.

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Continuity: McKittrick answers David, whom he was going to Paris with. But the reservation was made in Jennifer's name, not David's.

Edit Submitted by Jacob La Cour

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Factual error: During the part where they're in NORAD and watching all of the Soviet "nukes" hit various bases in the US, a base in northern Maine is listed as, "Loring AFB 43 Bomb Wing." This was a real air force base, but it was the 42nd Bomb Wing that flew B-52s out of Loring. The 43rd Bomb Wing did exist, too, but it was based at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in the South Pacific.

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Audio problem: When Jennifer gives David a ride home near the beginning of the movie, you hear David's dog barking. In the next shot, we see the dog is running down the front path and it barks a couple more times. Look closely at its mouth, it's not barking.

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Plot hole: The whole point of playing tic-tac-toe in the end was so Joshua could learn that the game would always end a tie. But take a close look at the second game he plays in the war room. Two "X"s and two "O"s are played in boxes where all Joshua would have to do is put the next X in the top middle box, and he would've won that game. A human could conceivably miss that, but since it was just established that Joshua was playing himself (of players "zero"), a computer wouldn't have missed such an easy move, especially since the reason Joshua plays anything is "to win the game".

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Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: In the scene where Joshua is going through the possible strikes, the US strike was done first followed by USSR's strike. However, when you see the list of strikes and the results, USSR is listed before US.

Edit Submitted by unkajes

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Visible crew/equipment: When the FBI van pulls up in front of the 7-11 to take Broderick away, lights and other rigging are reflected in the van.

Edit Submitted by William Bergquist

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Continuity: Towards the end when the NORAD door is closing, they keep showing it opened further from shot to shot in order to delay how quickly the door actually is closing vs. how slow it really would have had to move in order to allow David and Dr. Falken to actually have still made it in.

Edit Submitted by jerimiah

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Other: While it makes for a great story for the movie, the reality is that all computer systems used by government agencies - especially in the DoD - are required to provide their source code for thorough inspection to ensure there are no back doors, hidden subroutines or other types of software code that are not relevant to the task designed for. Given the critical nature of this system being in control of launching nuclear missiles, the reality is that none of the games that Falken wrote - much less the whole routine to allow it to simulate a game like this - would still be in, for obvious reasons. Of course it could be argued Falken hid this, however given the lack of complexity for a computer of this era, it's highly unlikely.

Edit Submitted by jerimiah

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Factual error: At one point, WOPR shows 22 Soviet subs leaving port. The map shows the Kola Peninsula, in the Arctic, bordering Norway and Finland. But the speaker say's they're departing Petropavlovsk, which is on the Kamchatka Peninsula, 4000 miles to the east, near Japan.

Edit Submitted by Rondrejech

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Plot hole: Given the number of possible combinations the launch code could be (over 3600 trillion possibilities) it makes no sense that W.O.P.R cannot process that significantly quicker given how easily it's able to calculate thousands of ICBM impacts, damage inflicted, casualties, etc. for each "War Scenario" at the end as quickly as it does to determine a winner.

Edit Submitted by jerimiah

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Other: When David is trying to play the different games on the list before he finds out about Joshua, he types in "Armageddon", this game is not on the list he printed out.

Edit Submitted by jbrbbt

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Plot hole: It makes no sense that NORAD would inform the media about the false missile attack since they know at that point it was a simulation and no real danger was at hand.

Edit Submitted by jbrbbt

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Revealing: When David begins to play against the WOPR computer, the images on the war room screens show various tactical movements by other countries. These are the same images shown the first time the war room is seen.

Edit Submitted by jbrbbt

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Plot hole: Having a launch code that is visible to anyone who passes the control terminal does not make any sense especially given the power behind what that code does (launching of nuclear warheads).

Edit Submitted by jerimiah

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Continuity: When NORAD is waiting for the bombs to initially hit the bases, the animation of the inbound nukes is replayed multiple times showing the same approach towards Loring AFB.

Edit Submitted by jerimiah

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Continuity: The tour group comes in and they trick the black lady into pressing the red "launch" button that displays the welcome on the screen. Just before she presses it she has a 35 mm camera hanging around her neck, but in the next shot of the group standing in front of the panel her camera is gone. (More than likely because someone thought "Hey! They would never allow cameras in NORAD!")

Edit Submitted by corona

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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