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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. See more...

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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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Genres: Drama, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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At the start a captain and lieutenant take up duty at the Launch Control Facility. Shortly after taking up duty an audio "Go to war" signal is received. Part of the signal is Tango, Tango, Lima, Alpha (T,T,L,A) in writing it down to confirm correctness the lieutenant writes down T,T,A,A. [If you look closely the lieutenant writes down correctly. The L is deformed but still readable as an L.]
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In the scene at NORAD when officials are trying to figure out what happened with the initial security breach, Paul says to McKittrick that the perpetrator broke in using a backdoor left in by the original programmer (i.e., Falken's password "Joshua"). That meeting also reveals that they took the backdoor out, but that the guy broke in again (note that David did not intentionally break in again - Joshua called David). The error comes when David is left alone in McKittrick's office in a later scene and proceeds to login using "Joshua." That password was gone by then (just as it is at the end when Falken tries to use it). [They establish in the movie that the missiles would fire without a launch code if they thought NORAD was destroyed, which is what unplugging NORAD would convey.]
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At the beginning in the launch sequence, we see the officers enter the launch command sequence etc. into the computer. At the top of the display screen there is "WOPR Execution Order". The WOPR is the computer installed later to replace the missile launch personnel, and is a brand new device, so this screen display is a little too early. [WOPR is the real name for Joshua who authorized the strike and existed at this point in the film.]
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There is a problem in this movie with time compression. They are racing against the clock to save the world, yet the two main actors manage to travel from Colorado to Oregon, play scenes with the scientist, and get back in what seems like a day or so. [It is approximately 2 days but that is well within a credible time frame for the film. When Joshua calls David the night David sees the TV news and calls Jennifer, the computer screen shows over 50 hours left in the game. The FBI grabs David the next morning based on that call from Joshua. The FBI immediately flies him from Seattle to NORAD (near Denver, CO); at most a 3-hour flight. David escapes NORAD a few hours later, hitchhikes and then flies to Oregon. The same afternoon he gets to Oregon and meets Jennifer, they find Falken within hours and spend no more than a few hours with him. Furthermore, just before Falken picks David and Jennifer up in his helicopter, we see a shot of the WOPR showing 9 hours left -- plenty of time to get back to NORAD around the time the game is ending, which is exactly what they do. Therefore, it not only is a plausible time frame, it is well executed by the filmmakers.]
Edit Corrected by JW Pepper
At the end after the "missiles" hit the air force bases and they find it was all a bluff, they cannot stand down the missiles because they are locked out of the WOPR. When the general tells McKittrick to "just unplug the damn thing", he says they cannot because the silos would interpret the shutdown as a destruction of NORAD and they would carry out their last commands which would be to launch. When they play Tic_tac_toe and tell Joshua to play himself, he hits the code to launch (not that this would work, since the code would not be found one digit at a time, either it's correct or not), then blows up a stack of circuits due to overload. Based on what Mckittrick said earlier, the silos would have launched the missiles. [It would make sense if all power to WOPR had been shut down due to the overload. However, since WOPR comes back and "talks" to them, it is obvious that it is still in control even with the blown circuits. Since it is still in control, it can countermand the order to launch.]
Edit Corrected by Zwn Annwn
Look at the launch code on the WOPR computer and make a note of it. Now look at the launch code at the end of the film - they don't match (someone set the cogs wrong on the WOPR). [McKittrick says at an earlier point in the film that he can "change those codes in less than an hour" in case someone working with David has stolen the codes and plans to use them. We must assume that he has done this.]
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No wonder "Joshua" cannot launch the missiles - it's got the wrong code. Inside the WOPR, the code to launch the missiles reads "JPE 1704 TKS" - when the actual code which displays later on the big screen in the war room is "CPE 1704 TKS". [McKittrick says at an earlier point in the film that he can "change those codes in less than an hour" so that anyone who may have stolen the codes can't use them. We must assume that he has done this.]
Edit Time
Brodericks character first gets to class, his teacher is discussing the answer to question 2, when Broderick sits down, the teacher then asks Ally Sheedy's character the answer to question 4, bad editing has missed out a question. [Not necessarily. Teachers do not always review every question on a quiz. Question 3 may have been unimportant, or something everyone got right, so there was no need to review it.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
As David and Jennifer sneak up the stairs to his room while his unaware dad is watching the news in the next room, listen carefully to the news anchor. The newsman says, "There has been an explosion in a prophylactic recycling plant." Obviously nobody recycles condoms, so this is probably an adlibbed joke by the fake news voice talent that stayed in the final cut. [Prophylactics are also rubber gloves, NOT exclusively condoms. There can be rubber glove recycling plants.]
Edit Corrected by Damian Torres
At the beginning, the missile silo launch officers are changing shifts. Both of the officers going off duty exit the control room before either of the two relieving officers enter, thus leaving the watch stations completely unmanned for ten seconds or more, not very likely for a strategic nuclear military facility. [Though it's probably not officially a permissible procedure, it doesn´t mean there can't be a little "off-the-record" behavior. These experienced men know fully well that they are the only ones down there as always.]
Edit Corrected by S.Holmes Time
In the film, the DEFCON scale is treated with 1 being war-status and 5 being absolute peace. In real life, it's the other way round with 5 being war and 1 being absolute peace. [This is completely wrong. The movie had it right, this poster has it backwards. Googling DEFCON will give many results showing this.]
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Towards the end of the movie, when they are trying to get into NORAD, they crash their jeep into the fence and the jeep falls over. The next scene shows them running away from the jeep, and it's parked normally. [The jeep that is parked normally is not the jeep they were driving. It was already parked on the inside of the fence before the crash. They crashed their jeep on the outside of the fence. As they run inside the gate and past the normal jeep, the crashed jeep can still be seen laying on its side on the outside of the fence.]
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In the scene where Matthew Broderick is brought in by the F.B.I. for questioning, they mention he had reservations for two to Paris. However, when he put the reservation into Pan Am's system, it was done under the name "Mack, Jennifer K." [They traced his recent calls after he hacked into W.O.P.R. and found the reservation. That's why Dabney Coleman said "Who were you going to Paris with?" as they had nothing on Jennifer.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot Time
At the end of the film when Prof. Falken is typing responses to Joshua you hear Joshua's voice.  Speakers weren't hooked into the computer.  Where is the voice supposed to becoming from? [The computer is hooked up to the building's PA system. Just because there are no speakers wired into the computer itself doesn't mean that it can't send sounds through the network connection.]
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