WarGames

WarGames (1983)

53 mistakes

(6 votes)

Plot hole: McKittrick says the computer will not accept the launch codes unless they are at DEFCON 1. At the end of the climax the computer is trying to guess the code while they are at DEFCON 1. So why couldn't they just go back to a different DEFCON before the correct code was guessed?

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the movie, the panel has JPE 1704 TKS showing, but when Joshua finds the launch code, CPE 1704 TKS is blinking on the screen.

Factual error: At the end of the movie WOPR tries to crack the launch-code using brute force. So far so good. When WOPR finds out one digit of the 10 digit code, the first digit locks and the search goes on with the remaining 9 digits. Then he finds the second one, it locks too and so on. Problem is, brute force doesn't work that way. It would be too easy (26 letters and 10 numbers = only 36 possibilities for one digit). Brute-Force works only "all or nothing", you can't sneak your way to the whole code one by one.

Goekhan

Continuity mistake: 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.

Factual error: When they launch the F-16's to intercept the Soviet "Backfire" Bomber, the picture shown is of two F-15's. In addition, no F-16's were stationed in Alaska to handle air defense duties, this was handled exclusively by F-15A/C's.

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.

Rondrejech

Revealing mistake: 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.

Other mistake: When Jennifer meets David in Oregon she says she drove 3 hours to get there. In the next scene they are getting off a bus to catch the ferry. What happened to her car?

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: There are possibilities off-screen as to why. It's possible that the bus used its own private road to get to the ferry which may be closed to the public, or the parking lot may have been too expensive and they parked on a street instead and caught a bus. It's not really known, but those are some possibilities.

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.

Continuity mistake: 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.

corona

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. (00:18:20)

Continuity mistake: 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.

unkajes

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 North Pacific.

Plot hole: When Joshua is trying to guess the launch codes, it gets the characters one by one and "locks" them in. You can't "guess" a code like this. You have to get the whole thing correct at one time. Why would it take so long for Joshua to guess each character, if that's how things worked? If the code consists of letters and numbers then there's only 36 per character.

Factual error: When Joshua is running through all of the possible nuclear war scenarios on the screen, several of them are labeled 'Palistinian'. The correct spelling is 'Palestinian'.

wizard_of_gore

Audio problem: In the scene where the plane carrying Matthew Broderick is landing in Oregon, the plane shown landing is propeller driven. The sound effect is a jet engine aircraft.

Factual error: In two different scenes, Matthew Broderick lifts the phone receiver off his modem-once during the scene where it's dialing numbers in Sunnyvale, CA, and again when WOPR keeps calling his phone trying to reconnect. In both cases, the activity on the screen should have disappeared, since lifting the phone off the modem cradle disconnects the signal. Yet the computer somehow manages to keep dialing numbers, or display the running game clock on the simulation, without any interruption.

Andrew Bauer

David: What kind of an asshole lives on an island and he doesn't even have a boat?
Jennifer: Maybe we can swim for it. How far do you think it is?
David: No, it's uh, 2 or 3 miles at least, maybe more.
Jennifer: Well, what do you say? Let's go for it.
David: No.
Jennifer: Come on!
David: No! I can't swim
Jennifer: You can't swim?
David: No, I can't. Okay, Wonder Woman? I can't swim.
Jennifer: Well, what kind of an asshole grows up in Seattle and doesn't even know how to swim?

Bishop73

More quotes from WarGames

Trivia: Closely listen to the TV playing in the background, when Mathew Broderick comes home from school, before all his trouble starts with the Feds. The local news is on, and is saying "a fire broke out in a prophylactic recycling factory."

More trivia for WarGames

Question: How could WOPR not know the difference between a game and real life?

Answer: While merely speculation, the WOPR is not alive and knows only what it's been programmed to do. It would have no concept of life or death, and as such would see no difference between the simulation and the real thing. That being said, an easy way to make it see the difference would be to program it to not waste physical resources. It would then see the use of all its actual warheads as less desirable.

Answer: This film is science fiction and hardly reflective of a real-life scenario. The WOPR is depicted as being almost semi-sentient that is flawed. The movie employs an illogical, suspension-of-disbelief plot line.

raywest

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