‘WarGames’ and Driving Plot with Information
In the classic 1983 story about hacking and World War III, just about every plot element is driven by what characters know, don’t know, or think they know.
I was just a kid when I saw WarGames in the theater, and my main takeaway was the trick the father (William Bogert) uses to butter his corn on the cob1. For some reason, buttering a slice of bread and wrapping it around the cob to smear butter everywhere effortlessly blew my young mind, and all the way home I could think of little else. Yes, I was a weird kid. Now I write essays that lead off with buttering corn on the cob with a slice of bread. I accept that I need help2.
WarGames is a great movie, although it certainly reminds us that 1983 was a long time ago3. The modem that David (Matthew Broderick) uses with his decidedly command-line personal computer certainly marks it as a specific moment in time, as does the smartphone-free plotting, though much of the rest of the film holds up pretty well4. And it remains a fun thriller as this smart, unambitious kid gets in way over his head, accidentally triggers a primitive AI into trying to launch a nuclear apocalypse, and then figures out how to teach it to be cool, man.
From a writing standpoint, what’s interesting about the film is the way it uses information. There are plenty of ways to motivate your characters into carrying out your plot. You can, for instance, give them broad, obvious motivations that leave little room for nuance, or you can put them on a rail and force them to react to stuff outside their control5. WarGames gets its characters to do stuff via the exchange of information: In every instance that drives the plot forward, characters either gain information, are denied information—or are given false information.
Greetings, Professor Falken
The whole story is kicked into motion because of David’s desire for information—he wants to play secret video games before anyone else6. He wants to know something before everyone else. To do that, he has to launch an epic investigation—he does research, he uses social engineering, he consults with older, more experienced hackers. He learns every single thing there is to learn about the computer system he’s trying to break into—and as a result he gains the one crucial piece of information that gives him access7.
But David doesn’t know what he thinks he knows. He thinks he’s playing games. He doesn’t realize he’s actually interfacing with an artificial intelligence that has limited control over the country’s nuclear arsenal.
When the authorities come for him, they think they know what’s going on: David fits the classic profile for recruitment by the Russians—he’s a spy. Again, they’re working with incomplete information, making decisions that push the plot forward because they don’t know everything. But after this point, David does have all the information. He knows what’s going on, he knows that Professor Falken (John Wood), who designed the AI causing all the trouble, is still alive, and he knows that the end of the world might happen because of what he did. From this point forward, David is the one who drives the plot because he’s the only one with all the information8.
Your New Defense System Sucks
The other plot-driver afflicted with poor information is the AI itself, Joshua/WOPR, the supercomputer designed by Falken and given control over a key part of the nuclear launch system when human frailty (in the sense of a general reluctance to kill billions of people based on a single order from a superior9) becomes a concern. On the one hand, Joshua knows more than almost every other character in the film at the outset—with one exception: It does not know that Professor Falken isn’t the person who initiates the game of Global Thermonuclear War. All it knows is that it hasn’t heard from Falken in a decade, and when David explains that humans “make mistakes” it replies “Yes” in what amounts to a cheerful shrug and moves on.
Joshua proceeds to manipulate everyone, because it knows everything. It knows where David is, it knows how the folks at NORAD will react to everything it does, and it knows how to make them do the things it cannot do. Joshua weaponizes their ignorance, getting thisclose to launching missiles by gaslighting and outright lying to its human keepers10, literally showing them planes, submarines, and missiles that do not actually exist.
And when Joshua’s plan is defeated by David and Falken, who convince General Jack Beringer (Barry Corbin) to let a few cities go up in mushroom clouds before hitting the launch codes, revealing that no actual missiles are in the air, Joshua realizes it is, in fact, missing one piece of information: The launch codes themselves11. So it begins trying to crack them, the final twist of the story all about gaining information in order to gain power.
This is a remarkably consistent theme and plot device in a movie that also imagined that a computerized voice generated on a tiny speaker in a kid’s bedroom would somehow be replicated across all time and space any time the computer printed anything on a screen. It certainly makes sense that a story about hacking and secrets would use those secrets to propel the plot, but it’s kind of impressive how tightly they hew to that theme here. Literally every event in the film is the result of someone knowing something, not knowing something, or being lied to and thinking they know something.
Still, I keep coming back to that butter solution12. That’s the quality of brain you’re dealing with here, kids.
Next week: They Cloned Tyrone’s purposefully vague setting.
If there’s ever any doubt that I am a huge nerd who really shouldn’t be allowed to socialize, please refer to this.
Writing ledes is hard, yo.
I am reminded of this every morning when I look at my haggard visage in the mirror and swear to myself that this is the day I get my shit together.
This movie and other sources have convinced me that there was once a glorious analog world where hacking stuff did, in fact, mean literally crossing wires and using toy whistles you got for free in cereal boxes. As usually, I feel like I was born just a few years too late.
A more obscure technique is to assume your characters are all slightly mentally challenged. This works for me like gangbusters because I can just ask myself what I would do.
I remember video games on my Commodore 64 back in those days, and if I’d seen games that looked as good as Global Thermonuclear War in WarGames back in 1983 I would have shit myself.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate what may be the most accurate depiction of hacking in movie history — nine-tenths research and social engineering, and only tiny bit of frantic typing on a keyboard.
He also has Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), a character best described as a Human Gumption Machine.
As a man who unhesitatingly conforms and obeys authority, I can say that you are all very lucky I wasn’t in the nuclear launch rooms when orders came down.
This is similar to how I gaslight people into buying me drinks at bars.
Is the graphic of numbers flashing by as Joshua tries to brute force these codes effective? Yes! Is it also really, really silly (I mean, who is Joshua updating here?)? Yes!
Is The Butter Solution the title of my memoir? Probably not, but it would be cool, wouldn’t it?
I love the movie WarGames. I saw it at the theater as a kid and still watch it today. I have seen it so many times that I lost count, lol. I have always loved the bread-and-butter technique myself—when it comes to spreading the butter on a cob of corn. Thanks for the plot-driving information, Jeff.
My dad did the bread/butter/corn thing. This was way before the movie came out. No one else in the family did it. Never knew where he came up with it. Of course, he was also fond of peanut butter and butter sandwiches for dessert. Ugh uhh.