♪♪
Shall we play a game?
♪♪
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.
♪♪
It's a simulation, it's a simulation.
♪♪
It's 41.
♪♪
And I feel like I won't give up the overlords.
♪♪
What would you prefer a good game, or chess?
♪♪
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Does It Hold Up,
the podcast dedicated to potentially ruining your childhood
and all of your fond memories that happened
before Mom and Dad got nuked.
[ Laughter ]
-I'm drunk. -I'm a band-a.
-I don't know why I took a drink right before you started that
because I should have known.
I should have known -- and I'm Brad, by the way --
should have known that something was going to be said
to where I was going to be.
-Yeah, figure out if it was going to be got nuked
or, you know, playing a nice game of chess
just didn't seem to roll off the tongue.
-Tucked up. -Yeah, I went with the nuking option.
I figured that was best.
-Thoroughly or a nuclear war, yeah.
-Yeah, exactly. Because today, we are discussing the --
shit, I don't remember the date when it was going to be.
Thank you. The 1983 --
how would you describe it?
You know, I mean, it was a fun movie, war games, but drama?
-Scary -- yeah, scary as fuck drama, real life.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I brought back some interesting memories for me,
for sure. -Me too.
-All right.
-It's still relevant, I think.
-Yeah, I would agree.
-Yeah, I know that I were talking about it.
It's like, if they remade it, it wouldn't be the Soviets anymore,
but it wouldn't be.
I mean, the Koreans, the terrorists, you know?
-It would just be the computers.
It still wouldn't matter, right?
-I guess that's true. -That's true, yeah.
-Yeah.
So, yeah, the war games came out in 1983,
starred Ferris Bueller, and the Basket Case from Breakfast Club,
and some other people --
-Some other people. -Yeah, some other people.
And --
-The imaginary friend from Cloak and Dagger.
-Yeah.
-Cloak and Dagger.
-Dad and Goldman with the kid from E.T.
-Oh, my God, I forgot about it.
I was thinking, wasn't he in a Muppet movie?
That's what I kept thinking.
-Oh, yeah, he was in the Muppet movie.
-Yeah, he was in the Manhattan one, wasn't it?
Well, no, the great Muppet caper.
He was, yeah, they were trying to steal the --
he was the brother.
-The baseball diamond one?
-The baseball diamond, yeah.
-There we go.
-The best chokes ever from the Muppets.
-The baseball diamond.
-Yeah.
-So, yeah, Dad, Nicole, and some other people
that I don't know if they were in anything else.
-They were very corporate, they were general.
-Oh, yeah, he was -- I remembered him fondly,
and he was still good.
-I wish this was an R-rated movie,
because it would have been so much better
to hear him just curse up a storm
instead of the "stancer down" phrases he had to say.
Like, it would have been so much better to hear him say,
"Well, you chicken dick," or whatever he gets.
-Chicken dick.
-You're going to be my regular Saturday night.
I'm never writing that doesn't fit.
Amanda, you said we're going to use chicken dick from now on.
-Yes.
-I had to get in there.
-I'm about to thank you for that.
Interestingly enough, the very corporate that plays the general
ad lived most of his lines.
-He really?
-Yep.
-Well, he did a great job.
-The second thing that the first director was there for,
like, two weeks, and then he placed him with the second director.
And the second director was like, "You know what?
Just go for it."
So, yeah.
So, Barry Corporal ad lived pretty much all of his lines.
-Mm-hmm, interesting.
-Oh, that interesting chicken dick censored stuff?
That was all him.
-Yeah, it was funny.
I'm watching it, and I kept waiting.
I knew there wasn't going to be one,
but I kept waiting for some F-bomb.
Somewhere.
And there was nothing.
It was just like, "Man, I feel like he'd be more upset than he was."
You know, just language-wise.
-Good, great, good, good, good.
-Yeah, exactly, exactly.
What in the Sam heck is going on around here?
-Oh, you wanted him to be Yosemite Sam.
-Maybe, yeah.
-He does have a great line at one point towards the end.
He's like, "I wish I'd written it down."
He's like, "I'm beginning to think your security measures are--
Oh, is he, say, crap.
This is great for podcasting where I can't--
[ Laughter ]
-So, when he turns to dad and call his character,
he's like, "I'm beginning to think that this isn't such a good idea."
For the fact that one of yours is, like...
But it doesn't matter.
-It's something about sec-- yeah.
-Yeah, there are some really, really good ones.
Oh, damn.
-Quick podcast. Put it back on.
Just splice it all together.
[ Laughter ]
-I'll fix it in post. It's all good.
-Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration,
sir, I've come to conclusion that your new defense system sucks.
-There you go. There you go.
-Well, we're opening scene where they're in the silo.
With the two guys, I pointed something out to Brock,
and he was like, "Wait, what?"
When the two guys that are, like, they're changing shifts,
are going into an elevator to head down into the silo.
There's a sign outside the elevator.
Did you happen to notice what it said?
-No, I didn't. When did I say...
-Anyone here in this area will be discharged.
-Anyone urinating? -Yep.
I was like, "What?"
-So this is the... -I've been there with him probably.
-Yes, yeah. -Because they've got a problem
with the guys pressing in the...
-Maybe some stuff for her.
You know, they come out, and they're just, like,
a bundle of nerves, which is everywhere.
[laughter]
I think I would.
But, God, yeah, that opening still...
I mean, I remembered him being like, "Turn your keys, sir."
And the guy just freezing up.
I distinctly remember that line.
-Do we want to discuss it now, or do we want to...
I have a real question about how that would work.
-Well, let me get into the plot here,
because the first paragraph talks about that opening,
and then we can go into it.
So...
Here we go. Diving into Wikipedia.
"During a surprise drill of a nuclear attack..."
Should I say nuclear nuclear?
-More clear.
-Nuclear.
-It's nuclear.
All right. So, "During a surprise drill of a nuclear attack,
many United States Air Force strategic missile wing controllers
prove unwilling to turn the key required to launch a missile strike.
Such refusals convinced John McKittrick and other system engineers at NORAD
that missile launch control centers must be automated without human intervention.
Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer known as WAPER,
programmed to continuously run war simulations and learn over time."
So, that's kind of like the first 20 minutes of the movie right there.
-Oh, I remember the one joke he makes.
He talks about...
He makes a hamburger pun, because it's a WAPER.
He does.
Now, my favorite was, I pissed on a spark plug if I thought it would help.
-That's what it was.
-That's what I pissed on a spark plug.
I think I just wrote that one down.
-It is. It's my second to last note.
My second page is...
-Okay.
-I pissed on a spark plug if I thought it would help.
Yeah. Let that boy in there.
So, uh, major.
-Yeah, he's got some good lines.
What he's like, "If that's a load of shit," and he's talking to the president,
he's like, "Oh, no, sir. Not you. I'm sorry."
-Yeah.
-And they've not actually...
Like, he just came up with that.
-Yeah, he had a definite timing.
I mean, it was good.
It was really a very believable, I thought.
-So, all right.
-What's your issue?
-Okay.
So, it's set the scene.
The two guys are on their shift.
They're going down.
It's Leo McGarry from West Wing and Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs
going down to the silo.
-Yeah, man, they're in the hallway.
-Right. They're urinating the hallway.
They're late because it's really stormy outside.
If for some reason the Air Force decided
we're going to build a house...
It looks like a real house on top of the silo,
so no one will know what's going on.
Seems like the worst security in the world,
because wouldn't they just put a base there
and have people there to guard the fucking silo?
But anyway...
-Yeah, I don't know because they had a lot of silos back in the day.
-Right.
-I mean, they were all over the Midwest.
-They were just these random houses,
and these guys were coming in and out every three times a day.
Two men were driving.
-I mean, they said they did 24-hour shifts.
-It was once a day.
Yeah.
-I mean, Brad, you thought that the janitors were your neighbors,
but in reality, that was a silo.
-It was a missile silo?
-Yeah.
-This must be...
That sounds like the money pit.
This must be the main test in the...
-You test the missiles here?
-Yes, we're going to push, hush.
-Yeah.
-No, so they get in there.
So they're down in that little basement for 20...
There's no way.
I mean, that's even worse than doctors being on 24-hour shifts.
-I mean, that's the thing is...
I guess maybe that's why people are urinating everywhere.
I didn't see it back.
You know?
I mean, they're down there drinking coffee,
thinking about blowing up the free world.
-Right.
-You just got to get home.
-Well, so they get their guns.
They each get...
It's like they load them up there.
They get revolvers,
and I think they put two or three bullets in, all right?
They each get a gun.
-I have a side note.
I was always fast.
So anyway, let me get into that.
So then they go down, they're in,
they start their shift,
and then they get alert, right?
Lima, Lima, Zulu, whatever it was.
And then they get the fascinating thing,
and this isn't all these 80s, 90s movies
with any kind of nuclear situation
where they open up the lockbox,
and they have all those cards...
-So snapping things.
-Yeah, make them open.
-I always wanted like, who put those together,
and who gave those out?
Like that seemed to me like so fascinated
that someone was actually thinking ahead to do this.
-Yeah.
-Who's holding it?
-No, so they do that.
It's a confirm code.
They're supposed to launch their nukes,
and the two guys are sitting,
you know, 10 feet away from her.
And they have to turn their keys in unison.
That's how they're going to launch the nukes.
And Leo McGarrity, whatever his name was,
and the horror will show the West Wing,
decides that he's not going to turn his nuke.
Sorry, the actor's name is John Spencer.
But he decides he's not going to launch his nuke,
because he wants to get somebody on the horn,
because he doesn't want to kill 20 million people.
-And then...
-Understandable, yeah.
-Right, completely reasonable.
Michael Madsen's response to that,
which is, or need to follow protocol,
he then pulls his gun out,
and he's going to shoot him.
-I thought the same thing, Brad.
If he shoots him, then who the fuck's going to turn the key?
-It doesn't matter anyway, so why shoot him?
What's the point?
-Yeah.
-There is no point.
-Yeah, I don't see that.
That's a good question.
But the other thing is, at what point,
I mean, because you find out later that it was all an exercise,
and you see later that both of those guys are still alive.
So were they blanks?
Did he pull the trigger?
Did somebody burst in right at that second and be like,
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's a test."
-Yeah.
-Now, I just- -What he should have done is I aimed at a split.
-Why?
-That should work.
-Okay, I'm still down on the ground in pain.
I'm still not carrying the key.
-Yeah.
-They'll know shitty backup plan.
No.
-So what should he have done?
Is that damaging at a heart to heart?
-No, I don't know.
Obviously, it's a flaw in the system,
and they should have realized that
when they tested every other scenario,
all the other people they did,
because they said that-
-22%.
-22%, don't.
But no, here's my thing, though.
I'm watching this.
It wasn't until this time, watch it.
Now, I've seen this movie probably 20 times, grow up, right?
It would seem like it was always on each other,
but I think we had it on beta and everything.
I never knew that they were still alive.
I thought he killed him.
But he's clearly seeing the movie at the end,
or at the middle part of the movie,
when they are putting in the key code for the Whopper to control,
he's in there and he's got a disgusted look on his face,
like, well, I get it.
He's just been out.
He's, you know, automation robots just taking his job, so.
-Yeah, and that's the thing.
You don't just see them in the background.
I mean, he stands there and kind of stares down the guy.
-No, he stares at me.
And he has a line.
-And I don't remember that part either.
-I don't remember that part at all.
And I was like, because I thought he died.
I was like, that is a really harsh opening
to the beginning of the movie.
But obviously, it was just, I mean,
and really, I guess, if I just listened to the conversation
between Dabney Coleman and when they're all in there,
the two guys from the president's office
come in, the two students come in, who can only,
they fly all the way up to Colorado,
and they can drive all the way up the mountain,
and they can only be there for like three minutes.
[ Laughter ]
-What makes me different in these, man?
You know, the phones didn't work the same.
-What kind of stuff?
-Yeah, didn't that have been a phone call?
It's like, hey, come out.
We're going to show you something.
[ Laughter ]
-That opening was still just kind of like, oh, God.
-It was.
-Yeah, they show in the missiles, like,
the silos opening, all the arms are coming off the missile,
and it's ready to go.
-Yeah, it is.
-And I have to wonder if that was all fake footage,
because I mean, they wouldn't get those missiles
ready to fire for a drill.
So what were those guys even looking at?
Like, obviously, it was done for theatrical respect
in the movie, but were they seeing that?
I think they were monitored.
-I don't think they could make it useful.
-I don't know.
-Who knows, maybe not.
I don't know.
And that's the thing is, one thing I don't know,
and I'll go into this later,
because I read something about the setup
they had for NORAD,
but I don't know how realistic all of that was,
because so much of it was so secretive
that they had to kind of take creative liberties with it.
-Yeah, I don't know if the silo part was part of that.
I know the NORAD part was part of that,
but I don't know about the silo.
But yeah, it was still just like, "Oh my God."
And one thing would be really curious,
because one of our kids watched it with us,
and I'd be really interested if kids like today,
or even kind of the generation in between ours and theirs,
if it would have the same effect,
because we watched this, the Cold War was still a thing.
-Yeah, we were talking about that.
-The Soviets weren't just like the boogie,
it wouldn't be like when we were learning about the Nazis,
something that was already gone.
You know, we were in it, the Soviets were real,
and at that time, this still could have all happened.
It seemed very, very possible.
I have to wonder if it would have the same effect
on somebody that was my age in 1983 watching it now,
or if it would just be like, "Yeah, whatever."
There wasn't, you know, the Cold War's over, it doesn't matter.
That would be interesting.
-Yeah, I mean, when we were watching it,
I would return to you, and I was like,
"This movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid."
Like, it really was just like, "Oh my God."
Like, this is something that could really happen.
Like you said, it wasn't just this nebulous boogie man,
it was, "This is a real threat.
This is something that we're all living with day to day."
-Yeah.
-I never took it that far,
but also I can't, I'm shocked again that, like you just said,
both of you, that like our parents didn't discuss,
I never had to discuss with our parents afterwards.
Like, you know, this movie, not about this,
no, not about this.
-I remember having it after we watched The Day After.
Do you remember that one, Brad?
That was a TV miniseries that...
-We talked about this before, I don't remember that one.
-Okay, because the problem with, like,
War Games has a happy ending, the day after didn't.
I mean, it's just like, the world is destroyed at the end,
and everybody's dying and bleeding out of their ass,
and it was just awful.
And I remember talking to our parents about it,
and I remember my mom saying,
like, if that ever happened, we were just going to lay down
and hold hands and just end it,
because there's no sense in living,
because it was so horrible.
And then our dad was like, no, you got to fight,
you got to try to survive.
And I'm just like, I think it was probably nine,
and I'm just like, can we not talk about this?
But I still remember that.
I mean, we're going back, you know, 30-something years,
and I still remember that.
-No, I mean, I definitely do remember living under this
ominous threat of Soviet Union.
So, but I just remember we watched,
I remember watching this with mom,
and not having that discussion about like,
probably your right cut,
probably because I had a happy ending,
but me, I probably also,
I really probably didn't fully understand
at seven or eight when we watched this,
or when I watched it, what was going on.
I like the computer side of it.
-You couldn't have run an anxious enough kid, Brad.
-Right.
Yeah, I remember just like the cloak and dagger aspect of it,
the, you know, him sneaking around,
and the stuff he can do with the computers,
and because that's another thing that we'll get into,
probably later on,
is that you see what he does now,
and you kind of laugh at it.
You're like, "Oh, look, look at that modem."
-Oh, shit, that was a bad thing.
-You know, computers can talk to one another.
What do you, you know, what?
You know, that was not common technology
that everybody had in their house.
And, you know, that was a foreign concept. I was like, wait, you can actually,
I had no idea you could call into another.
Yeah, that was, yeah, that was crazy.
-Exactly, exactly.
-I would like it when I had a computer geek dad.
So, a lot of that I actually really didn't know about,
but it was still really cool to see.
-Yeah, I mean, this is 1983,
and I don't think we started dialing into the internet until, like, 1988.
Yeah, somewhere in that time period.
-Yeah. -So, you know, you're years away
from that just being available to most people.
-Yeah. I was just saying,
shame on Ferris Bueller for stealing the idea, though,
of changes, grades, like...
-Yeah, yeah.
-Fucking re-use things.
-To common things, yeah.
I mean, I don't remember, in The Lion King, does Simba change his grades?
-Yeah, he does, he does.
-Okay, that thought's okay.
So, that's a Matthew Broderick thing, then.
-It must be, yeah.
In Godzilla, you don't remember who changes.
I mean, people are watching it.
I mean, purposely, hey, he changed the box office,
because I was watching Godzilla with the box office.
[laughter]
Yeah, I've intentionally forgotten Godzilla, yeah.
-Project X, he changes the monkey codes, right?
-Oh, God, we should watch that one.
-No, I don't want to watch it.
Project X with Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt, is it, all right?
-Yeah, yeah.
-They're teaching, back to another crazy war movie,
they're teaching, you've never seen it, Amanda?
-You know what?
I think I do know what you're talking about,
and I specifically make sure I did not watch it.
-Oh, where they teach the monkeys how to fly the plane
so that they can at least get the nukes off
if everybody else in the US has died.
-Yeah.
-To at least fuck the Russians over one last time.
-Yeah.
-We've trained, we're training monkeys to do it.
-Yeah, and they don't know what they're doing,
and then one of the monkeys-
-No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
That's not what they're doing.
They're not training monkeys to do it.
They're testing on monkeys to see how long they can live.
-Yeah, after getting a radio.
-After getting a radio, so that autopilot can do it.
Yeah, that's what they're doing.
-Yeah, and then they do it to one of them,
and you're just like, "Oh my god, that movie."
I mean, it's a good movie, but it's a hard movie to watch.
-It's not a good, I mean, yeah, it's terrible, yeah.
-Yeah, it was an interesting movie, I'll put it that way.
I mean, what happens in it is horrible, but-
-Yeah, I don't try to watch that.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, so anyway, back to the one. Well, this is a happy podcast.
-Right.
-So back to the-
-Let's talk about the war nuclear war.
-Yeah, so back to the plot here.
-Just what you said, nuclear?
-Nuclear. I don't know what I said.
-Nuclear.
-I think I burped a little bit when I was saying it.
-Sorry.
-I thought you were just channeling in our Homer Simpson.
-Yeah, this war brought to you by Budweiser.
-Yeah, I'm tricking-
-All right, I'm tricking Italian wine tonight.
-Oh, fancy.
-I don't have any access powers, then.
-That was a pretty deep historical take there, my dear.
That's impressive.
-I love to serve, honey.
-All right, so back to the plot.
David Leitman, Ferris Bueller, Matthew Broderick,
a bright but unmotivated Seattle High School student and hacker,
and actually, he is a hacker.
You think about hackers from other movies,
and they're not hackers, he's a hacker.
-Yes, he is.
-He uses his computer to break into the school district's computer system
and changes grades.
He does the same for his friend and classmate,
Jennifer Mack, Ali Sheedy.
Later, while war-diling, it says war-diling.
-Yeah, that's what that is.
-That's what- that's just for your dialogue.
It's also like the auto-dilers, but that's what it's called.
-He dials all the numbers.
-He just dialed every number, yeah.
-Gotcha.
Okay, so while war-diling numbers in Sunnyvale, California,
to find a computer game company,
he connects with a system that does not identify itself.
Asking for games,
he finds a list that starts with chess,
checkers, backgammon, and poker,
as well as titles such as
theater-wide biotoxic and chemical warfare,
and global thermonuclear war,
but cannot proceed further.
Two hacker friends explain the concept-
-All right, all right, we've gone on the way too far.
-Oh, well, I'm just working on the second paragraph here.
I've got two more sentences.
-Yeah, I'm sorry.
-Now it's okay, two hacker friends explain the concept
of a backdoor password
and suggest tracking down the Falcon referenced
in Falcon's maze, the first game listed.
David discovers that Stephen Falcon
was an early artificial intelligence researcher,
and David guesses correctly
that Falcon's dead son's name, Joshua, is the password.
All right, proceed.
-So apparently passwords only had six
well letters in them back then, because I don't know if you guys
noticed, but when he steals the school password.
-Pencil?
-Yeah, but did you see what the other ones were?
-They were very short.
-They were all six letters.
-Yeah.
-It was travel, public, visual, different handle,
effort, point, double, and then pencil.
Sorry, I just-- -That's fascinating.
-No, it is, and then I just Joshua
is six letters as well.
-Yeah.
-They must have only been up to six letters at that point.
-That's very possible, because I mean,
I remember the days when on Windows,
you couldn't have a file name that was more than eight letters.
-Well, no, you couldn't.
In any kind of DOS thing, now that I think about it,
yeah, you couldn't.
-Yeah.
-You had to have, yeah.
And I think passwords were eight, up to eight characters
was what it used to, like, in the beginning.
That's what you--
-Probably, yeah.
So that's quite possible.
Yeah, I didn't even notice that.
-I like to hear in my head
where Brad was really his office.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.
-Yes, it is a cognitive test.
-All right, now, so now Amanda, read those words back to me.
We're at C House of Cognitive.
Anti-disestablishmentarianism, and I don't know,
White House, I forget.
-Person, woman.
-We did pass over the one funny part
that gets him in trouble at school.
-Oh, yeah, that was pretty good.
That was pretty good, yeah.
-Yeah, the asexual reproduction joke was pretty good.
-Yes, it was the first person
to recommend asexual reproduction.
-Who came up, yeah, and he's like, yeah.
-Yeah, you're right.
-You're right, you're right.
-The teacher's reaction, they're just like, get out.
-He's at a video arcade pizza place
across the street from school, right?
When it starts, when you first enter in?
-Somewhere in New York school, yeah.
-Yeah, and he's playing Galaga?
Is he playing Galaga?
-Yeah, he's playing Galaga.
-Yep, just like in The Avengers.
-I will tell you, there is a ton of
faces being reflected in other screens in this movie.
Like, it is, because that's how the first thing opens up.
That's how you, Matthew Broderick's face
is being reflected in the Galaga screen.
And then it happens all the, like when they're talking,
when they first are trying to hack,
when they do the computer thing or with the school district,
that happens, you see both him and Alashidi.
You see it, that's a bunch.
I was like, oh, they really like this visual of that.
-I think, I don't think our podcast is technical enough
to get into symbolism.
I really, I don't think we're going to do that.
-I don't think that's what it was doing.
I think it was more just so that the audience can see
who was at the computer or wherever.
-I think we've gone from child sacrifice,
chicken, dick, and boobies to the man machine complex
and whether or not we're going to get into it together.
-I've got a whole section on the problems with AI
and the trolley complex.
-I don't doubt it.
-All right, we're going to get philosophical of this one.
-I do want to keep out.
-I can just leave now.
-I do want to keep out.
So I did a little research on his computer that he uses.
-Okay.
-The IMSAI 8080?
-Yes.
-That's exactly what it is.
-Yes.
-So I wasn't sure if that was a computer.
I was like, is this something that's made to look like,
is it a prop or was it,
but that was a legit computer.
-Yeah.
-Started in '75, it was considered the first clone
of its time for a computer ever.
And do you want this?
So it cost about $1,000.
-I do want to know what kind of memory it had in it.
Yes, please.
-600 dollars if you bought the kit,
which I guess you put together.
Okay, so it ran on floppies.
It took four to quarter or eight inch floppies,
which I didn't know were floppies.
-I didn't even know eight inch floppies were a thing.
-Yeah.
I think I knew about them from this movie,
to be honest with you.
-It had 4K of memory.
And wait, wait, wait, wait.
This is the best part.
It's hard drive.
Do you guys want to take a guess at how big a hard drive was?
-50 megabytes.
-You're at least the right reference group
or the right denomination,
but okay.
-I'll go with 25.
-5.
-Oh my god.
-5 megabytes.
Just to put it in perspective, people will record this podcast
for, you know, they're usually about an hour.
They're typically less than five megabytes of memory.
Or actually, they might be a little bit more.
But yeah, so that's all the memory had,
would be enough to store a podcast.
-Yeah, I'm looking at a picture of it.
It had a lot of switches on it.
-It was, yeah, it was big ahead.
It's too big.
-Yeah, because that motor, we pulls that,
we pulls the floppy out.
It's like, "That's bigger than five and a quarter."
I was like, "I got to check this out."
I had to look it up.
Yeah, it had 8-inch floppies.
It had dual-age floppies.
So for all the younger listeners,
what you would do back then is you could run your program
on one floppy and then use the other floppy
to actually store stuff.
-Yeah, or you'd have to like run multiple floppies
and be like, "Inse or disk two of stuff under three of seven."
So I mean, he had a whole floppy disk
just for that dialing program.
-Right. Well, I mean, that's a pretty sweet-ass dialing program
where he puts in all the pre-tripses,
and it dials all the numbers.
-So that motor was, do you know what that motor was called?
-No, what?
-It's called an acoustic coupler modem.
And it literally, you pick the variable listen,
you take the handset back when we had landlines,
and you take it and you place it into this,
like, I don't know, plastic couplers
and would hold the whole phone down there
and just listen to the phone.
-Yeah, crazy.
-And that's the thing is like, we never even had that.
You just had your phone hooked up in the modem.
I mean, I never had to use something like that.
So this is like super early modem technology.
And that's why it was so mind-blowing
when you saw it for the first time.
-I always wanted one of those.
For some reason, I wanted to have the phone.
-It just satisfying.
Like, you have to satisfy with that being like,
to put the phone, the handset into that thing.
-Yeah, that was, um, yeah.
I do want to get into that later
about how this movie was,
I don't even want to go into it right now.
I was talking with Amanda about it earlier.
But anyway, so do you want me to get back to the summary?
Or did you have more to talk about there, right?
-So we meet the parents at this point, too, right?
-Oh, yeah, yeah.
-Holy shit, like the parents are these great characters
that they like lace a groundwork for,
but then we never see them again.
-Well, I think something's kind of
alienated from them.
-I know, but they seem like they're decent people,
like they care about them,
but they're also just very like,
"We don't know what he does,
as long as he's not blowing up something, you know?
Leave him alone."
-Dad just seems like disconnected 80s dad,
who really wants to butter his toast, and that one thing.
-Now he's buttering his corn,
and you know where that came from?
-Oh, no, I mean buttering his corn, yeah, sorry.
-It's butter's bread, and then he wants the corn in it.
One of the, I believe it's the director,
was doing a documentary on neo-Nazis in California,
and this guy who was a skinhead in a neo-Nazi,
like he was interviewing him,
and that's how he buttered his corn,
and he thought it was just so bizarre.
He used it in the movie.
-So that's from a neo-Nazi?
-Uh-huh.
-That's a call out to a neo-Nazi?
Fantastic.
-I was waiting for it to be some kind of Native American.
-Well, I think it was just so odd, that...
-That is the best one.
He takes a bite, and she's like,
"It's corn is raw, it's raw!"
He's like, "I know, isn't it so crispy?"
He's like, "Of course it's crisp, it's not cooked."
And then she's like, "It takes a lot of vitamins."
And then he was like, "Can we turn the pills?"
-Yeah, the parents were kind of throwaway characters in some ways,
but I mean, you got the idea that he wasn't doing all this stuff
because he had a terrible homework.
-Right, right.
-You know, he was...
-Yeah.
-Did you catch the mom makes a sex joke on the phone with the client?
I don't know if you...
-Yes.
-The mom's a real estate agent, and she's on the phone.
Did you catch it, Amanda?
-Yeah, I can't remember it, but I didn't...
We had the subtitles, and I was like, "Oh, shit!"
But I can't remember what it was.
-Yeah, I think I missed that part.
So she's talking about how...
So she's a real estate agent.
She's obviously talking to a potential buyer.
She's talking about how the master bedroom, the master bath,
has jacuzzi jets in the tub.
-That's right.
-And she's like, "And you know what that means?"
And she's like, "Woo!"
And she does this like...
She totally makes like, "You can masturbate with jacuzzi jets, Joe."
-Yeah.
-Which is what she's applying.
-Yeah, I'm like...
[laughter]
-Didn't catch it at the time, and for a fact, I didn't catch it as a kid.
[laughter]
-Yeah, I remember that from falling shit.
-Well, what I thought was really interesting was that the dad
in this movie could have been the dad from Stranger Things.
-I remember that too.
-I don't know if you watched Stranger Things, but it's like, holy crap.
It's like just saying glasses and just like that kind of...
-That dude!
-Oh, yeah, I don't know what's going on in my house kind of look.
-All it does, it's almost...
If the mom was younger, it would be of the part...
Yeah, it would be a complete...
Like...
-I'm actually set.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, yeah.
So that was pretty good.
-I thought he looked for...
I was like, "Why does he look so familiar?"
[laughter]
-Yeah, that's the exact vibe I got when I'm watching it.
And I'm actually like, "He's the dad from Stranger Things.
Holy shit."
-So...
-All right, so back to the plot here.
David does not know that the Sunnyvale phone number connects to Whopper,
the computer, at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.
He starts a game of global thermonuclear war,
playing as the Soviet Union, and starts targeting American cities.
The computer starts a simulation that briefly convinces the military personnel
at NORAD that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound.
While they diffuse the situation, Whopper nonetheless continues
the simulation to trigger the scenario and win the game.
As it does not understand the difference between reality and simulation.
It continuously feeds false data, such as Soviet bomber incursions
and submarine deployments to NORAD,
pushing them to increase the DEF CON level
and toward a retaliation that will start World War III.
-And it's terrifying.
-It is terrifying.
-Yeah.
-We missed the whole part where he has to figure...
And so he finally finds...
We missed the whole part, but we didn't talk about the part where he does change
the grades around.
-Yep.
-And Jennifer gets all matches.
I don't do it, and then she comes back later.
She's like, "Okay, I'll take the grade."
And he did change it for her.
But then she shows them, "Oh, listen, it's been dialed in."
And they find...
Yeah, he was looking in the magazine, right?
And he saw all the new games, and he wanted to break in
and see if he could find them before they were released.
And he gets the one...
This is where...
The computer stuff is all cool.
Like I said, I geeked out on the old stuff, but this is where it gets...
Like, it's just movie computers, not real computers, because...
They end up getting into the one system, and they just type whatever they want.
And then, of course, he has a box that has the reader talk to him.
I was like, "What the fuck is this?"
Like, that's not a thing.
That was that thing.
-That was strictly for the movies.
So people didn't have to read.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that's all that was.
-Right.
But it was also the coding or the talking...
The menu driven everything was just like basic...
Like, as if you talk to a computer, like you talk to a person.
-Right. -Like, what are you doing?
How are you today?
This is where they kind of...
I was like, "All right, this part is a little..."
I get its little movie magic.
It was a little...
-But I think it got literal.
I mean, I think it got literal.
It would have been just like lines and lines and lines and lines of text.
Like, most of the people who were like, "What does he mean?"
You'd be like, "What the heck is that?"
-Right. -What the fuck are you doing?
-Yeah, you need to streamline all of that.
I'm not wearing, you know, like half an hour watching a guy type out, you know,
scene dot.
I mean, like, you know, you just...
-I did love...
So then he's trying to find...
So they get the computer, but he can't get in.
So he's looking.
That's when he goes and talks to his buddies about the back door.
-Oh, my God.
-Oh, that is such a great...
-That is, oh. -No, the computer nerds are fantastic.
-The computer nerds are just like, "Oh, what does he yell at him?"
I'm talking here.
I'm talking about...
-Mr. But...
-Mr. But the...
-Mr. But the head.
And it's the one guy...
The one guy, I wish I came out of the actor's name.
He is...
-And he deezing?
-Is that his name?
-Yeah.
-The really new dude.
-The geek of all geeks.
-So he was like in...
Yeah, he was like in Greece in 1941.
-Yeah.
-Polar Express.
-Yep.
He was the geeky kid in polar...
The annoying kid in polar Express, yeah.
-Yeah.
-That's him.
-They're too perfect.
He's like the uber just geeky looking and sounding guy.
And then the other guy is your other classic computer guy.
He was kind of overweight.
Kind of doesn't take care of himself.
Smarter than he looks kind of thing.
-Yeah.
-I thought that those two...
Those two guys were pretty funny.
-The casting was really good for them.
-Yeah, I agree. I think the casting was pretty good for just about everybody.
-I think that...
I was literally at a...
This movie was nominated for four Oscars.
-Was it really?
-Yeah, I don't know.
-Yeah, I mean...
But it was things like...
Oh, shoot.
-Best computer graphics.
-No, but there was one...
-There was a super voice over.
-And the best computer voice.
It was nominated for Best Writing.
It was written in the screenplay.
Best cinematography and best sound.
-Okay.
-The sound...
-Yeah.
It won a bathtub for the sound.
-Oh, interesting.
-I do love the sound when it was doing the montage of him doing the research
to find out about Falkland and the computer and what it was.
That came over with the name of the company that is the computer company.
But where he goes, he's going into the library and he's checking out.
He's going through the computer.
-Yeah, yeah.
-He's doing his dewy decibel stuff going through.
-Yeah.
-Oh, man, this...
That's one of the things is like this computer was...
Or this computer.
This movie was like...
It felt to me...
If somebody now tried to make a movie about the '80s...
Because there was just...
I mean, obviously it was just the '80s.
But there was so much.
There were pay phones.
And there was microfiche.
And there were computers with the reel-to-reel.
I mean, it was just...
-Yeah.
-It just...
It almost seemed ridiculous, except when you remember,
this was made in the '80s.
This wasn't somebody making a movie now.
-Yeah, but no thought that yeah.
The Academy of Science, Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films
nominated both Matthew Broderick and Allie Sheedy
for Best Actor and Best Actress for that year, too.
I mean, you think like they're so young and they're like...
To be nominated.
I mean, granted it's, you know, it's a Saturn award.
But to be nominated for something at that young of an age.
-Yeah.
-I mean, they were good.
-They were really good.
-Yeah.
So yeah, I had no idea that this was nominated for so many things.
-Yeah.
-We did...
We haven't not yet used what the Whopper stands for,
which Whopper is the computer that the AI that takes over.
-Yeah.
I don't have that here.
What does it say?
-So what about War Operation Plan Response?
That's right.
-Yeah.
-So.
-Yeah.
-I know.
-So the Whopper was like...
The sound that they always played with that was so like...
-Oh, yeah.
-That's almost creepy.
-Yeah.
-We just played that and then it had all these weird lights on it and didn't need to have any...
And if anyone actually looked...
It did have...
The one part I was like, "Come on, why would it have it?"
And when it has...
So the Whopper keeps playing like they already said,
they start playing a game and then the Whopper keeps playing the game
and it's trying to win the game and it has like a countdown of how long it's been playing
and when it's going to reach the solution on itself.
It's counting down and nobody notices that.
-Yeah.
It was a very small screen.
Something interesting about that is the Whopper itself,
the prop in the movie, was wooden and it was painted to look metal
and that display screen was done with like an Apple IIe computer
and there was like a person who...
He was like in the Whopper.
He was in the prop making that timer show up.
It's like, you know...
-Yeah, we would die inside the...
-Some super fancy script you wrote, you know, to have two timers,
one on top of the other.
-Yeah.
-Mine blowing.
Okay, so back to the plot.
David learns the true nature of his actions from a news broadcast
and FBI special agents arrest him and take him to NORAD.
So that's just the first sentence in that paragraph.
But that part, I thought, was just...
That was really creepy.
I mean, I tried to imagine that as like a junior in high school
where you suddenly make this connection.
-Yeah, with your big gulp.
-But no, no, no, where are you coming from?
And you're the newscast and you're like, wait a minute.
-Oh, that part.
-I was going to nuke those two cities and now they're telling me
that the government thought those cities were going to get
holy shit.
And then he goes up and he starts trying to destroy all the stuff in his room.
-That was a good headlock moment.
-And the fuck in here calls him back.
-Calls him back, yeah, that part.
-It's like holy, that's where it's like, that's where it gets like...
Okay, so now you're talking the creepiness, this is AI,
this is like the shit we're dealing with now still.
And it's like...
I mean, this is like, this is the precursor to Terminator,
Skynet becoming self-aware.
Like, this is what we're talking about.
I mean, this is the original Skynet, if you think about it.
-Yeah.
-I mean, this is the computer that controls all of...
All of it into the world.
It can destroy the world.
And then if it...
Yeah, so...
-Tries to.
-Right. I mean, well, I mean, it tries to, but it doesn't...
At least in this, it's not malicious.
It thinks it's playing a game.
-Yeah, yeah.
-It doesn't know the difference.
And they talked about how they use the games to teach the computer
when to play and when not to play, but it never could figure it.
Like, yeah, so they go into that, but yeah, but this...
It's not as...
Yeah, it's not as malicious as Skynet that takes control to take over the world.
-Exactly. -And get rid of humans.
It's just, "Oh, I'm just trying to win."
-Well, but the doctor that created Joshua, that built the Whopper Falcon,
has a very...
clinical view of the world.
And he's pretty cold-hearted in some respects as well.
-Holy shit, I never got...
I mean, we'll get there, but that speech, when they're on the island with him...
-Uh-huh.
-...I never got how bad.
That's what... My notes go dark, like, around there.
-That... I remember that.
I remember him being like, "Maybe you'll be old enough to have a child and watch him die."
And I remember that, just being like, "Oh, my God."
-And the poor guy.
-The guy that wrote the screenplay, actually,
based Falcon off of...
Oh, dear God.
The astrophysicist that had Luke Eric's ALS.
-How?
-Hawking?
-Yes, thank you, Stephen Hawking.
Yeah, actually, based his character off of that...
You know, off of him, because he was thinking like this man is so incredibly smart,
that he could probably unlock a lot of the mysteries of the universe,
but he's got these limitations.
And so, you know, they were actually going to have...
They were actually going to put the character of Dr. Falcon...
John Wood, the British actor, at a point of... in a wheelchair,
because, like, it's like a student-hawking kind of call-out,
but they didn't do it because they thought that having a famous scientist
in a motorized wheelchair in a war room would remind audiences of Dr. Strickland.
-That was like, "Oh, my God."
-It is about nuclear war, yeah, geez.
-That's true.
-That's true, that's true.
-They were like, "Yeah, we're not going to do that."
-Oh, yeah, that's me giggling, and you wouldn't know why, right?
It's like, "It's serious."
-My words go from...
So, the scene right before they get to...
Well, he calls Jennifer, like, I'm skipping ahead,
but my notes are good old days where there are beer tabs everywhere,
because he used to actually make a phone call.
And then, my next note is, this movie goes dark.
-Yeah, yeah, well, the other thing that would happen to his parents...
-Yeah, and the payphone was rotary, did you notice that?
-I was like, "Oh, man, I hope there's no minds in that number."
-Not only was it a payphone,
not only did he use a beer tab to, quote-unquote, "hack" into it,
but it is a freaking rotary payphone, kind of one of those.
So, yeah, so earlier I was mentioning, I was reading my notes,
and it fits in right here, because it's when he's doing the montage.
-Well, it's actually, he does the research, and he shows Jennifer,
the video of Faulkner trying to teach the computer,
and she looks at him, she goes, "Faulking."
-Faulking, whatever his name is, sorry, "Faulking."
I get the names wrong a lot on this, that's all right.
-That's right, I'm here.
-Yeah, and she's like, "Oh, that's him, he looks so old."
And then...
-Yes!
Matthew 41, she goes 41, and then she goes 41, that's old,
is what she says.
-Yep.
-That's my quote, my quote here was 41, that's old,
but with my chicken scratch of writing, what I first read was,
I thought it said, "Dollar sign 4-1, that's D-D," end quote.
And I was like, "What the fuck was that mean?"
But it definitely--
-That's what my comment was trying to get into.
-It's definitely quote 41, that's old, end quote.
But I was reading earlier, I was like, "Dollar sign 41,
that's--"
And he was just like, "What the fuck is that mean?"
-Yeah, that was funny, like, "Wow, 41, yeah, he really is old."
And I would have agreed with that when I watched this movie.
And I'm any more, man, that's like you're hitting a prime,
hitting a stride.
-I did write down-- and they actually did explain it,
so I guess it says, but I was like, "Why does the Whopper--
why is it connected-- it's in Colorado.
Why is it connected to a Sunnyvale, California number?"
-But they actually do explain that later on,
because they talk about how the kid got in the system.
I don't know if you remember, there's a whole scene,
it's like he found a backdoor in our game division in Sunnyvale.
-Yeah, yeah.
-So--
-So, okay, so back to the summary,
because that was-- I'm on the fourth paragraph,
and I read the first sentence
before I had to go into the whole newscast thing,
because that freaked me out.
So, okay, so he realizes-- I guess this is David.
That Whopper is behind the NORAD alerts,
but he fails to convince McKittrick,
who suspects David is working for the Soviets,
and he faces Esteineau's charges.
David escapes NORAD by joining a tourist group.
There's more to it than that, we'll get into it.
And with David's help travels to the Oregon island,
where Falcon lives.
David and Jennifer find that Falcon has become despondent
and believes that nuclear war is inevitable,
and that it is a futile, as a game of tic-tac-toe,
between two experienced players.
The teenagers convince Falcon that he should return to NORAD
and stop Whopper.
So, there's a whole lot there.
I mean, the way he gets out of the room he's trapped in at NORAD,
I always thought that was awesome.
-I did too.
-I did too. But it also falls into a total movie's trope of--
He had--
We have to have a woman being sexually harassed.
-Oh, my gosh. There were masses.
-Yeah, the sergeant stash is hitting on the nurse.
Yeah, she's a nurse, right?
She's putting in the--
-Yeah. -He's like, "Oh, you play tennis.
Is there a programming that can be a better backhand?"
And she's like, "I don't think there's a program for that."
And he's like, "Well, what would it take?"
-And you were telling, she's trying at first to be nice,
where she's like laughing.
And she's like, "Ha-ha, yeah, that-- well, so we don't have that."
-Yeah. -I mean, Simon says,
he thought he says, "Am I on the line?"
And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, I know."
-He's-- he's so in her space, too.
I mean, just like, lean and sit down.
-And she's like, "Get away from me, yeah."
-Yeah. -Yeah, he was creepy.
-Sargent. -Yeah, the way that--
The way that David gets out of that room,
you know, who knows if that would work?
But I always thought that was really cool.
That he just had the ability to think that through, you know,
you-- the scissors to connect up and, you know--
-Do we call me over? -Let me--
-Yeah. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-That was pretty-- I mean, like, I remember watching that part
and thinking that was pretty badass.
-Yeah. And I mean, something--
-I'm serious. -Yeah, go ahead, Brad.
-No, you don't. [ Laughter ]
-Okay. Something Amanda and I were talking about is like,
the FBI-- he gets away from the FBI agents,
but they don't make it, like,
to where the FBI is overly bumbling.
You know, it's like they come to get him,
they try to get in the room, you know,
they figure he's in there, they break in finally,
they realize he's not-- and then they try to find him.
It's not, like, some Keystone cops thing,
like, other movies we've--
-Yeah. -Right.
-It's like, look, the stupid FBI agents.
I mean, they caught him really fast
after he initially broke in.
And, I mean, I feel like he escaped with somewhat believable.
I mean, he was sneaking around, he was in air ducts,
he was in elevator shafts.
-But then he just kind of went with the--
like, the anonymity of a tour group.
-Yeah, and I could see that working,
because it'd be like, I don't remember that guy.
Oh, well, you know, that's--
people just-- if you look like you belong in something,
people a lot of times won't question it.
So, I felt like that was a pretty cool method
of getting him out of--
-No, I agree with that, I think.
I mean, I-- I don't have any problem with it.
Where-- he-- oh, that's--
Oh, I got the line where he uses--
he says that they need to beef up the security
around the lopper, as much--
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, right, because whopper is a burger thing.
-Right, yeah. -I knew that.
I knew that.
-Here's my thing, this timeline doesn't work for me.
The hour--
-You mean, like, how short it happens?
-How short it-- because he--
-Yeah.
-So, okay, how crazy is this?
They arrest him in Seattle, Washington.
Then they fly him to Colorado Springs.
That's where Nora at is.
That's where they take him to interrogate him, right?
-Right.
-They-- they-- they don't tell his parents--
I mean, at one point, there's a throwaway line.
-When his parents were correct,
'cause he's talking to Jennifer,
and she's like, "You have the FBI, you know what I'm saying?
Your parents were crying?"
-No, but now Gary-- Gary caught with--
he does say, "Well, we contact your parents,
they're all aware."
But like, they picked-- the FBI picks him up
and puts him on a plane.
It doesn't-- like, that's insane.
There's no way that would-- I mean, like--
-Well, really? I don't--
-Well--
-I don't know if he thought somebody was a spy.
-I don't know. I don't know if he thought they was a spy.
-I can ask that, but why--
-I know.
Why would they fly him to Nora at, though?
Why would you take him to the security department?
-Because it's a movie.
-Well, no, because then they have to--
the expert, McKittrick,
Dabney Coleman's character,
needs to talk to this kid and find out what the hell he did,
how he did it.
-That's true.
Okay, that's true.
-Because that's from McKittrick.
-Okay, but there's time between when he does the--
starts it, right?
And it's calling him back.
It's like another day before he gets picked up by the FBI.
-Why wouldn't McKittrick--
they'd be like, "Hey, we got this kid.
We think we know where it came from.
We think we got him."
They'd just fly him out.
They wouldn't fly the kid to the center.
-I think because McKittrick
he has to be there.
Like, if the shit keeps going down,
they need help.
-For what?
-Because I don't know.
They don't--
-He really does.
-Okay, but it was supposed to be the guy that was--
-Yeah, he's a computer expert.
And, you know, the computer keeps growing up.
-But he's not--
He's got the other guy.
He's got the balling--
-Yeah, the real guy.
-And it's not your looking kind of guy.
-Who comes right?
It's like--
-It's a simulation.
It's a simulation.
-Yeah.
-I don't know.
For me, in general, the thing is,
it's like all of this from the moment he starts the game
till the end is a little over two days.
It's, what, 52 hours?
That's just--
I don't remember the time frame being that short.
It's not going to be a week.
-It's not possible because, like, it's a three-hour flight.
Okay.
I mean, I did the math on it.
I'm like, okay, if he goes--
If they pick him up and it says--
I think when they pick him up, it comes out and it says it's like--
It says it's only like 28 hours or something at that point.
It's a three-hour flight to Colorado Springs.
It's not like it's they fly into NORAD, right?
They have to--
-Yeah, that's true.
-Like, so let's just say drive to--
The math doesn't work, and then he leaves there, escapes.
Who knows how long he's been locked up, but whatever.
But then he leaves.
Then he flies from there, they fly to Oregon, right?
And then they spend the night there.
Well, they don't spend the night because they get the helicopter right.
But then they get the helicopter and they barely get back.
I just don't take the time.
-It would be tight.
I mean, but you have to remember, first of all,
this was back in the day when you could just walk on an airplane.
You could walk up--
-We were talking about that, yeah.
And be like, one ticket to Oregon, please.
And an hour later, the plane's off the ground.
And remember, this is the '80s.
The American--
United States was smaller back then.
-There weren't as many people here
so you could easily get from Oregon to Colorado, right?
-No, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
It was just everything was smaller back then.
-I gotcha.
I forgot about that.
I just thought it's like they're just a fly.
I just keep--
I cannot believe that they would pick a kid up and fly him.
Three states, four states away, whatever it is.
I guess, I don't know.
-I don't know, man.
-The only thing is, I mean, in their eyes,
in their defense, in their eyes, he's not a kid.
He's a Soviet spy.
-Sure.
-Which, you know, there would be a character in the way back then.
That sort of paranoia, that's--
I remember it being like that.
This was not something you screwed around with.
And so maybe--
But I almost feel like this had to take place over like four days.
If you doubled the time frame,
I feel like it would be much more doable
with their getting to Oregon.
Finding Falkham, convincing him to join you.
They do it in the movie.
It's done in that time frame,
but I just don't know how possible that would have been.
-All right, it's not applicable.
-Hey, I was looking at my notes again.
I got one thing going back to Mr. Creepy.
Do you remember what he said to--
Oh, you voted Miss Fine in 1979?
-Oh, my God.
-Yeah, anyway.
-He was gross.
-Yeah, he was.
-I hope he got fired.
-Yeah, exactly.
I hope he got dishonorably discharged
or something for being a dipshit.
So, okay, so we have two more paragraphs
left on our summary here.
We're getting into the--
-All right, let's do it.
-So, Whopper stages a massive Soviet first strike
with hundreds of missiles, submarines, and bombers.
Believing the attack to be genuine,
Norad prepares to retaliate.
Falkham, David, and Jennifer,
convince military officials to cancel the second strike
and ride out the attack.
Whopper tries to launch the missiles,
instead, using a brute force attack to obtain launch codes.
Without humans in the control center as a safeguard,
the computer will trigger a mass launch.
All attempts to log in and order Whopper
to cancel the countdown fail.
Disconnecting the computers discussed and dismissed
as a fail safe will launch all weapons
if the computer is disabled.
There's a lot there to uncheck.
That is like the best scene in the movie,
where it's just all the simulations of all the different missiles.
-And now it's terrifying.
-Still, even now, that part was just fantastic.
-And I was reading all the scenarios this time.
I was reading like this.
-Yeah, the different, like the different bombers
on the bottom right where it's like, you know, the--
-Yeah, I actually just think, yep.
And I distinctly remember the one where
it was like the Southeast Asia strike
where they like stick down,
and then everything just goes off and--
-And everything's that, yeah.
-And every single instance,
the rope gone.
And is that one of our cats?
-Yeah, that was right.
-That part still was incredible.
And then when, you know, they think they've got it to where,
okay, obvious, well, before that,
it's okay, this isn't a real strike.
And the guys are like, "Holy shit, we're still here."
And then the launch code thing comes up.
And just like the music and the background with that
and while they're--
-And what do I--
-You know, will we unplug the computer?
No, if we unplug it,
it's going to think it's been destroyed in a launch.
Anyway.
-I wish she was just like counting down,
but like she's like, "He's got one number."
-Yeah.
-I got two of those.
-That in time.
-It's disgusting.
Dabney Coleman's disgusting assistant
that takes his gum at one point and puts it on.
-She puts it in her mouth like that.
[ Laughter ]
-You don't know.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, I actually jumped ahead a little bit
because the part I was talking about with all the scenarios
comes after this initial.
The first thing that happens is
the Soviet strike comes in,
they decide not to launch,
and it turns out it's all fake.
And then they realize,
"Oh wait, Whopper's going to launch the missiles anyway."
So we've had the--
-That's when they teach the group.
They have to play tic-tac-toe with it.
-Yeah, so I'll go ahead.
Let me finish the summary
because it gets into all that
and then we can kind of talk about everything.
-So we didn't even talk about--
Wait.
We didn't even talk about Falcon on the island, though.
That scene is--
-Yeah, yeah.
Well, how about this?
Let me get through the summary
and then we can go back and talk about a couple of these things.
-Yeah.
-So Falcon and David direct the computer
to play tic-tac-toe against itself.
This results in a long string of draws
forcing the computer to learn the concept of utility
and no win scenarios.
Whopper obtains to launch codes,
but before launching,
it cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios
that is devised,
finding that they all result in draws as well.
Having discovered the concept of mutually assured destruction,
the computer tells Falcon that it is concluded
that nuclear war is a strange game,
in which, quote,
"The only winning move is not to play."
Whopper relinkers his control of NORAD
and the missiles and offers to play a nice game of chess.
-So good.
-That's--
-So pretty, yeah.
-Yeah.
Going back,
yeah, the scene where they're on the island with Falcon,
any--
It's something about, like, that movie projector.
-Right.
-He pulls the screen down and it's--
-It's standing in front of it, yeah.
-Yeah.
-It was a horrible, like, free Jurassic Park dinosaur footage,
but still, what he's talking about is just so creepy.
-He's like, "Yeah.
They lived forever.
They lived, and then till nature decides they couldn't be here anymore."
And he's like, "Maybe it's our turn."
And he's like, "Yeah."
-"Just so critical about it."
-Yeah, I know, but he's--
I mean, like, it's--
-He has a point.
-He's got a point, yeah.
I mean, he's got a point, like,
"Yeah, if we're going to destroy the Earth anyway,"
like, we're just doing it a different way now.
I mean, it's just--
It's still, like, holds up.
Like, the argument still holds up.
Like, I could see people being like--
And then, like, the scene where they're trying to find the boat,
Matthew Broderick, and, uh--
-Yeah, it was, like--
-He was like, "Oh, like, I'm just playing about him."
-I just had a lot of stuff.
-I thought it would be more time.
-Yeah, that is--
-Yeah.
-I was like, "Jesus Christ."
-I think that would be happening.
If all of a sudden, tomorrow you found out
that a comet was going to hit the Earth
and you had 48 hours to live,
you'd be thinking, like,
"Why did I waste my time on this work
or these meaningless things?
I should have learned to do that or this,
or, you know, what have I done with my life?"
-Seeker, your friend, from the end of the world.
-Yeah, similar to that.
But, uh, I thought it was really interesting
what Falcon said he thought might be the species
to take over after humans.
Did you guys catch that?
Because you think--
People always talk about, like, cockroaches and stuff.
He said the bees.
-Yeah. -He said the bees, yeah.
-And I was like, "We've already almost killed them."
So, this is how we--
-Yeah, fuck the bees.
That's where we're going after you.
We know you're--
-No, no, no, no, no, no.
-You know, that's under radar.
We're after you.
[LAUGHTER]
-And I forgot to welcome our bee overlords.
[LAUGHTER]
-It's ant overlords.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, dear.
So, yeah, that scene--
that whole thing with the dinosaur movie
and him being like,
"You know, maybe it will last long enough for you
to have a kid and watch the kid die."
And then she's like, "I'm only 17.
I'm not ready to die."
-Yeah.
-And--
-Yeah, that is so bad.
Like, it's so--
-Yeah, Matthew Broderick's whole thing,
where it's like, "No, what does he call her?"
He says, "No, something.
I'd never learned how to swim."
Ah, shit.
He called Ellie Sheen's character.
-That's a woman.
-That's right.
No wonder woman.
I'd never learned how to swim.
So, yeah.
There's a lot of poignant scenes that I--
-They would have froze to death.
-Yeah.
-They're--
-We could see their breath.
There's no way they would have made--
I looked it up.
It's like a mile swim that would have had to do.
-Well, she thought it was three miles,
and she was like, "Yeah, it's fine.
No big deal."
And I'm like, "Holy shit."
And I walk in three miles of much less swimming.
They would have--
-They talk about how, like, how--
-Yeah, they would be--
-Like, he was so calculated.
He's like, "I'm within 20 miles of a major strike
or whatever, or first strike."
-Yeah, yeah.
-So, yeah.
-We'll be vague strikes immediately, or whatever.
-We're running around blind.
-Yeah, yeah.
-We flashed and then nothing.
No pain.
It'll all be over.
Unlike the horrible people that--
Was it--
Will be spared the something of survival?
What does he say?
Will we--
The horror of survival?
-Yeah.
-What's that idea?
That surviving is the worst thing that could happen to you.
It's just--
It brought back a lot of just ABGBs for me.
-Yeah, sure.
-I was just--
-You know, like, our kids haven't had to grow up with that.
I mean, they've got other shit.
But, you know, Brock and I were talking about how--
If the kids watched this, or like, Red Dawn, or something like that,
where it's just like that Soviet influence,
and just that fear that everybody kind of had,
they would kind of be like, "Oh, well, that's too bad."
-They were there.
-They wouldn't have that, that--
Like, we just said before,
like that nebulous boogie man thing.
-I can't believe it.
-Yeah.
For us, it was a real thing.
It was real scary.
-I feel like they had realer things.
Ours was all trumped up.
-I agree.
The Soviets were not the threat that--
-Yeah.
-They were--
-It was written at the time.
-But they were--
-But they were just boogieing like that.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, we were all under--
-Yeah.
-After the Soviet Soviet Soviet Union collapsed,
and you realized that, like, half their shit didn't work,
and they were pretty much busted,
and I mean, they couldn't have mounted a lot of the offensive.
-I don't know.
-I don't necessarily--
I think they could have.
They still could have, but they weren't going to.
-Yeah.
-So they thought we were just as crazy as--
like, they thought we were crazy Americans that weren't going to.
So it was like, they're not doing it either.
So it was this--
-Yeah.
-It was not something that we were taught.
They were just the bad guys.
-Yeah.
-They thought we were the bad guys.
I mean, we're the ones who moved nukes into Europe,
and we're like, well, if you come into Europe,
we're just going to nuke everything to protect everybody.
Like, in the same plan.
-Nukes and turkey.
And then got mad when they tried to put them in Cuba.
And I'm like, holy shit, we just did that to them,
and now we're getting mad.
-Same plan.
Like, okay, if you cross this line,
it's this line on a map that doesn't really exist in real life.
We're just going to drop nukes down to stop everything.
Like, that was the plan.
-Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to get too deep.
No, but I'll tell you after I end this,
I was like, holy shit, artificial intelligence is scary.
Like, this is 82, right?
This movie came out?
-Yeah, they found it in the truth.
They came out.
-But 82 is this idea of this.
We're dealing with this now with smart cars.
And like, in a much smaller scale, but I don't know.
At work, we did this thing where we did these things,
which is conference calls where someone does like a 10 or 15
year trend on some super technology.
And we did want an AI.
And I was like, oh, this is going to be kind of cool.
We'll see what we're going to be able to do.
And I came away from that hour long conference call,
terrified, more of computers.
I think probably I felt about the same after watching.
This is a kid about how bad computers can get.
-Yeah.
-And I've had that same, like, it brought those, like this.
-Yeah.
-Because, you know, with the AI stuff,
if you're talking about like, you have smart driving cars,
they have to be programmed.
Do they run over the one person to save the person in the car?
Or do they stop and kill the person?
Like, like all these decisions have to be made.
And like, oh, it just gets into this.
Like, I don't, you know, I know it's all for it to make it easier.
And a lot of it does, sure it does, and it makes a lot of job.
But I don't really need them thinking for me.
Like, I still think I need to have.
-And it was interesting because I don't think they ever
actually use the term artificial intelligence.
I mean, it's obvious that's what this was talking about.
-No, they did.
They said learning.
They said, it would learn to do stuff.
-The machine learning.
-The machine, yeah.
But that's what that is.
-Oh, yeah, yeah.
It just wasn't, I don't even know when the term
artificial intelligence, as it goes to computers,
became common use, into common use.
I don't even know that.
-I know Hyron used it in one of his books in the,
God, '70s, maybe?
-Oh, it's been a while then, okay.
But it's not the kind of term that was just thrown out.
It's the whole thing, like, we talked about serial killers now.
But back when, you know, they were figuring out
that those were actually a thing.
They didn't call them serial killers.
They were frequent killers.
-Yeah.
So anyway, so that's okay.
And--
-You went over my Brad fact?
-Oh, yeah, sure, shoot.
-All right, so when we talked about the line,
where I'd post on a spark plug, if I thought it would do it again,
and how much that was really awesome,
and that Barry Corbin got to add more of most of his lines.
He came up with that line because his cousin actually did that.
-Just on a spark plug?
-Uh-huh, and had a bad experience.
-I was gonna say, "What happened?"
[ Laughter ]
-So, that's my, my, my Brad fact.
There was no child sacrifice, so I couldn't really go with that.
[ Laughter ]
-We had one that would've been several million kids sacrifice.
It didn't happen.
-There was no quick saying, no.
But, you know, we might have to add old '80s computers to the mix.
[ Laughter ]
-That's part of one of our--
-Because I did geek out.
I mean, seriously, I stopped watching the movie,
and I was like, "I gotta look this up and see if that was a real computer."
And I geeked out about it.
It's like, "Holy shit, five megabits of storage."
I was like, "That's insane."
-Yeah.
-So, we would look like kind of with a bingo card.
-Yeah, it was just--
Maybe we'll have to do that.
I want to see if we had bingo on some of these movies,
but some of the notes that I took about some of this stuff is about.
Like, my-- I remember looking at the whopper and thinking,
like, "That thing probably is no more powerful than our cell phones today."
You know, just in, like, what it could do.
-Our cell phones were more--
Our cell phones were more cooperative than the computers
that they used to win out of a day of mood.
-Yeah, that was 15 years before that, even, so--
-But TI-81 or '85 calculator used in high school
is more complicated than what was used later.
-Yeah.
And I thought it was really interesting that David's bedroom door had a lock on it.
Did you guys notice that?
-Yeah, I did.
-Yeah, Ed Bull.
I mean, that never would have gone over in my house.
-That would go over in my house, that's for sure.
-And that's kind of-- it goes like the whole thing.
Like, his parents just kind of let him go,
which maybe explained why he got into some of the shit he got into.
-I know, but also, like, his parents just--
I just find it weird they put all this effort to make them characters,
and then they were just gone for the rest of the movie.
-Yeah.
-Oh, we didn't talk about--
-I didn't say hell of a Jeep crash that they're in trying to get into.
-That actually happened, but that was supposed to happen.
Yeah.
-Oh, I was wondering why they filmed it that way.
It's like, why would you film, like, that was just-- it just happened?
-Yeah, they were supposed to do a stunt where they drove through the gate
and the gate gave way, but certainly went wrong,
and the whole thing flipped, and they used that shot for the movie.
-They weren't in it, right?
Like--
-They were stunt doubles.
-Yeah, okay.
-Yeah.
But they-- so they had a-- they did that, and then they filmed a scene of them running
onto the tunnel to move that Jeep shot.
-Yeah, I always thought that was interesting how the Jeep kind of went sideways and crashed.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, that was--
-Yeah.
-But then I thought it was really interesting when Ali Shidi's character
sees him dialing all the phone numbers in California,
and she's like, "Isn't that going to be expensive?"
And I thought about it.
I was like, "Oh, shit, long distance charges."
-[ Laughs ]
-Oh, yeah.
-I know you had to go way around that.
-Yeah, exactly.
I mean, the kids are kind of a low-end criminal in some ways.
I mean, he gets away with a lot of shit.
-Well, now, there's a-- uh, Kimmer, there is a famous hacker from that area, I think.
And it was been around that time.
Like, I'm sure he was-- he was, like, a folk here.
I read some -- but yeah, he figured it out.
-They consulted with him on this movie.
-Okay.
I was like, yeah, they-- and he figured out how to-- he had a whistle he built.
-Yep.
-Right, we've got that whistle out of our similar box, and figured it out.
-We got your grunts at the door to us, yeah.
-That was his nickname.
-Yeah.
-You got to have a Captain-- and it would simulate any good-- yeah, it was--
-And, uh, I thought it was very interesting that there's one part where
Ali Shidi's character is exercising, and she's wearing leg warmers.
Again, this is like a celebration of the '80s.
-Right.
-But the best thing that I took a note on that I don't know if--
I don't know if-- I think Amanda picked up on it because I mentioned it.
I don't know if you picked up on it, Brad, but when he comes--
when David comes home and you hear the news report in the background
right before they talk about the, you know, the nuclear--
-The Pro Galactic Company.
-The Pro Galactic Company winner.
Wait a minute.
Wait, wait, back that up.
And I was like, yeah.
-I had to back it up, too.
I was like, did they just say "Fire Pro Galactic Company"?
-Yeah.
-I had to write the recycling center.
-The police had recycled condos.
-That had to be an in-joke sometime.
-They had-- yeah, they just--
-That was great.
-That's why--
-Once I heard the mom telling the Jacuzzi masturbation joke,
I was like, I'm going to list that.
Because I watched it downstairs, but I had my AirPods on,
so I was just listening to it with headphones,
and it was just insane.
-Yeah, but that was great.
I used to sell that in such titles.
I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe they just said that.
And at first, I was like, they just put that in for fun.
Like, why is the news on to where you can actually hear that?
But then they go into the news report about the,
you know, the fake nuclear attack.
I was like, OK, but it's still really funny.
-That was-- yeah.
-So, yeah.
So I guess going around the horn here,
I thought the movie was great.
I highly recommend anybody who watched it as a kid.
Go back and watch it again.
It's-- it holds up.
It's really good.
It's freaky and scary.
And it's just-- it's still a very entertaining movie.
And it was two hours long.
It didn't feel like two hours.
-Yeah, I agree.
It totally holds up.
It frightened me just as much as it did when I was a kid,
maybe more so.
And everything's good.
Like, the quality of the sound, the cinematographer.
Like, everything's good about it.
There's nothing that you're looking at like, well,
God, this is an old movie.
I mean, the old thing is, you know,
the clothing and the 80s kind of computers and stuff,
but it doesn't--
-That's the way it works.
-It doesn't feel irrelevant.
-Yeah.
-So, yeah, it totally holds up.
Watch it.
-Well, I hate to be the contributor in here, so--
-Okay, go ahead.
-I won't be.
-I know.
-I love it.
I loved it.
You know, I watched just a few years back.
I'd shown my kids it.
And we thought it was good then.
And it's still good.
It's still, as you guys said, it's still--
I mean, for anybody who watched it back as a kid,
who's listening to his podcast and has rewatched it,
it still has that scare factor of that.
It's not scary, like Halloween scare, like, you know--
-Yeah, but I'm scared.
-Yeah, the touch-ups, but it's got that, like,
deep dread kind of scare.
-Yeah.
-And it's-- but the theme of it, yeah, the music's great.
The acting's great.
Everyone's good.
Like, it flows.
It doesn't feel like it's two hours.
It keeps going.
I mean, there's a little bit of a drag at one little point,
but it just keeps-- you know, it's really--
it is really good.
I really enjoyed watching it again.
And it just-- but the overall theme is still relevant today.
-Yeah, that's right. -Yeah, true.
-Which is crazy for a movie that is 38 years old,
that it can still-- and from a-- it's a technology theme.
And it still holds true.
-So-- -And probably isn't going anywhere any time soon,
either.
-It's not, no.
-If the years come out, it'll be relevant.
-Yeah.
-So, thumbs up.
-Yeah, so go watch it.
I definitely recommend it.
All right, so there you go.
-Thank you, everybody, for this name.
And Brad's going to give you all the--
-Oh, geez.
[LAUGHTER]
-We're on Facebook at just Google.
-Just before us, we're there.
-Yeah, let's go to Twitter.
Twitter is @doeshold.
I don't remember anything else.
Oh, we don't have any else.
Yeah.
-We're going to Patreon to get Brock Moneyback by Nightcourt
and for Brad to get Moneyback for Roadhouse.
Is that right?
-Yeah, I get Money first for Roadhouse now.
[LAUGHTER]
-We got lucky.
We only rented a Roadhouse.
-I had to buy one because I fell away.
-So--
-Every time I turn on my Apple TV,
and it's like movies you have, and Dalton's face
is standing there with his arms crossed, all intimidated.
And I'm like, hey, hey, Brad, yeah, be nice.
I know, Dalton.
I'm being nice.
I'm not saying what I want to say now, Dalton.
I'm being nice.
[LAUGHTER]
-So, thank you, everybody.
-Yep, thank you all for listening.
And go watch more games.
[LAUGHTER]
-We'll have a good day in the chess.
-How about a nice game of chess?
-Just had to step on it, don't you?
-Sorry.