Last night I was flipping through the channels on the TV and I came across an old 'favorite' 80's movie. I probably would of skipped on through the channel, but something prompted me to tune in and watch for a few minutes. COVID-19 television usually means there are not a whole lot of choices out there to really catch my attention. The movie was 'War Games" starring Mathew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. I tuned in and watched a bit.
I remember really enjoying this film when this movie first came out back in 1983. It really struck a chord with me. Mathew Broderick played a somewhat nerdy High School kid... check...I was always a certified nerd. In 1983 I was out of High School for 6 years, but my maturity was still in that zone. Ally Sheedy was cute and had that 80's cute teen attractiveness.... the popular cute girl that guys like Mathew and me had to charm with our nerd powers if we had any remote hope at all. This movie came out a couple years before Broderick's wildly successful "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", but his characters in the two movies could have been a stencil for my own early adulthood. Both characters are a bit on the nerdy side, both sort of ornery souls, both pretty girl crazy. I may have pictured myself a poor man's version of the characters Broderick had played. :)
Checking on Megacritic and Rotten Tomatos, War Games has high marks still to this day. That surprised me somewhat, as watching the movie last night I thought it was fairly dated. Between the 80's outfits and the low tech of the big mainframe computer 'WOPR' I would not expect it to still be relevant. But even now, almost 40 years later...there were aspects of it I could not take my eyes off of. The acting was pretty good, and the plot was captivating.... High-schooler hacks into NORAD and triggers the 'evil' computer to start simulating a thermonuclear war. Cool!!
I remember playing an old arcade video game back in 1980 that was probably the inspiration for parts of this screenplay. In the video game the object is to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. Yes, I was nerdy enough to be in the groups to play arcade games like Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and Missile Command. Yeah, what nerdy 80's kid didn't?
Watching the movie it occurred to me... War Games came out in 1983. My wife and I married in 1983, after the movie came out. The movie itself represented my transformation from being the nerdy, aimless prankster to the responsible husband and father. 1983 was the year I became both.
But something else happened about this time. Married, with a ready made family, I was working part time at the Scottsdale Library, I needed a full time job with benefits if I had any realistic hope to be able to provide for my little family, to have things like insurance and a future. While searching for a full time permanent job, after lots of rejection....I was offered two jobs in one week....both with the potential to provide some of what I desperately needed.
The ASU job was to work in the Computer Department, as a Courier...driving around campus in a little Cushman cart delivering Computer Printouts and other stuff. At the library, down in the basement, they had a little Atari computer stationed down there. I would sometimes play around on the computer, teaching myself to code simple graphics in BASIC Computer language. I was more a hacker than a true student of technology...but the possibilities of software development very much attracted me. I could see myself become a Mathew Broderick computer nerd type in my future,. And so it was, I chose the ASU job and Computer Programming would eventually become my lifetime occupation. Sure, I was starting out on the very bottom run of Computing, but that just meant I had the entire world of technology before me. :)
With little academic training, over the years I have learned COBOL, SAS, PL/SQL, PL/1, and JCL. I have learned some JAVA and some other languages. I have supported my little family and turned my nerdship into something useful. Now, in my 60's I still make a living in technology.
So, watching the movie, it occurred to me that this film may have had some influence on the path I have wandered through life. Perhaps I live parts of the life that the character Mathew Broderick might have been channeling. I 'got' the pretty girl, I made a living off my nerdiness, and I was able to avoid starting a Thermonuclear War. Nerd I Am, and proud of it.
Thanks Mathew.
Cheers, nca
