High school punk David (Matthew Broderick) is a highly intelligent computer- obsessive who uses his hacking skills to change his grades on his high school system. The operation is given the go-ahead, and workers find themselves replaced by this metallic super- brain, that will deal with any potential nuclear threat to the US. When two missile controllers fail to launch a missile during a test launch due to uncertainty, government bigwig McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) introduces his superiors to WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), a giant super-computer that repeatedly plays games with itself to generate stats and results of possible nuclear war outcomes. Never had the capabilities of computers been so realistically portrayed than in WarGames, a film that introduced the world to home computers, hacking, and how humanity can be replaced by machines (as well as the idea that nuclear destruction is still a threat). Cinema explored this fear in successful films such as The Terminator (1984), which depicted a future where humans were locked into a battle with robots, and Tron (1982), in which a character is sucked into a game where he is forced to battle with the computer to survive. This idea was treated with excitement, curiosity, and fear - people genuinely did not know how powerful they would become, but they were certainly fearful of it. In the 1980's, the realisation that computers will soon play an extremely important role in everyday life was becoming more and more evident.

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