When
watching WarGames the only the scene that stuck out the most to me
was when David and that girl (ugggggh) were in the room playing
"Thermonuclear Death Strike" or whatever. When David
started to put in the commands, it's weird to me because he knew he
was hacking into something that could be
potentially dangerous, but he continued anyway. My thinking is that
he is desensitized to the extreme warfare due to the age of video
games. Not saying that games set up people to be violent, but maybe
the fact that he spends a lot of time playing games like Galaga and
other space shooters of the time, annihilating an entire planet (even
if it wasn't his own) would not have been much of a stretch. They
even though about which targets would be the best to hit. Las Vegas
is a very good target for such a strike because there are many
people, tourists, and it would definitely make the American defense
systems pretty angry. It's safe to say that the scare culture also
has something to do with David's actions in the Joshua system.
Even
though he was asked to play a game, this was much more than that. It
can be said that these issues have been reduced to a game due to the
many scare tactics in place. Since the world was dying down from the
Cold War, there was more open talk about the ultimate death that
could have happened if the nukes were launched. Like with us for
example. When Osama Bin Laden was a threat to our country, there
weren't many people openly talking about how we were threatened, but
now that the threat is removed, sooooo many people talk (and even
joke) about the threat that he caused. This can be applied to what
Russia and America have gone through. It was so much of a game to
David, that he even chose to play as the “enemy country”. I
digress though
The
coolest thing about this movie has to be the fact that no one wins
when you engage in nuclear warfare. Right?
Reading your post made me think about the Jay-Z song Threats, lol. I kind of spoke about the same thing in my blog. I said the message that was most important was Nuclear War is TERRIBLE! But of course the most important message of this film is totally subjective. Video games are violent but I wouldn't say they spawn violence. Speaking about Osama, I remember an "America's Most Wanted" game that featured Osama Bin Laden as the final boss. Good post Quincy
ReplyDeleteSo do you think we've become less open as a society, Quincy, in terms of public discourse? Or maybe it's just more diffuse--all the gazillion places online where literally anybody can air any opinion they want? I think your point about desensitization is well-taken. That was definitely happening, with regard to war and video games. But I don't see how David could have known that what he was doing was that dangerous. How could he have? There was no indication onscreen or in-story that he was hacking into a military computer. He was just looking for a video game (arguably and ironically, gaming companies then probably had better security.) Don't forget to incorporate the reading into your observations.
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