YouTube Free Movies: WarGames

Really, I should turn in my Gen X Card for this: I have never seen WarGames.

Oh, I've seen bits and pieces of it, to be sure. But never all the way through. Until today.

And really, I missed out.

This is a terrific film. A tight tale with just enough character development, perfectly cast with every player you'd expect from a military-centric early 1980s film, with enough character actor surprises tossed in to make each new character an adventure in "Where Have I Seen Him or Her Before?"

It might have been advantageous to wait until 2022 to see this 1983 film, because I get to play the Place the Character Actor game. But it still feels weird to hit this Cold War '80s milestone so late. Almost 40 years late.

The story, in my mind, holds up. The tech is, clearly, a bit old, but the film itself could take place at any time and still be a pertinent tale of the nihlism of "acceptable losses" contrasted with the callowness of putting off learning how to swim because the world wasn't going to end before you got around to it.

This, of course, translates easily to today:

And the Now Generations talking to those who have passed, or are passing on, or who are already dead at age 41.

This is one I'd definitely watch again.

And the film itself led our nation into some interesting directions. Thank heaven we had a president at the time who had his finger on the pulse of Hollywood more than others might have.