WarGames/Trivia

War Games

 * Hey, It's That Guy!: This film had early appearances of:
 * John "Leo McGarry" Spencer and Michael "Mr Blonde" Madsen (the officers in the silo in the pre-credit sequence), Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Eddie Deezen, and Maury "Nero Wolfe" Chaykin.
 * Barry Corbin, who has played recurring roles on The Closer, One Tree Hill, and Northern Exposure, as well as playing Grandpa Max Tennyson on the live action Ben 10: Alien Swarm.
 * The Breakfast Club's Allison, an uncredited William H. Macy as a NORAD officer.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Mandark as one of the hackers Lightman talks to early in the movie.
 * Throw It In: Word of God says Barry Corbin ad-libbed the line "I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good!"
 * Unintentional Period Piece: The then-contemporary theme of Cold War nuclear panic definitely dates this film to before The Great Politics Mess-Up, as does its treatment of then-emerging computer technology (to early in The Eighties). And of course there's the technology itself: dialing into remote systems with an acoustic-coupler modem looks positively quaint in the era of broadband internet, as do supercomputers with graphics that the most basic of modern PCs would put to shame (or even a computer of 1983). (The acoustic-coupler modem was already outdated in 1983. It was just there to be visually interesting.) The lax attitude to computer security is almost a textbook example of how not to do things these days, though to the irritation of IT people the world over, people still insist on writing down passwords to this day. And this being The Eighties, there's the obligatory video arcade scene.
 * What Could Have Been: The original writer of the story said that he wanted Falken to be played by John Lennon, and Lennon was reportedly interested in the role. Alas, of course, one Mark David Chapman ensured that this would never come to pass.

War Games: The Dead Code

 * Dawson Casting: Amanda Walsh as Annie. She's 27 at the time of shooting and it shows.
 * Fake Russian: Vlada Vana, from Czechoslovakia, playing Ivan, the former Soviet astronaut.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Claudia Black as RIPLEY.
 * The Other Darrin: John Wood played Falken in the original. In The Sequel, he is played by Gary Reineke.