WarGames Sequel Now Filming 439
iluvcapra writes "This news is a little late, but on November 20th WarGames 2: The Dead Code began filming in Montreal. (I only became aware of the new production when I read that MGM is suing the rightful owner of WarGames.com for his domain name.) The film will be produced and distributed by MGM — distributor of the original WarGames — and directed by Stewart Gillard, director of such gems as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, the team behind the original film, are not involved. The plot revolves around a hacker breaking into a terrorism-simulation computer."
Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
The chances that I would see this movie just went from slim to none.
Re:Augh! (Score:4, Insightful)
This looks like it has nothing to do w/the first other than the stolen name for credibility.
tagging (beta): lame
Re:Augh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Few other movies include the phrase, "I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd help."
This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, a romantic sub-plot, a cool chase scene, and some improperly used computer terminology.
Re:Augh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Rights Online??!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Rights Online??!! (Score:4, Insightful)
People have the right (or ought to anyway) to keep domains that they purchase, develop, and maintain in good faith. MGM is going to try to bully him into giving it up. They will probably succeed, and if they do, it will be because they have more clout and more money (a more expensive lawyer). Ergo, his online rights are now in jeopardy of being violated.
I bet you're glad you posted anonymously now. And to the lazy moderator who gave this guy an "insightful", shame on you. Check more carefully next time. I realize it's too much of a hassle to read TFA, but please take the time to at least read the short description on Slashdot.
meh (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure that it will focus to much on action sequences (for the most part the first had very few) and Technobabble/Technobuzz, that will confuse the uninitiated and make the rest of us groan. The first movie avoided most of that by not over explaining concepts and just sort of glossing over just letting the viewer assume there is a technology to make such a thing happen, and letting those in the know imagine how it might be possible.
So far sounds I'm seeing direct to video land, as its best hope.
Hopefully now I can be plesantly surprised, but I doubt it.
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wargames
Hackers
Hackers 2 (yeah they made one, believe it or not)
The Lawnmower Man
The Net
Sneakers (Good movie, but still makes the list)
Johnny Mnemonic
Swordfish
Tron
Anyone see a pattern here?
nooooooooo (Score:2, Insightful)
Broken Premise? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably not an exact synopsis of the plot, but it's close enough to make no nevermind.
Now in the world of Mutually Assured Destruction, which relies on a massive counterstrike against the initiator BEFORE his missiles arrive at their targets, this is at least a plausible scenario - close enough to allow sufficient suspension of disbelief to allow the movie to work. It's true that these command centres were manned 24/7 watching for any sign of an incoming strike, and that the time window between detecting the strike and making the decision to initiate the counterstrike was very small. It's also true that in real life there were a number of "near misses" where technical failures and other issues were initially interpreted as an incoming strike and disaster only narrowly averted.
But we aren't in that game anymore. There is no longer a 20 minute window in which someone has to decide to launch a nuclear counterstrike based on a fairly narrow band of incoming data. No terrorist group - indeed, very few nations - are capable of the "mutual" in "Mutually Assured Destruction".
So a Homeland Security central command centre starts reporting dozens to hundreds of terrorist strikes on US Territory? So what? Response will be in the hands of local Guard units and law enforcement/emergency responders, not a remote C3S cell. The worst that could happen is that troops are mobilized needlessly - and there's time to see if the purported strikes show up on CNN.
The premise only works in a Cold War, MAD environment, not the modern day "ball of snakes" environment.
That doesn't bode well for the success of the movie, methinks.
DG
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:4, Insightful)
By the way, I'm already kicking myself for excluding anime from the list, as most large budget anime movies seem to have this as a universal theme (Take Ghost in the Shell, though the romantic subplot is a little different... the series leads me to believe the Major is a lesbian in love with her repair-woman). Oh well. Didn't have time to make a concise list. That's the curse of Slashdot. You can make a hurried post that will make it to the upper area of the thread, or you can spend your time making a well-thought out post, and see it wallow in obscurity at post #1990999 in the thread.
Re:Broken Premise? (Score:4, Insightful)
The blurb is really confusing "Ripley has been designed to appeal to potential terrorists, and certain glitches have turned made him become paranoid. ", wtf does that mean?
There is a scenario I could think of that could mimic the War Games Scenario, on a somewhat reduced scale, related to the most common domestically feared terrorism attack, hijacked planes. Ripley could decide all passenger jets in the air are hijacked and control automated missile batteries to threaten all flights... Toss in some key characters on flights to bring the viewer more into it. It certainly doesn't speak to the MAD message that was central to War Games, but I doubt the studios have a particularly deep meaning in mind...
I seriously doubt this movie will be remotely good, but there exists potential for some of the fundamentals of the first movie to play out in the terrorist context..
Re: Because the truth 25 years later is depressing (Score:2, Insightful)
For historical quaintness, and my proportionate age at the time, Wargames will always be worth watching every 5 years on my $1 copy. (1981 pricing!)
The truth is that the kid will hack in, find someone using the server to host Things Not Intended For The PG13 movie rating
Re:Could be good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:3, Insightful)
What are "reasonable rights" in holding a name? (Score:5, Insightful)
I also see the idea of not allowing people to put up blatantly copyrighted domain names, and then holding them from the copyright owner (i.e. "cocacola.com" or buying "amazon.biz" and holding it from Amazon.com purely for profit), but something like "apple.com," while a name of a major computer manufacturer, would be perfectly valid had it been bought by a person who used it to sell bushels of apples online, or had apple-picking vacations for sale, etc. Similar to "War Games" - it is a common term. Of course, had wargames.com been squatting the site, that'd be another story.
When the U.N. decided that famous people can sue for their domain name (juliaroberts.com was the case I remember), I assume this does not apply to some 24 year-old girl whose name is Julia Roberts from Ithaca, NY - right? Surely Erin Brockovitch has no-more right to the domain name than the nobody from upstate NY. But they both have a right to it over some squatter of course. But then again, what if someone bought that site and made a legitimate Julia Roberts fan page? Would that be valid?
Computer Intelligence = Oxymoron (Score:4, Insightful)
Now maybe when the computer was a mysterious device that few people used, could you get away with portraying them as dubious, intelligent entities, but is that a believable plot device nowadays? This kind of premise should have been abandoned about the same time movies about high school kids building sentient robots was abandoned.
I suspect, like most late remakes, this will fall flat.
Re:Augh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Rimmerian Nitpick: If it blew chunks, wouldn't it stand to reason that it had plenty that was improvable?
Is it a sequel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, Wargames was pretty good in terms of research and accuracy. The AI philosophy (learn from its mistakes) looks a bit outdated now but was pretty much what researchers were looking at at the time. The voice synthesis on every terminal in the world was a bit daft, and a few bits and pieces were a lttle hokey, but we didn't have the usual computer cliches. There was no "Running Virus" with progress bar. No 72 point lettering. No magic mechanism to break the password. Broderick's character actually had to spend ages rummaging through information just to get past the login. I'll admit that some of this was hokey but it's the least hokey computer movie ever by a long shot.
If they can manage a similar level of realism for Wargames 2, then it would be interesting. Somehow, I doubt they'll do that. I expect to see loads of pointless explosions, a whole bunch of meaningless jargon, and lots of computer nerds totally bamboozled by the genius of some 16 year old kid.
Is it wrong of me to judge the movie so soon?
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course you have to define evil first..
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Augh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
But for those who feel like doing something, just fire an email to MGM tell them you don't like this and then boycott their films and better yet raise the profile of their actions to local media. People in general don't like it when the big guy puts the squeeze on the little guy so leverage that.
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see this as a classic example of good vs. evil.
What you're describing is a conflict between doing what you know to be right ("principled") even though it's very difficult ("impractical") and doing what you know to be wrong ("unprincipled", though really it's just a different set of principles) because it's easier.
And that right there is exactly what the struggle between good and evil is. It happens every day, in our own choices, and in the choices of the people we interact with.
Stories, especially stories that illustrate fundamental principles, are often simpler and clearer than real life. This is usually a good thing; it gives us a chance to look at the fundamental principles, apart from the confusion of the real world.
Fairy tales are true, not because they tell us that dragons really exist, but because they tell us that dragons can really be defeated.
Sure, the dragons don't appear in real life as they do on the Hollywood screen; sometimes, they're just a private idea or temptation of our own. But look at the world around you. Can you honestly tell me that the struggle between good and evil isn't a constant factor in all our affairs?
Re:They had to revise it for the times (Score:3, Insightful)
You were eaten by a grue.
Re:This isn't a film for geeks. (Score:3, Insightful)
The best stories don't answer deep philosophical questions, they raise them.
Re:Brilliant (Score:4, Insightful)
A true geek would use wargames2.mgm.com.
Too bad the concept of subdomainms seems beyond most companies. And registrars and the like actively promote the proliferation of separate .com domains for every purpose, that often after a year or so are neglected and end up as phishing or porn sites, where subdomains cost nothing and last as long as the parent domain.
Re:my proposed slogan for the new film (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that you mention it... I wonder why they don't do that? Studio logos and name always get top billing in any film, obviously they believe that studio/brand awareness is important. What could be better than associating the film with the studio right in the URL? It gives a level of authenticity to the site as well, making it obvious it is the official site.
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me, but so often people I talk to have trouble dealing with sites that don't start with "www".
As one example, I setup a number of years ago an intranet for a small company, that had a "home.theirdomain.com" internal site.
me: "ok, the server address is home.theirdomain.com"
them *typing*: "ok, www dot home dot
me: "you don't need the www"
them: "????"
I don't get it!
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
On a related note my domains are in the
"and my address is foo at bar dot org"
"what ?"
"dot O-R-G"
"Oh. And then dot com ?"
"duh"
A long time ago, ISPs commonly gave a kind of "Internet basics" booklet when people signed up. Now people are supposed to figure it out as they go. Obviously that approach does not work.
Re:my proposed slogan for the new film (Score:4, Insightful)
Liberals under-reacted. Based on what has actually happened, they should have reacted much more. If you think we aren't torturing people, would you mind if I cam over and waterboarded you? Are you really equating Clinton's fuck-ups with Bush's? Not that Clinton did the right thing, but they are orders of magnitude apart. Plus, Clinton admitted he did the wrong thing and apologized, which Bush is incapable of doing. The majority of Democrats were LIED TO BY BUSH! Finally, the last statement reveals the true depths of your ignorance and bigotry. Who attacked us? Shiite or Sunni? Do you even know the difference? What country were they from? Do you even care? Or is it all just evil brown heathens to you?
Does it burn knowing you are in the minority? Does it burn knowing the world does not share in your hate-fest? I certainly hope so, people like you are one of the root causes of suffering in the world. We would all be better off without you. FOAD.