Short Circuit (1986)

Director: John Badham

Cast: Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton

Have I Seen it Before: The year is 1989. I am on the cusp of joining the ranks of school-aged children. Naturally, I was required to get a full litany of immunizations before being enrolled. Such a requirement is a big part of the reason I’m still alive today, but that’s not even remotely what this review is about. To assuage the fears of an assault from incomprehensible needles, my mother got me two movies I had never seen before on VHS. One was Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), the other was this film. I instantly and equally fell in love with both. Perhaps beggaring all sense, this film is one of those key jewels in my early movie watching crowd.

So, yes. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it probably more than most people on the planet.

Did I Like It: It bears mentioning that even now in the clear vision of adulthood, Johnny 5 (Tim Blaney) is every bit the effective robotic character as either See-Threepio or Artoo-Detoo. Even more so, where Johnny 5 is tasked with being the central star and protagonist of his film, and the other two droids are content to be supporting, largely comic relief characters.

Now the film that surrounds Johnny is where the imbalances become apparent. The first Star Wars film is one of the peak pieces of all pop culture, whereas the adventures of the human characters around this robot are… fine. Guttenberg plays Guttenberg (the story doesn’t really ask him to do anything else), Sheedy admirably marches through a movie that only needs her to squeal things like “You’re killing/paralyzing/huring him!” that should be obvious from the film playing out before us.

And then there is Fisher Stevens. Even now, I find myself laughing at many of the things Stevens (a white actor) does as Ben (a character one assumes to be East Asian, despite claiming to be from Bakersfield), but I have long since stopped feeling good about it. It’s hard to damn so thoroughly a movie of this era so pointedly turning away from anything resembling meaningful representation, but I’m not prepared to grade it on much of a curve either. Such is the way with many of the films from our youth, I suppose.

WarGames (1983)

Director: John Badham

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, John Wood

Have I Seen it Before: Many, many times. Long ago was the time that I dreamed of nothing more than a IMSAI computer rig the likes of which David Lightman (Broderick) wields in this film. One would think that I’d be happy with a far more powerful device that fits in my pocket, but I’m not.

Did I Like It: Without a doubt.

There’s always a hesitation with anything older than, say, five years. One wonders if it will not only age, but age poorly. One might have found Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) pretty funny (although, one would have been ten-years-old at the time), but now it is one of the more pointedly transphobic films ever committed to screen. All of Woody Allen’s movies are out, even the ones he hasn’t made yet. The less said about American Beauty (1999), the better off we all are.

And then there are films that—while not mired in the backward thinking of their day—can not overcome the aesthetic trapping of their age. A film like Forbidden Planet (1956) might be trying to tell us a story of the far-flung 23rd century, but you need to take a look at only a few seconds of the film to guess when it was made and be accurate within a few years. Few films even try for an ageless quality about them, and even fewer succeed.

I’m happy to report that WarGames happily transcends the earlier issue. The characters feel real, even if the situations around them occasionally veer into the farfetched. There’s not an attitude on display that feels mired in the myopia of the age. It even manages to fly in the face of the Reagan-era Star Wars mentality, distrusting the computers that would eventually run every facet of our lives.

Now, as far as aesthetically transcending the time in which it is made, WarGames gleefully clings to the time in which it was made. How could it not? The computers—although capable of doing things just beyond their reach at the time—are filled with the kind of pre-Macintosh clunkiness. One imagines that after the events of this film, Lightman found the first Macintoshes to come off the assembly line to be glossy, annoying toys. I also like to think that he just kept upgrading his IMSAI and still uses it to this day, but then again, I’m a dreamer. If you were unaware of when this film was made before playing it, you’d be able to guess as to it’s origins within a few years margin of error, but that is why it has miraculously stood the test of time. Just try to affect a robotic voice and say “The only way to win is not to play.”

Most people are right on board with that idea. If they’re not, they should be.