Gaming Film

How Games are Reshaping Contemporary Cinema

Jasmina Kallay

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137262943
• eBook ISBN: 9781137262936
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Gaming Film explores the growing influence of computer games on contemporary cinema. From the type of stories told to their complex structural patterns, from the changing modes of reception to innovative visual aesthetics, computer games are re-shaping the cinematic landscape in exciting directions.

1

Is This a Game or Is This Reality?

The timing of John Badham’s 1983 film WarGames is significant – the early 1980s marked the period when computers entered the home as educational and entertainment fixtures. Up until then, the computer was ensconced in the ‘safety’ of science labs, operated and programmed by specialists, and cinematic examples of highly dangerous computers only appeared within comfortingly removed contexts of spaceships (i.e. Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey). However, with its entry into the home, a new set of fears was ripe for tackling. In Badham’s movie, teen protagonist David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) inadvertently sets off a nuclear attack by logging onto what he thinks is just a simulation computer game named ‘Global Thermonuclear War’. Except that the computer he has hacked into in order to play the game is a military missile-command supercomputer whose acronym WOPR stands for War Operation Plan Response, and the game is not a game, but real. In a sense, this is an inversion of the Don Quixote syndrome, in that David doesn’t mistake his computer world as being real, but instead thinks that what is real is a game, which, judging by the potential fatal consequences in the storyline, is just as bad.

The military plot detail in the film, however, reveals another layer in relation to computers. The opening shots of WarGames are of the US military complex, where dozens of small and big computerised screens are prominently in view, their controls directly hooked to the nuclear missiles. In the 1980s the nuclear threat of the Cold War was still a worrying reality, but more worrisome than the prospect of a nuclear attack for the military is the reluctance of its various officers to react to the command to launch the nuclear missiles. This prompts very early on in the story a debate between the scientist McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) and General Beringer (Barry Corbin) on the merit of taking humans out of the command loop and letting the computer activate the missiles instead. And even though the general has been shown the merits of WOPR (pronounced ‘whopper’), which has apparently already ‘fought’ World War Three many times over as a simulation game, the military commander does not trust the computer and does not want to entrust it with such an important action.

While the distrust of replacing humans with computers repeats a familiar trope, the fact that it is the army general who is sceptical is paradoxical given the genesis of the computer as a primarily military tool, with governmental purpose roots. From their very inception, the computer and digital media in general have comprised the double helix of the arts and sciences. More precisely, this pairing of the arts and sciences can be traced back to the ‘iron triangle’ (also called the ‘military-industrial complex’ by Eisenhower), which was a think-tank, funded in 1940 by F. D. Roosevelt to set up a collaborative research network between the military, the scientists and academic researchers. This was an unprecedented coming together of these three areas, and although the move was war-motivated (to develop a new generation of weaponry), this collaborative platform formed the springboard for new media. It was while employed to serve the military that the first computer programmers (i.e. Vannevar Bush1 and Doug Engelbart) began to work on content that formed the basis for today’s PCs as well as the World Wide Web. To make a crude leap, if it weren’t for the US government’s fear of the ever lurking possible enemies, we might not have Grand Theft Auto (1997) and the likes. The double paradox is that out of the fear of one unknown entity (foreign enemy/nuclear bomb), the cause of another, albeit lesser, fear was borne – that of the ‘mindless’ videogames.

Following the military complex set up in WarGames, we are introduced to David playing an arcade game, which causes him to be late to school, signalling his (skewed) priorities. The film’s opening, in terms of the main characters and the age groups, is also indicative of a new clash: the playful (or ludic) youth, computer savvy and not intimidated by technology, versus the adults who equal the Establishment and find computers disturbing. This reflects the growing disparity between the youths’ dexterity with technology and the grown-ups’ clumsy, out-of-step, removed relationship to that same technology. David’s disregard for authority is further evidenced by his flippant reaction to getting an ‘F’ in Biology. His friend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) has also failed the Biology paper, and David sees an opportunity to impress her: he takes her back to his house, where he hacks into the school’s database and changes both their grades. Jennifer is at first appalled at such cheating, although she later comes round to the idea. While this is preparing the ground for David as the feckless teen who doesn’t take anything seriously, there is also a likeable, playful spirit to his hacking. Furthermore, the initial password that allows him access to the school database had been left carelessly by the adults in the administration office, and the word itself that serves as the password of the day – ‘pencil’ – is a tongue-in-cheek poke at the adults’ antiquated points of reference.

The way the game is accessed is not straightforward. The first clue to the game’s existence is a magazine ad that draws David’s attention. It prompts him to try and hack into a computer that is close to the gaming company, in the hope of accessing their games’ database for free. This first level of hacking already demonstrates the kind of problem-solving skills that gamers possess. Once he is in the database, he realises, based on the military terms used in many of the games, that these are military simulation games. His reaction (‘Oh my God’) indicates that he realises the seriousness of hacking into such an official system, yet he still wants in (probably more so than if it were just a commercial gaming company) because it has now become an act of daring. Two of his geek friends tell him to find a password – the so-called ‘back door’ which programmers leave for themselves to retain access to whatever program they have created after it passes into the customer’s hands. This triggers another bout of puzzle-solving as David researches the computer scientist behind the games – a Dr Falken – and tries to figure out which word he would have picked as his password.

The password turns out to be ‘Joshua’, after Falken’s tragically deceased young son, which accentuates the point that no matter how computerised we get, the personal, human trace is still imprinted on the computer code. When David accesses the computer, or Joshua as he is called (anthropomorphising him in a similar fashion to HAL), they interact as though the computer were a sentient being. Joshua responds to all of David’s questions with a mix of intelligence and cryptic humour, evoking ELIZA. Created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s, ELIZA was a computer program simulating a conversation with supposed therapist ELIZA, a chatterbot (or chatbot) modelled on a Rogerian psychotherapist. The ease with which people believed they were conversing with a bona fide flesh-and-blood psychotherapist had even shocked Weizenbaum, whose intention was to prove the very opposite: the limitation of a computer compared to humans. It reveals the essence behind AI-generated interactivity: the human interactor’s conversing with the computer can never be ‘real’.2 It is simply a matter of how sophisticated the AI program is in simulation of a convincing exchange (not just verbal). The genius behind ELIZA was that it could pass for human/intelligent simply by repeating the person’s statement back at them as a question, in the manner adopted by therapists; but Joshua’s level of interaction supersedes ELIZA’s by demonstrating bona fide responses to questions.

After a few rounds of playful exchanges with Joshua, David chooses the game with the most bombastic title – Global Nucleothermal War – and chooses to play on the Soviet side (there are only two options for players: the US and the Soviet Union) before picking places he wants ‘to nuke’. His gaming has an immediate effect – the military centre goes on red alert, thinking it is under attack. David stops the session, but what he doesn’t realise is that Joshua can’t be simply ‘switched off’. The computer automatically calls David’s telephone link back, in order to complete the game. And when the disturbance David has caused reaches the news, and he sees it, he realises what is going on. When he goes back to Joshua, in an effort to stop it from reaching its goal (to win), and asks it whether this is real or a game, Joshua, with its signature humour, answers by asking its own question: What is the difference?

While David’s question is one we encounter in almost every film about gaming, problematizing the gamer’s ability (or lack thereof) to tell the two apart, it is Joshua’s question that holds the key to one of the biggest paradigm shifts of the digital age: the application of the ludic spirit to everyday situations. It also points to the blurring of the line between the virtual and the real as we conduct an ever increasing number of ‘real’ tasks with the aid of the virtual, more of which will be discussed later on.

In the last act of the film, as Joshua is set to launch missiles against Soviet Russia, even Falken, its creator, cannot control the computer anymore, bringing us back to the initial note of suspicion and fear sounded by General Beringer – computers are not to be entrusted with such vital actions. But unless someone can outsmart Joshua and stop the launch of nuclear missiles, World War Three really will start. In a race against time, David is allowed onto the computer controls. He realises that it’s through gaming logic that he can access Joshua and put a stop to the program. By getting it to play a different game, tic-tac-toe, he intends for Joshua to ‘learn’ from the futility of that game (as in the inability to win), which proves to be the right move. By realising it is pointless to play the game, Joshua ends the Global Thermonuclear War simulation with the stunned conclusion that ‘the only winning move is not to play’. Joshua ends with a proposal to David: ‘How about a nice game of chess?’ The political message of these two comments cannot be denied: the point of not playing is a direct and none-too-subtle criticism of the nuclear threats made by both sides in the Cold War, and the chess suggestion is an irreverent dig at the game of chess one-upmanship in which the Americans and the Soviets are engaged. Therefore, these lines cannot be interpreted as an anti-game stance per se.

While on the surface the pro-human side appears to win over in this climactic ending, in that it is human intervention that saves the day over an out-of-control computer, it is not quite as simplistic as that, for the human who saved the day is the teen hacker David. It is David’s love of computers and knowledge of them (as well as his knowledge of game logic) that is actually the key to him being able to reign Joshua in; so, in a way, the ending could be perceived as being ambiguous. The initial message – If you play computer games you could cause another Hiroshima (only it’s not going to be in Japan this time, but in your own back yard) – is no longer in the foreground. On the one hand, the preexisting order has been maintained and the establishment is once again in control, plus the computer has been vilified as not on a par with humans. On the other hand, Joshua’s gaming skills are celebrated, too, and by making him the agent of rescue his skills are valued, even if not overtly, which makes the film far more subversive than it appears to be.

It is therefore little wonder then that WarGames is hailed among the Silicon Valley computer whizzes of today as one of the inspirational films of their childhoods/youth. In a Wired special article in honour of the 25th anniversary of the film, its influence on the hacker community is emphasised. This was the beginning of hacker culture and when the first hacker convention was convened in 1993, it took the name ‘Defcon’, after the ‘defence condition’ term used in WarGames. The Wired article points out, however, that this film should not be considered as solely a celebration of the hacker as hero, since it also ‘introduced the world to the peril posed by hackers’ (2008).

Released a year before WarGames, Tron features a different type of hacker, and a different side of the iron triangle behind computer development: the industrial angle. Not only were personal computers clearly going to be big business, but games for the PC were perceived as a significant business opportunity, too, as reflected in the opening act of Tron, in which we find out that director Dillinger (David Warner) has ousted maverick programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from ENCOM, a software company, and has furthermore taken ownership of a popular game that Flynn had created. Flynn now owns a gaming arcade, his income paradoxically derived from the end usage of the game rather than from the top, creative end. However, he is intent on proving Dillinger’s theft and he keeps hacking into ENCOM’s system in the hope of finding the incriminating data. Although this classifies him as a hacker, he is not really a hacker in the same category as David Lightman. Flynn is first and foremost a computer programmer, so he is continuing to do what he used to do for a living, only now he is forced to do it illegally in order to right the injustice dealt to him by Dillinger. The generational attitude to gaming, though, is apparent in the dialogue right from the outset. Flynn’s two colleagues Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Lora (Cindy Morgan), also programmers, are dismissive of Flynn’s gaming credits, and poke fun at his latest profession as arcade owner, likening his behaviour to the 14-year olds he hangs out with. And correspondingly, Flynn’s body language is much more playful and youthful compared to Alan’s and Lora’s, even though they are all three of the same age.

The big turning plot in the film is Flynn’s attempt to log into the system at a computer station in ENCOM itself. As he logs in, the Master Control Program (MCP) attacks him by laser, transporting him into the computer mainframe where he finds himself arrested and kept imprisoned alongside various other programs, called ‘conscripts’.3 This aggressive transportation is a literal interpretation of being ‘sucked in’ by something, such as an addictive pastime, as gaming is frequently branded, and gives a new meaning to immersive activity. Inside the mainframe, Flynn is now known as Clu, and looks slightly different, wearing a different outfit, in what is an uncannily prescient depiction of a game avatar, when at the time of the film’s making, the games of the era were in the league of Pong, with extremely simplistic graphics. Flynn’s appearance is now similar to that of the other conscripts – he wears a tight, body-fitting lycra all-in-one suit, but the interesting detail is the gladiatorial type of headwear as well as the gladiatorial touches in the design of the suits. The clothes signal what is to come – gladiatorial style games between the programs, governed by the same ‘survival of the fittest’ mantra. The games involve the throwing of a discus (with laser-like properties), and the loser is deleted into oblivion. So from painting games as a harmless if infantile pastime within the context of Flynn’s arcade, we get a very dark vision of gaming as a live or die environment. Just like with WarGames, this brings up a complex set of arguments. On the one hand, there is a message that gaming is serious (as in business), but on the other hand, the label ‘serious’ is simultaneously branded as dangerous and life-threatening. So whereas in WarGames the gaming spirit is almost responsible for a nuclear disaster, ending the planet, here the ludic impulse is a threat to Flynn’s life. Although the film’s opening also intimates that the MCP (which has been anthropomorphised to appear able to conduct conversations with Dillinger) plans to take over the Pentagon and Kremlin, and rule the world, this aspect of the story doesn’t get emphasised. The focus remains on Flynn and his survival.

Ultimately, though, Tron does not really problematize gaming, whether in the Ancient Rome context or that of the computerized variety, nor does it explore the notion of hacking. At the root of the story lies the deeper fear of computer technology as representing the possible threat of replacing humans (as discussed in the Introduction). The MCP’s speed of advancement is underlined at the start, when the AI-powered computer explains to Dillinger that it will keep on learning and very soon will outsmart the entire human race, leaving it no other option but to take over the world. The human reaction to such development is expressed by Dr Gibbs (Barnard Hughes), who claims that no matter how hard Dillinger may try to get rid of those who helped build the systems, their spirit will remain there. And so the anthropomorphised programs/conscripts become a physical manifestation of their creators’ spirits, especially apparent in the case of Tron (Alan’s security program), who shows heroism and can ‘think’ for himself. At an immediate level, this characterisation choice reflects the need for comforting storylines in which unfeeling automatons will not end up destroying humanity and taking over. And yet, at a deeper level this blend of computer and human elements found in the these ‘pre-avatars’ points to the possibility of a much more evolved relationship with technology, the seed of which no doubt inspired the presence of ‘isomorphic algorithms’ (ISOs) in Tron: Legacy, the film’s sequel, which will be elaborated upon at the end of this chapter.

The gaming geek as hero

Apart from its gaming-centred storyline and its impact on future generations of hackers and programmers, the impact WarGames had on the figure of the protagonist is just as significant, marking a change that has been slowly taking place ever since. For David Lightman is cinema’s first gaming geek hero. The term geek itself has had an evolution of its own, initially referring to a circus freak (who, according to some very detail-specific dictionary entries, bit off chicken heads), then becoming more generic, meaning a foolish, inept, clumsy person, and finally, indicating someone who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is socially and emotionally inept. It is this clever and obsessive but socially awkward persona that has become the formulaic depiction of film and TV geeks, traditionally relegated to a smaller part (i.e. the person who can solve a technology-related problem for the hero) such as the hero’s sidekick. WarGames ushered in a new spot for the overlooked and dismissed geek, and while it still chose the boyishly charming Matthew Broderick for David (whereas the two geek friends who help him out conform to the stereotype geek look), it signalled the change to come.

Some 12 years after WarGames, Hackers (1995) picked up the mantle of the hacker hero, with significant new developments. While David Lightman was neither socially inept nor ostracised for his computer knowledge, he would most certainly not have been considered hip, whereas his sidekick and love interest Jennifer can best be described as a nice, regular girl next door. In Hackers, the protagonist Dade (Johnny Lee Miller) is also a high-school teenager who has just moved from Seattle (homeplace of Lightman) to New York. He befriends a group of fellow hackers and falls for Kate (Angelina Jolie), a hacker supreme, which is a noteworthy improvement on the female character and love interest. The hacker g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• 1 Is This a Game or Is This Reality?
• 2 Narrative Architecture: Databases, Labyrinths and Stories that Won’t End
• 3 New Spatial/Visual Configurations
• 4 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis
• 5 Escapism versus Involvement
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• TV-ography
• Ludography
• Machinima Reference
• Index