Tag Archives: video games

The Brother from Another Planet (1984) | John Sayles

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A mute extraterrestrial resembling a black man (but with feet that have three toes) crash lands his spaceship near New York City. Not understanding where he is or what people are saying, he finds his way to Harlem’s 125th Street. Although derided as either crazy or homeless, others discover his worth when he can heal broken electronics and human injuries with a single touch. A concerned social worker helps him get a job as a repairman. Hobnobbing with patrons at a local bar, the Brother finds a dangerous world outside of junkies, thieves, and thugs. Bounty hunters from his homeworld are after him. After discovering a boy’s heroin overdose, he uncovers a Wall Street drug ring. Joe Morton stars in this John Sayles film.

TRON (1982) | Steven Lisberger

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Disney’s first big foray into the realm of computer animation would prove to be a box office disappoiuntmen in 1982, but garner a legion of fans over the years for its revolutionary design work and the influence it still continue to have in science fiction today.  Jeff Bridges stars as Kevin Flynn, video game programmer, who is ripped off of several ideas by an unscrupulous power hungry man named Ed Dillinger. Dillinger soon starts a meteoric rise to the top of a powerful global corporation, Encom, while the computer that runs it has become so powerful that it is a life-force unto itself, thinking and talking (not to mention plotting world domination). Flynn tries to hack into the computer to get evidence of Dillinger’s theft, when the Master Control Program sucks Flynn into its own cyber-world, dubbed “the grid”,  where programs in the voice and form of the programmers that created them are mere toys by which Master Control Program uses for its own enjoyment. Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and David Warner also star in this film by Steven Lisberger.

Cloak & Dagger (1984) | Richard Franklin

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Henry Thomas plays Davey, a young San Antonio boy with a vivid imagination and a love o fantasy games.  The lines between fantasy and reality blur when he ends up in possession of a video game cartridge that is the conduit for top secret information wanted by some pretty bad hombres who will kill to get it.  With the help of his imaginary friend, the daring man of adventure named Jack Flack, Davey must find a way to survive before more people end up dead — including him!  Richard Franklin directs from a Tom Holland script.

WarGames (1983) | John Badham

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Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy star in this major hit from 1983, one of the first films to break through into the world of hacking and the burgeoning internet, WarGames.  Directed by John Badham, this tells the tale of a teenager who hacks into a database he thinks will allow him to play a not-yet-released video game only to discover he’s in a machine used by the military to launch nuclear missiles in a time of crisis. The computer has games of its own, one called “Global Thermonuclear War”, but the teenager soon discovers that the game may not be a game after all, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, as the military brass must decide to counterattack what might be a simulation.