I think these will be fun and hopefully bring back some memories. For the debut issue I am going to go with the trailer for the 1983 film WarGames which starred Matthew Broderick (3 years before Ferris Bueller) and Ally Sheedy (2 years before St. Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club).

Broderick's character nearly causes and then narrowly averts World War III. Here is the original trailer for WarGames...

WarGames was actually nominated for 3 Oscars including Original Screenplay, Sound and Cinematography. An interesting bit of trivia is that the NORAD set used in the film, at a cost of $1 million, was the most expensive single movie set built up to that time. More trivia:
• The tunnel and exterior used for the entrance into NORAD (Griffith Park) is the same tunnel used in the climax of Back to the Future Part II.
• The writers' main inspiration for the character of "Professor Stephen Falken" was Cambridge Professor Stephen Hawking. The part of "Prof. Falken" was originally written with the idea of John Lennon playing the part.

In past issues of Kickin' it, I covered the subject of the incredible number of remakes in the works for 80s movies. The number of 80s movie remakes that Hollywood has planned continues to grow beyond those I have even mentioned in past issues. I recently read an article that Leonardo DiCaprio is possibly looking to remake WarGames. Here is an excerpt from the article found at PasteMagazine.com:

Leonardo DiCaprio to reboot WarGames?
By Matt Goodlett on February 19, 2009

1983 is also known for bringing about Matthew Broderick's career with WarGames, a film about an innocent, young computer hacker (Broderick) who plays with the computer in charge of America's nuclear arsenal and inadvertently starts the countdown to World War III. This is all resolved with a friendly game of tic-tac-toe, an infinite number of computed stalemates, and the message that you can't hug your children with nuclear arms. Now its rumored that Leonardo Dicapprio wants to remake the sci-fi flick.

In the summer of 2008, MGM released a straight-to-DVD "sequel" entitled War Games: The Dead Code that had more action than the original, but also practically had "straight to DVD" scrawled on the cover.

At this point, it's still just a rumor that DiCaprio will reboot the movie, though other 25th anniversary reboots have been successful at the box office this year. DiCaprio's busy current production schedule would make it seem unlikely that the star will have any time for tic-tac-toe himself, though he may produce it via his production company Appian Way.

I read this quote in another article found on The Playlist blog:

The remake will likely offer a chance to show off the improvements in special effects Hollywood has made over the past twenty-five years, as the greatest technical achievement in the original were those Atari-like ping-pong effects.

That the special effects will be more advanced goes without saying, but to me there is absolutely no reason to remake this movie. Please Leo and, even more, please Hollywood... stop trying to remake our 80s movies! How about a little more originality?

That will do it for this issue of Kickin' it Old School. Hope you enjoyed my first "Preview Review" issue. Thanks as always for reading. If you are interested in reading any of my other 80s related issues, please click there for a summary of those. You can also always click on the Archives in the upper left hand column or use the Google Search Box at the top of the right hand column to find any other issues you may have missed. If you are a fan of Kickin' it, PLEASE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK LOGO in the upper right hand column. This will take you to the new Fan Page where I ask you to then click on "Become a Fan". Even if you are not a Facebook member yet, please consider joining and registering as a fan at that page. Let other 80s fans know about it as well! Peace and much love.

Check this out: Video games are a key contributor to the movie WarGames. The video game Super Mario Bros. ranks highly on my popular Top Classic Arcade Games list as well as my Top Nintendo NES Games list. I came across a video on gametrailers.com that shows what Super Mario Bros. would have looked like if it would have come out for the old Atari 2600. Thought it was interesting and worth sharing, so here you go...

Quote of the day: "The only winning move is not to play." -In reference to war by the super computer "WOPR" after it learns the concept of futility in the movie WarGames (written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter Parkes)