The Return of Global Thermonuclear War
July 18, 2008

A DVD Premiere sequel to the 1983 smash WarGames will be issued on July 29 from MGM/FOX. WarGames: The Dead Code doesn’t star anyone from the original cast, not surprisingly, and features an all-new, state-of-the-computer-art storyline. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have checked out the new 25th Anniversary Edition of WarGames, which proves to still be a lot of fun. Parts of it may be silly, yes, but at various times in the movie, it convincingly put over the idea that the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Not bad for a flick that clocks in at less than two hours.

An hour-plus of newly produced featurettes are included in the package and a good number of cast and crew members are on hand to add their two cents. Included are stars Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and Barry Korbin (What? No Eddie Deezen!?), along with director John Badham, cinematographer William Fraker, visual effects supervisor Michael L.Fink, producer Leonard Goldberg and screenwriters Walter Parkes and Larry Lasker. Native Texan Corbin, who portrayed salty Army General Jack Beringer  proves to be the liveliest interview of the bunch. Commenting on one of his improvised lines of dialogue (and one of the movie’s funniest) “Goddammit, I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good,” Corbin recalls his real-life experience with a spark plug and his cousin, who, er, pissed on it..

“I dared my cousin one time to get up on the fender of a tractor and take a leak on the spark plug while the tractor was running. It knocked him about three rows into the field,” Corbin remembered. “The electric current running up that water current is not pleasant.”

Ouch.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on July 18, 2008 | Comments (0)