dream cast: hypothetical ‘WarGames’ remake

You forgot to cast the computer! ;)

But the problem, as you noted, is that it's hard to place the story in today's settings: most people use computers now so it's not as alien a concept as in 1983. Also, the Cold War paranoia that allowed such a possible 'computer goes amok with our warheads' seem plausible just isn't there any more: are we gonna play Global Thermonuclear War with Pakistan now? Even North Korea can't launch missiles close enough to Alaska to be a plausible threat. And even with all the saber-rattling rhetoric against Russia and China, war with them seems so... foolish now.

We've had other teen-team hacker movies recently anyway... don't see a need to remake 'em.

There just was a Wargames remake, actually, earlier this year. I think it was a direct-to-DVD called "Wargames 2". I haven't seen it yet but the trailers looked bad. It's on Netflix' direct play now so anyone who subscribes can take a look tonight.

Wargames is probably my favorite hacking movie of all time, mostly because it relies on social engineering rather than the popular "hack the Gibson!" style of completely implausible hacking.

The closest to a modern day version of War Games has actually been made in my opinion, actually, and it's called Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. But if I were to dream up a more literal translation of the original film, my dream cast would be:

Lightman: Jake Gyllenhaal
Mack: Michaela Conlin
Falken: Christopher Eccelson
Kittrick: Cliff Curtis
Beringer: Keith David

I struggled with who to play Jennifer Mack, as I swapped back and forth between Jake Gyllenhaal and Kal Penn as who to play Lightman. I settled on Michaela because of her performance on the show 'Bones' where I believe she plays a character similar to what her role would be in this film.

Jake and Kal were contending because I wanted a young looking actor familiar with playing 'goofy intellectual' roles. Eccelson is there because I think he plays a good fringe eccentric well. And Curtis and David were picked because they I think they play good sympathetic characters that are forced to be at-odds with the protagonists at times.

PaulW is right. You forgot to cast the WOPR. The WOPR was almost a character in the first one and should be a character in the remake. I also have a sense that the new WOPR should be female, particularly if Lightman is going to be female.

However, one of the dynamics that existed in the first movie was a father-son dynamic, and it existed on multiple levels: Falken-Joshua, obviously, and Falken-WOPR (the replacement son), but also Falken-Lightman. Does that dynamic work as well if Lightman is female? It would definitely have to change. If Lightman is female, it's a much easier dynamic to create (father-daughter, obviously) if both Joshua and WOPR are also female.

WOPR: Gillian Anderson

Hm, interesting. I've never thought of Sigourney Weaver as having a particularly expressive voice. Her acting is always a lot more about body language.