It wouldn't let anyone play any other games, why did it allow tic-tac-toe? That's always bugged me. It locked out for chess, poker, and global thermonuclear war but not tic-tac-toe.
Any ideas?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
If I recall correctly, they mention that "it's not up there" with the other games, so for some reason, I guess it was a special exception.
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In your heart, you know he's right...
It was Joshuas favourite game.
shareMy guess is that the WOPR system at NORAD had different access protocols with the computers at the installation than the way David accessed it. When they bring up "Games" at Norad, it doesn't list TTT and never would. It's basically a hidden file to those computers there. But accessing WOPR through a phone line routes the connection through a different series of buffers and programs that allows TTT to be listed.
Falken understands that it is still in there but not visibly listed so access is still available. WOPR doesn't see TTT as part of its "games" programs nor a defense-applicable program so commanding it to play TTT is no different than commanding it to 'list games'.
Sure, it's deux ex machina. What teenage-based thriller isn't?
My "#3" key is broken so I'm putting one here so i can cut & paste with it.
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Plus it ties in with the TTT theme of the movie aka the war you can't win. And since we had already seen TTT mentioned two times earlier in the movie, finishing the movie with it brought everything full circle.
shareFull circle, or full X? Just kidding.
shareGood thing WOPR didn't accept "Chess" as a games option, because if it had:
1) It probably would have taken longer to play one game than Joshua needed to find the launch codes;
2) Unless somebody in the NORAD control room was a chess master, or Joshua's chess abilities really bad, there certainly would have been a winner pretty quickly and the "lesson of futility" would never have been learned.
In order for Falken's whole theory to work, he had to select a game like TTT in which there usually cannot be a winner unless one side makes a catastrophic error.
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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.