Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The film schedule for "Night of the Comet" continues to decrease for the third week, and it is estimated that the box office for the whole week will be less than 3 million.

Surprisingly, the new movie released over the weekend, "The Man with Two Brains" starring comedy star Steve Martin and sexy porn star Kathryn Turner, did very poorly at the box office. From 1,200 theaters, it only received less than 3.5 million box office.

"Psycho 2" was only average in nearly 1,500 theaters, with just over 8 million. A large number of viewers who came to watch the movie because of Hitchcock's reputation don't seem to have a high opinion of the movie. Everyone expects that the box office will not be good next week.

Even Roger Ebert, who often spoke for major studios, had to separate it from Hitchcock's original version at the beginning of the review, using a beginning to lower the audience's expectations before saying good things.

"Those who go to the movie thinking about Hitchcock need to get Hitchcock out of their minds. There is no way this movie can compare to the original."

Ronald laughed out loud when he read this. This guy was always eccentric, but he gave the movie three and a half stars, just shy of the maximum four stars. In the end, I put in a good word for the distributor, Universal Pictures.

Although the two new films had high hopes, due to the power of Star Wars, the box office fell short of expectations. However, the schedule for Ronald's "Night of the Comet" next week is still not optimistic.

Because a new dark horse has grabbed the third position with an opening of less than 800 theaters. With a box office of RMB 6.2 million and an average revenue of RMB 7,300 per theater, it hit the stomachs of many movies with one punch.

In addition to Star Wars, film critics have also begun to discuss this newly released science fiction apocalyptic movie-"war games".

Ronald also wanted to see the quality of the movie. He went to Sherman Oaks Department Store and bought a ticket for the evening show. Then he sat quietly in the pizza shop opposite and observed the movie theater opposite. The situation at the ticket gate.

The most popular one is of course the whole family coming out to watch Star Wars. There are still a lot of people coming to see "Night of the Comet", but gradually as word of mouth grows, there are more and more young women in the audience.

"We meet again." The fat man with glasses was still holding a sign last time, but this time it was changed to "misc.films - War Games". Those same friends of his gathered together one by one.

Ronald put down the Coke cup and walked to the opposite side. The show was about to start. Approaching the group of nerdy students, Ronald heard them discussing the plot of "War Games."

"As you said, if there is a plot related to our bbs, of course we have to watch it. What do you think of it compared to 'Night of the Comet'?"

"I read the movie review, and it may be more realistic than Night of the Comet. I heard that there are many plots related to us playing BBS, and there are also plots about dialing up to the NATO Air Defense Command ARPANET, which is very exciting."

"Really? I don't believe that our modem can still connect to the NATO Air Defense Command? They use ARPANET () and we use User Network (). They are basically two levels."

"I don't think you understand. Don't you know? At the beginning of this year, all network protocols have been unified into the TCP/IP protocol. As long as the phone can be dialed, you can see the login interface."

"What's the use? You can't get in. Are you a hacker? Can you crack their password?"

"hey-hey……"

"Really? You can really crack the code?"

"Actually, as long as you use a dictionary and exhaustively search, you can get a lot of passwords. Many people are careless when setting passwords. I will send you an email when I get back."

Ronald was confused and didn't know what they were talking about. But he heard a few words, user network (), newsgroup (newsgroup), as if they contacted each other through this thing and made an appointment to meet here.

"Go back and ask someone." Ronald felt that these words were a bit familiar inexplicably.

The beginning of the movie is very gripping. In an intercontinental missile silo under the NATO Air Defense Command, several staff members are eating hamburgers and chatting as usual.

Suddenly a sharp alarm sounded, and the red alarm light on the wall began to rotate and glow red. Instructions from superiors came from the confidential phone. The Soviet Union has launched hundreds of intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads towards America and its allies.

Many large cities and military targets were destroyed. These staff members were asked by their superiors to immediately initiate missile launch procedures to counterattack Suville.

Two people who have the authority to press the launch button must turn the key in the opposite direction at the same time to turn on the launch switch, and then enter the launch code transmitted by the confidential line to start the missile in the silo.

When things came to a close, one of them was sweating. He couldn't bear the psychological pressure of pressing the launch button and sending hundreds of thousands of people to hell. He refused the order and asked his superiors to check whether the enemy missile attack was a false alarm.

Suddenly, the alarm stopped. It turned out that this was just a stress test. The NATO Air Defense Command wanted to see how many staff would obey the instructions and launch the intercontinental missile under sudden pressure.

The results of the test were so unsatisfactory that the command finally decided to use the supercomputer wopr (meaning war action plan response) to activate the missile instead of a real person. This computer would decide whether a nuclear bomb should be launched to counterattack the opponent.

"This concept of computers causing the apocalypse is really popular now." Ronald thought of Cameron's "Terminator" and it was the same.

The scene suddenly changed to a high school in Seattle. High school students David and his girlfriend Jennifer were troubled by their teacher in class and both failed.

When David returned home, he used his phone to dial into the school's computer where students' scores were stored. After hacking into the database, he modified his and his girlfriend's scores so that they would not have to take make-up exams during the summer vacation.

David saw discounted computer games written in computer magazines. You can also play online with other people, but you need to dial a phone number provided by the game company. Out of confidence in my hacking skills, I compiled a small program to traverse all the phone numbers under the area code of the address of the game company from scratch, trying to find which number could play games for free.

The game company is in a small town in Colorado. Who knew that the person David dialed turned out to be the supercomputer of the NATO Air Defense Command. It could play many games with people, and the last one was the "Global Thermonuclear War Game."

David started the game, and wopr started to play with himself. Every time he assumed that the Soviet Alliance had upgraded its situation, and also raised the alert level on NATO's side in response, scaring a group of generals and experts in the Air Defense Command. That's enough.

The wopr computer does not understand the difference between games and reality. It successfully made the generals and experts of the NATO Air Defense Command think that the alliance was really preparing to launch a nuclear bomb raid.

David discovered the problem and finally found Falcon, the designer of WoPR Computer. It turned out that Falken was expelled from the NATO Air Defense Command after designing the computer.

They went to the headquarters together to prevent their own country from launching intercontinental ballistic missiles. Only one general in the Air Defense Command recognized their theory.

In the end, the designer wrote a tic-tac-toe flag game on the spot and taught the wopr computer to play it, and every time it was played, it was a draw. The wopr computer discovered that not all games have winners. Finally, the wopr computer cut off the war game and typed a line.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Then the wopr computer cut off the raised alert state and also cut off the intercontinental nuclear missile that had been mounted on the launcher.

Finally he extended an invitation to David, "How about a game of chess?"

The story of the whole movie is very good and the plot is very intense. The best thing is the two young leading actors. The leading actor Matthew Brodick is very handsome and really has a nerdy temperament. The heroine Ellie Sheedy is young and beautiful, looking like an American beauty.

In addition, the new generation of teenagers have more or less access to computers. Those with money at home have played with IBM's personal computers, or Apple's old version of Apple II, while those without money have at least played with Ronald's computer, which was actually a game console.

For a normal teenager, with a phone line and a modem, he can enter the North American Aerospace Defense Command's computer, or hack into the school's computer and modify his own grades. This is a very cool thing.

No wonder those fat students with glasses came to watch this movie together this time.

Ronald felt he had learned a few tricks from this "war game." No matter how impossible it is in reality, the audience must feel that they can do the same thing as the protagonist if they have the same equipment.

When he was waiting for the show to end, he stopped the guy with glasses holding the sign, "Excuse me, I saw what user network and news group you were talking about just now. What does this mean? Is it the same as David in the movie? Communicate with other people who have computers.”

The guy with glasses was jumpy at first. Hearing that Ronald asked about his strengths, he immediately started talking non-stop.

It turns out that this started with Bulletin Board BBS. By adding a modem to a personal computer, you can connect to someone else's home phone line. If that person also has a modem, the two parties can communicate with each other through email.

"Wait, what is email?"

"Why don't you understand anything? Emails are emails that can be sent through a computer."

"Huh? Then you don't need stamps?"

"Of course, but your monthly phone bill will go up."

The guy with glasses started talking again, and many people started to set up a platform to let many people call him, so that everyone can discuss issues through email, and everyone who dialed the phone can see the last dialed number. After the phone call, all new discussions.

However, one node can accommodate too few people. In order to connect with more people, several schools, led by Berkeley University, began to establish a protocol that can synchronize emails in different BBSs with each other, so that you only need to connect to one node. , you can see the responses from all people on the North American continent.

It is divided into eight forums in total, such as .misc on his brand name, which is the "other" forum. In addition, there are also .soc that talks about computers and hot social issues, .talk that discusses various controversial topics, etc.

"All you need is an email address, a phone line, and a modem, and you can join this 'poor man's ARPANET.' You know ARPANET, right? It's the real NATO Air Defense Command and everywhere The network connected to the intercontinental missiles is very fast and advanced, but we can only use the poor version and synchronize discussions only once a day."

Ronald was a little moved by what he said. Wouldn't it be possible to discuss the movie with other people? You can also talk about some topics you don’t know about.

"So, where can I buy such a good thing?"

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