What’s Your Favorite 80’s Geek Movie?

Let me tell you about one of my favorite 80s movies. It’s about two teens who almost trigger a nuclear catastrophe, then have to prevent it. Wait, you say, you know this one. Wargames, right? Nope, I’m thinking of The Manhattan Project, released in 1986.

Movies often come in pairs, didn’t you know? Armageddon and Deep Impact, Antz and a Bug’s Life, Hercules and The Legend of Hercules. Inevitably, one movie would enjoy a greater degree of success than the other. In the nuclear case, Wargames won out, but I enjoyed The Manhattan Project just as much, setting aside some logic loopholes. Actually, since it was a full three years after Wargames, it might be the pair to another favorite, Real Genius. But I digress.

Our hero Paul is a precocious teen genius in science and engineering. He’s not too up on pop culture or current events, as we learn from a very young Cynthia Nixon. When a nuclear weapons lab moves to town, they pilfer some of the good stuff and decide to enter an atomic bomb into the regional science fair. That will make for a story juicy enough to shine a spotlight on government secrets. Unfortunately, the military gets involved, rifles are drawn, and the bomb is put into play as a means of deterrence by mutually assured destruction.

“I never thought I’d say this to anybody, but I got to go get the atomic bomb out of the car.”

– Paul, The Manhattan Project

I love Paul’s effortless ingenuity, even if he is too clever for his own good. He spends most of the film getting into mischief for the sheer joy of it. The adults spend even more of the film underestimating the teens; it’s a major theme. Paul and Jenny (Nixon) are assisted by other science fair geeks, and later by their entire school. To his credit, the nuclear weapons scientist, played by John Lithgow, steps up and puts himself in the line of fire to protect Paul and disarm the bomb.

Though I hadn’t seen it in decades, the story was in my bones. I drew from the well of my experiences when I wrote The Cache, and this tale of earnest and innocent high school students, interested in science and engineering, was part of what I tapped into.

It has been a joy to revisit this influence from my youth that strengthened my STEM interests. I do wish that I was as breezily talented at DIY projects, and had just a bit more disregard for rules and regs.

Oh well, we are who we are.

That’s probably why I made my teens more … regular. No geniuses in the bunch, just keen and curious minds. I am trying hard though to give them more initiative than I ever had at that age.

Young adults are capable of more than us grizzled adults give them credit for.

Check out The Manhattan Project.