Terminal Entry

Infobox Film
name = Terminal Entry

---

caption =
director = John Kincade
producer = Sharyon Reis Cobe
writer = Mark Sobel
starring = Patrick Labyorteaux
Edward Albert
Kabir Bedi
music = Gene Hobson
cinematography = James L. Carter
editing = Dean Goodhill
distributor = Celebrity Home Entertainment
released = 1986 (USA)
runtime = 98 min.
rating = R
country = USA
awards =
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0092069

"Terminal Entry" is a 1986 science fiction film written by Mark Sobel, and directed by John Kincade. The film starred Patrick Labyorteaux as Bob a curious, Twinkie addicted, computer gamer. With his classmates played by; Yvette Nipar as Tina, Rob Stone as Tom "T Zone", Heidi Helmer as Chris, Sam Temeles as Howie "The Animal" Sherlock, and Jill Terashita as Gwen. The Terrorist network commander is played by Kabir Bedi, Kavi Raz as Mahadi, and Mazhar Khan as Abdul. Playing as the elite strike force leader Captain Danny Jackson Edward Albert lead by Paul L. Smith as General Stewart, and Yaphet Kotto Colonel Styles. Captain Jacksons love interest is played by Tracy Brooks Swope as Dominique.

Taglines:
* This weekend they're programmed to party. But, the game they're playing is programmed to kill.
* "Terminal Entry" picks up where "WarGames" left off.

Plot

The United States is attacked by a large group of well organized terrorists who communicate through a computer network via satellite. Captain Dan Jackson, a strike force commander for an elite Army unit tasked out to hunt down these terrorist finds himself playing a cat and mouse game in the desert close to the border between the U.S. and Mexico. On the outset of the film, he and his team take out a fire-team sized element of terrorists, one of the terrorists Hassan (Michael Saad) tried to swallow a password before he died.

Bob, a student who enjoys playing online games on Bulletin board systems with his friends Tom, Howie and Chris, fantasizes about being in one of his interactive adventures called "Leather & Lace" on the "Outlaw BBS". During this scene, he and Lady Electric (played by Barbara Edwards Playboy playmate of the year 1984) are chased by a masked, chainsaw wielding, killer. Lady Electric and Bob move to another room briefly where Lady Electric shares with Bob her measurements. After being chased down another corridor and into an elevator where they both fall to their deaths Bob snaps out of his daydream at the last second. When he comes to, he finds his friends have lost the game in the same fashion. Later, when selecting another game to play on the "Outlaw BBS", they chose one called "Terminal Entry", however, this one is password protected. Thinking that the game was set up by members at MIT, Tom decides that he will crack the password and play it during a vacation planned up in the mountains for the weekend.

Colonel Styles and Captain Jackson inform General Stewart of the terrorist situation and request more men to help protect the border over a video conference. But the general is not convinced, so he decides to fly out and take command personally. The terrorist network commander watches a news cast on the television where General Stewart being interviewed by Dominique, the reporter who is also the love interest of Captain Jackson, and decides to place a hit on the general. But the plan was circumvented by Captain Jackson while escorting the general to his hotel.

Back at the dorm room, thinking they have been beaten again, the Cal Tech students just about give up on their game "Dr. Fly", when Gwen, a friend of Chris who was invited to the weekend retreat, beats the game with a single command. Meanwhile, the terrorist commander is reminded by his leader over another video conference the stakes of their operation and is given an initiation time frame for their coordinated attack. The Army unit makes progress in finding the communication network for the terrorist by locating the bulletin board system after searching through known listings. When they find the terrorist network they pose as Hassan, the terrorist they killed earlier, but Dan Jackson was distraught about being given the order to have his girlfriend Dominique assassinated.

During the weekend getaway, the teenage "hackers" fail to gain access to "Terminal Entry" through brute force password cracking, however when Bob drops one of his Twinkies on the keyboard, he enters the numbers "5.9.125.35 1/5.25.35" which was the same numbers as the measurements Lady Electric from the beginning of the movie had said to him. Upon gaining access, the group find a complex computer program which they think is a game.

The Army anti-terrorism unit tracks down the position of the terrorist command post, and initiate an assault on the location which is a warehouse in the middle of the desert. Before the commander escapes, he assigns the six students to take over command. When the students start playing the game, the commands they issue in play erupt in real life bombings, assassinations, and acts of terrorism. Some of which include a Russian peace delegate, an oil refinery in Los Angeles, airplanes flying in from Lisbon, and themselves.

Bob, not knowing the full impact of their influence, put the six of them on the hit list. Operator 23 was already dispatched before they could countermand the assignment. Coincidentally their car wouldn't start, so Bob leads the group back into the house to arm themselves. When night fell, a large group of terrorists descended upon the house. However, the anti-terrorist unit was one step ahead of the terrorists, and rescued the kids from their impending doom, then proceeded to eradicate the terrorist threat. During the fighting, Bob coaxed by his imagination, the voice in his head of Lady Electric, told him to go back inside to put his initials into the computer as the winner. At the end, even with the terrorists defeated, and the kids safe, Captain Jackson and Colonel Styles know the war is not over.

Analysis

Terminal Entry was written as a cautionary tale about the dangers of communication technology being used by terrorist groups. A decentralized system of computer networks would make it easy for terrorist cells to communicate, while making it very difficult for authorities to track them down. Several displays of technology that where not available during the period the film was made where also shown. Some examples include, speech recognition, speech synthesis, video conferencing via computer.

Trivia

* The U.S. VHS copy of this movie was distributed with three previews of other Celebrity Home Entertainment Videos; "Dixie Lanes", "Day of the Panther", and "Unmasking the Idol".
* Barbara Edwards, who plays Lady Electric according to Playboy had measurements of 5.5.105.35.23.34. While in Bob's dream, she had stated 5.9.125.35 1/2.25.35.

Quotes

Characters

* "Bob you've gotta get us out of this and I'm all yours, 5.9.125.35 1/2.25.35."
* "Wait, wait a second, what risk, I mean, that guy was KGB all the way."
* "Think about it, if we can do this, we can beat Tom, we can beat Chris, we can beat Howie, we can beat Gwen, we can beat'em all. And then from there, we take to the cities, we take to the country, and before you know it we rule the world, Bob, Tina, and Bob's world. It'll be fantastic."
* "I don't care if they're running off of NORAD's mainframe, by the time our killer weekend rolls around, we'll be online to hack out Terminal Entry."

Computer Screens

****************************************** * THIS IS THE OUTLAW! * * * * COMPU-TA-VENTURE INTERACTIVE * * SERVICE * * * ****************************************** NOW ONLINE.... WELCOME TO THE HOLE-IN-THE-WALL BOYS. THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF AVAILABLE ADVENTURES, STOLEN, COPIED AND PROVIDED TO YOU IN THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA... FREE. --------------LIST GAMES------------------ GARGALOYD - NIGHTMARE MONSTERS INVADE YOUR DREAMS! THE SPANISH INQUISITION - BOIL THE MAD MONKS LEATHER & LACE - ESCAPE INTO EROTIC FANTASY RED ASPHALT, BLUE HIGHWAY - BRING YOUR OWN DRUGS BLOOD ON THE ROOFTOPS - YOU'RE THE NEXT VICTIM! TERMINAL ENTRY - YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE? DR. FLY - MYSTERIES IN THE LABORATORY

ee also

* Door Games
* The Manhattan Project, and WarGames, two other movies from the 1980's which covered similar topics dealing with the dangers of technology.

External links

*imdb title|id=0092069 |title=Terminal Entry