Today's episode of The Dan Cave
is brought to you by Hulu's Future Man.
(instrumental rock music)
Now, anyone who's ever played a video game
has wondered if those skills
would transfer to real life.
Mario made us wonder if we could
squeeze ourself through various pipes
to save a princess.
Doom made us wonder if we could
fight off hordes of demons
and send them back to hell.
The Oregon Trail made us look
at any body of water and think,
"Yeah, I can caulk it."
And now, Hulu's new series Future Man
is taking that idea to the next level
with a story about a janitor
with serious gaming skills
who suddenly finds himself
tasked with preventing the extinction of mankind
by a deadly superhuman threat.
It's the latest in a proud tradition
of gamers using their hobby to save the day.
So, in today's episode of The Dan Cave,
we're gonna run down the best times
that gamers saved the world.
That's the Last Starfighter.
It's the exact same plot as the movie.
The Last Starfighter.
It's a tale as old as time.
A kid living in a trailer park
is absolutely aces at an arcade game
called Starfighter, which actually turns out
to be a secret recruitment tool
to fight an actual interstellar war
between the Rylan Star League and the Kodan Empire.
Did you say war?
But of course.
Long before we were hoping
to get our Hogwarts letters,
the Last Starfighter made a generation
of nerds wish that they could put
their video gaming skills to good use
to save the galaxy and, you know,
eventually move to a faraway planet
with a cool new partner.
Now, if you're thinking to yourself,
"Hey, this sounds a lot like
"Ernest Cline's Armada."
Well, (chuckles) you're not alone.
If you're thinking this sounds
way better than Ernest Cline's Armada,
then you are a hundred billion percent correct
'cause that was a huge ripoff.
(screeches)
WarGames.
Shall we play a game?
Oh.
Now, normally, the answer is "Hell yes!"
I mean, sometimes, I will cue for a game
of competitive Overwatch without
even realizing what's at stake,
my precious SR.
Except, in 1983's WarGames, teenage gamer
nerd Matthew Broderick finds himself
playing a very high stakes game
with a US military supercomputer
called Avoid Nuclear War At All Costs!
They're trajectory headings
for multiple impact reentry vehicles.
What does that mean?
I don't know, but it's great.
Now, of course, we ultimately learn
that the only winning move is not to play,
but something tells me we may
get a look at the alternate ending
IRL pretty soon unless somebody
deactivates Twitter's servers.
He's gonna start a war!
Tron.
Going back to watch 1982's Tron
feels a bit wild given what we know
about modern technology now,
but it holds up pretty well.
It's the story of an arcade owner
slash actor who gets sucked into
a digital world where he has to compete
in gladiatorial games and outwit
an evil artificial intelligence.
With light cycle racing and disc fighting,
this set the standard for what we expect
from heroic gamers going forward.
Plus, it stars Jeff Bridges before
he got all that peanut butter
stuck in his mouth, where it has
seemingly been for the last decade.
I mean, seriously, what happened
to him in Iron Man?
"Tony Stark ate that in a cave
"with a bowl of snacks!"
Ender's Game.
Now imagine if, instead of a generation
of kids being raised on Xboxes
to make lewd comments about my mom,
they were playing increasingly difficult
tactical games to eventually defend humanity
from an alien armada.
Such was the mind-bending reveal
behind Ender's Game, a sci-fi story
that made me treat every NPC I encounter
with more dignity, because there might be
a real living, breathing person on the other end.
And sure, the morality of it gets
a little bit muddy, but the best sci-fi
makes us stop and question what's happening
around us, and Ender's Game definitely
made me stop and question why I was stuck
learning about gerunds when I could have been
training in zero gravity tactical combat instead.
(metal clunks) (Ender grunts)
Sword Art Online.
If you die in the game, you die in real life.
Such was the conceit of Sword Art Online,
the 2012 anime series that followed
the story of 10 thousand players
who logged into a VR massively multiplayer
online fantasy RPG, only to find
they could not log out.
In order to save countless lives,
two expert gamers, Kirito and Asuna,
must join forces to beat the game
and uncover the sinister secrets
of the game's twisted creator.
Equal parts David Cronenberg and Ready Player One,
Sword Art Online is incredibly addictive,
and it'll finally validate all those hours
you spent grinding away in World of Warcraft
to get your epic mount, and yes Mom,
it was worth it to get the fancy horse.
Sorry if I missed your "birthday,"
but I had a raid, which might come in handy
if one day, I need to, oh, I don't know,
save the world?!?
And those are the best times gamers
saved the world in TV and movies,
but tell me, which is your favorite?
Let us know in the comments below,
and give me a thumbs up to unlock the good gun.
Now, be sure to like and subscribe,
or else you might miss next week's show
about the story of a group of bespoke-suited
secret agents fighting to prevent
Nicole Kidman from kidnapping kids
and performing weird experiments
on their souls in Kingsman: The Golden Compass.
Until next time, keep on diggin'.
And a special thanks to Hulu's Future Man
for sponsoring today's episode.
From executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
comes a hilarious new sci-fi comedy.
Josh Hutcherson stars as a janitor
whose elite video gaming skills
get him recruited by mysterious visitors
to travel through space and time
in order to prevent the extinction
of mankind as we know it.
All episodes of Future Man are available
to watch right now on Hulu, and remember,
the fate of the universe depends on it.