MovieChat Forums > Spies Like Us (1985) Discussion > Why did they launch?

Why did they launch?

posted 11 years ago by avortac
6 replies | jump to latest

The russians ask them something like "Why would you do such a thing?", and they don't even have an answer for them.

Why not?

Why DID they launch the missile in the first place? If that was their mission, shouldn't they have known that it's a Soviet missile going towards USA and starting third world war (unless intercepted and destroyed by the stupid pulse ray beam satellite defence system)?

I mean, who would actually agree to go along with such a hare-brained mission?

I don't know, it just seems so odd that they did something with some potentially hugely grave consequences, without questioning it all until it was done, without knowing anything about what they were doing. I know, it was the "need-to-know-basis", but even so. You'd think they would still have had SOME idea.

[–] shiftylee 11 years ago

They launched it so the corrupt miltary group could stage a counter attack and start a war.

[–] sirtj228 11 years ago

to test their missile defense system

[–] windquake 11 years ago

As the OP said, they didn't know it was going to cause a launch.

They were just following orders without questioning why. There is a powerful lesson there, as they almost caused World War III just by "following orders".

They probably thought it was going to redirect the missile, or cause a self-destruct, or allow the US to break into the communication network.

I hate IMDB's Signature policy...

[–] Elephantlips 10 years ago

They were patsies.

No offense, but that was the entire point of the movie from beginning to end.

Kind of hard to believe you didn't pick up on any of that.

[–] Kai6869 9 years ago

They launched to test the star wars lazer guidance system. The plan was to launch a nuke and destroy it using the lazer, that would show the Russians we had a defense against nukes. If it failed (which it did) it would start world war 3, and they would be safe in the bunker to be around for the aftermath.

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[–] Lokisgodhi 8 years ago

In tradecraft, information is frequently compartmentalized. It's given out on a 'need to know' basis. Agents in the field are not told more than they need to know so if captured they can't be made to divulge information. You have to trust your superiors.

It also works the other way around. During WW2, agents were purposely given information that was false and sent into occupied Europe. This was done knowing they'd be caught, interrogated and tortured and eventually give up the false information, so as to provide false information to the Nazis that they would believe was true and and make bad moves based on it.