Sci-fi Cinema: Rollerball (1975)
Taking One for the Team
Welcome to my newsletter. This one’s a movie review. I hope you like it. If you do, considering sharing it with some friends.
Good science fiction is about the real world.
That doesn't mean it can't be set on an alien planet, in an alternate history, or in an imagined future. It means that science fiction is about us. Good sci-fi stories are stories about people, culture, and society. Otherwise, it's not good science fiction. It's a story with bug-eyed monsters and gadgets.
The late 1960's - early 1970s had a great run of sci-fi films: Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, Silent Running, Westworld, Omega Man. Rollerball, Logan's Run, and more. These movies had varying production values, a wide spectrum of acting skill, and often clunky and uneven scripts, but they all had something to make you think.
This article is the first in a sporadic series about those films. It's an update and expansion of a review of Rollerball (affiliate link) that I wrote for my old blog, which is now a home for my technology writing.
Rollerball's World
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses. —Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
Rollerball is set in a future (2018—43 years after the movie was released) where corporations have replaced governments. These companies distract and entertain the populace with lurid television and pacify them with mind-numbing drugs. It's a world run by a secretive corporate cabal that control everything through pacification and deception.
Can't happen here, eh?
The primary means of distraction and entertainment is Rollerball, a sport that's a combination of American football and roller derby, but with motorcycles and steel balls fired from a cannon. The game is brutal, and the fact that it becomes lethal as the movie progresses is literally part of the story.
But the spectators are more terrifying than the game. Rollerball's 2018 is a vicious, brutal time, where people cheer when players are injured, and get high on legalized drugs at parties so they can use missile-firing guns to burn down trees.
But this future is eerily sanitary, too. Rollerball's offices and homes are spotless, often decorated in white-on-white, with bare walls and plastic, utilitarian furniture. In every room the television is the center of attention. There's no need for color, let alone art.
No one (that we see, at least) wants for anything. They're dressed nicely and move quietly through sedate lives, filled with televisions and mood-enhancing drugs—until they have a chance let off steam at Rollerball games and parties.
I'll let Mr. Bartholomew, who runs the Energy Corporation in Houston, explain 2018 as he speaks to Jonathan E., the most famous Rollerball player in the world.
"Jonathan, let's think this through together. You know how the game serves us. It has a definite social purpose. Nations are bankrupt, gone. None of that tribal warfare anymore. Even the corporate wars are a thing of the past."
"So now we have the majors and their executives. Transport, food, communication, housing, luxury, energy. A few of us making decisions on a global basis for the common good. The team is a unit. It plays with certain rhythms. So does an executive team, Jonathan. Now everyone has all the comforts, you know that. No poverty, no sickness. No needs and many luxuries, which you enjoy just as if you were in the executive class. Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it has ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions."
We're safely ensconced in Johnathan E.'s view of the world, so we don't see any poverty or sickness. Does that mean Bartholomew is telling the truth? Probably not, unless the "corporate wars" took out a big chunk of the population, there must be poverty and sickness somewhere.
But how would anyone know? The corporations control television, which appears to be the only form of media.
A few people (we briefly see the corporate overlords and they're not all white men!) making decisions for the global good, claiming to work for common good, and insisting on "team work," sounds a lot like federal single-party socialist republic. After all, "Corporate society takes care of everything."
The powers that be want Jonathan to retire; he's grown too big for the game. Rollerball's world can't have heroes, even if that hero is just a guy that hits hard and can take a punch.
The game about the importance of teamwork and the futility of individuality, and Jonathan E.'s success is ruining that message.
A few years ago, one of Energy Corporations' executives decided he wanted Jonathan's wife, and that was that. Billionaires (well, probably millionaires when this was written) get what they want. Jonathan went along, but he's never gotten over losing her. So, as he's repeatedly urged to retire, he starts to question the system. After all, losing the love of his life left him with nothing but the game, why should he give that up, too?
I'm not going to spoil the plot any further. The movie is worth a watch, and the story doesn't necessarily go where you expect.
What's It All About?
It's fun to watch old sci-fi and see what it gets wrong. Only Star Trek: The Next Generation and its brethren seemed to see touch screens coming. The aisles are littered with films and books that thought we'd be rid of internal combustion engines or cars by 1990, and none of them predicted that electric cars would somehow become a political issue.
But I think it's more fun to see how these stories deal with the big picture.
Steel Balls and Circuses
Rollerball's corporate masters using television as a means of control was low hanging fruit in 70s. It still is today. Any dystopian future that doesn't include the bad guys controlling the media is incomplete.
But the Rollerball's rulers used the game is interesting. They created a spectacle that kept the people occupied while also demonstrating the futility of individual effort. Bartholomew mentions this second point several times throughout the film. They're not afraid of Jonathan because he's getting too popular or powerful, they're upset because he's broken their game.
This is a powerful concept. American English is rife with sports metaphors: Dropped the ball, Down for the count, On the bench, Hail Mary. Sports is culture. We even use sports to teach lessons about…teamwork! Nerds love to make fun of sports, but we learn from play. So do animals.
So, imagine a sport that's designed from the ground up to teach that only teamwork is effective. Then imagine it being the only sport.
I Welcome Our Corporate Overlords
Rollerball predicts a war would lead to corporations taking over the world. It got that wrong. Not because corporations aren't taking over, they just got the "how" wrong. Rollerball predates the nine most terrifying words in the English language, so it needed to envision a cataclysm to open the door for corporations to take over.
But there's no need for wars. It's a more gradual process, facilitated by intellectual property laws, information gathering, finance, and lobbyists selling the government on the virtues of "public/private partnerships."
Is It Any good?
With John Houseman as Bartholomew, that guy who Darth Vader force chokes on the Death Star as his loyal assistant, and James Caan as Jonathan E., this move has some decent performances.
The characterizations are a little thin, and the movie spends a lot time showing you how brutal Rollerball is. There's also a silly subplot involving a supercomputer and Ralph Richardson. But it has Ralph Richardson, who's always a bonus.
Rollerball is a fun movie, and it makes you think, too. That’s why science fiction stories are for.
Refer a subscriber to my list from this link, to get a free ebook copy of Shadows of the Past!
Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
25 Veterans Plaza #5276
Bergenfield, NJ 07621-9998