There's something about the dystopian world of Rollerball that I've always liked. It's not mad max levels of Destruction where the entire planet has devolved into tribal communities fighting for resources in the last remaining reserves of what were cities. Nor is it this hyper controlled Mass bureaucracy being overlooked by a Corporation (or totalitarian government.)
Instead we have a kind of United conglomerate of corporate entities ruling over pacific resources.
It says if laissez-faire capitalism and the end goal of Marxist communism all mixed together in an Unholy Union of enterprise.
The corporations run every aspect of life there's no competing with them and there's no alternative very similar to communist governments.
But they only got to this position because of an unstable free-market situation that led up to the destruction of the former world and even encompassed a kind of war between said corporations something of which isn't brought up a lot in the short story or in the movie.
In this world everyone's indifferent to it. Sure some people would like to acquire knowledge that's no longer attainable and other people question how their society got this way.
But there's no underground movement or resistance group spreading revolutionary sentiment throughout the world. Everyone's just strangely content, indifferent to changing anything. Most people aren't even sure if it can be changed. In the book it's Illustrated quite well that not only does Revolution seem fruitless but it doesn't even seem to be within anyone's mindset. As if the mirror motion of questioning or doubting the system has become moot.
Now to be fair we never see what the average person is doing in this Society. We have no idea how they live or what they think, they're only near spectators present on the sidelines in the ever-expanding Bloodsport of Rollerball.
Then there's Rollerball the supposed Vocal Point of the entire film. The sport that we spend all our time revolving around, that the people are obsessed to talk about. The players are reluctant to leave even though every match is a potential death sentence. There's a real feeling of hopelessness both and how the game is played and and how it's structured.
Those who play the game are hypnotize by the rewards, the ability to live like an executives. But they have to survive the game, a game structured in such a way that no man can win.
From the books perspective the games just there to distract people, to keep us docile and the clinch are warlike instinct.
A kind of modern-day gladiatorial arena. In the film it's giving a bit more context, it's portrayed as a game that's meant to give off the feeling of despondency.
The idea is quite simple:
People watch this Bloodsport in which the promise of gold is rewarded to the Victorious. But the game is so violent and destructive that almost nobody ever succeed and even those that do will ultimately die in the long run. Thus people become complacent with what they've got, for they fear death and they view Rollerball as a kind of metaphor for their life. Keep quiet, keep Simple and survive. Strive for anything greater and be slaughtered.
That is with one Mighty exception ''Jonathan E'' Rollerballs most intense and popular player.
He's a kind of super player able to keep himself alive in the most dire of situations and score a consistent amount of points all without losing his head (both theoretically and literally.)
The executives view him as a Potential Threat. A person who might Inspire revolutionary tendencies within the general community as he's seen time and time again to break against the might of Rollerball and come out unscaved.
It makes the executives a kind of antagonistic force who are directly involved in the Affairs of Jonathan. Quite the contrast from the original story where the executives have little to no interest in Jonathan as they see him as just another person living with in there perfectly orchestrated business orientated world.
In fact that's kind of the grand irony of it all. Jonathan in the film has little to no interest in the greater world affairs he only becomes entangled with the prospects of knowledge when the corporations tell him that he needs to quit and that they'll do anything to make it happen. This makes him question the corporations motives and wants to go diving in to Old archived records to see what he can find.
It's during his investigation that we come up against one of the stranger parts of the film. A giant supercomputer constructed in the middle of Geneva Switzerland which houses all the worlds data and historical records. It seems in this universe all forms of printed media have been acquired, transferred into tapes and audio files and then disposed of. Leaving only one computer track to monitor them all.
In the book is explains that they're living in a 'Neo-Middle Ages' were only certain people have access to the information and even fewer can understand it. As if returning to the old biblical writings in Latin.
There's even a horrifying moment where one of the computer scribes explains to Jonathan that unfortunately the entire 13th century is no longer obtainable as the only supercomputer in the world had some form of technical glitch and erase the entire event.
The closest thing we have to a resolution in this film is at the very end when Jonathan survived the game after complete chaos taken over and every other player was eliminated. He skates around and everyone begins to chant his name it could be implied that it's the beginning of some revolutionary statement.
I can't really see Jonathan's character leading a revolution he has a little to no Charisma when it comes to interacting with people he's just some schmuck who's really good at a game.
And really it's not even implied that he'd want to get rid of this world, he lives better than most people. He just wanted to keep playing the game it was baffled why the executives wanted and out.
The musical soundtracks kind of interesting, all classical themed except for one weird disco tune that comes about in the middle somewhere during some strange party. If they didn't include that one song the movie might almost be seen as kind of timeless but they didn't and now it's forever stuck in the 1970s. Although the way the announcers talk about the game and everyone's General attitude regardless.
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