History Film / Rollerball

''Rollerball'' is a 1975 {{Dystopia))n film directed by Norman Jewison and starring Creator/JamesCaan.

Rollerball is a 1975 Dystopia movie set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, when everything is controlled by {{Mega Corp}}s that keep the unwashed masses happy [[BreadAndCircuses the best way they know how]]: full contact BloodSport!

The sport, [[TitleDrop Rollerball]], is like UsefulNotes/RollerDerby [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on speed]]. Players come and go (usually violently), as the sport is meant to suppress individuality. That changes when our hero, Jonathan E, becomes a Rollerball star and refuses to retire. The executives don't like that and start making changes to the game in an effort to kill Jonathan.

* ParallelPornTitles: Don't ask.

* AWorldHalfFull: Corporate society may have eliminated freedom and individuality, but it has also eliminated hunger and poverty.

There's also a 2002 remake, with twice the blood and half the plot. The announcer is Wrestling/PaulHeyman.

The sport, [[TitleDrop Rollerball]], is like Main/RollerDerby [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on speed]]. Players come and go (usually violently), as the sport is meant to suppress individuality. That changes when our hero, Jonathan E, becomes a Rollerball star and refuses to retire. The executives don't like that and start making changes to the game in an effort to kill Jonathan.

** Main/RollerDerby is skated nearly exclusively on quads (which are, in fact, specified in every code of the sport). So what would have been Zeerust in the 80s and 90s is not so much anymore (never mind that the rules of roller derby have evolved away from a Main/ProWrestling style spectacle and toward genuine athletic competition).

** Might have to do with stability needed to punch people while skating in armor. Many [[http://www.rollergirlskates.com/ roller derby skates]] are still 4 wheel box format.

The sport, [[TitleDrop Rollerball]], is like roller derby [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on speed]]. Players come and go (usually violently), as the sport is meant to suppress individuality. That changes when our hero, Jonathan E, becomes a Rollerball star and refuses to retire. The executives don't like that and start making changes to the game in an effort to kill Jonathan.

* BittersweetEnding: Jonathan has survived and become a hero, and it is implied that this victory is a portent of a successful insurrection, but he wins at a horrible cost. He's the sole survivor, all his teammates - and the opposing team - dead, winning a game in an arena littered with corpses. Truly, the price of freedom is high.

There's also a forgettable 2002 remake, with twice the blood and half the plot. The announcer is Wrestling/PaulHeyman, in search of a quick paycheck.

There's also a forgettable 2002 remake, with twice the blood and half the plot. Wrestling/PaulHeyman took a cameo to keep his wrestling show afloat. (Didn't work.)

There's also a forgettable 2002 remake, with twice the blood and half the plot.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: The film is a protest against violence. However, director Creator/NormanJewison said that, to his horror, a group was interested in financing a real-life version of the game, but the studio said no.

* FreezeFrameEnding: The last shot of [[spoiler: Jonathan, as he skates around the track, wearing a "Don't mess with me," expression. The camera does a staggered zoom as [[Music/ToccataAndFugueInDMinor the intro music]] [[BookEnds starts to play over the end credits]].]]

* {{Zeerust}}: Liquid-state computing and pistol-sized plasma blasters, yet their skaters never progressed from quads to blades?
** Might have to do with stability needed to punch people while skating in armor. Many [[http://www.rollergirlskates.com/ roller derby skates]] are still 4 wheel box format.

* BloodSport: Rollerball, of course.

** Subverted earlier -- as they walk out into the ring, Jonathan's team give their standard chant, while the opposing team chant, "KILL JONATHAN!"

* MasterComputer: "Zero", which now stores all of human history after the corporations digitized the books. (They've lost the files for the 13th century somewhere...) It goes into a meltdown when Johnathan asks it a question that the corporations don't want it to answer.
* MementoMacGuffin: A home movie Johnathan keeps of better times with his wife and his coach. [[spoiler:He pointedly erases it in her face when she returns to try to persuade him to quit.]]

* FreezeFrameEnding: The last shot of [[spoiler: Jonathan, as he skates around the track, wearing a "Don't mess with me," expression. The camera does a staggered zoom as [[ToccataAndFugueInDMinor the intro music]] [[BookEnds starts to play over the end credits]].]]

* OminousPipeOrgan: The corporate anthems. Also, the [[ToccataAndFugueInDMinor intro music]].

* ToccataAndFugueInDMinor: The Toccata section is memorably used as the opening and closing music for the original film.

** Zero itself also qualifies. A room-sized computer with giant rotary tape drives, the entire 13th century misplaced because a tape roll got lost?