STARRING: James Caan, John Houseman, Maud Adams, Moses Gunn, Pamela Hensley, Barbara Trentham, Rob Richardson
1975, 124 Minutes, Directed by: Norman Jewison
Description: Around 2018, violence and crime happen to be totally eliminated from society and given outlet within the brutal bloodstream sport of rollerball, a higher-velocity mixture of football, hockey, and motor-mix racing backed through the multinational corporations that now control the planet following a collapse of traditional politics. James Caan plays Jonathan E., the reigning superstar of rollerball, whose corporate controllers fear that Jonathan’s recognition has endowed him with an excessive amount of power. They start to pressure him according to their personal callous algorithm, but Jonathan has rules of their own–the guidelines assertive going to retain his soul inside a world gone mad. — Amazon . com.com
1975 vision for the future as you by which violent sports are presented for that gratification from the masses, nation states happen to be substituted with huge corporations and individuals have exchanged freedom for comfort.
Mmmh, frightening. What once offered as dire prediction appears like a documentary today. Scarier thought: that people may be residing in a ?Seventies nightmare form of dystopia. The game under consideration is known as rollerball and it is a combination between American football, ice hockey and Fight from the Gladiators. Seems like vaguely familiar for you, the 1980s Schwarzenegger starrer Running Man employed an identical theme and clearly, ahem, “lent” so much from this movie.
What offered being an inane action movie within the 1980s was presented like a more thoughtful drama ten years before. The plot focuses on a ball player (performed by James Caan) that has become too popular for that tastes from the Executives who pull the strings behind the curtain.
Within this brave ” new world “, based more about the identity-less Japanese form of corporate existence than its American counterpart, individualism is frowned upon. It’s, in the end, working together which will the trick they argue. Naturally James Caan will not retire when requested to do this (there wouldn?t an excessive amount of a plot if he gave in, wouldn?t there?). Thus, the stakes are upped: the sport progressively gets to be more violent, partly to help keep spectators? attention but mostly to eliminate the Caan character.
Rollerball might not appease modern audiences weaned on such fast-paced action epics (they might also cringe at the idea of the parents dressing like Tom Johnson in those days), however it does feature some rollerball sequences that are (I’m embarrassed to admit) exciting to look at. I’d have hated as being a stuntman about this movie!
Also, for classical music fans there?s the additional bonus of music by Bach, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Albinoni selected by well-known conductor Andre Previn. Previn also composed a few of the corporate anthems featured within the movie.
Reprocessed in 2002, also as Rollerball by director John McTiernan (of Fervent and Predator fame) having a cast of largely unknowns. By all accounts an incoherent mess, only one I’ll most likely finish up seeing it to examine it with this site. Sigh . . .
Sci-Fi Movie Page Pick: Could it be just me – or perhaps is there other people available who believes the ‘Seventies were really much more of a Golden Age for celluloid sci-fi compared to much over-rated 1950s? Or possibly it is simply since the early to mid-1970s pre-blockbuster movies now appear an entire more interesting, experimental and off-key than most the dreck offered up by Hollywood today? Anyway, watch this 1975 movie to determine where Stephen King, er, Richard Bachman got the majority of his suggestions for The Important Man, later converted into a movie starring Arnie . . .
Source: www.scifimoviepage.com