MovieChat Forums > Rollerball (1975) Discussion > Watching Again After 25 years

Watching Again After 25 years

posted 14 years ago by gmagill
16 replies | jump to latest

it's weird, I watched Rollerball again tonight after 25 years of never seeing it. As a kid (7-11) it was one of my favourite movies simply because of the game - the scenes in between didn't really make much sense to me back then - action was the key. Anyway, I was watching it with my 11 year old son who totally understood the concepts and saw beyond the game scenes and commented a couple of times about the futility of the game and Jonathans life which made me think...

Is the film actually so far ahead of it's time that 35 years later it is now totally obvious that the "future" is a "reality" or do bloody kids really just grow up too quickly nowadays...

Anyway - for 2 hours I was a child again watching in awe of a movie that is extremely well executed - Christ find me a movie made recently with a 6.5 IMDB rating that comes close ...shameful!

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] blackhawkswincup2010 14 years ago

I think 6.5 is far too generous. it is dated and poorly written and acted.

[–] graemebonny 11 years ago

one mans poorly written movie is another mans work of art...

[–] kimilseung 14 years ago

I was the same, when I was a 15 year old and saw it at a cinema it was just the game, the action. Saw it again about a year ago and I saw a lot more in it.
Did not have a teen/pre-teen with me for compariosn though.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] JJC-3 14 years ago

Having seen the movie in 1975 @ 20 years old and now @ 55 years old I can see as others have posted on these threads that a lot of what his movie spoke about has come true.

Not thinking for one self - pick you poison amongst the news media that purports to tell us the "facts" and the sheeple who line up behind that media.

Sports violence to satiate the masses - MMA and all of its offshoots, strongman, football (hits), hockey (fights & hits), NASCAR (car crashes & fights).

Corporations controlling more and more of what goes on - Gov't bail outs of many major corporations. - Gov't now "owns" part of corporate America.

Drugs, legal & illegal. (remember those little pills Bartholomew gives out in the locker room)

[–] racroen 13 years ago

gmagill: "I watched Rollerball again tonight after 25 years of never seeing it. As a kid (7-11) it was one of my favourite movies simply because of the game - the scenes in between didn't really make much sense to me back then - action was the key."

I saw the film at the theater when it first came out. I was fifteen, and the message wasn't lost on me. I loved it! In fact, I'd been a little ho-hum about going, because I am not and have never been a sports fan, but the sport was a metaphor. It was really about the dehumanizing aspects of corporatism, and way ahead of its time.

I still love it. If there's a weakness about it, it's related to the way it was promted: the sports theme appealed to meat-brains, who were disappointed to see intelligent, biting social commentary. Personally, I don't find that particularly weak, although it might be a case of casting pearls before swine.

Other than that, I might want to see the font they used and some of the computer hardware updated, but so what? The film's message is timeless. It's even more relevant now than it was when it was made.

Of all the depressing, dystopian science fiction of the seventies, Rollerball has turned out to be the most prescient. Let's just hope we're not headed toward A Clockwork Orange, Silent Running and Soylent Green before we're done.

[–] rwsmith29456 13 years ago

This is like when I first saw 'Moby Dick' it was whaling action that grabbed me and the 'in-between' scenes went right past me. When I got older the 'in-between' material became much more important to me that it became one of my favorite books, not for the excitement of whaling, but for the observations, symbolism and philosophy.

[–] sionxxii 13 years ago

I watched it this weekend and found myself thinking that the Corporatism in Rollerball wound up just like Communism.

I'll have neither, please.

Dorme bene.

[–] jac91604 12 years ago

I wouldn't call this film dated at all.

It is rather timely, today corporations run the govt, people don't read, and sports are very violent as is society compared to 1975.

Not dated at all.

[–] 12 years ago

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