Violent, sexy, philosophical,... yes, it was all those and more. But,.. scary?! Oh, yes! Very, VERY scary! Scary like NOSFERATU (B/W starring Klaus Kinski) and that was terrifying! In that flick, nothing jumped out and yelled, "BOO!!" Oh, no. You could see where it was going,... and going,... and going,... and in your mind you kept stomping on the brakes, trying to turn the steering wheel, screaming, "Stop! No! Don't!," but nothing worked! You were taken headlong into disaster and death!
Well, ROLLERBALL is scary like that! It tells a tale that, here in 2009 with the global financial crisis, rings horrifyingly true. The Corporate Wars have just begun and we get to watch them,... real-time!
I read a LOT of the comments in this IMDb thread but no one has hit upon the real (IMO) plot, so even if I'm not completely right, I'm original! The game of ROLLERBALL is merely the vehicle for Jonathon E. He is the Reaper come for the Executives! If they had not taken his wife, all would have been cool, but the Executives were too greedy and too dumb to be so powerful. They awoke the Demon below! Jonathon E. was just a jock, a pawn, but his burning desire to know WHY the Execs had to take HIS wife opened the Mother-of-all-Pandora's-boxes!
Just what the Corporate Wars were had been redacted from any records,... after all, the victors ALWAYS get to write the history books. Nonetheless, Jonathon E. wanted to know what had happened. He kept running into dead-ends, walled-up corridors, empty bookshelves, freshly deleted memory banks. Who were these Executives who had summarily taken his wife?! They were the Oligarchs: you were an Executive or you were a worker. Jonathon E. was very well-paid worker, very good Worker, an extremely famous WORKER, but that's all he was and the Execs took his wife!
Soon you'll want to start testing the brakes,... So, why were the Corporations trying to silence Jonathon E.?... Their very existence was on the edge of a chasm because of Jonathon E. The Corporations had overthrown the governments of the world to claim their place as the Oligarchs of Plato's REPUBLIC. (Remember that horrid piece of writing? There was a sequence of events that showed how the Kingdom degenerated into the Timocracy; the Timocracy to the Oligarchy; Oligarchy to Democracy; Democracy to Tyranny. Sound familiar? When the Founding Fathers of America declared independence, they took the first step back UP the sequence of Plato's events, a Democracy in place of the Tyranny. Somewhere around SOYLENT GREEN, the Oligarchs were just getting a foothold.)
ROLLERBALL is the end of the age of Oligarchs. Jonathon E. is the Timocracy-to-be. A Hero honored by the entire world, Jonathon E. was a death knell to the Executives. They HAD to squelch him but in their hubris, power and ineptitude, they recognized him too late. The world would surely blame them for Jonathon E.'s untimely death: that much they knew!
So the Execs kept changing the rules of ROLLERBALL, trying to scare Jonathon E. out of the game,.. or kill him. Whatever works! It didn't work. (Movies are funny like that!) He beat all comers, on the track and off! That's what the final scene is all about. You must realize that he had just destroyed the Executives,... the Oligarchs. Jonathon E. was now the most important man in the world. It had cost him everything,.. his teammates, his wife, his friends,... but he had won!
Well, ROLLERBALL is scary like that! It tells a tale that, here in 2009 with the global financial crisis, rings horrifyingly true. The Corporate Wars have just begun and we get to watch them,... real-time!
I read a LOT of the comments in this IMDb thread but no one has hit upon the real (IMO) plot, so even if I'm not completely right, I'm original! The game of ROLLERBALL is merely the vehicle for Jonathon E. He is the Reaper come for the Executives! If they had not taken his wife, all would have been cool, but the Executives were too greedy and too dumb to be so powerful. They awoke the Demon below! Jonathon E. was just a jock, a pawn, but his burning desire to know WHY the Execs had to take HIS wife opened the Mother-of-all-Pandora's-boxes!
Just what the Corporate Wars were had been redacted from any records,... after all, the victors ALWAYS get to write the history books. Nonetheless, Jonathon E. wanted to know what had happened. He kept running into dead-ends, walled-up corridors, empty bookshelves, freshly deleted memory banks. Who were these Executives who had summarily taken his wife?! They were the Oligarchs: you were an Executive or you were a worker. Jonathon E. was very well-paid worker, very good Worker, an extremely famous WORKER, but that's all he was and the Execs took his wife!
Soon you'll want to start testing the brakes,... So, why were the Corporations trying to silence Jonathon E.?... Their very existence was on the edge of a chasm because of Jonathon E. The Corporations had overthrown the governments of the world to claim their place as the Oligarchs of Plato's REPUBLIC. (Remember that horrid piece of writing? There was a sequence of events that showed how the Kingdom degenerated into the Timocracy; the Timocracy to the Oligarchy; Oligarchy to Democracy; Democracy to Tyranny. Sound familiar? When the Founding Fathers of America declared independence, they took the first step back UP the sequence of Plato's events, a Democracy in place of the Tyranny. Somewhere around SOYLENT GREEN, the Oligarchs were just getting a foothold.)
ROLLERBALL is the end of the age of Oligarchs. Jonathon E. is the Timocracy-to-be. A Hero honored by the entire world, Jonathon E. was a death knell to the Executives. They HAD to squelch him but in their hubris, power and ineptitude, they recognized him too late. The world would surely blame them for Jonathon E.'s untimely death: that much they knew!
So the Execs kept changing the rules of ROLLERBALL, trying to scare Jonathon E. out of the game,.. or kill him. Whatever works! It didn't work. (Movies are funny like that!) He beat all comers, on the track and off! That's what the final scene is all about. You must realize that he had just destroyed the Executives,... the Oligarchs. Jonathon E. was now the most important man in the world. It had cost him everything,.. his teammates, his wife, his friends,... but he had won!
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