Back in October of 2015, I put together a little graphic and blog post about what science fiction movies thought awaited us in the ensuing 15 years. Since then, about two and a half years have gone by, and, accordingly, we’ve lived through the event timelines for:
- Back to the Future Part II
- The Dark Knight Rises
- The Running Man
Sure, Back the Future is pretty light-hearted stuff, but Running Man? Who loves you, and who do you love?
So now we’re a good way into 2018, the year of Rollerball. What do we have to look forward to? According to Wikipedia (btw that’s the opening salvo from every middle school report in the last 10 years or so), this:
In the film the world of 2018 (referred to in the tagline as “the not too distant future”) is a global Corporate Society, containing corporations Energy, a global energy monopoly based in Houston, and other corporations controlling the distribution of Transport, Luxury, Housing, Communication, and Food on a global basis.
Rollerball is a violent, global popular sport around which the events of the film take place. It is similar to Roller Derby in which two teams clad in body armor skate on roller skates (some ride on motorcycles) around a banked, circular track. There, however, the similarity ends…
The game is a substitute for all current team sports and for warfare. While its ostensible purpose is entertainment, Mr. Bartholomew, a high-level executive of the Energy Corporation, describes it as having a “distinct social purpose”: to show the futility of individual effort.
Clearly roller skates are making a comeback, so all of this is entirely plausible.
Except maybe having the global energy monopoly based in Houston — Mother Nature may have something to say about that.
Interestingly, both The Running Man and Rollerball tell us that sports will take over vast portions of our lives and turn (even more) ultra-violent. Who would you take in a head-to-head matchup between James Caan and Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Oh. Never mind.
But next year? Look out.
Akira, Blade Runner, The Road, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Of those four, the only real question is “Which one would you prefer to really happen?”
In any event, dark times coming, friends. Good luck.
K.
(Look back at my original 2015 post)