1. Think about how the new political order of this future society slowly unfolds in the film. How do we find out what has happened to nations and cities? What is the relationship of Rollerball as a sport to these political developments?

2. Everybody in the film seems to get assignments from the executives. What types of assignments do we see in the film? How does gender play into these professional roles? What types of resistance to these assignments do we see?

3. How is the space of the Rollerball arena represented? Think about the signs we see in the arena related to technology, mass media, gender, nationalism, race relations, and spectacle.

4. Think about screens, television broadcasts, and filmed experiences in this film.

5. How is the main library computer represented? Think about the representation of Proteus IV in Demon Seed, and of Hal in 2001. These versions of computer intelligence are not that many years apart. How does the visual representation of computer presence and computer space evolve during this time?

Production Information

Some of the arena scenes were filmed in the Olympic Basketball-Hall, in Munich, Germany.

Here are some of the lines that were used to promote this film. Notice the relationship between sports and war in the future:

--In the not-too-distant future, wars will no longer exist...
--This movie will haunt your future ... because it's almost here!
--The next war will not be fought - it will be played.
--In the future there will be no war. There will only be Rollerball.

Look for Futuresport, a TV movie that aired in 1998, and directed by Ernest R. Dickerson. Vanessa L. Williams and Wesley Snipes were among the cast.

A remake of Rollerball has been announced for 2001, to be directed by John McTiernan.

Cast Information

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