TMTYR Episode #22: No Penalties, No Time Limit, No Award (Rollerball)

In Episode #22, the Pavement Pounders take up Michael Simshauser’s suggestion of the 1975 dystopian sports movie Rollerball, based on the William Harrison short story “Rollerball Murder,” and also give some due condemnation to the 2002 abomination of a remake.  It’s two hours of movie from 70 minutes of material!  With bonus amazing classical music … Continue reading TMTYR Episode #22: No Penalties, No Time Limit, No Award (Rollerball) →

In Episode #22, the Pavement Pounders take up Michael Simshauser’s suggestion of the 1975 dystopian sports movie Rollerball, based on the William Harrison short story “Rollerball Murder,” and also give some due condemnation to the 2002 abomination of a remake. 

It’s two hours of movie from 70 minutes of material!  With bonus amazing classical music thrown in!  Weird night vision panned!  Extra violence requested!

Pounder Rankings!: 

Seth/James:

Rollerball (1975)
“Rollerball Murder”
Rollerball (2002), a distant third

Colin:

No penalties, no time limit, and no award.  Colin has abstained from the vote.

Notes:

Thanks again to Michael (@remotesimmie) for the suggestion!
ISFDB entry for Rollerball Murder: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?97590
Audio drama of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd4cqK9Y2uo
PDF of the story: http://instruct.uwo.ca/kinesiology/378/files/essays/roller.pdf
Tribute to William Harrison: http://www.avclub.com/article/rip-william-harrison-writer-of-emrollerballem-104651
Rules of RBM: http://japenet.net/the_rules_of_rbm.html
Evolution of Rollerball: http://japenet.net/evolution_of_rollerball.html
Reviews and podcasts about the story:

http://thescififilmschool.blogspot.com/2012/01/sci-fi-film-school-19-rollerball.html
http://thiskevin.blogspot.com/2011/02/kevin-geeks-out-about-rollerball.html
https://stillfinditsohard.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/murdering-the-classics-a-look-back-in-anger-at-rollerball/

Evil Overlord Rules:  http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
Rotten Tomatoes Worst of 2000-2009: http://www.listal.com/list/rotten-tomatoes-worst-worst
The Sports Guy review of the remake: http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020214
Cracked article about bad remakes: http://www.cracked.com/article_17141_6-movie-remakes-that-missed-point.html
Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuh3WyfVL2M