Doesn't it suck when somebody misses your birthday? And since a birthday is just an anniversary of sorts, one has to figure allowing anniversaries to pass unnoticed is just as bad. Oh sure, some anniversaries are rather dull by number but the "fives" and the "tens" deserve more than a little attention. By those standards, a thirty-year anniversary is nothing to ignore, certainly when we're celebrating something worthwhile. And yet, in my opinion the world of science fiction missed highlighting such a major milestone for one of its best exemplars: the original, 1975 version of "Rollerball."

For all the time I spent raving about the optimistic worldview of Trek (at least TOS), I hold a special place in my viewer's heart for the flood of dystopian films issued in the early and mid-1970's. And standing head and shoulders (skates and ball?) above that crowd is Norman Jewison's testament to the power of the individual. "Rollerball" remains a masterpiece of cinema that holds its age gracefully, even after the recent travesty passed off as a "remake." If anything, the concept of a world in which corporations call all the shots and only individuality is punished seems a lot scarier today then at the time of its release!

At the core of the movie is, of course, The Game. Two teams skate around a banked eighth-mile track, fighting for possession of a heavy steel ball shot onto it, in order to throw it into a goal. Motorcycles help propel the players as they adapt to "the awful physics of the track;" blocks between the teams are savage and bloody. It's a rough, exhausting sport in which no one is expected to succeed - in fact, that's the point! Only the teamwork of corporate society is to be encouraged. And then along came Jonathan E., high-scoring captain of the Houston team and master of the sport. The film covers what must be the final three games of Jonathan's career, including the horrendous spectacle of gladiatorial combat found in the final New York game.

Jewison hoped to shock audiences with the brutality of the game but in my opinion failed; perhaps we're too far gone (as perhaps were the stuntment fond of playing the game in their off-time?) since it remains a primary appeal of the film. Yet if that appeal helps boost the underlying message of obstinate non-conformity, the film is in no other way a failure. Yes, it was never meant to be a game … never! It's a warning, and a guide.