Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: The opening 10 minutes – Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, pregame warmups, Houston vs. Madrid, Jonathan scores 3 goals, Moon Pie as the Swooper. 'By 5 minutes you understand everything.'
• Koppelman: The ball hitting the guy's head against the track during Tokyo vs. Houston – 'that was the moment 9 year old me was like, I might not belong in this movie theater. Stays with you for 50 years.'
• Also: The futuristic party / tree-burning scene ('Eyes Wide Shut crossed with Ice Storm crossed with The Shining'); Tokyo vs. Houston (no penalties); Moon Pie's death ('up there with Goose in 'Top Gun' and Sonny at the tollbooth'); the final game.
• Craig: The Houseman-Caan argument during the tree-burning party.

• Bill: The 70s babes (Charlie's Angels / Three's Company look). Also: they predicted the cloud but thought it would be in a factory in Geneva rather than in the air.
• Koppelman: They let an actor hit a heavy bag bare-handed. 'Nobody would let that happen now.' Everything we know about hand injuries – 'that's fully a 1975 thing.'

• Bill: The conceit of rollerball as a sport; John Houseman as a villain in his crystal thinking lair; huge TVs in the movie; the hero-holds-weapon-over-last-guy-and-decides-not-to-kill moment (wins every time); 70s tracksuits; book censorship and history getting erased (sadly prescient); the violence of football over the next 50 years; Dick Enberg calling the game.
• Koppelman: The movie as a whole – 'it got so much right about corporations, player empowerment, media.' David Foster Wallace's year-naming after corporations was directly influenced by this. 'All those writers who became huge in the 90s grew up watching movies like this.'
• Bill: Jewison's quote: the movie is 'a metaphor for the creative artist struggling against the corporate mediocrity of Hollywood.'

• Bill: The 2002 remake directed by John McTiernan – 'one of the worst movies ever. One of the worst remakes we've ever had.'
• The domestic violence moment (Jonathan almost hurting his girlfriend). The racist depiction of the Tokyo team. CTE issues with rollerball players.
• The 'Super System' memory pool in Geneva (now just the cloud).

• Bill: Jonathan scoring against Tokyo and banging on the glass with fans behind him – 'feels 70s hockey.' Also: Moon Pie's coma shot when they lift the helmet up – 'the best shot in the movie.'
• Koppelman: The ball hitting the guy's head – 'so effective because it stays with you for 50 years.'

• Bill: The ending, when Bach's music kicks back in as Jonathan skates alone and the crowd chants 'Jonathan' – 'it's just great.'
• Koppelman: 'Somebody feels like someone's been watching some Stanley Kubrick.'

• Bill: Why didn't the corporation just kill/kidnap Jonathan instead of the elaborate rule-changing scheme? 'Jonathan had a tragic accident on a horse. He's dead. Oh no. They control the news.'
• Koppelman: Can't argue with that. Also: Jonathan's blonde girlfriend (weak performance). 'She practically is going to wheel and kick him like Sharon Stone did in 'Total Recall'.'
• Koppelman's deeper weak link: Houseman can do anything in the world but won't reinstate the rules – the one thing Jonathan asks for. 'It's like Bud Selig calling that game.'

• The coach; also Jonathan's ex-girlfriend shooting the fire gun with that crazy look on her face.
• Koppelman: So much time was spent on stunts that 'there wasn't a lot of energy making sure the performances were locked.'

• Bill (earlier in the episode): 'No player is greater than the game itself' is the message of rollerball, and we've spent 50 years going in the complete opposite direction.
• Koppelman: 'Rollerball' is better than The Parallax View as a paranoid thriller. 'It more accurately makes you feel what a paranoid thriller is supposed to make you feel. None of us are gonna be in a situation where they're pinning a giant murder on us. But all of us watch sports. All of us interact with these corporations. All of us have felt that the game was rigged.'
• Bill (flex category addition): Adding John Cazale to the movie because of the Sonny/Godfather ties – 'Cazale could come over and go, Johnny, you don't talk to a guy like Mr. Bartholomew like that.'
• Koppelman: 'What if instead of Maud Adams, it's 1975 Meryl walking into that room?'

• Bill: Couldn't find any casting what-ifs. Burt Reynolds is the closest alternative, but 'Caan's a better choice because he read as smarter on screen.'
• Koppelman: Could Redford have done it? 'Not credible athletically as a violent athlete.'
• Bill: Warren Beatty would have been interesting – 'athletically he could have done it.' Koppelman agreed: 'He's credible in 'Heaven Can Wait', you believe he can throw a football.'
• Bill: Gene Hackman as the Houston coach – 'we just go up a level with Gene.'

• Bill: Moses Gunn (Cletus) – 'was in Shaft, had a nice run in the 70s.' Also: Moon Pie (John Beck) – 'Craig, for Craig he's Moon Pie. He was in 60 episodes of Dallas.'
• Koppelman: Sir Ralph Richardson as the Geneva computer librarian – 'he's in his own movie and he's a great movie.' First actor to be knighted in England (Laurence Olivier was second). 'He makes James Caan totally different.'

• Bill: Maud Adams (Dion Waiters award) – 'we just need you to shoot for two days. Laughing and looking really hot and then 3 lines with Caan.'
• Koppelman: The Japanese scientist who gets interrupted – 'the most thankless role.'

Bill: Gene Hackman as the Houston coach.

• Shot everything in Munich. Nobody died during filming but major injuries occurred.
• Devo wrote their corporate anthem for their 1979 album after seeing this film.
• The rollerball video game was supposed to happen in 1998 but the publisher went bankrupt.
• 'Rollerball' penalties only applied outside the course of gameplay – never stated in the movie.
• Bill did a deep dive on rollerball gambling: who was favored in the final game? FanDuel would have had last man standing bets.

• James Caan: Yes, right around this era (Godfather '72, 'The Gambler' '75, Funny Lady '75, 'Rollerball' '75).
• Fake created sports in a sports movie: Yes (over Dodgeball). Koppelman: 'This is it.'
• Dick Enberg in a movie: No (better in 'Heaven Can Wait' because you can see him).
• Norman Jewison: Probably In the Heat of the Night era. Koppelman says Moonstruck for career highlight, but agrees juice was in the late 60s.
• Setting pine trees on fire: 100% yes.
• Roller skating: Yes – 'the coolest it ever looked.'
• Houston as a sports city: The Jonathan E era.

Both: Scorsese. Koppelman: 'Martin Scorsese.' Bill: 'I had that as well.'

• Bill: Probably younger Houseman – 'he's in the corporatocracy.'
• Koppelman: Struggled – 'there's not really that showy young role.' 'I don't know if there's a role for PSH in this.'

• Bill: The rollerball penalties needed more explanation. 'Karate kicking the motorcycle guys seems bad – that's three minutes? Headlock punch with the spike punch to the helmet seems fine?' Needed the announcer to come in and say 'as always, 3 minutes for that.'
• Koppelman did internet research: penalties only applied outside the course of gameplay – 'never said in the movie.'
• Bill: Incredible missed opportunity not to talk about gambling lines during the movie.

• Bill: The 2002 remake was so bad it scared everyone off the IP. But it's been 50 years – prestige TV case is fair game.
• Craig: 'Give Tony Gilroy rollerball next. He turned Andor into a political story about fascism. I want something at that level for rollerball.'
• Koppelman: 'Tony would crush it.'

• Bill: Jonathan E's last name – probably Evans (based on a line at the party). Also: how would advanced stats have changed rollerball? Would there be a Steph Curry firing from the bottom of the track?
• Koppelman: There are two references in the movie suggesting the players might be robots/replicants – 'every time he gets destroyed, they rebuild him.' Bill poked a hole: 'How would that explain Moon Pie being in a coma?'
• Bill: Do you think the Dolan family owned the New York rollerball team?

• Koppelman: Norm MacDonald as commentator – 'imagine Norm talking about when Moon Pie got killed. Would have been incredible.'
• Bill: John Cazale added to the movie – 'because of the Sonny/Godfather ties.' Also: 1975 Meryl Streep replacing Maud Adams.

• Koppelman: Production design.
• Bill: Stunts if it were a category – 'these stunt people were incredible.'

• Bill: Jonathan's #6 orange Houston jersey. 'What would be a better thing?'
• Koppelman: The spiked glove. 'Plus one of the motorcycles in your garage – come on, pretty great.'

Bill: 'Corporate society is an inevitability' – John Houseman's character.

• Koppelman (highbrow): Network – 'one's about media, one's about sports and entertainment.'
• Koppelman (lowbrow): Enter the Dragon – 'because of the era.'
• Bill: 'The Longest Yard' – 'those are the first two great sports movies.' Or Three Days of the Condor as a paranoid thriller pairing.

Bill: James Caan, of course.

Craig: 'I can't believe this movie was just sitting here and no one told me about it. I was transfixed. This is a dystopian science fiction movie disguised as a sports movie. It should be considered one of the greats. It should be shown in film schools.' He watched it twice before recording. 'I couldn't look away. It was everything. I want to watch it three more times.' His nit: 'Genuinely the worst jerseys and helmets I've ever seen in a sport.'