Why Are All ‘Future-Sports’ Movies About Death?

If we were to ask you to predict what sports look like in the future, you’d probably say something along the lines of “A bunch of robots playing football,” or “A bunch of nerds playing video games,” or “Screw you, I’m not taking your dumb online survey. I’ve got masturbatin’ to do.” But, if you were to ask that same question to screenwriters, especially screenwriters of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, they’d paint you a vastly different (yet still masturbatory) picture. They’d say sports in the future will be designed to kill nearly everyone involved.

How do we know this? Partly because we’ve read through the collective diaries of every known filmmaker of the past 50 years, but mostly because practically every movie about sports in the future is some kind of hyperviolent battle to the death. Let’s look at the tape:

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That’s a clip from the re-make of Rollerball, both quintessential future sports movies. You’ll notice the game being played looks like a sort of roller derby if roller derby involved using your spine as a ramp for motorcycles. Still, if you’re not convinced that playing Rollerball is lethal, the film makes it clear to incorporate a death match rule by the end. Here’s another example:

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This is Death Race 2000. Here five drivers compete in a transcontinental race in which they score points by murdering people with their cars along the way. The more helpless the victim (babies, old folks, white dudes who love ska, probably), the higher the points. 

Even The Phantom Menace, a movie that’s not necessarily about future sports (technically, it’s a past sport in a galaxy far, far away), has a sports scene that might as well be considered vehicular euthanasia for all participants.