I find it really odd that when Mr. Bartholemew asked Johnathon to retire he said he had to be there for the team..As it turns out because of his stubburness the corporation started to change the rules of the game and instead of helping his teammates out, he got most of them killed / seriously injured over the next 2 games.
I think if he really cared for his teammates he would have retired after the Tokyo match. That would have probably made for a pretty silly movie, so there you go.....
I think if he really cared for his teammates he would have retired after the Tokyo match. That would have probably made for a pretty silly movie, so there you go.....
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Mon, November 27, 2006 - 12:52 PMInteresting perspective!
When they're dealing at the party, and Jonathan's thinking about retiring ("I want other concessions, too") doesn't Bartholomew say that the rule changes for Tokyo could not be retracted as they had been already announced? Maybe the corporate execs planned to intensify the game to prevent another "Jonathan" from emerging.
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Mon, November 27, 2006 - 4:07 PMSure Jonathan was being selfish, but what great athletes do you know of who would retire on top of their game? Put another way, Jonathan actually loved playing Rollerball, so it was difficult for him to see how he could retire with the competitive fire still in his blood.
One avenue I would have liked to see Jonathan take is coaching! After all, his best friend Cletus was a coach (presumably after being a player himself), and the scene in which we see Jonathan inducting rookies into the team shows that he would have been a great coach.
Of course, maybe THAT'S why the Executive Directorate wanted him out...his influence over young players could have undermined the Corporations by spreading his philosophies!
---troy -
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Tue, November 28, 2006 - 8:12 AMGood Point Troy...One of my fav Atheletes is Wayne Gretzky and he stated pretty much what you did in your post about to be a great Athelet you have to be very selfish to be a top performer.
It would have been cool if they would have made a sequel of some type with James Caan as a coach of a rollerbal team that would have been neat.
But if we look at the movie as reality what would have happened after the first movie? Would they have forced Johnathan to retire? Would Johnathons defiance caused a rift in corporate society? Or would the corporations have allowed Johnathon to continue playing? -
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Thu, November 30, 2006 - 8:39 PMCould the game even continue without reinstating some sort of rules? -
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Sun, December 3, 2006 - 1:06 AMDoubtful. I think they would have made a deal with Jonathan: quit playing the game, and we'll let you coach instead. That (plus reinstating the rules) is probably all the clout the Executive Directorate would have left after the New York fiasco.
---troy -
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Wed, January 31, 2007 - 7:37 PMI think most definately, Bartholomew was "fired".
But interesting quandry... kill Jonathon= make him a maytr ... leave him be = he becomes a hero.
I think an "accident" would likely happen. Make it in practice... so its within the game, but not during a televised match. -
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Re: Was Johnathon being a little "Selfish"?
Tue, March 20, 2007 - 11:21 PMWell, that much was made obvious by Bartholomew's statement to the other members of the Executive Directorate after the Tokyo game. In that video conference, Bartholomew proposes that Jonathan must "lose." That means, Jonathan was indeed to be murdered (harkening back to the short story called "Roller Ball Murder"?) but that it had to be an event during a match, so as not to be considered murder (thus arousing the fans). If Jonathan is simply murdered, he indeed becomes a martyr, but if he dies as a result of an in-game injury, he is remembered fondly but eventually forgotten by the masses (or at least that's what the Executive Directorate is hoping for).
So it couldn't happen in practice, as that would look too suspicious. It would HAVE to be during a game to look at all convincing.
---troy
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