- Bartholomew: Sweet dreams, Moonpie. That's a bad habit you've got there. You know what that habit will make you dream, Moonpie? You'll dream you're an executive. You'll have your hands on all the controls, and you will wear a gray suit, and you will make decisions. But you know what, Moonpie? You know what those executives dream about out there behind their desks? They dream they're great Rollerballers. They dream they're Jonathan; they have muscles, they bash in faces.
- Bartholomew: [in a video conference with other corporate executives] In my opinion, we are confronted here with something of a situation. Otherwise, I would not have presumed to take up your time. Once again, it concerns the case of Jonathan E. We know we don't want anything extraordinary to happen to Jonathan. We've already agreeed on that. No accidents, nothing unnatural. The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. And the game must do its work. The Energy Corporation has done all it can, and if a champion defeats the meaning for which the game was designed, then he must lose. I hope you agree with my reasoning.
- Jonathan E.: Does he... ah... Does he dream?
- Japanese Doctor: No. There is no brain wave at all. No sort of consciousness. Just a deep coma. A vegetable. No dreams. Nothing.
- Jonathan E.: But even, uh, a plant... uh, feels something.
- Japanese Doctor: Who can say? Please.
- [hands Jonathan the release form]
- Jonathan E.: It, uh, senses life. I mean, uh, it turns towards the sun. It's alive, isn't it?
- Japanese Doctor: [stressing] You must sign.
- Jonathan E.: You, uh, you just leave him the way he is. Just leave him the way he is.
- Japanese Doctor: Someone will have to sign. There is no other way.
- Jonathan E.: Arrangements will be made.
- Japanese Doctor: Please. There are hospital rules that have to be...
- Jonathan E.: No, there aren't. There aren't any rules at all.
- [turns and walks away]
- Jonathan E.: I've been thinking, Ella. Thinking a lot... and watching. It's like people had a choice a long time ago between having all them nice things or freedom. Of course, they chose comfort.
- Ella: But comfort is freedom. It always has been. The whole history of civilization is a struggle against poverty and need.
- Jonathan E.: No! No... that's not it. That's never been it! Them privileges just buy us off.
- [deep sigh]
- Jonathan E.: Look, they want me to quit, Ella.
- Ella: Then quit.
- Jonathan E.: Just like that, huh?
- Ella: But you've got to do it now. You've got to before it's too late, whether you want to or not. Look, Johnny... the next game there won't be any substitutions allowed... and no time limit. You'll die, Johnny. Everybody will die.
- Jonathan E.: No time limit. They tell you that?
- Ella: Yes.
- Jonathan E.: They tell you to convince me to quit?
- Ella: Yes, but that isn't why I came here. You have to get out for your own sake. Oh please, Johnny, please.
- Jonathan E.: They tell you to stay if... ah... I did quit?
- [Ella is silent, with a plea in her eyes]
- Jonathan E.: You my big reward?
- [Jonathan walks away from her as melodramatic violin music starts to play]
- NYC Coach: I don't want another man on that track. Houston, what are you trying to do? Nobody's gonna win this game!
- Rusty, Team Executive: Game? This wasn't meant to be a game! Never!
- Ella: You still don't understand why I came here?
- Jonathan E.: You're the only person I ever wanted. I wanted you on my side, that's all.
- P.A. Announcer: [before the start of the New York game] Your attention please... Rule changes for tonight's World Championship Game: No substitutions, no penalties... and no time limit!
- Bartholomew: No player is greater than the game itself. It's a significant game, in a number of ways, the velocities of the ball, the awful physics of the track, and in the middle of it all: men - playing by an odd set of rules. It's not a game man is supposed to grow strong in, Jonathan. You appreciate that, don't you?
- Moonpie: What do you want books for? Look, Johnny, if you wanna learn somethin', just get a Corporate Teacher to come and teach it to ya'. Use yer Privilege Card.
- Librarian: We are confused again here today. This is embarrassing. It's embarrassing to misplace things.
- Jonathan E.: Misplaced some data?
- Librarian: Hmmm.
- [looks at a computer punch card]
- Librarian: The whole of the 13th century. Misplaced the computers, several conventional computers. We can't find them. We're always moving things around, getting organized, my assistants and I. This - this is Zero's fault - Zero, he's the world's file cabinet. Pity, poor old 13th century.
- [pause]
- Librarian: Well, come along now, you want to get started, don't you?
- Jonathan E.: Yes, sir.
- Librarian: [takes Jonathan's coat and hat and puts them aside before they go to the room with Zero in it] This way! Now, we've lost those computers with all of the 13th century in them. Not much in the century, just Dante and a few corrupt Popes, but it's so distracting and annoying!
- [at the start of the Tokyo game]
- P.A. Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, will you stand please for the playing of our Corporate Hymn.
- Bartholomew: You can be made to quit, you know. You can be forced.
- Jonathan E.: You can't make me quit.
- Bartholomew: Don't tell me I can't. Don't EVER say that. I can. YOU can be stopped.
- [as Jonathan E. leaves the room, he turns up the volume of a TV set, as thousands of spectators are cheering his name]
- Cletus: Jonathan, there's one thing you ought to know, and nobody's said it, but I'm sure of it. They're afraid of you, Jonathan. All the way to the top, they are.
- Jonathan E.: If the rule changes stay the same, Mr. Bartholomew, I'm playing with my team.
- Bartholomew: Too late. The rule changes are already scheduled and announced. There's no going back. You saw to that.
- Jonathan E.: Then I'll see you in Tokyo.
- Reporter: What about the rumors of no time limit for the championship?
- Jonathan E.: I don't think it'll come to that... it's still a game.
- [first lines]
- Pregame announcer: Good evening, everyone! And welcome to Houston, the energy city, home of the defending Rollerball World Champions. This key international battle pits the divisional champions, visiting Madrid, against powerful Houston.
- [pause]
- Pregame announcer: And here they come to a standing ovation. On the track comes Houston! Houston, lead by Captain Jonathan E., again their leading scorer this year.
- Bartholomew: Jonathan, let's think this through together. You know how the game serves us. It's a definite social purpose. Nations are bankrupt. Gone. None of that tribal warfare anymore. Even the Corporate Wars are a thing of the past.
- Jonathan E.: I know that, I just...
- Bartholomew: Now, we have the majors and their executives. Transport. Food. Communication. Housing. Luxury. Energy. A few of us making decisions on a global basis for a common good.
- Jonathan E.: The team is a unit that plays with certain rhythms.
- Bartholomew: So does an executive team, Jonathan. Now, everyone has all the comforts. You know that. No poverty. No sickness. No needs and many luxuries - which you enjoy - just as if you were in the executive class. Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it's ever asked of anyone, ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.
- Jonathan E.: I don't mean to resist. I'm just tryin' to understand.
- Bartholomew: It's for your own benefit. You must know that, Jonathan. All decisions concerning you are.
- Jonathan E.: I lost Ella. The corporation took my wife away because an executive wanted her.
- Bartholomew: I'm not going to review all that again. It was before I took over here and I had nothing to do with it. From what I hear, your wife wanted to leave herself.
- Bartholomew: So, now you're going to retire. It shouldn't be too hard for you. It's a stupid game, after all. Awful game. You ought to be glad to be out of it.
- Cletus: I forget what corporation is running what city. Chicago's still a food city. But, what about Indianapolis? Whatever happened to that town?
- Mackie: Whatever happened to Mackie?
- Cletus: Things were much simpler when I was a kid. We still had three nations. That was before the Corporate Wars and even before Rollerball. Before everything. Do you believe in kicks? I remember somebody telling me about the National Football League and the World Cup.
- Jonathan E.: [Mackie gets up to leave] Where are you going?
- Mackie: Indianapolis.
- Girl in Library: There must be some mistake. The books you've ordered are classified and have been transcribed and summarized.
- Jonathan E.: Who summarizes them?
- Girl in Library: I suppose the computer summarizes them.
- Moonpie: What do you need books for?
- Jonathan E.: I just want to study up on some things.
- Girl in Library: You could go to the Computer Center where the real librarians transcribe the books. But we have all the edited versions in our catalog. Anything I think you'd want.
- Jonathan E.: Well, I see that this is not a library and you are really not a librarian.
- Girl in Library: I'm only a clerk. That's right. I'm sorry about it, really.
- Jonathan E.: And the books are really in Computer Banks being summarized. Where is that?
- Girl in Library: Well, there is a Computer Bank in Washington. The biggest is in Geneva. That's a nice place to visit. I guess that's where all the books are now.
- Bartholomew: You're bargaining for the right to stay in a horrible social spectacle. It has its purposes. You've served those purposes brilliantly. Why argue when you can quit? And you say you want to know why decisions are made. Your future comfort is assured. You don't need to know! Why argue about decisions you're not powerful enough to make for yourself?
- Daphne: You better do as you're told, Jonathan. That's all I have to say.
- Jonathan E.: Are you threatening me?
- Jonathan E.: I've seen your house.
- Ella: You have?
- Jonathan E.: Well, yeah, Iook, when we played in Rome, I stood a block away and watched your front gate for a couple of hours. I was just standing there wondering what your furniture looked like. What you said to each other in the morning. What's he like? What's he do?
- Ella: He's a City Engineer. We have a jetcopter, a son, two cats and a place in the Alps. Well, you don't really want to hear all of this.
- Jonathan E.: A son?
- Ella: Yeah. We have a lot of friends. And he has a lover. We have furniture a lot like yours.
- Jonathan E.: The same taste in furniture, how about that.
- [repeated line]
- Crowd of spectators: JON-A-THAN. JON-A-THAN. JON-A-THAN. JON-A-THAN. JON...
- Bartholomew: Try to understand it, Jonathan. Do try to understand it. Because I don't understand your resistance. And I don't think anyone else will, either.
- Jonathan E.: Don't try to frighten me, you don't know how. Now, I am going to Tokyo and you are not.
- Moonpie: So, we got two games left. Guess who we play first? Tokyo! Who'da thought they'd make it to the playoffs?
- Jonathan E.: They're good. They got the old samurai spirit.
- Moonpie: Yeah, but they're only about this tall.
- Jonathan E.: Yeah, well, two or three little things make one big thing. They're liable to climb all over you and eat your lunch!
- Moonpie: I can't get on a man-to-man basis with a pygmy or an Oriental.
- Bartholomew: Come in, Jonathan. Keep silence with me for a minute, won't you?
- [pause]
- Bartholomew: It's important to have a place to think things out.
- Bartholomew: You've had an amazing career, Jonathan. You know how proud we are of the Houston team and what we think of you - at Energy. Now there are executives who want you out.
- Jonathan E.: Sir?
- Bartholomew: For 10 years in this game, Jonathan. Longer than anyone, ever.
- Jonathan E.: Retire? How could I do that?
- Bartholomew: Take your time. Take a few days. You've just come through a game, you're tired. Go to your ranch, but think about it and understand it. *Do* understand it.
- Jonathan E.: There's something going on with the game. I don't know what it is. I don't think I'm supposed to know.
- Cletus: What's that?
- Jonathan E.: They want me to quit.
- Cletus: Why - would they want you to do that?
- Jonathan E.: I don't know. That's what I'd like you to find out.
- Moonpie: If there's anything I love, it's the Luxury Centers. When I get my Privilege Card, I know what I'm gonna get me, too. A secretary!
- Daphne: What sort of a pill did you give me?
- Jonathan E.: Pure aphrodisiac, Daph. Enjoy yourself, dear.
- Daphne: Can't we finish up there and go home?
- Executive Escort: [observing Rollerball players entering the party] They are really quite beautiful, in a wild kind of way. You can almost smell the lions.
- Executive at Party: Don't be silly. They're made in Detroit.
- Daphne: Listen, Jonathan, I really want to go with you. I do, really. You'll need me.
- Jonathan E.: Get yourself another assignment, will ya, Daph.
- Daphne: Everybody is an assignment. Life's an assignment!
- Jonathan E.: Could you tell me something about the Corporate Wars?
- Librarian: Wars, wars! Oh, yes, of course, we have them all here. Punic War. Prussian War. Pelopanesian War. Crimean War. Wars of the Roses. Wonderful, perhaps, to call them in sequence. But, eh, Corporate Wars?
- Jonathan E.: I wanted you here. I mean, this might sound all wrong, but maybe I was just trying to remember myself then. Maybe it was the love I wanted to try to remember.
- Bartholomew: Corporate society is an inevitable destiny. A material dream world. Everything man touched became attained.