When you have limitless possibilities on where to start researching, where do you begin! Why not start with something you know, and see how it applies to Science Fiction. In a small dive in the rabbit hole of the internet, I have found that sports or in a more broad sense, games, are seen in many forms of sci-fi, primarily post-WW-2. Super humans in events like the Olympics (Goldengirl, 1979), invented games with societal implications (Rollerball, 1979), and sports with your life on the line (Death Race 2000, 1975), are all examples of themes with regards to sports sci-fi.

While sports can be described in a written form, they are much more interesting when consumed by the audience in a visual manner. For that reason I focused on video and movies for this week. Seeing what a directer does to interpret an authors image of an imagined sport is an easy way to get an overview. What I found is that much of the “games” and sports imagined by the authors were inherently dystopic. For example, Death Race 2000 is an imagined car race where drivers get points for killing civilians along the way. Rollerball’s plot has an imagined game that captivates the country and becomes a means of control over the population. As a post in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction points out, the movies and their content follow societal themes. For example, a long series of car racing sci-fi movies came out after WW-2 when consumer cars hit the mass market.

Trailer from Rollerball, a 1975 movie about an imagined sport that becomes more than just a game.

Death Race 2000 Trailer from 1975, about a car race across the country with lots of blood and violence. The antagonist is a humanoid created by the surgeons designed to win the race.