The New Gladiators, also known as Warriors of the Year 2072 (Italian: I Guerrieri dell'anno 2072), is a 1984 Italian sci-fi action film directed by Lucio Fulci, starring Jared Martin, Fred Williamson, Howard Ross, Eleonora Brigliadori, Cosimo Cinieri, Valeria Cavalli, Donald O'Brien, and Al Cliver. The film's score was composed by Riz Ortolani. The film is set in Rome in the year 2072, where criminals are forced to fight like ancient Roman gladiators on futuristic motorcycles live on national television.
Provides examples of the following tropes:
- Big Bad: Sam, the CEO of WBS-TV. Subverted when he turns out to be merely a front for Junior, the true Big Bad.
- Bread and Circuses: Prisoners on death row are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the masses.
- Cool Bike: All the contestants in Kill Bike, naturally, fight on futuristic armored motorcycles.
- Condemned Contestant: The fighters on both networks' shows consist entirely of death row inmates.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Cortez, WBS-TV's chief of programming, is increasingly frustrated by the consistently high ratings of the rival network's most popular show Kill Bike, and is willing to go the any lengths to steal its thunder.
- Covers Always Lie: The poster prominently features a Flying Saucer hovering menacingly above Rome; while the computer system known as Junior operates from such a vessel, it's not quite the imposing presence the poster art makes it out to be.
- Crusading Widow: Drake is, conveniently for WBS-TV, sentenced to death for killing three men who broke into his house and murdered his wife Susan.
- Cyberpunk: Future Rome looks much like Los Angeles does in Blade Runner, with its imposing chiaroscuro cityscapes, ubiquitous advertising billboards, and Mega Corps controlling the flow of information.
- Deadly Game: Kill Bike, where convicted criminals fight to the death like futuristic Roman gladiators on motorcycles.
- Explosive Leash: All the gladiators are fitted with explosive bracelets that can be activated whenever the network executives see fit. Towards the end of the film, the devices are reprogrammed to kill the gladiators within 20 minutes of the fight's end in order to prevent them from escaping the arena. Kirk attempts to remove his bracelet, only to set it off and die.
- Exty Years from Publication: 2072 would be 88 years in the future at the time of the film's release.
- Immoral Reality Show: Both Kill Bike and The Danger Game, WBS-TV's response thereto. The latter sees contestants placed in simulations of near-death scenarios, with their consequent hallucinations broadcast for all to see. The more intense the response, the higher the ratings, although it ultimately fails to truly compete against the other show. They ultimately resort to creating their own gladiatorial contest.
- MegaCorp: Both WBS-TV and the unnamed American network control much of the world's media and are in fierce competition with each other.
- Multinational Team: WBS-TV's contestants consist of Drake, a white American; Abdul, an African-American Muslim fanatic; Akira, a Japanese serial killer; Kirk, a German bank robber/murderer; and Tango, a Latin American terrorist.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The satellite broadcasting Sam's image is said to be orbiting Earth at an altitude of 200,000 miles (or 320,000 kilometers). This is way too high for a communications satellite to be working efficiently.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After Abdul shoots Cortez and prepares to confront Sam, a computer screen image appears informing him that Sam is merely a video projection of Junior, the true Big Bad.
