Every single decision Marvin's character makes is illogical, dumb and makes no sense. If he is being so absurdly self-destructive then at least give the viewer an explanation why. (Getting mangled or killed for a few dollars doesn't cut it.) And yet, despite the pathetic ending that ends poorly for Marvin and his overacting buddy, Serling's outro narration tries to spin the pointless ending into some kind of a triumph of the spirit or some such exalted malarkey.
As if fighting a robot, going into a suicide mission for a few dollars - while cheating the public and breaking the law, can have any positive connotations. Marvin made a dumb choice and got pummeled - so what's remotely redeeming about that? It's the story of a dumb person. One of many.
Not to mention that a boxer who doesn't train for a fight would get pummeled by almost any professional human opponent, let alone a machine. (Clearly, Serling knows zero about boxing. To him, it's just about a crowd screaming "kill him!" over and over again.)
Furthermore, the plot has no plot-twist, the story simply petering away once Marvin decides to fight the robot: he decides to fight the robot, the robot pummels him, and that's it.
The dialog leading up to the fight is mostly dull anyway.
In hindsight, the fanciful notion (grounded in boundless Utopian optimism) that boxing might be outlawed in some "civilized" future is so wonderfully naive. The opposite had happened in the meantime, in this "progressive future": sex has never been more pornographic, and as far as violence, Ultimate Fighting makes heavyweight boxing look like kittens wrestling by comparison. But nobody could possibly have guessed that western civilization would be in an irreversible downward spiral just a few decades later. Back when TZ was being written and made, the western world was in an upward climb, seemed invincible, hence visions of the future were rosy. Of course, that's before Cultural Marxism existed, before the Frankfurt School started sucking up all progress. Before flakes of snow and before CNN.
As if fighting a robot, going into a suicide mission for a few dollars - while cheating the public and breaking the law, can have any positive connotations. Marvin made a dumb choice and got pummeled - so what's remotely redeeming about that? It's the story of a dumb person. One of many.
Not to mention that a boxer who doesn't train for a fight would get pummeled by almost any professional human opponent, let alone a machine. (Clearly, Serling knows zero about boxing. To him, it's just about a crowd screaming "kill him!" over and over again.)
Furthermore, the plot has no plot-twist, the story simply petering away once Marvin decides to fight the robot: he decides to fight the robot, the robot pummels him, and that's it.
The dialog leading up to the fight is mostly dull anyway.
In hindsight, the fanciful notion (grounded in boundless Utopian optimism) that boxing might be outlawed in some "civilized" future is so wonderfully naive. The opposite had happened in the meantime, in this "progressive future": sex has never been more pornographic, and as far as violence, Ultimate Fighting makes heavyweight boxing look like kittens wrestling by comparison. But nobody could possibly have guessed that western civilization would be in an irreversible downward spiral just a few decades later. Back when TZ was being written and made, the western world was in an upward climb, seemed invincible, hence visions of the future were rosy. Of course, that's before Cultural Marxism existed, before the Frankfurt School started sucking up all progress. Before flakes of snow and before CNN.