Sci-fi movie where they fight to death in futuristic chairs

I’m trying to find a sci-fi movie that I saw on TV in the 90s or early 2000s. It might have been a little older but not much because it had some special effects from around that time (and of course it was in color). I think it was a movie, might be part of a series but I’d definitely say movie. It was dubbed (Spain Spanish) and looked like your regular mainstream-ish Hollywood movie. (Which makes me even madder that I can’t find!)

The few plot details I remember: the main character guy is in some sort of futuristic or alien prison/dungeon or similar, maybe even spaceship (I don’t remember any alien beings though). He has to fight another guy and they’re both strapped to/trapped in some kind of robotic/futuristic chair. They’re sitting in them and hooked to them by the head (I think?) and they have some kind of joystick + buttons or control panel that they use to fight and move around. They are in a sort of fighting ring/arena and there are other guys around them, cheering and shouting. (This is the part where I think I might be mistaken about them being in a prison, but they seemed to be forced to fight each other to death and the rest of the guys seem to be other inmates.) Don’t remember how most of the fight goes, but at the end the loser is zapped with a flashy electric effect, and electrocuted/completely obliterated, I think the latter.

That’s the only scene I remember since I was a young kid when I saw it, and I went away because the scene was disturbing to me. But it’s always been in the back of my mind and I would really like to scratch that itch and figure out what movie it is. Hope someone remembers it and thank you in advance for trying. 🙂

5 thoughts on “Sci-fi movie where they fight to death in futuristic chairs

  1. Sounds a little like an episode of the television series of Alien Nation, “The Game”. A case causes Newcomer George Francisco to flash back to his days as a slave, when at one point he participated in a death game where the loser was doused with salt water (fatal to Newcomers).

  2. Thank you Pamela and Michael, it is definitely neither Fortress or Cube. It was more alien-looking than Fortress and less introspective and more action-packed than Cube.

    I just checked the episode you mentioned of Alien Nation and it’s not it either, but the scene I’m talking about looks closer to the “game” scene, except less saltwater Russian Roulette and more getting zapped and fried to death.

    In the scene I remember the two (+?) contenders are like rolling or hovering around in their chairs while they fight. When one gets zapped to death they are turned to ashes, maybe not literally but they definitely get seriously fried.

    I don’t have any extra details that I can remember right now but if I do I’ll make sure to add them!

Leave a Reply to GG Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *