What works for me is the apparent climate change. The oceans dying, how hot is seems to be all the time.
What doesn’t is more difficult to put my finger on. They seem way too over-populated and still well fed to have to resort to eating people. They sleep in crowded hallways but the streets are empty as hell at night. And they’re resorting to soylent green before harvesting insects? And if there are not enough or no insects…where did they go?
And the rich can still get luxury food items? It just doesn’t add up for me.
They called the women “furniture”.
That was just a little too over-the-top obvious for me.
Yeah, “women’s lib” was a new concept at the time. But if you want to portray a society where women have no rights, etc, you could be a little more subtle about it.
Also, there was a scene where a food riot breaks out and the police are called in to oppress the citizens. And they use garbage trucks to pick up the rioters.
Again…you could get the message across more effectively by being a little more subtle, ya know.
I always attributed the streets being so empty martial law or something like it. In places where there a strictly enforced curfews the streets are empty like that at night.
And as for the the rich being able to get luxury food items? Well, the things they are considering luxury are everyday items for people in the present which only the future rich can afford.
She did, but it was a job she was working. She wasn’t literly chattel. Presumably the building also offers male "furniture depending on the tenant’s preferences. IIRC in the book she even mentions that she’s out of a job because the tenant’s sister inherited the apartment and wasn’t interested in keeping her on.
I really hated this movie when it came out. And that was before I read Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room!, the novel it’s nominally based on. There are so many huge differences between the two that it’s not even worthwhile to try and list them.
This came out in an age when SF writers (and film makers) were being very shrill about pollution and environmental damage, and a lot of stuff was ramped up to 11 and beyond. You think the film Soylent Green presented a bleak world? Read John Brunner’s The Sheep Look up. Or Stand on Zanzibar. Or see the TV movie ZPG, or the science fiction spisode of The Name of the Game that a young Stephen Spielberg directed. (Titled “LA 2017”, intriguingly enough. Fortunately, we haven’t reached that stage yet)
Things I liked – Edward G. Robinson’s performance as an old man who remembers the Old Days (Harrison praised Robinson’s performance in this film, one of the few things he liked). He got one of the best death scenes ever, in his last film role.
Heston and Chuck Connors turned in good performances, too.
Things I didn’t like – Changing the nature of “Soylent” , and the whole cannibalism thing. Police corruption, “furniture”
I was annoyed at the the soylent part, too. It was mentioned in the book about twice in passing (and there was nothing special about it. Just a cheap food for the masses). And they went and made it the central plot point of the movie.
I think before we get to the ‘we’re making people into green wafers stage’…strawberry pickers and truck drivers are going to revolt and eat the produce.
Now if someone wants to remake the film and show us how we got there…humans having an extended life span would make the over population more believable…i’m happy to watch that film, or read that book.
I’d love to read a book (not quite Soylent Green but close) about how humans became the only species left and where we go from there.
Edit: Just realized if the air is very polluted that sleeping in a hallway makes more sense than sleeping outside.
Like other mentioned, I would encourage people to read the original novel. It’s well written, still timely and good sci fi about how to survive is a slowly dying, overcrowded New York. I would love to see a more faithful adaptation. I would bet they could call it just “Make Room” and no one would know it was related to Soylent Green.
This article suggests Warner Brothers has the film rights (or at least they did in 2010 - the original film was made by MGM) as well as the trademark on “Soylent Green”, so it’s up to them.
If they make it would be in the grand tradition of Movies That Are Remakes of Earlier Movies, Not Of The Original Source Material. The very use of that title would guarantee it, since “Soylent Green” has very little significance or impact in the Harrison novel.
Examples (which are all science fiction, I notice):
Total Recall – it’s clear that the movie is referencing the first version, not the Philip K. Dick story We can Remember it for You Wholesale. Most of the ideas and plot aren’t in the story – they’re only in the Veerhoeven film.
Solaris – The James Cameron/George Clooney film is a CGI remake of the Tarkovski film, not of the Stanislas Lem novel. They don’t even tough things that are in the novel, but they cover all the points in the earlier film.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers – I’m not altogether convinced that anyone involved in the various remakes even read Jack Finney’s book.
The Day the Earth Stood Still – They sure as hell didn’t read Harry Bates’ Farewell to the Master.