I basically already know the plot and let me go on to say I love old corny sci-fi movies so it sounds like my kind of movie. Is it worth watching? Plus can never have too much of Charleton Heston’s histrionic acting.
Worth watching? Barely. Worth eating? Definately!
NO!!!
Read the book “Make Room! Make Room!” After you get over the depression, watch the movie just to see what little they got right.
Let me sound in with another, “Nah.” Basically, you spend eighty minutes of shaggy dog story, cheap filer effects, silly plot development and a “mystery” for which the solution seems to be available to anyone who does just a little research, along with a laughably obsolete video game in order to get to the punchline. Oh…it’s people. Meh. Think Silent Running, but without even the novelty of being on board a spacecraft.
And to think that this was Edward G. Robinson’s last role. It doesn’t live up to Little Caeser, Key Largo, or Double Indemnity.
Rent Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers instead. Much better made, better acted, and better written. Heh.
Stranger
I agree with what others have said. Read, if you can find them, Harry Harrison’s own writings onthe film – he wrote the book Make Room! Make Room! upon which the film is nominally based. As in the cases of Starship Troopers, This Island Earth, and ** I, Robot,** and other big-budget SF movies, they jettisoned almost all of the book and filled the void with their pown bankrupt clicjhes that they thought were original or at least comprenensible. (No “pleasure girls”, suicide chambers, or The Big Secret in the book, by the way. What’s in it, then? Read the book.)
As Harrison says, some fine performance by Robinson in the film. He got sympathy from Chuck Connors, who asked why the hell they weren’t filming the book.
Don’t bother. Not a good movie and not a fun piece of cheese.
If you like corny Sci-Fi.: The Last Man on Earth (1964)
A forgotten pre-cursor to Night of the Living Dead
Plot Summary for The Last Man on Earth
Isnt that based on the Richard Matheson novel I am Legend I think it is and I do enjoy Richard Matheson stuff so maybe it would be worth a viewing.
For another take on the Soylent Green thing, try Buffy, season 6, the Doublemeat Palace episode.
There really needs to be a puking smilie, methinks.
Mostly boring, and everyone’s really sweaty in the future (yeah, yeah, global warming or whatever). However, there was one good thing about that movie - the death scene of Sol / Edward G RobinsonQuite a nice scene, chiefly for its contrast with the rest of the flick.
When Edward G. Robinson did Sol’s death scene, it was the last acting he ever did on film, and he knew he was dying. The man was a professional.
It’s not very good at all. Still, I think it’s kind of cool to be able to say I saw it. At the time, it made spoofs of the ending more enjoyable.
Later (loosely) remade as The Omega Man–with Heston!
Reportedly, there’s yet another version in the works.
It’s tentatively titled The Mutants of 2051 AD:
“Fleshy-headed mutant, are you friendly?” “No way, eh! Radiation has made me an enemy of mankind.”
I’d recommend it because it’s a piece of history; little homages to various scenes in movies like Soylent Green keep popping up all over the place - some of them are obvious (and you don’t need to have seen the movie to ‘get’ them), but some are more subtle.
I’d recommend seeing it. The videogame mentioned above is indeed a gem and there are lots of other great examples of future technology being way off the mark.
There was a skit a long time back on SNL where Charlton Heston appears in several sequels of Soylent Green where the only thing changed is the colour but the shock ending remains, to wit - “Soylent White is people!” “Soylent Red is people!” ad nauseum.
Typical SNL effort which went on about five minutes too long but there was one good line - “Soylent Cow Pies are people!”
It’s been years since I saw it but I rather enjoyed it, if nothing more for the cheese value. And Chuck Heston’s scenery chewing is always fun to watch(same with Al Pacino).
I’d say you should watch it. In fact, I’d recommend seeing all of Heston’s early-70’s science fiction forays. He’s always entertainingly over-the-top. You also get a window on how generally mistrustful of the future people were at the time. We lived with the constant threat of nuclear warfare, had just had a spirit-breaking experience in Vietnam, had large-scale social unrest in here in the US, and there was a crook sitting in the Oval Office. The happy Jetsons-type future didn’t seem in the cards.
As far as them not getting the technology “right”…are there any science fiction movies where they did accurately predict future tech? If you’re going to turn your nose up because, 30 or so years ago, the film producers didn’t anticipate the iPod and the Gameboy Advance, then there is little in the way of science fiction movies you are going to enjoy.
Keep an eye out for the woman that played Tapow (sp?) in Star Trek. She’s one of the old cronies that Sol visits with the books.
You never listen to Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony (#6) quite the same way after seeing the scene Atticus Finch and Baldwin mentioned.
Worth eating? It varies from person to person.