# Soylent Green: Worth Watching? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633 "2005-09-21T01:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/1 "2005-09-21T01:01:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/2 "2005-09-21T01:04:24Z")
Worth watching? Barely. Worth eating? Definately! ---
**Author:** ![anyrose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/54ee81/32.png) [@anyrose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anyrose)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/3 "2005-09-21T01:05:01Z")
> [@pool](#): > > 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. _ **NO!!!** _ ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/4 "2005-09-21T01:20:12Z")
Read the book “Make Room! Make Room!” After you get over the depression, watch the movie just to see what little they got right. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/5 "2005-09-21T01:28:31Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/6 "2005-09-21T01:36:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/7 "2005-09-21T02:02:40Z")
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)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058700/) A forgotten pre-cursor to Night of the Living Dead Plot Summary for The Last Man on Earth > [@](#): > > Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a devastating world-wide plague due to a mysterious immunity he acquired to the bacterium while working in Central America years ago. He is all alone now…or so it seems. As night falls, plague victims begin to leave their graves, part of a hellish undead army that’’s thirsting for blood…his! ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/8 "2005-09-21T02:05:04Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![N.Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f19dbf/32.png) [@N.Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N.Sane)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/9 "2005-09-21T03:50:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/10 "2005-09-21T05:34:51Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/11 "2005-09-21T05:57:06Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/12 "2005-09-21T06:00:34Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/13 "2005-09-21T07:08:07Z")
> [@pool](#): > > 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. Later (loosely) remade as _The Omega Man_–with Heston! Reportedly, there’s yet another version in the works. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/14 "2005-09-21T07:43:24Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/15 "2005-09-21T07:59:08Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/16 "2005-09-21T08:01:21Z")
I’d recommend seeing it. The [videogame](http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/img/computer-space-ad.jpg) 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!” [Enjoy!](http://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92osoylent.phtml) ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/17 "2005-09-21T08:48:42Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/18 "2005-09-21T12:23:11Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/19 "2005-09-21T12:24:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633/20 "2005-09-21T12:33:29Z")
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. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soylent-green-worth-watching/322633.md?page=2)