mapmail When watching this movie in 2017, one can't help but think what an inaccurate view of the future they had in 1973. Other sci-fi films of that generation did a much better job of future predictions. The actors did a fair job. I think however, with such a good premise, the film could have been very good with better technical effects. I found it hard to think of it actually being in the future.

frankwiener While we are constantly bombarded with the terms "climate change" and "global warming" today from numerous media sources, rarely do we hear about one of the primary causes of these conditions, which is the explosion of the world's population, primarily on much of the Asian and African continents. Apparently, it is politically incorrect nowadays to mention uncontrollable, unsustainable population growth in these places because rarely is it ever mentioned as a direct contributor to environmental disaster. Although the setting of this apocalyptic movie is New York, and we know very well that the population of the Big Apple won't reach anywhere near 40 million in five years (2022), the population of many cities in Asia and Africa have in fact increased by five-fold since this film was produced in 1973. They include Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Beijing, and Shanghai in China, Bangalore and Delhi in India, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Karachi in Pakistan, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Lagos in Nigeria. I'm sure that there are many other cities that can be added to this list. While the population crisis presented by this film clearly did not occur in New York, it did in fact take place in many other cities over the past 44 years, and that is very critical to the movie's fundamental message, which maintains its vital significance today.The opening montage of still photos, first in black and white before shifting to more recent color, that depicts the world's environmental degradation during the past century is very powerful and very sobering. Any fan of Edward G. Robinson, and I am one of those, should have been deeply moved by his spectacular, symphonic farewell to us in the euthanasia facility only days before he passed away in real life.Considering all of the recent revelations about the debasement and humiliation of women throughout Hollywood history, I found the reference to young, abused women here as inanimate "furniture" to be true to life in a distinctly Hollywood kind of way. After all, who knows more about the "furniture" of Hollywood studios than Hollywood itself? There's an interior decorator on every corner.Just go easy on those odd, green crackers before you completely lose your appetite and hope to God that we never live to see this work of fiction become reality. Bon appetite!

mark.waltz Not as potent as it was nearly 45 years ago, "Soylent Green" is a variation of the "1984" theme, a grim view of an undesirable future. It's 2022 New York City, overpopulated and certainly not an apple right off the tree. In fact, there are very few trees left in the city, and very little food. When food does become available, it's from the Soylent company, and here green is the preferred product. What it is exactly is no surprise to film historians, but to those who do not know, it is beyond shocking. At times, the film moves very slowly, but it's a slow road to the inevitable revelation. This is a frightening works where the living are nearly dead inside and desperation is severely felt. You can almost feel the stench, one that even in the heat of the summer, New York hasn't felt yet. In a sense, the film has to move at this speed to get the emotions in the viewers going, and once the film reaches its destination, you are so numbed by the horror of the future that the impact of it all is that much stronger. Reunited from "The Ten Commandments", Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson are friends here, not foes, and when police officer Heston brings Robinson home some surprises, the joy on EGR's face is tear inducing. In fact, Robinson gives a performance so beautiful, it's the best screen swan song an actor could have. He gets a farewell in a scene so poignant that you might be shaking in emotion. Robinson didn't get the Oscar nomination he richly deserved, but an honorary one was given to him, sadly posthumously. A supporting cast of many well known actors of the time goes from Joseph Cotten as a murdered millionaire, Chuck Conners as a brutal assassin, Leigh Taylor Young as a presumed high class prostitute, Brock Peters as Heston's supervisor aware of the conspiracy, Leonard Stone as a slimy pimp, Whit Bissel as the governor (running the state from a tent in what used to be Gramercy Park) and Paula Kelly as Conners' mistress. This is sometimes hard to watch because it sometimes seems so possible, yet ridiculously outlandish in normal times. But normal times have long disappeared, and sensitive viewers may indeed see this as a living nightmare of where society is heading...or possibly reached.

jakob13 In seeing 'Soylent Green' in 2017, we are struck how immediate and contemporary it is. We are living in a time that takes history and facts in a less detached way manner than we did in the past: objectivity has, it seems, no virtue,no relevance. Harry Harrison's dystopian novel 'Make Room! Make Room! became the film 'Soylent Green', under the skillful hand of director Richard Fleischer. The film's appropriate to our times; it speaks to our condition; its themes are associated with today's moral and social and political issues. 'Soylent Green' reveals in a futuristic New York, the consequences of global warming, that America's coupon clippers deny. The film released in 1974 talks of the 'greenhouse effect', a term that has slipped out of public consciousness, yet vividly represented by Fleischer as a world of excessive temperatures, over populated, with insufficient housing, a world of the poor and hungry who live cheek to jowl even in stairwells; churches have become warehouses for the homeless and the huddled masses. The rising temperatures have rendered the earth sterile so that food production cannot sustain life, and a corporation of the rich find ways to feed the 99 percent with something called 'soylent yellow, brown and now green'. 'Soylent Green' is a morality tale; it has definite lessons for our ruling corporate classes if they would only drop the scales from this eyes, and cleans the encrusted wax in their ears. We are in a world where the 1 percent, live in luxury and the 99 percent in despair. The film has, obviously, a bearing on the way our elite make decisions only for their bottom line. Slaves exist; they are called furniture; no longer human, they serve for sexual pleasure, and can be discarded at will like an old lamp or chair that no longer serves its purposes. The film's conceit has an echo from the 18 century: Dean Jonathan Swift says it all in 'A Modest Proposal'. 'Soylent Green's' universe is one that believes in waste not want not and all that hoary dictum entails. The film follows the tried and true hard-boiled detective genre with its twists and turns; its corrupt practices, its tail of dead,its false leads and chases, the heavy hand of the powerful to quash the hero Thron played with clenched jaws (Charlton Heston's trade mark) from getting at the truth. He is ably supported by Sol Roth (played by Edward G. Robinson, in his last film role) with a turn that enables Thorn or Heston to find his way. Chuck Connors is a cool killer at the beckon and call of the corporate powers that rule this claustrophobic world. Black actors play secondary but important roles, which says something for the casting of those days when Nixon's Southern Strategy was in full swing.'Soylent Green' is a film that deserves to be review and shown in schools, on television regularly. It has cautionary lessons for us that we should learn, yet the Trump White House and his billionaire cronies are pushing our planet to the hour when life on Earth will look like the ambiance of suffering and torment of the mass of people while the sybaritic holders of power make merry and money and enjoy the fruits of power as the world goes to hell in a hand basket.