Soylent Green (spoiler)

[Stevicus]

Soylent Green (1973) ⭐ 7.0 | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi

1h 37m | PG

www.imdb.com

This old classic is one of my favorites. Two greats, Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson, who sadly died before the film was released.

Of course, the final ending was a big shocker. (I put spoiler in the subject heading just in case anyone who hasn't seen it won't find out about the spoiled batch of Soylent Green.)

But considering the context of the movie and the way people were living, with constant food shortages and having to subsist on rations of Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the new Soylent Green, which became particularly popular. I was wondering what might have happened after the movie, with Charlton Heston screaming about the secret ingredient in Soylent Green. Would anyone in that time and place, living in that society under those conditions, actually care what Soylent Green is made of? Would it matter to anyone?

 

[Revoltingest]

 

[Dan From Smithville]

We've always been good at finding technical solutions to our problems.

That's a good question. Would a hungry or starving world really care what they were eating? I'd like to think so, but from what I see of politics these days, maybe a lot wouldn't care at all and hope the source was from the other side.

 

[Soandso]

Soylent is a real thing, but it's not people - I promise

Amazon.com

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Soylent is a real thing, but it's not people - I promise

Amazon.com

Do they make different flavors? Something savory?

 

[Soandso]

Do they make different flavors? Something savory?

Only sweet flavors

Soylent

All Soylent products provide complete nutrition.

www.amazon.com

I think you're right, though. I wanna see spam flavored Soylent

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Only sweet flavors

Soylent

All Soylent products provide complete nutrition.

www.amazon.com

I think you're right, though. I wanna see spam flavored Soylent

I'm not sure if spam and soylent together would be too redundant or not.

Honestly, I like spam. Just not in regular doses.

 

[Quagmire]

Soylent Green (1973) ⭐ 7.0 | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi

1h 37m | PG

www.imdb.com

This old classic is one of my favorites. Two greats, Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson, who sadly died before the film was released.

Of course, the final ending was a big shocker. (I put spoiler in the subject heading just in case anyone who hasn't seen it won't find out about the spoiled batch of Soylent Green.)

But considering the context of the movie and the way people were living, with constant food shortages and having to subsist on rations of Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the new Soylent Green, which became particularly popular. I was wondering what might have happened after the movie, with Charlton Heston screaming about the secret ingredient in Soylent Green. Would anyone in that time and place, living in that society under those conditions, actually care what Soylent Green is made of? Would it matter to anyone?

People might care, but probably in the same way that people today 'care' about the environment: they may express concern but in the end they'll still get in their cars and drive 2 blocks to the market to buy meat and any number of plastic-based and over-packaged products.

People today 'care' about human rights, but they'll still shell out billions of dollars every year to buy products produced with slave and/or child labor.

People in the world of Soylent Green might 'care' that what they're eating is made out of people, but most would probably eat it anyway.

If you look at situations all through history where food was scarce and starvation was the alternative, cannibalism was fairly common. Soylent Green would be a less in-your-face version thereof, which is usually enough for most people to get over any qualms they may have about, well, pretty much anything.

 

[MikeF]

Soylent Green (1973) ⭐ 7.0 | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi

1h 37m | PG

www.imdb.com

This old classic is one of my favorites. Two greats, Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson, who sadly died before the film was released.

Of course, the final ending was a big shocker. (I put spoiler in the subject heading just in case anyone who hasn't seen it won't find out about the spoiled batch of Soylent Green.)

But considering the context of the movie and the way people were living, with constant food shortages and having to subsist on rations of Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the new Soylent Green, which became particularly popular. I was wondering what might have happened after the movie, with Charlton Heston screaming about the secret ingredient in Soylent Green. Would anyone in that time and place, living in that society under those conditions, actually care what Soylent Green is made of? Would it matter to anyone?

I had stopped reading the rest of the OP when I saw that you considered it one of your favorite movies. I wanted to watch the movie fresh, without the spoiler.

I watched it last night and enjoyed it. I thought it amusing that the movie creator's aesthetic vision of what the future would look like stylistically in 40 years seemed to not really get past the 1960's and 1970's aesthetics as seen from my perch with 20/20 hindsight.

As to your question, I do not think that, under those conditions, our current taboo against "recycling" dead human beings would persist. I have seen other science fiction treatments in which, either in space or in closed habitats with fixed resources, the dead are processed into fertilizer as a means of reusing or capturing the resource of the molecules contained in the human body. This would be one step removed from directly consuming the molecules from the human being directly, but it is really all the same in the end, isn't it? Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we human beings are highly adaptable.

 

[Revoltingest]

Do they make different flavors? Something savory?

You can get a variety of people flavors....
Scotsman
German
Froggie
Yankee
Limey
Chinese
And the soon to be introduced Vegan