MovieChat Forums > Soylent Green (1973) Discussion > Looking at it from today's mindset....

Looking at it from today's mindset....

posted 9 years ago by April-151-CT
25 replies | jump to latest

Looking at it from today's mindset, where we've now seen pretty much everything and how far all envelopes have been pushed in the society that we now live in, where nothing shocks us or surprises us anymore, would it be all that bad of a solution to use what we could to survive if we actually were in that exact same situation? I mean really? If there were 40 MILLION or so people living in every city in this country and we had no food, wouldn't it make sense to let whomever wants out to be able to end their lives and then we recycled them into something which would help others survive? Like how we recycle our organs so that others can live. Would it really be such a bad thing? I mean it was a horrific thought to Hestons' character in the film, and to film-goers of that era. But to us now, how we think and feel about things now, wouldn't it be pretty much accepted and approved of? I mean if there's no food and the ocean life was dying out, what other choice would there be really if we were to survive as a species?
April151CT

[–] TheScreenWatcher 9 years ago

Funny I found your post. I was re-watching the film last night and thinking among the same lines. Certainly the subject is too close to cannibalism and makes many uncomfortable, but why it should? As a solution we would really have to ponder a way of survival.

[–] wyanddeb 9 years ago

There's way too many people in the world today. What we need is a good pandemic to get rid of a couple of billion. Then by all means grind them into hamburger, or green solvent if you prefer.

[–] April-151-CT 9 years ago

Eww, they'd be diseased. Tainted meat lol.

April151CT

[–] rndgurl-971-654277 9 years ago

You pretty much nailed it April.. by todays mindset it would be seen as a practical solution.

[–] wyanddeb 9 years ago

You're right. Okay, we don't eat it but maybe we can use it to fertilize our flowers.

[–] jim-85613 8 years ago

You first! You sound like a waste of oxygen. Do the world a favor and fall on a knife.

[–] Oolon_Colluphid 8 years ago

And you're part of the reason the boards are being disabled.

[–] Artisan (3464) 4 years ago

Well this was posted 5 years ago but you have your pandemic now lol.

[–] cinecephale 9 years ago

Well, your comment prove the film was right in the way it foresaw the future. we are all about efficiency and quick solutions now. it would be way more easy to eat cadavers than to change our way of living, wouldn't it? I think you missed the point of the film. The soylent green product stands as a symbol of losing our humanity and killing the earth. But who cares, right?

[–] goldenagefilmstv (178) 2 years ago

Well said. Survival would not be worth it if we were reduced to eating our dead!

[–] liscarkat (18381) a year ago

2023: Fifty years after the film was released, and the Earth is actually in better shape than it was then. It was an example of typical planetary doom hysteria.

[–] LobotomyKid 9 years ago

Well the obvious solution should be population control preferably trough education and state-aided measures for example. UN and other Census bureau numbers estimate that around the year 0 there were around 200 million people living on this planet. Since 1900 we went from roughly 1.5 billion to over 7 billion nowadays, that's just crazy!

Check the population growth of countries like India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh...esp. for Africa and the Middle East the projections are grim. In some African countries the population under 25 reaches up to 70%, in Egypt over 50% of the people are under 25 and you don't have to be a mathematician to realize how this will grow in the future.

People in the West are lamenting about protection of the environment but these are only the symptoms, the root of the problem is overpopulation. And food is not necessarily our biggest problem. If you learn a bit about ecological footprints (I know it's a controversial subject, depending on the methodology and the source of the numbers) it's obvious that nowadays it would not be possible that everybody on this planet could live the average West European citizen.

Imo we're past the point of no return, the projections for the next 30 years, like 10 billion around 2050, coupled with the knowledge that natural resources are going to be scarce can only lead to one conclusion: It's a recipe for disaster, social unrest, riots, wars... And esp. Europe but also the US will face huge migration, I mena on a scale that people will longingly look back for the good 'ol days in 2015 when only 80'000 Syrian refugees arrived in a week.

You know there's plenty of reason to criticize China but at least they're the only ones who really have done something trying to control the growing population. Although I wish it could be handled differently.

[–] footlegger (1462) 5 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYZPTaV-RcQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSAgHvETNSg

[–] lorrainearmstrongfl 9 years ago

"Check the population growth of countries like India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh...esp. for Africa and the Middle East the projections are grim. In some African countries the population under 25 reaches up to 70%, in Egypt over 50% of the people are under 25 and you don't have to be a mathematician to realize how this will grow in the future."

The reasons that the population you refer to is so young is because of (depending on country):

* War
* Disease (AIDS)
* Famine

Sadly, a great many of those children have a very low life expectancy.

Imo we're past the point of no return, the projections for the next 30 years, like 10 billion around 2050, coupled with the knowledge that natural resources are going to be scarce can only lead to one conclusion: It's a recipe for disaster, social unrest, riots, wars... And esp. Europe but also the US will face huge migration, I mena on a scale that people will longingly look back for the good 'ol days in 2015 when only 80'000 Syrian refugees arrived in a week.

I'm concerned about that, but not overly. Social unrest, riots, and wars have existed nearly as long as civilization. Once resources TRULY dwindle, nature (including man) will adapt. It always has.

[–] MooseNugget 9 years ago

I figured the people hearing Thorn reveal the big secret probably were so hungry that they didn't care. Maybe some people would rather starve but I figure even back then they would have justified cannibalism to themselves to get a bite to eat.

[–] webbrl-177-543920 9 years ago

If they can irradiate the kuru from it, go for it. It was a temporary solution anyway. They were never gonna breed people like cattle. Not sustainable. Soylent Green would sustain the population just long enough for the harshness of their existence to wipe out masses, returning humanity to a sustainable level.

[–] Avenger69 8 years ago

Given the context of the world in "Soylent Green," I agree with an earlier poster that people wouldn't care much that "Soylent Green is made out of people."

When one is starving to death, "humanity" goes out the window. Survival is paramount. Just take note of relatively recent events in human history where people did eat human flesh to survive, rather than cling on to "humanity." The soccer team, whose plane crashed in the Andes in the early-70s comes to mind.

"It's People..."

[–] goldenagefilmstv (178) 2 years ago

Many people died of starvation in prison camps during World War II. I've never heard or read of any instances of cannibalism in those camps, OR during famines in Africa. It must be relatively rare.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] njiuma 8 years ago

I don't want to eat people, or food somehow processed from humans, even it were somehow mixed from other diminishing resources like wheat, vegetables, and human protein. The film gives the impression that it is processed that way, so that you can't tell that there are humans in the food chain.

A better solution would be to clean up the environment while working on other food sources.

"If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it copy this and make it your signature!"

[–] April-151-CT 8 years ago

Of course you don't. Nobody really wants to. But anything can happen. Something cataclysmic. And when you're starving, really truly genuinely starving, you'll eat what's available, including people. It's happened before. You eat people, or starve to death, or just kill yourself and end it all.

April151CT