MovieChat Forums > Soylent Green (1973) Discussion > "It's the Year 2022"

"It's the Year 2022"

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
13 replies | jump to latest

So says the poster for "Soylent Green" -- which was made 49 years ago in 1973. I post this on January 1, 2022.

My personal "lead in" on Soylent Green is that I saw it -- in a movie theater -- on its release in 1973. And so I am amazed today. Back then (I was a teenager), 2022 seemed impossibly far ahead in the future, almost inconceivable to imagine I would live til then. And I did.

Along the way, I watched as other famous book, movie and even song title dates came and went:

1984. (We seem to have missed the Totalitarianism, though there are still risks.)
2001. (The TV phone screens have come true with Skype and FaceTime; the space travel and stations....sort of, but not really.)
1999 (Prince's song is from 1982! And 1999 seemed way in the future; Now, both 1982 and 1999 are BOTH way in the past.)
2010 (The sequel to 2001 but nobody much waited for that year to come)

...and here we are at 2022. It's the year 2022, warned Soylent Green...did it come true?

No, not really. There are some good posts here about WHY the things warned about in Soylent Green did not come true. Overpopulation? No. A reversal to a decline in births! Food shortages? No.

But I'm no expert. I suppose there are food shortages SOMEWHERE. Over-population SOMEWHERE. Not so much in the US.

And yet: in the past year, I have visited the small city I lived in when Soylent Green came out in 1973, and while the streets aren't FILLED with overpopulated masses...there sure are a lot of grimy looking tent cities. EVERYWHERE. Under freeways, in parks -- and not just downtown. The real grimness has been seeing these tent cities set up near the high school I went to, next to strip malls from my youth and dilapidated shopping malls. Or just people sleeping right on the sidewalk. THAT's Soylent Green but for reasons other than over-population. Since most of those tent cities were nowhere to be found in suburban locations in 1973, I wonder what happened to bring that many people to the streets. Housing costs? Unemployment? Drugs? Mental illness? Lack of education? Lack of family? Its a mystery, but yes 2022 is a BIT like Soylent Green in that way.

And of immediate alarm -- if not of long range danger yet -- is a "supply chain breakdown" that has indeed emptied shelves of SOME foods (cat food in my experience)...and evidently inflation has raised prices on ALL food. Still, it is not at the nightmare levels (NO food) shown in Soylent Green.

The movie understood in 1973 that the rich would perhaps always be richer and live better and "above it all" than the poor and the working class. True in 1973, perhaps more true in 2022. I mean, California has the ultra-wealth of Silicon Valley and Hollywood and yet...massive tent cities and poverty in Los Angeles and in inland pockets of the state.

The women aren't "furniture" yet, though. 1973 was also the year of women's liberation. Oh, there are some beautiful women who (by their own choice?) play the roles of the furniture in the movie but...no.

And so, overall and in the main, 2022 is not the Dystopian nightmare as portrayed in Soylent Green, but SOME of it has come true, "around the edges," and perhaps for different reasons (the people living in the streets for instance.)

Still, overall, the message is a good one. It's the year 2022 and its not half as bad as they said it would be in 1973.

Struggle, but enjoy.

PS. By the way, when I saw Soylent Green in 1973, I thought it was a pretty cheapjack movie, not well made enough. It was made at MGM, then a dying studio run for a few years by a really villainous cost cutter named James Aubrey, who in the same year, cut Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" to pieces to get it to theaters quickly. Robert Redford said he would do The Sting...as long as it was NOT done under Aubrey at MGM. And indeed, 1973 was a GREAT movie year with the more major movies released in the second half of the year long after Soylent Green: Enter the Dragon, American Graffiiti, The Paper Chase, The Way We Were, Serpico, Charley Varrick, Magnum Force and the Big Two: The Exorcist and The Sting.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

BTTF2 2015
Terminator 1997

[–] Rekastor (33) 3 years ago

I think a lot of Soylent Green story is lost on people in a big way. Its scary how correct Soylent Green is in its predictions. It's most unfortunate how some people rather ignore what the F is going on in the world as long they are not affected personally. People should take Soylent Green movie more seriously imo. 'It's year 2022' ; it means 'near future' when this shit could/would happen.

Next statements is from user who deleted his/her account here. They talk about Soylent Green movie about this very topic. Here's what he/she said:

''It wasn't only overpopulation that was the problem in "Soylent Green." Thorn mentioned that there was an out of control green house effect that made it a heatwave all year long where nothing could grow, so like Venus millions of years ago, Earth would eventually become to hot to sustain life. As Thorn said, "Ocean's dying, plankton's dying..." The Earth was doomed.''

- year 2022 = it means 'near future'

- overpopulation = almost there

- green house effect = already here

- out of control green house effect = almost there
When this happens, food shortages will be enormous and wouldn't be even a primary issue but one of many primary issues ppl would face. 'Soylent Green is people' = not that far fetch idea. Soylent Green movie would look like living in a dream if green house starts in its full effect.

- furniture (woman) = Not come to pass
But there are a lot of countries shit like this is reality for a lot of women. Also, when this movie was made, women in US still needed to fight for their basic rights long after 'women's liberation'. When consider this; such bleak future for women wasn't that far fetch idea at all.

This was the point of the story in this movie, and not some superficial take on a movie and the story it tells. The point was/is, it could/would happen in near future if people would still go down this road (and we did and still do). If past events and present issues we are facing right now as humanity is lost on people then Soylent Green will become prophetic movie and reality will be much worse.

[–] Redsfan001 (6145) 3 years ago

Interesting post.

I'll add some interesting trivia... probably most people know it, but for those that don't...

This movie had the first video computer arcade game ever shown on the big screen.

"Computer Space" manufactured in 1971.

[–] Rekastor (33) 3 years ago

I'll add another interesting trivia: :-)

From all the main cast only 2 are still alive today and both have same last name ''Young''
(not related with each-other):

- Leigh Taylor-Young (age 28 - at the time) ... she play - Shirl

- Stephen Young (age 34 - at the time) ... he play - Gilbert

I just find that interesting.. :-)

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 3 years ago

A very amusing part of Soylent Green is its warning against the dangers of Capitalism, which, apparently, make your planet look like most Communist countries of the 20th century to the present.

[–] hitfan (219) 3 years ago

Well, one thing it did get right is that we'd be living in a form of dystopia in 2022.

Aren't vaccine and mask mandates sort of dystopic? Cancel culture has shown that big brother is not big government, but it is all of us.

Imagine someone from the 1970s seeing the pandemic in 50 years from their vantage point.

I could picture a movie called: "IMAGINE... A WORLD WITHOUT MASKS" with an older person telling a young person how life used to be like. My young children's only living memory so far is having to wear masks when they are out of the house.

[–] liscarkat (18373) 3 years ago

There are people I've known for many years, whose whole faces I haven't seen for nearly two years. There are people I've only known for a year or a year and a half, whose whole faces I've never seen. We are forced to keep up this face diaper idiocy in spite of the fact that science shows that masks do not alter the spread of corona virus. It's insane. It's a cult.

[–] bobbydallas (8515) 3 years ago

Soylent Green is 100% coming true
look at the food we eat? do we know what's in it?

heck no
pretty soon it's gonna be people..

[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2413) 3 years ago

1984. (We seem to have missed the Totalitarianism, though there are still risks.)

Um, have you been living under a rock for the past two years?!

[–] darkpast (8717) 2 years ago

😱