Soylent Green

Guide Note:

Soylent Green is a 1973 film starring the late Charlton Heston as an NYC detective in the year 2022. The film prefigures 1982's Blade Runner as a combination of science fiction and police procedural.

Before reading on, note that the next sentence, as well as the Fast Facts below, are potential film spoilers.

Fast Facts:

1. Released May 9, 1973
2. 97 minutes
3. Director: Richard Fleischer
4. Stars: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Brock Peters
5. Themes: Overpopulation, global warming, cannibalism, futurism, dystopianism
6. Won the Nebula Award for best Sci-fi film of 1973

While investigating the murder of a director of the processed food manufacturer Soylent, Heston's character, detective Robert Thorn, uncovers a broader and more sinister crime. In a world without books, where people are confined to cities and where overpopulation has led to limited food supply and riots, a new food source has been manufactured. Supposedly from a mixture of soy beans and lentils, the new product called Soylent Green was produced. However, after discovering that the crime he was assigned to was a murder, Thorn also discovers why. It is discovered first by his literary assistant, played by Edward G. Robinson. He discovers that the real ingredient behind the product is recycled protein from a very unusual source: deceased human beings.

Heston's final line, "Soylent Green is people!" has become a widely parodied artifact of kitsch. However, the film has its admirers as well: In a 2007 essay, the writer John Shirley praised the film as nuanced and prescient.