Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a gem.

Soylent Green
"It's the year 2022... People are still the same. They'll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT.
Slow burn, genre defining A24 Movie
Created by	Richard Fleischer
Date	April 19, 1973
Status	Gemerald

Soylent Green is an A24^{Even though it was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer} epic^{It has a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes} slowburn^{Only 97 minutes long by the way} movie released in 1973, based off of the 1966 science-fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. It explores themes of pollution, resource overusage, corrupt police, overpopulation, poverty, food of questionable quality, treating women as property, rioting, people backstabbing each other constantly, and people eating each other. Soylent Green is best known by 'teens for being the inspiration behind the name of the Soylent company, who created the drink the sharty knows and loves^{And secretly drinks}.

Plot

By 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, global warming, and pollution have caused ecocide, leading to severe worldwide shortages of food, water, and housing, bringing human civilization to the brink of collapse. New York City has a population of 40 million, and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food in walled-off communities patrolled by armed guards. Their homes are fortified, with moats, security systems, and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually, they include concubines (who are referred to as "furniture" and have no human rights and are passed from one apartment owner to the next). Meanwhile, the majority live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed food wafers made by the Soylent Corporation — a large food processing firm. Their mainstay products, Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, are a staple food, and the latest product, a new, more nutritious, and flavorful wafer derived from plankton, Soylent Green, is introduced to the populace.

NYPD Detective Robert Thorn lives in a cramped apartment with his aged co-worker and friend Sol Roth, a brilliant former college professor and police researcher (referred to as a "Book"), who helps him with his cases. Thorn is called to investigate the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a member of the Soylent Corporation's board, which he suspects was an assassination. With the help of Simonson's concubine Shirl, his investigation leads to a priest whom Simonson had visited shortly before his death. Because of the sanctity of the confessional, the visibly exhausted priest can only hint to Thorn at the contents of the confession. Soon after, the priest is murdered in the confessional by Fielding, Simonson's former bodyguard. Under the direction of Governor Henry C. Santini, Thorn's superiors order him to end the investigation. Still, he continues, fearing losing his job if he files a false report. He soon becomes aware that an unknown stalker is following him. As Thorn tries to control a violent mob during a Soylent Green shortage riot, he is attacked by the assassin who killed Simonson. The killer shoots three times at Thorn but misses, accidentally striking several innocent bystanders in the crowd. Thorn manages to locate the killer and throw him to the ground. The killer shoots Thorn in the leg before being crushed by the hydraulic shovel of a police riot-control vehicle, which continually scoops up shovelfuls of people in the crowd and swivels to dump them for disposal.

In researching the case for Thorn, Roth brings two volumes of the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015–2019, taken by Thorn from Simonson's apartment, to the team of other "Books" (former professors and judges turned researchers) at the "Supreme Exchange". The "Books" quickly conclude from the oceanographic reports that the oceans are dying and can not actually produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is allegedly made, thus revealing that the ingredients in Soylent Green are, in fact, human bodies. This information confirms to Roth that Simonson's murder was ordered by his fellow Soylent Corporation board members, who knew Simonson was increasingly troubled by this truth and feared he might disclose it to the public.

Shaken by the truth, Roth decides to "return to the home of God" and seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic. Thorn discovers this and rushes to stop him, but he arrives too late. Before dying, Roth whispers his discovery to Thorn, who is horrified. Thorn moves to uncover proof of crimes against humanity and to bring it to the attention of the Supreme Exchange so the case can be brought to the Council of Nations to take action.

Thorn secretly boards a waste truck transporting human bodies from the euthanasia center to a waste-disposal plant, where he witnesses human corpses instead being processed and turned into Soylent Green. Thorn is discovered, but he escapes. As he returns to the Supreme Exchange, he is ambushed by Fielding and his men. Finding refuge in the church where Simonson confessed, Thorn kills his attackers but is seriously wounded in a gunfight. As paramedics tend to Thorn, he urges his commanding officer, Chief Hatcher, to spread the truth. Thorn shouts to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!"

Analysis

Green Soylent.

>It tastes like a shitty version of melted mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

-Prof. Soyberg