h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not a big fan of big Charlton; but "Soylent Green" green, I think, is a masterpiece. He is magnificently cast as an almost Wagnerian proto-hero. It's just a damn fine movie.

Soylent green? A GOOD film? Were you on crack when you saw it? I saw Soylent Green as part of a marathon of sci fi films including Dark Star, Silent Runnings, Akira and Delicatessen. Now those four were all well appreciated, but when Soylent Green came on it was a very very different story. It is one of the only two times I've attended a screening of a film where the audience are actively taking the rip out of it while it's playing. The other one being Jan De Bont's hacked up version of The Haunting.

Soylent Green was obviously made of people right from the start, and I've never seen a film shot in Green and Brown before. Soylent Green left me wishing I never would again. What was with that neckerchief? Did he think he was Fred off scoobie doo? I'm with you on not liking Charlton 'Mr Melodrama' Heston, who was totally responsible for the mess of an ending this film shares with the otherwise good Planet of the Apes.

Did he need to keep going on about that it was made from people? I mean thanks Charlty but we kinda got that part already. Something as dreary and dull as this should never get made. How many scene's of rioting people can one film carry? It made some nice points, but then KEPT making the EXACT same points. ARGHRAGHHRGHARHG I can't see how ANYONE could like this film!?!?!

This isn't as it seems a personal attack on you, it's just I hate this film soooo much I can't comprehend anyone liking it. But then some people like The Haunting remake...

junky

No offence taken.

It is rather dated. But it was pretty hot stuff. The fact that it seems so cliche should suggest that it was pretty influential, in its own way. Everyone knows what soylent green is; though most have probably never seen the film.

If the premise of the film is to keep the audience in suspence about the nature of soylent green', then I agree: it's pretty silly. You'd have to be a pretty dull boy not to have sussed that it's people meat. But I don't think that was intended at all. The film is not so much about soylent green, per se, as the relationship between Heston and Edward G. Robinson. Soylent green is the catalyst that forces Heston's character into revolt. Heston has to be unaware of its true nature. But just as importantly, we have to at least suspect it isn't kosher, in order to empathise with Robinson and appreciate what shaky ground Heston's worldview is based on.

You have to agree that the euthanasia scene was beautiful.... Beethoven's sixth, and all!



JTG

...'Silent Running' is another favourite of mine.

Yeah I admit that the euthanasia scene was well done, but again it was fairly obvious where it was heading. I don't know I like to be surprised as well as entertained. Mebe I'm just spoilt. Damn I was spoilt to be able to see all those films up on the silver screen... Silent Runnings is one of my all time favourite films too, but I wish it didn't have all that folk singing...

The sun was in the sky,
and the wind was in my hair,
that's what I was wearing when I met you....

I bet she could have sung songs that only dogs could hear. I do tend to have these fairly extreme and some people might say irrational responses to certain stimuli in films, like I find that I hate anything with Meg Ryan in with an extreme vengeance. Throw Tom Hanks in their too and I'm heading for the suicide booth. Soylent Green, maybe it seemed worse than it was in comparison to the other films, but having said that I don't think I'd watch it again to find out.

Opinions... couldn't you just eat em up?

the junky

Opinions: that's what we're here for... to amuse some, to antagonise others, and bore the rest.

Have you seen Klaus Kinski in 'Android'? In tone, it is not dissimilar to 'Silent Running'... with a heavy dose of Kinski weirdness and music by one of the original Mothers of Invention (Don Preston, I think). Suspension of disbelief is a big factor in this one too.



JTG

I think I'm the boring type... and I hadn't heard of that film. Incidently did you see the driver last night? Bruce Dern was ace in that too. Unlike in the haunting but then he's just bad in that by definition...

I don't think I've seen either of those films. I liked his performance in 'Middle age crazy'; though, I dare say, my perspective on that has no doubt changed since I first saw it.

JTG

Well if not for the fact ya like soylent green something which as you know surpised me, I'd tell you never to go see the haunting. Not because it's plotwise or style wise like soylent, just because I didn't think anyone could like the haunting either. I think it's probabaly the worse thing I've seen and due to my MST3K watching and general love of anything with the Alex Gordon, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Edward D Wood Jr or Roger Corman name on it, I've seen a lot of bad films...

Ryan