Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller film directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson in his final film role. It is loosely based on the 1966 science-fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, with a plot that combines elements of science fiction and a police procedural. The story follows a murder investigation in a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity caused by the greenhouse effect, with the resulting pollution, depleted resources, poverty, and overpopulation. In 1973, it won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. 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 humanity to the brink of total extinction. New York City has a population of 40 million (out of a global 20 billion), and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food, in walled-off "corpo-villages" patrolled by armed guards. The homes of the elite are fortified, with security systems and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually, they include concubines (who are referred to as "furniture" and have no citizenship or rights). The poor live in squalor, haul irradiated water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed and often toxic wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the latest product, far more flavorful, nutritious and less poisonous, Soylent Green. NYPD detective Robert Thorn lives with his aged friend Sol Roth, a brilliant former college professor and police analyst (referred to as a "Book"). Thorn is investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a board member of the Soylent Corporation, 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 direction from Governor Henry C. Santini, Thorn's superiors order him to end the investigation, but he continues, fearing that he will lose his job if he files a false report.