SCIENCE! Movie: Soylent Green

[mario]

Sorry it took so long to make this thread! I messed up our Netflix queue, so we ended up getting Azumanga Daioh Volume 3 instead of the desired SCIENCE!y movie (though the disk we got was certainly entertaining in its own right). Only last night did we finally get the chance to see Soylent Green.

(For future reference, anyone who's seen the movie o' the week should feel free to make the discussion thread if one isn't up by Monday)

I gotta say, as fun as the Romero and Corman flicks were, it was nice to see a film for this little movie club with a bit more polish to it. Comparing directly to Death Race 2000, this week's movie did a much better job at immersing me in a dystopian future. The characters behaved in a much more believable manner, ultimately being more accepting of their misfortune of being born in these troubled times. I was even more willing to accept the idea of the furniture, which appeared very similar to stories you often hear about destitute families selling their children into prostitution (though Stef and I were uncertain if perhaps women make a conscious decision to be furniture in order to get by in a tough world; after all, you get strawberries!).

One complaint: Shirl seemed to get way too excited about hot water, for someone who had lived in that apartment for so many years.

Oh yeah, and to anyone that hasn't watched it yet: the fact that I knew the last line of the film didn't ruin it for me at all. The movie makes constant allusions to the Big Secret (I imagine it must have been truly mind-blowing when the film was new), and the payoff was well worth it. The characters' individual reactions seemed on par with how real people might have responded to it, so that tells you something about the fine acting and writing throughout. If anything, my knowing the ending made me anticipate the unveiling the whole time I was watching it. Good times, y'all.

[Apathy]

Dystopian future: Excellently portrayed.

The people as furniture/books and food all kinda tied in nicely. Especially when you see how little they have in the way of actual resources. I mean, the police badge looked like it was made of cardboard.

But you really have to wonder about their policies on crowd-control. Hilariously effective, but you still have to wonder how drunk they were when they came up with that.

[mario]

I had assumed that the crowd control trucks were shipping people straight to the Soylent factories. Maybe if people picked up by the trucks are mysteriously never heard from again, it might intice them to riot less.

Though those folks seemed eager to riot at the drop of a hat. And really, what else do you have to look forward to in dystopia?

[jc]

Hey, you got my Azumanga Daioh 3! Awesome.

[Apathy]

Originally Posted by mario

I had assumed that the crowd control trucks were shipping people straight to the Soylent factories. Maybe if people picked up by the trucks are mysteriously never heard from again, it might intice them to riot less.

Nah, they only soylentify the already dead. Otherwise the whole 'breeding us like cattle' thing would be in effect.

[mario]

I figured they were killing them first! Like the whole euthanasia clinic.

[Apathy]

You mean the suicidatorium?

Voluntary death doesn't count as slaughtering people for food. That's just making sure that nothing goes to waste.

[mario]

They certainly weren't discouraging suicides. I'm willing to bet the suicidatorium and soylent green were part of a massive joint effort.

[Apathy]

Got to get the green somehow!

Plus people killing themselves means that there are less people clamoring for the green. It's quite a neat little system.

[jc]

If everybody died, the supply would completely cover the demand.

[Takeru]

IT'S PEOPLE! AZUMANGA DAIOH IS PEOPLE!

[Stef]

Regarding the suicidatorium: Why were those images of deer, cherry blossoms, etc so foreign to Thorn (and ostensibly the unwashed masses as well)? You'd think that if the images of the lost Earth were so transfixing, the government would play them at the movies as another way to generate revenue. I don't understand how or why they can hog the video footage of plants and animals as a special treat for the voluntarily euthanized.

[Apathy]

You'd want to avoid getting people's hope up I reckon. They're running a society that knows about its own decline, showing them the world that they've been denied would probably cause even more unrest.

I mean, you'd have the old guard saying "you screwed up the Earth *rabble rabble rabble*" and the new kids going "The world looked like this at one poine? WTF? And we get this shit-heap? *rabble rabble rabble*".

Although I'm not averse to any opportunity to use the scoops.