![]() ![]() During the 1970s, fears of a “population bomb” were rampant, and warnings came from such disparate sources as Public Broadcasting System specials and songs like Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath.” It was a common belief humanity was breeding too much for the natural world’s ability to sustain it. Heston, who saw man as merely a superior monkeys’ uncle in 1968’s Planet of the Apes, and the earth go zombie in The Omega Man in 1971, had real concerns about overpopulation when he commissioned the script for Soylent Green. Sludge and filth cover the perimeter of human existence in Soylent Green, and plague and famine eat humanity out from the inside. The face covering in the montage actually increases exponentially as the 20th century tumbles past into our own modern nightmares. ![]() The historical montage which opens Soylent Green, based on real photographs from the 20th century, shows how industry and population colluded to form a dystopian future where too many people struggle for too little food, gag at the air, and wear masks on a daily basis. Store shops in the 1973 science fiction classic Soylent Green were so mobbed on Tuesdays that riots started every week in this dystopian vision of 2022. But when Charlton Heston first uttered that anguished warning, it might as well have been a supermarket can-can sale promotion. Of course the line “Soylent Green is people” is now an insta-spoiler meme and trope. Why settle for tacos when Tuesday can be Soylent Green Day? Far more nutritious than Soylent Red or Yellow, the green stuff is made with a secret ingredient that makes it a real delicacy. ![]()
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