Talk:Make Room! Make Room!

Novel vs. Movie
"The novella focusses on social commentary, pushing the importance of birth control and sustainable development to avoid social disorganisation, but in the movie a hero cop uncovers a fascistic use of a euthanasia program to provide cheap protein."

Not totally clear, but isn't this a bit POV? I get the impression that the novel is considered better, or at least more intelligent, than the movie. Could be the hero cop line, but I'll leave it for others to change if it seems necessary.


 * I think POV is difficult to avoid when contrasting between the book and the movie in a meaningful way, but I would disagree with the author's POV that the cannibalism conspiracy in Soylent Green make it "less intellectual" than the book. I'm not sure what "less intellectual" means when comparing a film and a book, and furthermore the charge that overpopulation is merely a backdrop in the movie seems strange since the cannibalism conspiracy in Soylent Green requires food shortages and overpopulation as a precursor.

Infobox
I added an Infobox, hope I did that right. Also just want to mention that the copy of this book currently in my possession was a later (1973) reprint, basically shilling for Soylent Green, and it doesn't have that sweet, sweet cover art. The pagecount is based on this copy, if anyone has the first edition pagecount handy it'd probably be better to use that one. Antepenultimate 04:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Speaking of the sweet cover art, is the frontmost figure lifted from H.R. Giger's "Birth Machine"? - 124.168.42.52 (talk) 16:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Improbable. In 1967 when the book was published Aldridge was an established graphic artist, and it's very much in his style. According to the timeline downloadable from H. R. Giger's site, the "Birth Machine" was made in the same year: it's not clear if it was exhibited before the book was published, and this appears to have been at an early stage in Giger's rise to fame. Most likely great minds thinking alike. . . dave souza, talk 18:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Too much detail
I updated the plot description of the book but fear I may have overdone it. Everything is correct but I'm not sure what level of detail is expected/desired. Checking other book entries seems to show a wide range of levels of detail. So from one of you pedians, how much is too much? Ozlucien 10:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Population counts
Is it worth mentioning the actual 2000 World and U.S. population figures in comparison with the novel's projections? The novel states a world population of 7 billion and a U.S. population of 344 million, compared to the real figures of just under 6 billion and 281 million, respectively. (In contrast, the movie depicts the population of New York City in 2022 to be 40 million.) — Loadmaster (talk) 16:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not? Netrat (talk) 12:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Why not?  Besides, the US population is 314 million and growing.  Will reach the Novel's numbers very soon. 99.6.4.126 (talk) 10:23, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Based on short story
The article currently says "Originally expanded by Harry Harrison from his own short story 'Roommates,'". This is incorrect. In the introduction to to "Roommates" in The Best of Harry Harrison, Harrison states that he was asked for an excerpt from ''Make Room! Make Room! for the collection The Ruins of Earth'', but no simple extract would, he felt, work well, so he extracted several scenes, and wrote connecting passages to create "Roommates". The ISFDB supports this, showing that "Roommates" was first published in 1971 in The Ruins of Earth, while MRMR dates from 1966. This should be corrected in the article. 129.42.208.186 (talk) 22:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Hotel Astor, Times Square
Final pages of the book; Andy catches sight of Shirley one final time, after supervising the millenium celebrations in Times Square. She is with a party crowd outside the exclusive Astor hotel. The hotel was still in operation in 1966, when the novel was published. It had been a fixture of NYC social life since it was built in 1903. The building was demolished in 1968. 165.120.235.87 (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Major themes
This section had big problems, one being that it was confused as to what a "theme" is; social commentary is something the author is certainly making/doing, but it's not a theme. In any case, you don't establish that themes are present in the novel because other people were talking about those topics at the same time as Harrisson--that's irrelevant, and as it was the only citation in the entire section, I've removed the section: it's OR. We don't write literary criticsm here: we report it. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 01:46, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Removed from article
I just took this phrase out of the plot summary because it is completely incorrect: "[water ration] which will eventually be replaced with instant-death poison". There is no poison given out that kills people in the book. The ending ties up some loose ends but does not have a mass poisoning. I don't know what the person who added this phrase was referencing, but it isn't in the book. Cromwellt&#124;talk&#124;contribs 01:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)