Talk:Soylent Green

Plot
At the end I said: Thorn is then taken away shouting "Soylent Green is people!" It´spart of the movie and it is still under 700 words.

P.S:: Edit warring? I only put my idea in the plot, which only differs from Griffith´s. It was the first time I introduced it. Why is that edit warring?Arderich (talk) 19:23, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking at the edit history, what I see is you making edits, or  reverting your edits, and then you reinserting your edits. Per WP:BRD it would have been best if you had come here after the first time your edits were undone, especially given your track record. Are they also edit-warring? Possibly. The lack of clear edit summaries is certainly unhelpful. But now we're here and I'll wait to hear from them before forming any further opinions on the matter. DonIago (talk) 19:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Gareth Griffith-Jones "restored" his "clean" version after I had reduced it from 761 words to 678 words. Who is the edit warrior here? Arderich (talk) 20:08, 30 March 2017 (UTC) I really feel that I have been wasting my time in attempting to copy-edit this article. The culprit has a history of disruption and needs mentoring. — Gareth Griffith-Jones &#124; The Welsh &#124; Buzzard &#124; 09:30, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As I told you at my Talk page, WP:FILMPLOT has nothing to do with edit-warring, and a shorter summary isn't necessarily better (for instance, you could be introducing grammatical errors or other issues). I don't know that Gareth realized they were pushing the article beyond the recommended word count, either. All good reasons why you could have initiated this discussion before I essentially forced the issue. Now let's wait to hear from them. DonIago (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I welcome your timely intervention,,
 * Thanks for speaking up here Gareth. For those just coming into this dispute, like myself, could you provide a bit more information as to which of Arderich's specific changes here you considered disruptive? They make a good point that the plot summary should typically be under 700 words. I'm asking because Arderich clearly doesn't feel their edits were disruptive, so it seems prudent to take a closer look at the actual changes; perhaps retain at least some of them if nobody involved in this discussion finds an issue with them. Thanks again! DonIago (talk) 13:11, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

In light of the continuing edits to this article, which may or may not constitute any level of edit-warring (I didn't look), I'm bowing out and un-watching this article. DonIago (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I've re written the plot section. The improvements are to make the plot less like an explanatory summary to be more a plot synopsis. The explanatory parts are more smoothly incorporated in the synopsis using elements in the movie to reveal them.

An opening montage of American cultural images from early 1900 to 2022 illustrating the effects of overpopulation, pollution, and urban decay have caused worldwide diseases, and severe shortages of food, water, and housing. Ending the montage a text box says "New York City population 40 million people. In the film only the city's elite can afford spacious apartments high security, clean water, and natural food. The homes of the elite usually include concubines who are referred to as "furniture", and are implied to be sex slaves. The poor live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed wafers, "Soylent Red", "Soylent Yellow", and the latest product the far more flavorful and nutritious, squares of "Soylent Green". Advertised as being made from ocean plankton Soylent Green is in short supply.

NYPD detective Frank Thorn (Charlton Heston), and his aged friend Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson), a police research assistant referred to as a "Book", live together in a small apartment cluttered with failing appliances, and bicycle generator. Roth remembers the world when it had animals and real food, He blames a "greenhouse effect" causing catastrophic overheating which Thorn has heard from him many times.

A thug is given a hand made wrecking tool which he admires, and uses to break into a high security building at night to murder its wealthy tenant (Josef Cotton). He tells his victim "they" were sorry but he had become unreliable. The victim agrees. The thug asks if this (gesturing with the wrecking bar) is right. The victim says "not right but necessary", and submits to his own murder. Thorn, investigating the murder, interviews the building manager, furniture girl Shirl (Liegh Taylor Young), and body guard Tad (Chuck Connors). He is told the victim is wealthy, believed to be retired, William R. Simonson. He also takes food, liquor, linens, and sundries. After negotiating with body collectors/garbage men over a "death benefit" of several hundred low value dollars he hitches a ride home on their garbage truck.

Thorn, and Sol examine Simonson's "evidence". Sol is thrilled with the fresh produce, sundries, and liquor but is shocked to tears at the sight of beef.

After Sol enjoys the meal as a starving man, and Thorn as a man who has never had fresh produce or beef would, Sol informs Thorn from a pair of highly technical oceanographic surveys Thorn procured from his investigation that the books were produced by Soylent Industries (its name from a combination of "soybean" and "lentil"), and that Simonson was a board member of Soylent. Sol reminds Thorn Soylent controls the food supply of half of the world.

Debriefing his commander, Hatcher, about the disposal of several case files Thorn is chided about not closing them all, and Hatcher blames the age of Sol Roth. On Simonson Thorne says assassination. Asked why not a punk he says because the punk didn't take anything, the punk wasn't a punk. He used a meat-hook instead of a gun to make it look like a punk. Hatcher reaffirms the punk didn't take anything, and asks what Thorn took. Thorn tells him everything he could get his hands on. Hatcher then negotiates "cuts", and disbursement of the death benefit for himself, Thorn, and on behalf of the body collector/garbage men.

Investigating Tad's modest apartment after waiting for Tad to leave Thorn discovers Tad does well for himself with good food, and even his own $black$ furniture girl. Stealing a spoon of, what Sol informs him are strawberries at 250 Ds a jar, Thorn is suspicious of how well Tad does for himself. A later visit to Simonson's "furniture" girl Shirl Thorn rebuffs the building manager who is a brutal pimp violently abusing other women for visiting "against the rules". Thorn begins a relationship with Shirl for sex, air conditioning, and hot water. His investigation leads to a priest in an overcrowded church being used as a homeless shelter that Simonson had visited and confessed to shortly before his death. The priest is exhausted, and poorly able to understand Thorn's questions. He can only hint at a truth that is destroying him before he is murdered by Tad on order of the governor. Thorn detects he is being tailed. He shakes the tail, and returns to Tad's apartment beating Tad, and his furniture for the tailing telling Tad to stay off his back. He returns to the police station, and is appalled that despite being tailed Hatcher urges him to close the case by falsifying his report. Thorn accuses Hatcher of being bought. Hatcher says "we're all bought when they pay you". Thorn demands to know who bought him. Hatcher says "high and hot", and they want this case closed, and promises "Cover". Thorn refuses in case "higher and hotter" wants more. As he leaves the office an officer in the squad room tells him he's assigned riot control.

Due to a supply bottleneck the supply of Soylent Green has been exhausted during a regularly publicized Tuesday "Soylent Green Day" when Soylent green is dispersed. Hungry masses riot. They are brutally removed from the streets by "scoops", police vehicles so horrible rioters are warned of their coming. The vehicles are modified front lift garbage trucks, that scoop the rioters with large front end loader scoops, and dump them in the vehicle's container. Thorn is attacked, and wounded during a riot, by the same assassin who killed Simonson, but the killer is crushed by a police scoop.

Roth brings the Soylent oceanographic reports to experts at the Supreme Exchange. The experts reveal that the oceans no longer produce plankton, and deduce from "evidence that is overwhelming" Soylent is involved in some "horrible", "expedient". They also deduce that Simonson's murder was ordered by his fellow Soylent board members knowing "these facts shook his sanity". They tell Roth they need proof that they can bring to the Council of Nations.

Roth is so disgusted with a degraded world that he decides to "return home" and goes to a government clinic. Thorn finds a message "going home" left by Roth, and rushes to the clinic demanding to see Roth. The clinic assists suicide where patients get bathed in light of their favorite color, favorite music, and a full 20 minutes "guaranteed". Thorn arrives too late. Roth and Thorn are mesmerized by the euthanasia process's visual and musical montage —long-gone forests, free animals, wide open spaces, rivers and ocean life. Roth dies whispering what he has learned to Thorn, begging him to find proof, so that the Council of Nations can take action.

Thorn follows the body of Roth. It's loaded with hundreds of others on garbage trucks. He hides aboard one transporting bodies from the euthanasia clinic to an industrial plant. Tracking from where the bodies are expelled from the trucks, and placed on a conveyor to be dumped in a large stirring vat of liquid Thorn follows pipes from the vat room through pumps, and processors through the huge plant to a conveyor belt carrying thousands of Soylent Green squares revealing – human cadavers are being processed into Soylent Green. Thorn is attacked, subdues his attackers, and escapes the Soylent factory but is intercepted in the city by Tad. He is wounded, and kills Tad, and several accomplices. As Thorn is tended to by paramedics, he urges Hatcher to inform the exchange of the truth he has discovered proof of, and initiate proceedings against the company. While being taken away, Thorn shouts out to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!". 98.164.71.229 (talk) 10:39, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Plot reveal not accurate...
"he reports also reveal that "Soylent Green" is being produced from the remains of the dead and the imprisoned, obtained from heavily guarded waste disposal plants outside the city. The Books further reveal that Simonson's murder was ordered by his fellow Soylent Corporation board members, knowing he was increasingly troubled by the truth, and the fear that he might talk."

I'm going to have to watch the movie again. I don't remember the Central Library Books saying any of this to Sol directly. Wouldn't this ruin the scene where Thorn sees the bodies dumped into the vat and as he moves further down the processing line he sees the Soylent Green wafers emerge? Why would he try to go back to the Central Books if he has the knowledge, why not go to the Council of Nations building, for example?

I'm going to have to watch it again and see if I missed this whole reveal...Aspenguy2 (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

flawed analysis
the article says the oceanographic report stated that bodies were recycled.... this is NOT correct, it was the investigation that surmised this fact......

the oceans were DEAD where did the food come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.92.236.2 (talk) 13:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)