Soylent Green was released to theaters in 1973. The movie scene had yet to be introduced to big blockbusters like Star Wars and Jaws. As a result, science fiction films like Soylent Green were much lower budget, set in more understated everyday situations. Charlton Heston was cast as the lead. He appeared in a number of science fiction films from Planet of the Apes to Omega Man before this and Soylent Green held a similar futuristic theme.
Critically, the film was a success and it won several awards. Soylent Green was nominated for a Hugo Award, won the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival Grand Prize, won the Golden Scroll from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1975, and won the Nebula award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for best Science Fiction Screen Play.
The film follows a very poor detective played by Charlton Heston who lives in the grim future of 2022. The world itself is overcrowded, food is scarce and basic necessities are considered luxuries. The main source of food comes in the form of Soylent products. Soylent itself stand for soy bean and lentils which the public believes the poor tasting wafers are made of. As Charlton Heston's character investigates a murder he soon finds out that one of the best tasting and most nutritious wafers, Soylent Green, is actually made from the corpses of humans who have been poisoned and processed as food. He reveals this to a crowd with the classic line, "Soylent Green, is people!"
The film has made a huge impact on popular culture and is consistently referenced on Television, Comic Books, Literature and other Movies. Phil Hartman parodied Soylent Green on Saturday Night Live with several fake sequels where Charlton Heston's character continually insists that Solyent Green never changed the recipe like they said they would. According to IMDB.com it has also been referenced several time on The Simpsons, Family Guy, News Radio, Mystery Science Theater, and even in the video game Warcraft III. Perhaps the main reason that it has infiltrated pop culture so thoroughly is due to its shocking and unexpected twist. Like the line, "Luke, I am your father," "Soylent green is people!" is such an intense revelation that the line itself is used even by those who have not seen the movie.
Soylent Green was produced before the time of the big scif-fi blockbusters and as a result is easily identified as visually as an early 1970's speculative fiction film. While set in the future world of 2022, Solyent Green retains the look of the contemporary 1970's in everything from building architecture to clothes and even speech. Unlike films and novels like A Clockwork Orange which invented new slang that seems alien to a reader/viewer, Soylent Green makes no strong attempts to separate the language and characters from any that you might have found in other 1970's movies. The strong 1970's visual look of the film though may be one of the reasons that it has remained a classic. Like films like The Warriors, the campy and occasionally cheesy look of the film has created a sort of following of its own.
Aside from influencing ironic pop culture humor and references, Solyent Green has also influenced a great deal of science fiction movies today. Films like Minority Report, I Robot, and even 28 Days Later share many stylistic and thematic choices with Soylent Green. These films all show humanity pushing things just a bit to far, whether it be criminal justice, automated servitude, or medical research. These films also feature a lone hero or small group dealing with overwhelming odds and powerful organizations. Clearly, Soylent Green has and will influence films for many years.