Setting aside the twist everyone already knows, this might be one of the best and most interesting dystopias ever created
Lets take a look back at the dark days of 2022... and see why the world still needs Soylent Green
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Soylent Green might have some of the best world building I've ever seen
Every time Detective Thorn leaves his tiny apartment he has to hop/crawl over 30 people who pay/are subsidized to sleep in the hallway and stairwells instead of freezing or getting murdered on the street
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Likewise even the poorest building has permanent armed security lest it get destroyed and looted by the homeless masses outside.
A man's time and life goes cheep in an overpopulated New York with 20 mil unemployed. but even the most rundown building is precious.
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The corruption we see from the police is astonishing.
Thorn hardly enters a crime seen and he'd already looting it of valuable.
Linens, fruits, real meat, booze, books...
soap
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I've rarely seen a work were the sense of poverty, in characters nominally middle to upper-middle class is so pressing.
Thorn gets into fights and steals from people over things as small as a jar of strawberry jam
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And the sexual politics...
Every beautiful woman we meet is employed as concubines for the elite that come attached to high class rental units.
They're called "furniture"
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And the disturbing thing is... its not that far off actual 2022.
Sure the greenhouse effect has failed to live up to its promise, and our processed crappy food is still under 10 part per 100,000 human protein
but having watched rent soar and apts shrink, its uncomfortable
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We do live in a world were reasonably employed aging men increasingly have to have roommates or even subdivide studios to afford to live in major cities.
I've known girls who've gone on seeking arrangements or onlyfans to make ends meet
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There's a recurring motif where the older characters just break down weeping at what the world's come to and the decency they knew as kids being gone
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The younger characters dismiss this talk of the world going to hell and how everything was once better... much as we would:
Old people's delusions about the past
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In a lot of ways you could argue Soylent Green was the first properly cyberpunk film... the dystopic future, the corrupt blend of corporate and state power, the deprivation, the profiteering protagonist with principles under his cynical exterior...
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And yet its futurism is too accurately unoptimistic.
There is no wonderous high tech in this future. The one piece of tech is an arcade console surpassed by 84.
And yet its terrifying predictions are eerily pressing...
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Assisted suicide as a cure all for social problems, Police brutality against regular citizens, a normalized prostitution of middle class young women, refugee and migrant crises forcing 1st world citizens to live like sardines...
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This is a film that doesn't feel like a scifi movie anymore...
Just something further along the dark path we turned down in the 70s
P.S. I have a blog:
The degradation of legacy media is obvious for all to see... but once you start digging into it you realize most media companies aren't even in the media business... And they no longer die when audiences stop watching:
I don't think people understand the significance of Jan 6th...
Indeed I don't even think Democrats screaming about "Threats to our democracy" Understand the significance
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The 1789 Women's March on Versailles was a revolt of the Parisian lower classes against the monarchy...
Once they had arrived and captured the royal family, the royals would remain hostages of the revolution until the revolution chose to execute them 4 year later.
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Versailles had been built 20km outside of Paris to prevent this kind of thing. The distance was to provide an insurmountable buffer to mobs from the city and allow cavalry a chance to muster
Thus these poor Parisians were not considered a threat nor granted patronage
Few understand how much warfare has changed in 70 years.
Sure most look at the Afghan defeats of the Soviets then the US and conclude insurgencies matter, but Afghanistan is a place these empires should have won!
the guerillas lacked their ultimate weapon:
Mega-cities
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Cities have always challenged armies.
Troy held 10 years, Athens held off the Spartans 30 years, hell Constantinople maintained its shrinking empire/kingdom/city-state 1000 years after Rome fell.
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the European theatre of WW2 was defined by 2 massive urban battles.
First Stalingrad broke the Wehrmacht's forward momentum and ended German dreams of Russian conquest
2 million people died in that city
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It was only 3km deep from the surrounding fields to the Volga river
The phenomenon has never been confirmed, in fact many studies have disproved it.
Women just lie due to lemming behaviour
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What happens is one girl, the alpha, starts complaining about her period loudly and powerfully (being the alpha) and then the most awkward one won't know what to say and will say "uhh...Ugh... me too"
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then the next weakest willed will cave to peer pressure, and at that point none of the rest of the group can resist the need to fit in... so they'll all lie and say they're on their periods too
π§΅ The Sopranos and Therapy 1/ The Sopranos is one of the thematically richest texts of the late American empire. "Tony I" would make a great Shakespeare play (but that's a different thread)
And one of its best themes is its merciless critique of Late American Therapy Culture
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The Sopranos has an amazing concept.
A Mob Boss, someone who's actions and motives are kept secret from even his wife and friends, goes to a therapist, who's job is to interrogate motives.
This is basically the Shakespearean monologue updated for TV.
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Except there are two Characters in this "monologue"...
Two people who's actions and motives need to be dissected... and Dr. Melfi certainly doesn't escape innocent and unscathed.
Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk Franchise might be one of the most unique properties to become a 100 million dollar franchise
It breaks every rule of large franchise storytelling and worldbuilding, has done so consistently since 1988, and has won a very loyal fan base doing so
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Harry Potter, James Bond, Call of Duty, Indian Jones, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars
You might think I just listed a YA Urban Fantasy, a spy thriller, a war game, Adventure, Fantasy, and space opera respectively
But no.
I just list 6 superhero properties.
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Disney just called our bluff and made it explicit.
You have always been watching marvel movies.
Every character has always been able to fight nigh infinite enemies at no danger, they've always had nigh infinite resources, and they've never suffered real injury.