Danieladbidh
Member
A Soylent Green 4K UHD review went up this week and I have not got the disc, so treat this as a note rather than a verdict. What struck me is the framing the reviewer used: you probably remember the ending, but do you remember how good the rest of it is. That is exactly the problem with this film. The last line has been a punchline for fifty years and it has more or less eaten the movie underneath it.
Worth remembering what is actually in there. 1973, Richard Fleischer directing, 97 minutes, Charlton Heston and Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson in what turned out to be his last role. The Sol Roth scenes still land harder than anything in the plot, and if you have only ever seen the film through the meme you have not really seen it.
What I want to know before buying is the same thing I want to know about every early-70s catalogue title arriving on 4K. Early 70s stock is grainy by nature, and the outcome hinges entirely on whether the grain has been left alone or scrubbed by noise reduction until faces go waxy. The other question is the greenish, hazy look this film has always had. That is intentional, and a careless HDR grade can either preserve it or push it into something that reads as a colour error. I have been burned both ways on discs from this era.
If anyone here has already watched it, I am after the boring details rather than the film chat: does the grain hold up in the smog exteriors, and did the restoration keep the murk?
Worth remembering what is actually in there. 1973, Richard Fleischer directing, 97 minutes, Charlton Heston and Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson in what turned out to be his last role. The Sol Roth scenes still land harder than anything in the plot, and if you have only ever seen the film through the meme you have not really seen it.
What I want to know before buying is the same thing I want to know about every early-70s catalogue title arriving on 4K. Early 70s stock is grainy by nature, and the outcome hinges entirely on whether the grain has been left alone or scrubbed by noise reduction until faces go waxy. The other question is the greenish, hazy look this film has always had. That is intentional, and a careless HDR grade can either preserve it or push it into something that reads as a colour error. I have been burned both ways on discs from this era.
If anyone here has already watched it, I am after the boring details rather than the film chat: does the grain hold up in the smog exteriors, and did the restoration keep the murk?
