“It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people. Next thing they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food. You’ve gotta tell them. You’ve gotta tell them!”

In 1973 an American science fiction film called ‘Soylent Green’ pictured a future in 2022 when the world is suffering from pollution, overpopulation, depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans, global warming due to the greenhouse effect and social disorder.

Food is scarce and much of the Earth’s population survives on soylent green – a wafer said to contain high-energy plankton and vitamins. Produced by the Soylent Corporation the wafers are nutritious and palatable but what consumers don’t know is that the advertised ingredients on the box are false.

They should read:
Ingredients: People, Vitamin B, niacin and iron. See insert for vitamin and mineral values.

Almost 40 years later Soylent Green 2012, the sequel to the movie was supposed to be released this year. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether it will be made and who will star in it. There’s certainly no shortage of choice for the female role, given the lineup of emaciated, hungry-looking women in Hollywood.

Consider Julia Roberts in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, for example. There she is tucking into a large pizza proclaiming she will never count calories again and that she will simply increase her jean size to accommodate her muffin top. What muffin top? She looks like she’s been eating soylent green since she was conceived. Not the human-derived kind, which would be far too full of calories, but rather the seaweed kind, which is how the wafers were made in the 1966 book on which the Soylent Green screenplay was based. Called ‘Make Room! Make Room!’ it was written by Harry Harrison, an insightful man, not known for his optimism because he could see the future.

All of which has come true, with growing evidence of global warming, social disorder and food shortages, except that in our country the protagonist of social disorder, one Juju Malema, is certainly not short of food.

Gaining in girth each time he makes an appearance, he could be cast in the remake as one of the directors of the Soylent Corporation. He could acquire pots of money from the ultimate people’s product through various trusts involving his Granny and other close contacts. The script could also include the Hawks who would uncover how it is that Juju is eating strawberry jam when so many are starving.

I’ll leave it up to the directors but what they will certainly have to do is to think of a happy ending because we have enough doomsday in our lives, including trying to deal with the so-called Mayan prediction that the 21st of December 2012 is yet again the end of the world.

On websites like www.december212012.com you can read all about it and how Barack Obama is part of a secret organisation called the ‘Institute for Human Continuity’. The institute is said to be launching a lottery to democratically determine who wins a passport to the subterranean cities they have built. At this stage it is only open to Americans, but don’t despair, there are other ways of saving your bacon.

The US porn production studio ‘Pink Visual’ recently announced that it has begun construction on an enormous underground bunker in preparation for December 21st. According to Pink Visual’s spokesperson, Quentin Boyer, the bunker is “far more than a mere subterranean survivalist enclave”.

Their concept is to create a sumptuous shelter capable of sustaining Pink Visual’s actors, business partners, fans and their families, said Boyer, adding: “We simply couldn’t bear the thought of leaving all those wonderful people behind.”

While Pink Visual has declined to disclose the location of the bunker for security reasons, Boyer did mention that it will feature a production studio and fully stocked bars. It’s a different take on Soylent Green’s flesh consumption, and potentially a good end to the 2012 movie should it ever get made.