Tim Van Schmidt

For some, celebrating the coming of the New Year is a mix of remembering the past and looking forward to the future. It that spirit, here are two movies that do just that.

First, I put on a disk of one of my favorite sci-fi movies — “Soylent Green” from 1973 — and I was shocked to see that the date of the action was “The Year: 2022”.

Then I was shocked again as I watched the movie. A lot of it is exaggerated, of course, but then again it was also alarmingly right on.

Here’s what the world of the future (2022) looked like in 1973: over-populated, garbage piled up, pollution changing the climate to a sweltering constant summer, nature disappeared, food ultra expensive for the rich, shoveled out in inscrutable processed filler for the masses, people wearing masks, rampant homelessness, assisted suicide, dark political and corporate manipulation on a mass scale, personal power versus a pervading feeling of hopelessness, women treated as furniture, jobs critically at risk — essentially the rich elite versus the masses.

The savvy opening sequence tells a lot of the story with photos, beginning with nostalgic images of a more innocent past, then images of deterioration piling up faster and faster into a mind-numbing mess.

The storyline of “Soylent Green” follows the investigation into what begins as a ho-hum routine murder case for a rough-neck cop — Charlton Heston — but ends up revealing a truth that twists the minds of all who learn it.

This is Edward G. Robinson’s last film and he plays an elderly “book” that does the research for Heston’s investigations. He’s also always telling the detective about the good old days (“When I was a kid, food was food”) and eventually “goes home”, devastated by too much information.

When Heston’s character tells him, “I know, I know…when you were young, people were better”. Robinson responds: “Awww, nuts — people were always rotten — but the world was beautiful”.

Let’s hope our future doesn’t go where this movie goes.

The Northman: Next, I put on “The Northman”, a 2022 release featuring Alexander Skarsgard, which is another kind of fiction — looking far back into the past — revealing just as harrowing a vision as “Soylent Green”. It’s brutal and harsh and those are the good times.

Here, a young prince is denied his birthright when his uncle kills his father, steals his crown, and his queen. The prince escapes but lives a life of hardship on his way to becoming a fierce warrior.

Upon hearing his uncle has lost his throne, the deposed prince resolves to endure whatever he must — and that’s a lot — in order to avenge his father and fulfill an old curse. Never mind the fact that he meets an excellent partner on the way who bears him twin babies. He leaves them dumbfounded on a boat while he dives back into the sea to go finish his murderous errand.

“The Northman” is a story of not so heroic Viking culture — it is a cheerless existence, one of violent conquest, murder, deceit, slave trading, squalid conditions, primitive beliefs, superstition, and the inscrutable power of the natural world. Add in soul-eating vengeance and it’s not pretty.

“The Northman” portrays a past we don’t want to go back to. “Soylent Green” is a future we don’t want to go to. The value of each is to teach us about what we don’t want and should avoid.

Explore “Time Capsules by Tim Van Schmidt” on YouTube.