Silent Running (1972)

A different way of telling a story

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

No need to recap plot points. I note that many critics fault the movie for its 'hippie environmental message'. Well, I guess writers Cimino and associates get the final kudos now that global warming is endorsed by 95% of climate scientists. In that critical sense, the film's quite prescient for its time. Plus, the nutritional food message also proves prescient given the health hazards of so many processed foods. "Hippie" or not, these are difficult lessons for many folks, given traditional habits. Thus the movie's basic message turns out to be more pressing than ever.Nonetheless, I'm in sympathy with those who find the movie boring. The second half is more visual effects than engaging drama. For example, the various movements among modules or whatever are left unexplained. Thus their comings and goings are no more than visual occurrences meant, I guess, to impress us with the movie makers technical prowess. At the same time, astronaut Dern is now alone in deep space, having jettisoned his shipmates. Clearly, an entertainment problem is created by nothing more than a man alone in deep space. Thus the cutesy robots become major actors. These also allow Dern to break silence and share his thoughts with the audience. In that sense, it's too bad the other three astronauts are taken out so early. Keeping them around longer would have replaced the parade of effects with more human interest. Besides, any movie without at least one well- turned ankle needs a lot of compensation. Anyway, the 90-minutes remains well ahead of its time. Oddly, however, it's a movie I respect more than I enjoyed.

In the future, Earth has become an artificial world. The world's forests are in large pods in spaceships. They are on their way to replant the earth. Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) is a caretaker on the spaceship Valley Forge. His three other crewmates are callous to his natural ways. People no longer grow food. Then they receive orders to nuke the plants and cancel the trip. Lowell decides to revolt and kill his crew. Other ships wonder why the Valley Forge has not destroyed its forested pods.The story doesn't make sense. It may make poetic sense but this future world is ludicrous. Sometime these kinds of weird non-sense stories fill the old sci-fi publications. The problem is that they are not necessarily meant to be completely logical. One can ignore the illogical premise but as a movie, one can't ignore the lack of any tension. After killing the crew, the movie really goes nowhere. This could be adapted into a poignant Star Trek episode but it's not that compelling as a full-length release.

Despite being a little dated and hokey at times, SILENT RUNNING was an enjoyable sci-fi film with some incredible visual effects. From the effects maestro behind 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY comes a story about future Earth where all of the surviving plants are being cared for in modules far out in space. However, the order comes back that the crew needs to destroy all of the remaining flora and the caretaker, Lowell (Bruce Dern), decides to take matters into his own hands. Aside from the visual effects, which is the biggest thing this film has going for it, I will give credit to Bruce Dern for being a likable and somewhat charismatic lead, although I don't think he was quite up to task of carrying most of the film by himself. He had a certain humanity and earthiness that played well against the wordless drones that he interacts with. The other human cast members also did a good job, but they weren't really in it long enough for them to register too much as characters. As I said before, the visual effects were excellent. There were quite a few exterior space shots of the ships that I thought gave Star Wars a run for its money. There was also some decent production design on the ship interior. However, I do think that the film is a little dated. The songs were a little hokey and I didn't care for them too much. Also, the pro-environment message was laid on a little too broadly and came off as a little silly at times. Still, it is nice to see how far we've come considering that this came out towards the beginning of that movement. Overall, I wasn't particularly bored by this film, but it wasn't exactly riveting either. Bruce Dern is a capable lead, but the real star of the film is the effects. Recommended if you're a fan of old-school sci-fi.

I was a young adult, married with children, when this movie came out in 1972, but I only saw it yesterday. I found it on Netflix streaming movies. I found it a very interesting study in human values and the extreme one might go to when choices are limited.I have always liked Bruce Dern, and he was great in last year's 'Nebraska' playing an older man in his twilight years. Here he is young, an astronaut caring for almost extinct forests. But I get ahead. It is some future time and apparently Earth has become, or is becoming, uninhabitable. So a mission with several very large space ships and small crews have been sent into some sort of orbit, perhaps around the sun, intent on preserving life. Specifically, forests and the greenery that goes with it. Each large space craft has several transparent domed areas attached, under each dome is dirt and a forest.Freeman Lowell (Dern) is one of four on this particular ship. From all the patches on his suit (Sierra Club, Mount Rainier, etc) we know he is a conservationist and he takes this job very seriously. In his spare time he grows various crops to supplement the space food they are dispensed. Trouble arises when the crew is told they will jettison each domed forest into space and explode each, they no longer want to save them. As Freeman watches each pod in turn be jettisoned then exploded, each time he winces almost in pain, seeing life destroyed with no hope.So he does the only thing that makes sense to him, taking drastic measures.SPOILERS FOLLOW: He decides he will first get rid of the three other crewmen. The first comes easily, in a struggle in Freeman's garden, with a shovel handle across the man's throat. Next he jettisons a forest pod when the other two men are in it, destroying them when it detonates. And finally, he modifies the remaining three drones (robots) to obey him, he teaches one how to take care of the forest, then jettisons them but WITHOUT an explosion. Then he causes his own space ship to explode, with the knowledge that the little robot will take care of the forest for an eternity!