Customer Reviews

Silent Running (Widescreen)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a classic cult film that is now so real to life it's scary. I compare it to Dick Tracy's video phone. Who would have dreamed about a smart phone for real back then?? It always makes me sad to see this film as I believe we are headed for this reality.

I liked this movie when it was first released to the theatres in the 1970s. I thought a revisit on DVD would bring back some of those fond memories, but, sadly, the film looks very dated.'

Forget the premise - it's pure enviro-fiction. Think about it for a minute: the planet earth has no more forests, trees, deserts - no wilderness left. We had to put all our critical environments in pods and orbit Jupiter with them (why Jupiter? why not orbit Earth?).

This very Asimovian premise falls on its face in light of science: since green plants give us the oxygen we need, a planet devoid of all green plants would be a dead planet - there would be no oxygen-breathing life on it.

OK. Let's say, though, that the radical environmental movement has succeesed in numbing your sense of reason - the film still fails in its scripting, which is needlessly whiny. Bruce Dern gives a rather egalitarian performance as the tree-hugger, which doesn't help to lend credibility to his cause.

Some of the effects still hold up, but overall the film has that shaky, matted look of cheesy 70s sci-fi (even STAR WARS has that look).

The most interesting thing about the DVD is the Special Features, and the documentaries on the making of the film. Once I finished with those, I had nothing more interesting to watch.

There is not a great deal I have that's positive to say about this movie.

First off, it's heavily derivative, especially of Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey: Alone in deep space, things get very weird, equipment fails, innocent astronatus die, remaining crew go through a psychedelic space trip hurtling through the rings of Saturn and nothing else makes a lot of sense. Switching things around so it is the meatware that goes bonkers doesn't really alter this fact. But its "grand" scheme is where similarities end, and even there it's more of a contrast than a compare. In no sense is Silent Running in the same league as 2001.

Then the screenplay, such as it is, is dire - there's very little dialogue, hardly any action and the action you do get adds nothing to the narrative or dramatic tension (why the demise of the third robot? Why not just start with two? Why the game of cards?).

The plot scenario is ludicrous from the beginning: even allowing the silly premise that the Earth has become, by intended human intervention, totally devoid of plant life (which, the amateur biologist in me shrieks, would surely destroy the oxygen/carbon dioxide equilibrium, would it not?), then to receive an order, with no explanation, to nuke the remaining space-bound conservatories and return the boys to earth defies any sort of credulity. As does Lowell's ability to reprogramme robots to understand ecology and card games by looking in the manual, soldering their motherboards a bit, and typing in a programme.

For a supposedly pro-ecology film (if it were one of these, it was certainly ahead of its time) there are a number of anomalies, chief among them Trumbull's curious decision to portray the hero and saviour of the plants as a murderous paranoid weirdo. Mind you, with the strains of Joan Baez gagging her way through a staggeringly awful cycle of (specially commissioned!) folk songs, perhaps you can excuse the poor man of cutting up a little rough.

Last, Silent Running was - quite apparently - made on the cheap. The sets are drab - much of the space ship looks suspiciously like a partially converted warehouse, and the blue-screening and special effects are ho-hum.

Given that special fx was Trumbull's bag, the shortcoming on this score pretty much sums up the rest of the film.

As science fiction should be, Silent Running is powerful metaphor, making the viewer (or at least this one) question the wisdom of our society, then flipping the questions inside out. It's profoundly sad in a mature way. Definitely goes on the shelf with the Planets of the Apes and Logan's Run.

I wanted to like this movie. I really did. The effects were incredibly good (except for those oscilliscope screens, what was up with that?!), especially considering the year it was made. I also sympathised with the main character, Lowell, and his motivations. I thought that the opening conflict between Freeman Lowell and the other crewmembers had real potential, unfortunately, the story was terrible. It also didn't help that the science was all wrong, what with artificial gravity, nuclear explosions in space with no effect on nearby objects, nuclear devices about the size of a Foster's beer can, etc. etc.

The dialogue was passable, but to say that the story was flat would be an understatement. There was no character development. There was no plot development. The one "mystery" of the whole movie was incredibly obvious and also scientifically incorrect (as was the solution) and Lowell's motivation was never investigated, explained or developed.

To those who would claim that this is the "best science fiction movie ever" are you judging the movie by its message or its execution?

Although the set designs were very good, the characterisation and plot were woeful. Bruce Dern's character is hardly sympathetic; he comes across as more loony than heroic. The robots in the moive are laughable; this is Toho studio territory you begin to enter when you see these guys. Any minute now, some rubber monster will zoom by the space portal. What kind of a story takes itself seriously when it plays happy Joan Baez (that's right, she did the soundtrack to this) music after our protagonist has done everyone on his ship in? Oh, I'm sorry, it's a movie about redemption, because he feels sorry about it later on. But then, since he has murdered in the name of the planet and his bio-ships, or whatever they were called, when he tries to redeem his murderous act he ends up selling his green philosophy up the river. No, wait, maybe it's an anti-technology get back to our roots movie . . . set in the future, set in outer space, aboard floating biospheres, serviced by robots. The movie's point is not unusual, and certainly not ahead of its time. There are plenty of save the earth extremists around today-just move to places like Boulder, Colorado and you can hear all the diatribe you want about how we're the seed of Satan for murdering the planet. Instead of Joan Baez, you'll probably end up with Joan Osborne or Sheryll Crow.

Everytime I watch this movie, I have nightmares. The senerio is so eerily close to where we are today. I cry everytime Bruce does what he needs to do.

The first time I saw the film was on TV. It stuck with me for weeks. Now, everytime I see it, I get angry, scared, sad, and depressed. Powerful stuff, considering that I now know how it ends.

Bravo for Bruce Dern, what a performance.

PS: As far as a propaganda film goes, I think that depends on your point of view.

This belongs to that rare genre SPECULATIVE sci-fi, where what is depicted could soon take place. Silent Running refers to an earth in future without the sound of birds due to the absence of forests and most other vegetative life, as much as it refers to the soundlessness of outer space. Here we have a tract for the foresight needed to maintain not only our earth as a healthy planet, but a place that would then encourage healthy people, both physically and socially.

While Bruce Dern gives one of his characteristic performances of an off kilter individual, he succeeds in obtaining the sympathy of the viewer for a return to a verdant earth, from the sterile and dessicated environs of ships in space. When his three shipmates are willing to obey orders to destroy the ship and return to a barren earth of artificial food and air, Bruce's character finds the unforseen will to do the unthinkable. His solid performance is one in a long line of distinctive portrayals. Still, it is really the three little robots: "Huey, Dewey, and Loui" who steal the show in clever asides and moments of pathos, even for these very 'human' machines.

One of the great blessings of this film is that it does not beat one over the head with strident sound, nor do the special effects, which are excellent, ever take over the story. You feel the desperation of Bruce's character and yet you understand the dillema the crew faces as the orders come down. I was taken with the scene where the three antagonists of crewmen berate Lowell, Bruce's protagonist, for bringing into their quarters a real cantelope, which the other three fellows call "stinking!", this a vivid way of demonstrating the alienation that people can attain when too long removed from the nuture of our earth as is paralleled in many of the urban 'jungles' of today. As our society becomes more and more urbanized and divorced from the goodness of God's earth, we too often find the natural odors of earth unpleasant, while we come to regard artificialy conditioned air as 'natural.'

While the movie is very entertaining on the strictly visual level, it is more a cautionary tale about how we could mess up our earth and our futures if we don't pay attention to the false hopes of technology, in company with human greed. The tug-at-your-heartstrings ending will disappoint some, but realists will acknowledge it ruefully. The gardeners among us may smile at the desperate attempts to provide light for the forest in the end, but no one will go away without a greater appreciation of just how ingenious and precious is ALL life on earth, vegatable or otherwise. To be sure, the true God, our Creator, will never allow the situation depicted here to develop, for He "... did not created the [Earth] simply for nothing ..." (Isaiah 45:18) and that He will "bring to ruin those ruining the earth." (Rev. 11:18) Yet, before that day shortly arrives, one can enjoy this blend of sleek science fiction with the gentle theme of reverence for God's creation, all against a melodious musical background.

On an overtechnologized and defoliated Earth of the future, the ecosystem has been carelessly destroyed by humans and the only remaining wilderness environs are grudgingly looked after by astronauts on massive domed spaceships. The vitamins, minerals, and such required to sustain human life can be easily synthesized in laboratories, so the folks on Earth are becoming increasingly apathetic about the need to sustain the circumgyrating greenhouses. When the inevitable order to scrap the project and destroy the orbiting flora and fauna finally comes through, Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), the only astronaut in the project who truly cares about the plants and animals, violently rebels and places upon himself the responsibility of protecting the last vestiges of Earth's non-human life. But just how far will he go to ensure that he's successful in his self-imposed calling?

1972's SILENT RUNNING marks the directorial debut of FX wizard Douglas Trumbull, probably best known for his FX work on Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi epic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Though the skeleton was given flesh by writers Deric Washburn , Michael Cimino, and Steven Bochco, the underlying structure of the plot is Trumbull's. In light of his work with Kubrick, it is interesting that Trumbull would come up with an idea such as that for SILENT RUNNING, as it makes it seem as if he felt that the only way he could demonstrate that he is more than just an FX man was to create a film that is the thematic opposite of the one featuring his best known FX work. Kubrik's opus tells a story that celebrates mankind's intellectual evolution and subsequent technological advancements, whereas Trumbull's brainchild embraces the ideals of 1960's counter-culture ecology movement and implies that technological advancement is conducted irresponsibly and consequently pollutes the environment and wrecks the Earth.

The plot of SILENT RUNNING is a bit slow at times, but the film is never dull or boring. And in the role of the good-intentioned but increasingly psychotic Lowell, Dern turns in one of his most intense and most memorable performances. Due to its anti-technology and pro-environmentalist theme, however, many critics have panned SILENT RUNNING as a '60s throwback in which Trumbull tries to milk emotions from the last vestiges of the pro-ecology hippies, often citing the fact that '60s folk singer Joan Baez performs some of the film's music as proof of their theory. But this is really an unfair evaluation. Environmentalist themes have been a long tradition in science fiction, with a future dystopia used to illustrate what might happen if present society continues being ecologically apathetic. And SILENT RUNNING isn't the only classic SF film from the '70s built around such a theme. Other SF films of the era also express concern about man's effect on nature--NO BLADE OF GRASS (1970), Z.P.G. (1972), SOYLENT GREEN (1973), and PROPHECY (1979) to name just a few. So it's more likely that Trumbull, a science-fiction fan himself, simply chose a traditional SF theme that appealed to his own ideals and tastes.

The DVD from Universal offers a good digital transfer of the film in anamorphic widescreen. Also included are some pretty cool bonus features, not the least of which are the original made-for-tv featurette on the making of the film and an interesting feature commentary with Trumbull and Dern. No true fans of SF will want to miss the opportunity to include this film in their DVD collections.

I first saw this on late-night television in the early 70's, and it has remained one of my favourite movies of all time. In addition to "2001: A Space Odyssey", I believe that it is one of the best space movies ever made. Like "2001", the special effects (models in those days) still hold up very well, amazing considering the budget. Even "Star Wars" with a much higher budget looks no better. Many reviews point out their dislike for the pace of the film, the music, or the 'hippie' message. If anything, I thought these to be strengths, and very relevant today. 35 years after the making of this movie, we are finally starting to truly be concerned about our Earth's ability to survive, even more than the green revolution of the 70's, and I have continued to re-play this movie regularly for its ultimately positive message, despite a typical 70's downer story and ending.