Silent Running [1972]

Freeman's name reflects his nonconformist philosophy, which runs counter to the prevailing recklessness of his three ill-fated crewmates, who are eager to jettison their precious payload and return to the bleakness of Earth. Before they can sabotage the forests, Freeman does what he must, and spends the remainder of his mission with three robotic "drones" as his only companions, struggling to maintain his sanity in the vastness of space. Dern is superb in this memorable role, representing the lost soul of humankind as well as the back-to-nature youth movement of the 1960s and the pre-Watergate era. (Appropriately, Joan Baez sings the film's theme song.) A rare science-fiction film that combines bold adventure with passionate social conscience, Silent Running will remain relevant as long as the Earth is threatened by the ravages of human carelessness. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

You won't see aliens zooming around and firing lasers at each other, and the only explosions are disturbing images as the very last forests are destroyed forever. This is an emotional film, which goes far deeper than most SF either before or since. The story is about people, not flashy special effects, and must surely be considered a classic.

I cannot imagine any sensible viewer coming away from this movie without pausing to consider its deeper message, which is still highly relevant today.


AT LAST THE DEFINITIVE DVD !   February 17, 2005
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

I spent ages going round and round in cyberspace trying to find the 'Making of Silent Running' documentary.Here it is now - 50 minutes of heaven showing Joan Baez recording the title track and more about the Drones than you could ever need to know. In addition theres an excellent 30 minute new documentary and a conversation with Bruce Dern. SO although all of the releases of this film look the same, pay whatever it costs to get hold of this DEFINITIVE collection. Its the best by a long space voyage !


One of the very great Sci-Fi films.   July 11, 2007
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Many Directors have been quick to label their own genius with works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner when, in fact, the genius belongs to their Special Effects Art Director Douglas Trumbull. It can be argued, and many have, that Trumbull is probably the most important figure in modern Sci-Fi, creating the dark world of Blade Runner, the impressive but ultimately sterile Universe in 2001 and the awe-inspiring UFO scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But what many don't know is that Trumbull directed his own Sci-Fi film in 1972 named Silent Running. Given a relatively low budget, in comparison to 2001 and his later work Blade Runner, Trumbull would prove that the best work comes from people who have to make do with what little they have.

Silent Running bequeaths the tale of a future Earth extinct of any plant life, with only a very few specimens having been saved in gargantuan space-bound greenhouses attached to a fleet of "Space Freighters" (the 'American Airline' of its day). These ships stay residing just outside the orbit of Saturn until Earth needs them back to reforest the planet. Bruce Dern, who plays Freeman Lowell, the appointed Head Gardner of the greenhouse-in-space, would rather spend time feeding his bunnies than hang out with his knucklehead crew. Well, unless there is a chance of embarrassing them at a game of Poker. However, when orders come in to nuke the remaining greenhouses and become a commercial airline once again, Lowell decides he would rather see his crew dead than watch the last remaining pieces of nature go into the light.

What's truly amazing about Silent Running is how anti-sci-fi it is. Yes, there are some stunning visuals and it certainly looks to be a sci-fi movie, but ultimately this is a story about human beings. This is not the logic based evolutionary wanderings of 2001, neither does it have the philosophical vitality of Blade Runner or The Matrix. Silent Running is not concerned if the reality we are waking up to is in fact another form of illusion, or pondering about what makes us truly human. No, Silent Running is about a relatively simple person in an unremarkable situation. Lowell's basic choice is - do I want human beings to survive, or my garden? He opts for the latter. There are too many human beings, anyway. But as the movie goes on Lowell finds that, although he can only find alienation with his own kind, he can't help but miss them.

In fact, he misses them so much that his robot workers now go by the human names of "Huey, Dewey and Louie". Notice I use the term 'robot' very loosely there. Due to Trumbull's budget what we in fact have are brightly coloured microwaves with rubber-gloved feet. But, my God, are they the most humanised robots ever depicted on screen. On first glance gentle snickering maybe heard from the back of your mind, but as time passes you grow so attached and loving towards these boxes that, when Lowell accidentally runs one over, it's as if your own son has been named road kill. This is such an amazing feature of Directing from Trumbull. Let's face it, anyone can make a robot seem more human when you cast humans as the robots. (Though, I did wonder whether Harrison Ford was in fact the Tin Man in Blade Runner). Trumbull intelligently creates a robot where the audience, as well as Lowell, have to project their own feelings, desires & hopes onto it, refraining from producing a fully formed and packaged robot for the viewer to consume blindly.

But if you want to know why Silent Running truly works, then I'll tell you. It's the first and only sci-fi film that will make you weep. No, not in the sense of Star Wars where you cry for the dim-witted romanticism, but where you actually break down in tears for the emotion shown on screen. This is not a dry, academic, logical maze that you have to weave yourself through, but a journey which you experience and learn from. Notice, I could have highlighted how Silent Running was ahead of its time due to it's forward-thinking ideas about nature and how we must always try to preserve it, if really only for it's unparallelled beauty. But I didn't. At the end of the day Silent Running is a treatise on the evil that we humans do to the planet. But, ironically, what makes this one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time is that it's not about spectacular visuals or interesting, dry technology, but about being so uniquely human.

The end scene shows Lowell releasing his Garden from the space ship so the incoming Mother Ship cannot find the bodies of his murdered victims, and Lowell says to his friendly robot, in an almost Shakespearian tone, "When I was a kid, I put a note into a bottle, and it had my name and address on it. I threw the bottle into the ocean. I never knew if anyone ever found it." With that Lowell triggers a bomb, sending himself in to the light, whilst the one remaining robot tends the love of his life, his garden, which floats quietly into the netherworlds of space. Will anyone out there ever find it?


Save the Forest   October 4, 2007
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Set in the far future aboard the spaceship "Valley Forge", Bruce Dern and three fellow astronauts maintain the huge vessel and the forests that it contains with the help of three ingeniously rendered robots. The robots are so convincing that they steal the show, but they remain classic depictions that are on par with Robby from "Forbidden Planet" and the droids of "Star Wars".

This is a sad story with a strong ecological message, "Silent Running" is a visual treat with outstanding special effects and a very realistically-depicted "Valley Forge" spaceship. A production note: Trumbull had use of the decommissioned naval aircraft carrier "Valley Forge" before it was scrapped and he was able to modify many of it's vast interiors for use in the movie, all to good effect.