Silent Running (1972)

not horrible nor great

Best movie ever!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I saw this film first on a monochrome TV in the 1970s, when its moral premise - that saving other living beings might be worth more than human lives - appalled my late father. It produced a different effect on me - the first time my father's and my views had diverged significantly - and the doubt cast by the film on seeing human beings as the be-all and end-all of life has remained with ever since. At the time, I was a callow schoolboy; now I am a middle-aged father. So yes, this film has affected my views of life and the environment which sustains us. Whatever its technical and storytelling shortcomings, this is a profound film.

Ecoterrorist Bruce Dern kills his three shipmates in a fit of rage when they try to follow orders and return to Earth, described as a utopia with no unemployment, no hunger and no social problems. After completing his murderous task, he steals his spaceship and anthropomorphizes three robots, believing that they make better companions than the fun loving humans he's killed. This is an important film for the early 1970's, showing that even when humanity creates a utopia there will still be one lone lunatic wanting to kill for a piece of dirt and some rabbits. The folk-music score only serves to underline the terror of this film which predates the sci- fi/horror genre by nearly 10-years.The most frightening moment of this picture takes place when Dern plays a game of poker with his robot minions in a scene eerily foreshadowed early on in the picture.

Silent Running is based on the very real possibility that there will be no more 'right' to life in the United States because its citizens would not be allowed to grow food. Forty years after the film's release, the the current advance of 'right to farm' laws champions corporate domination over all food sources.Little did the creators of Silent Running know that the majority of Americans forty years later would, indeed, reject real food, favoring processed food instead, just as in their film.Silent Running even covers why Americans would find the situation perfectly acceptable: because a thoroughly 'democratized' nation would ideally be able to provide labor opportunities to the entirety of its marginalized proletariat.The film's intelligence is subtle and carried through by an effort of pure-heartedness, hindered only by very poor pacing. If one's patience can last until the development of the lovable Drone's personalities, finishing the film won't be any problem.

OK I admit I have my rose-tinted spectacles handy when watching this brave little science fiction film but I still think that it remains pretty much a unique experience. It's rambling and inconsequential, has worn well but is dated, is corny yet relevant, and is enjoyable if too much isn't expected.Gargantuan spaceship has a lush ecosystem to preserve, until the order comes to blow it all up – tch, how short sighted Mankind always is! Bruce Dern as resident geeko-eco-warrior kills the remaining examples of Mankind on board and sets up his store with two stumpy robots Huey and Dewey. Sadly Louie didn't make it… The anthropomorphised robots and their relationship with Dern form the backbone of the movie. It goes off at odd tangents, but the big point is to Take Good Care Of The Forest. The three of them gave the best performances of their lives, only one of them saying anything and most of that comes across as unscripted. Probably the biggest drawback with the film was Joan Baez's dated manic warbling of hippy-drippy axioms always at the wrong moment; it made me cringe the first time I heard it in 1976, and gives the lie to the title. But even her music hasn't dated as badly as Blade Runner. The special effects were good although a lot of the props now remind me of 8-track cartridge players. There's no help for it, you must make allowances for all of that! And maybe it's good to remember that at this time of writing Mankind has not set foot on the Moon since those ancient primitive times either. The climax should be cringe-worthy too but isn't – the contrived poignancy is overwhelming by then. It's not one of the 1000 essential films to see before you die but it's worth watching because you won't see anything else quite like it; afterwards just try to think of a similar film.