It doesn't contain action scenes every two seconds for the easily distracted. This film doesn't hit you over the head with million-dollar special effects. As a result, Silent Running is utterly unique, and even if not judged as the best sf film ever made, it is certainly one of the most important. Oh, and some robots help him out, but they might be psychotic, too". The remainder of the film hangs not on tension but on whether or not his plants whither. There's no love interest, instead the guy is lonely, a little nerdy, socially inept, and kills all his friends in cold blood. Can you imagine pitching this film to a Hollywood exec of the 90's? "There's this guy who's in his late thirties who looks after a forest in space. Even though this performance was overlooked for an Oscar nomination, it is still remarkable that the film was made at all. Dern is far from wooden, and gives the performance of a lifetime. So, it was a different film to how I'd remembered, but perhaps someway the better. Not only that, but it has an incongruous, jarring soundtrack by Joan Baez. Seen again, the green message ISN'T subtle, the robots DON'T talk, and far from wholly sympathetic, Dern plays a man suffering a complete nervous breakdown. I remembered a story with a slight environmental message, cute robots that talked and a totally sympathetic lead character played slightly woodenly by Bruce Dern. Watching Silent Running for the second time, many years later, I was amazed how different it was from my recollection. The mixture of sweetness and cynicism is an interesting combination, and the songs by Joan Baez really thought provoking. There really is nothing as far as special effects are concerned, even though director Douglas Trumball was the special effects man on "2001". The destruction of one of them truly is sad. They would get off the path automatically if the other men were zooming down the spaceship roads, but with Dern, they seem to individually gain personalities. While Cliff Potts and the other two men only have limited screen time, it's anti-establishment hero Dern who dominates the film with long scenes of doing nothing but talking to either himself or the teeny tiny robots who parade around the ship. It's a shocking turn of events from a seemingly peaceful man, but when he finds out that their huge space city (population four) is being sent back to a now plant free earth, he can't help but go ballistic. What's questionable is his fury over fellow astronauts who continuously defy him by driving around on little space vehicles, crushing the foliage and frightening the garden type animals who get to live among the flora and fauna, the flowers and leafy greens. It's obvious that Bruce Dern here would not be a hero on earth, but the simple values that his character has over his love for nature is truly worth applauding him for. I've referred to several classic science fiction films as "the thinking man's science fiction film", and while this is certainly one of those, it's also the quiet man's science fiction films.
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