Silent Running Movie Review

Astronauts of a future overtechnologized Earth grudgingly care for the last remaining wilderness environments, sent into orbit for eventual reforestation. When authorities instead order the project scrapped and the vegetation destroyed, nature-loving Bruce Dern mutinies and pilots his dome-enclosed woodland into the safety of deep space. Douglas Trumbull's directorial debut; he created special effects for 2001, but this small-budget, more moralistic effort (filmed largely aboard a disused aircraft carrier) is clearly an eco-product of the ‘60s, with a Joan Baez theme ballad and heavy-handed tree-hugging. If you can slog through the sentimentality, there's a haunting closer that one commentator called the most powerful image in modern sf cinema. The film's three waddling robots–Huey, Dewey, and Louie–can be seen as the inspiration for R2D2 and his cutesy brethren.

1971 (G) 90m/C Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin; D: Douglas Trumbull; W: Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Steven Bochco; M: Prof. Peter Schickele. VHS, Beta, LV MCA