Review of Silent Running (1972) by Blind P — 28 Jan 2010

This movie infuriates me! A few months back, in the wake of the great independent movie Moon, I queried the google or some such regarding opinions ranking the best of "intelligent science fiction". Consensus came back with 2001, Solaris, and Silent Running.

OK. No doubt 2001 is an iconic film, though I don't enjoy watching it any more. You cannot deny the thought that went into it and the attention to detail was almost overwhleming and stifling.

I recently watched Solaris and found it difficult but upon reflection and research I'd say the premise is outstanding and intelligent, and now I have interest in the original book's ideas.

Now we come to Silent Running. As I say, I am now infuriated after watching it because it is so fucking DUMB. I didn't buy the premise at all.

America has apparently become completely devoid of plant life, necessitating the vast expense of sending life ships out to the rings of Saturn with bio-domes containing various species of plant and animal life. This instead of a greenhouse, zoo, cave with artificial lighting, seed bank, protest, or any of the other likely ideas one could imagine for this scenario by thinking about it for two minutes.

So, I put this glaring lack of logic aside and accept it for its premise begrudgingly, thinking that some wonderful event must be ahead, owing to its high praise and general ranking.

Instead there is some terrible acting and line delivery from Bruce Dern, anthropomorphizing of maintenance droids that makes no sense at all, an implausible murder, and that doesn't even take the cake.

I'd call this stuff a spoiler, but the real idea is to help you to decide not to watch this shit...

So our "hero" kills his fellow crewmen to avoid the order from Earth to blow up the plant domes, that they so expensively constructed by the way, to make way for some commercial enterprise. Gotta load some rocks I guess, so turn the boats around from Saturn (!!!) and slowly go back to Earth...ugh.

He then avoids letting other ships in the convoy know what is really happening and conceives a foolhardy escape where he will presumably tend to his beloved plants and keep them away from those baddie plant haters on Earth, blasting his thrusters and traveling through the rings of Saturn to arrive on the dark side, where I guess nobody could find him.

Everything seems OK for the moment, but things become horrifying when the plants start to die off. I don't know where the heat and water are being generated from, but I guess I don't need to know that...

Wait! Plants need sun! The botanist stumbles upon the brilliant idea that plants need sunlight! I guess that's why they blasted out AWAY from the sun as far as SATURN, because the fucking SUNLIGHT is so much more intense there. LUCKILY, there are artificial LIGHTS he sets up to correct this problem.

Unbelievable. Intelligent science fiction?? Huh????!!!!

So, he decides to reprogram his droids to tend the plants, shoots the bio-dome with the last forest out into space, where I expect everything would die because we don;t know how the dome powers itself, where the water would come from, or what would happen when the artificial lights went out. I guess future designers of giant spaceships wouldn't have time or interest to solve these little problems.

Then, in the film's first happy moment, our "hero" blows himself up.

What a load of shit. I am now forced to conclude that the genre of "intelligent science fiction" has so few examples that they can be counted on one hand, and now I think even more highly of Moon and Solaris.

Being misled like this makes me angry. Silent Running is an overrated, dumb, insulting piece of trash that should be avoided at all costs.