Review of Silent Running (1972) by Greg G — 31 Mar 2017

I'm giving this a four star on the premise that this was the most significant sci-fi movie between 2001 and Star Wars. And unlike most science fiction movies this movie not only inspired Star Wars (rather than the other way around) but the ships were reused again six years later in Battlestar Galactica and the reboot of BSG, Also had an environmental message way ahead of it's time. That is the rating. A lot time classic of science fiction doing what science fiction does best, warn us of a possible future.

And now for Silent Running fans, some thoughts....

(Possible spoilers ahead).

1) I am sooooo glad they did not go with the original script and have them deliver the dome with plants to aliens.

2) So they saw the Valley Forge (and could see with detail) six hours when they found the runaway ship. Sooo... what's to keep them from finding a dome, drifting in space, not too far from where Valley Forge used to be? If destroying the domes was the mandate they might have come across the last dome, and blew that up as well. Ok, a pessamistic how it should have ended.

2) a more positive "how it should have ended" they decide to scrap the whole idea of preserving the domes with plants in space (why so far out as Saturn? Traffic really that busy between Mercury and Jupiter in the next century?) Unless overcrowding is a problem, those domes had to be worth million of dollars a piece. So they bring them back, auction off the domes, and someone buys the domes for scrap, OR, someone buys the domes, makes a neat house/museum complete with rare plants and animals.

Anyway, if they put these domes on the moon, or Mars, or some other moon, (a fully enclosed habitat/ecosystem) well, we wouldn't had the extreme, plot creating system to drive our space-Druid/hippie nuts and steal a ship to save the plants.

Just saying realistically there were other obvious solutions to the problem if we were in that situation aside from just blowing up/nuking millions and millions of dollars worth of hardware.

Other than that, love the whole realistic feel of the movie, and of course, the droids. Everyone loves the droids.